Is there any relationship between sexual attraction and gender typology?

People can be classified as attracted to both sexes, to men, to women, or to neither sex, and also as instrumental-expressive, instrumental, expressive, or non-instrumental-expressive. The two hypotheses tested herein are, on the one hand, the relative independence between these two typologies and, on the other, the close relation between sexual dimorphism and sexual attraction, in contrast to the relative independence between sexual dimorphism and the instrumental and expressive domains. A total of 503 university students (284 women and 219 men) completed two assessment instruments: The Sexual Attraction Questionnaire (SAQ) and the Bem Sex Role Inventory (BSRI, 12 items). Analysis of contingency tables was performed. The results provide empirical support for the hypothesis of independence of the two typologies, solid support for the relation between sexual dimorphism and sexual attraction, and clear support for the independence between the gender domains and sexual dimorphism. The implications of these data for the different outlooks concerning the relations between sex and gender are established.     

Is sexual attraction independent of the instrumental and expressive traits?

Sexual attraction is an essential part of sex, just as the instrumental and expressive traits are the mainstay of gender. Various hypotheses concerning the dimensionality and independence versus dependence/overlapping of these core entities were tested. A group of 423 university students completed the Sexual Attraction Questionnaire (SAQ; Fernández, Quiroga, and Rodríguez, 2006) and the 12-item Bem Sex Role Inventory (BSRI; Bem, 1974). Internal consistency and factor analyses (PAF) were conducted. The results support the dimensionality established for the SAQ and reveal some psychometric and conceptual weaknesses of the 12-item BSRI. The results also support the independence of the two cores: sexual attraction and the instrumental and expressive traits. The logical implications for the different viewpoints of the relations between sex and gender are discussed.     

Does solution of mental arithmetic problems such as 2 + 6 and 3 x 8 rely on the process of "Memory updating"?

Two experiments are reported that used the selective interference paradigm to study whether, besides response selection, the process of memory updating is involved in simple mental arithmetic. Participants were asked to solve simple sums (e.g., 2 + 6, Experiment 1) or simple products (e.g., 3 X 8, Experiment 2) in a single-task control condition and in three dual-task conditions with a selective interference task, simple reactions, choice reactions, or delayed choice reactions. The role of memory updating was estimated on the basis of the difference in impairment due to the choice reaction time and the delayed choice reaction time task, whereas the difference in impairment between the simple reaction time and the choice reaction time task indicates the role of response selection. While replicating previous results concerning response selection (Deschuyteneer & Vandierendonck, 2005, in press), the study showed that memory updating is strongly involved in solving simple mental arithmetic sums and products.     

The phonological loop in task alternation and task repetition

It has recently been proposed that task repetition is easier than task alternation because the appropriate task settings are already present in working memory, whereas during task alternation task settings must be retrieved from long-term memory (Mayr & Kliegl, 2000). The present study tested whether the phonological loop is involved in keeping the relevant task settings active in working memory. It may then be expected that concurrent articulatory suppression would diminish the facilitation associated with task repetition because the phonological loop could no longer maintain the appropriate task settings active in working memory. Both during task repetition and task alternation the relevant task settings should then be retrieved from long-term memory. Three dual-task experiments were conducted. The results of Experiment 1 were in support of our prediction. Experiment 2 replicated the findings of Experiment 1 and showed that the task settings probably represent the adequate response mappings. Experiment 3 ruled out the involvement of the visuo-spatial sketchpad and more general coordination demands during dual tasking.     

An early electrophysiological response associated with expertise in letter perception

Expertise with print is likely to optimize visual processes for recognizing characters of a familiar writing system. Although brain activations have been identified for words and letter strings in contrast with other stimuli, relatively little work has focused on the neural basis of single-letter perception. English readers and Chinese-English bilinguals participated in an ERP study and performed a 1-back identity judgment on Roman letters, Chinese characters, pseudofonts, and their string versions. The Chinese-English bilinguals showed an enhanced N170 for both Roman letters and Chinese characters relative to pseudofonts. For the non-Chinese readers, the N170 amplitude was larger for Roman letters relative to Chinese characters and pseudofonts. Our results suggest that changes in relatively early visual processes underlie expert letter perception.     

Letter processing in the visual system: different activation patterns for single letters and strings

One would expect that a lifetime of experience recognizing letters would have an important influence on the visual system. Surprisingly, there is limited evidence of a specific neural response to letters over visual control stimuli. We measured brain activation during a sequential matching task using isolated characters (Roman letters, digits, and Chinese characters) and strings of characters. We localized the visual word form area (VWFA) by contrasting the response to pseudowords against that for letter strings, but this region did not show any other sign of visual specialization for letters. In addition, a left fusiform area posterior to the VWFA was selective for letter strings, whereas a more anterior left fusiform region showed selectivity for single letters. The results of different analyses using both large regions of interest and inspections of individual patterns of response reveal a dissociation between selectivity for letter strings and selectivity for single letters. The results suggest that reading experience fine-tunes visual representations at different levels of processing. An important conclusion is that the processing of nonpronounceable letter strings cannot be assumed to be equivalent to single-letter perception.     

Joint explorations

The 6th Joint Conference on Information Sciences was held in Research Triangle Park, North Carolina, USA, on 8-13 March 2002.     

Failure to overcome 'innate' fear: a developmental test of the non-associative model of fear acquisition

The non-associative, Darwinian theory of fear acquisition proposes that some individuals fail to overcome biologically-relevant fears (e.g. height) because they (1) do not have sufficient safe exposure to the relevant stimuli early in life or (2) are poor habituators who have difficulty 'learning not to fear'. These two hypotheses were tested in a longitudinal birth cohort study. Study 1 found evidence for reduced exposure to height stimuli in childhood for individuals with a fear of heights compared to study members without fear. Study 2 found evidence for higher levels of stress reactivity (a proxy for habituation) in childhood and adolescence among 18-year-old height phobics compared to study members with dental phobia and those with no fear. The results were discussed in relation to recent findings suggesting that some evolutionary-relevant fears may appear in the absence of traumatic 'learning' experiences. The merits of adding a fourth, non-associative pathway to Rachman's [Rachman, S. (1977)]. The conditioning theory of fear acquisition: a critical examination. Behaviour Research and Therapy, 15, 375-387) three pathways model of fear acquisition were briefly considered.