Effect of ingroup membership on organizational meta-representation

The present study considers the importance of analyzing what very powerful or influential people think about their employees. We assumed that belonging to a specific category has a differential effect on the perception of others' thoughts in the organization ("meta-representation"). Therefore, experts in organization and human resources from diverse organizations and institutions assessed seven dimensions which structure the organizational image (context, structure, organizational processes, working climate, culture, satisfaction and efficacy). The results showed that belonging to a group (managers or leaders, academicians, consultants, technicians or employees' representatives) modulated the meta-representation, as the experts' opinion about what they think that the employees consider important was related to their group. This was specifically the case for the managers' and leaders' representations, which differed from the other groups and especially from that of the technicians and employees' representatives. The implications of the present findings are discussed.     

Intracranial self-stimulation recovers learning and memory capacity in basolateral amygdala-damaged rats

We studied the capacity of post-training intracranial self-stimulation (SS) to reverse or ameliorate learning and memory impairments caused by amygdala damage in rats. A first experiment showed that lesions of the basolateral amygdala (BLA) slow down acquisition of two-way active avoidance conditioning (2wAA). In a second experiment we observed that a post-training SS treatment administered immediately after each 2wAA conditioning session is able to completely reverse the disruptive effects of the BLA lesions, and the facilitative effect lasts for 10 days. A third experiment allowed us to differentiate the strong recuperative effects of the SS treatment from the slight effect caused by overtraining the same conditioning response. We concluded that SS is able to counteract the behavioral deficit induced by BLA damage, probably by activating alternative undamaged brain structures related to learning and memory, such as the hippocampus.     

Effects of spatial frequency content on classification of face gender and expression

The role of different spatial frequency bands on face gender and expression categorization was studied in three experiments. Accuracy and reaction time were measured for unfiltered, low-pass (cut-off frequency of 1 cycle/deg) and high-pass (cutoff frequency of 3 cycles/deg) filtered faces. Filtered and unfiltered faces were equated in root-mean-squared contrast. For low-pass filtered faces reaction times were higher than unfiltered and high-pass filtered faces in both categorization tasks. In the expression task, these results were obtained with expressive faces presented in isolation (Experiment 1) and also with neutral-expressive dynamic sequences where each expressive face was preceded by a briefly presented neutral version of the same face (Experiment 2). For high-pass filtered faces different effects were observed on gender and expression categorization. While both speed and accuracy of gender categorization were reduced comparing to unfiltered faces, the efficiency of expression classification remained similar. Finally, we found no differences between expressive and non expressive faces in the effects of spatial frequency filtering on gender categorization (Experiment 3). These results show a common role of information from the high spatial frequency band in the categorization of face gender and expression.     

Perceptual visual skills in young highly skilled basketball players

A simple method was designed to evaluate visual abilities such as disance visual acuity, binocular horizontal visual field, simple and choice visual reaction times, and stereoscopic vision in skilled 11- to 13-yr.-old basketball players participating in a 15-day summer training camp. On a test battery, visual abilities were monitored in 473 players of the Spanish Basketball Federation over a 5-yr. period. The players showed outstanding scores on distance visual acuity and stereoscopic vision, and good visual reaction times and horizontal visual fields. When scores were compared by sex and age, significant differences on certain visual measures were observed. Many layers showed crossed eye-hand dominance. Visual screening programs may help promote visual health among junior basketball players and could be used for performance training.     

Symmetrical interaction of sex and expression in face classification tasks

Classification of faces as to their sex or their expression—with sex and expression varying orthogonally—was studied in three experiments. In Experiment 1, expression classification was influenced by sex, with angry male faces being classified faster than angry female faces. Complementarily, sex classification was faster for happy than for angry female faces. In Experiment 2, mutual interaction of sex and expression was also found when the participants were asked to classify top and bottom face segments. In Experiment 3, a face inversion effect was found for both sex and expression classification of whole faces. However, a symmetrical interaction between sex and expression was again found. The results are discussed in terms of configural versus feature processing in the perception of face sex and expression and of their relevance to face perception models that postulate independent processing of different facial features. 2009 The Psychonomic Society, Inc.     

Early bilingualism enhances mechanisms of false‐belief reasoning

In their first years, children's understanding of mental states seems to improve dramatically, but the mechanisms underlying these changes are still unclear. Such ‘theory of mind’ (ToM) abilities may arise during development, or have an innate basis, developmental changes reflecting limitations of other abilities involved in ToM tasks (e.g. inhibition). Special circumstances such as early bilingualism may enhance ToM development or other capacities required by ToM tasks. Here we compare 3‐year‐old bilinguals and monolinguals on a standard ToM task, a modified ToM task and a control task involving physical reasoning. The modified ToM task mimicked a language‐switch situation that bilinguals often encounter and that could influence their ToM abilities. If such experience contributes to an early consolidation of ToM in bilinguals, they should be selectively enhanced in the modified task. In contrast, if bilinguals have an advantage due to better executive inhibitory abilities involved in ToM tasks, they should outperform monolinguals on both ToM tasks, inhibitory demands being similar. Bilingual children showed an advantage on the two ToM tasks but not on the control task. The precocious success of bilinguals may be associated with their well‐developed control functions formed during monitoring and selecting languages.     

Curvature discontinuities are cues for rapid shape analysis

Using the visual search method, we show that stimuli that contain curvature discontinuities (i.e., points where the second derivative along an image contour is not defined) are easily found among stimuli containing only smooth changes in curvature. Curved stimuli that lack curvature discontinuities, however, are difficult to find among distractors that have them. These results suggest that the visual system detects and analyzes abrupt changes in curvature in the image quickly to extract vital information about the 3-D structure of the visual environment.     

On Aristotle and Public Education

Studies in Philosophy and Education -