Linear and nonlinear opponent color coding

The linearity axiom as proposed by Krantz (1975) is confirmed for red/green equilibria, i.e., lights which appear neither reddish nor greenish (unique yellows, unique blues, and achromatic colors). This experiment also gave some evidence of “veiling,” i.e., the masking of a weak hue component by a strong one. In a second experiment, hue magnitude estimates (HME) for the green component were obtained in variable mixtures of unique green and unique yellow stimuli. Contrary to the suggestion raised by the work of Yager and Taylor (1970), we did not find the relation between the HME and the luminance of the green stimulus to be independent of the amount of added yellow. A relation proposed by Indow and Stevens (1966), in which the proportion of the green luminance is taken as the relevant psychophysical unit, gives a better fit to our data. It is shown, however, that alternative interpretations of such data are possible and that this type of experiment cannot be conclusive regarding the issue of the possibility of absolute judgment of opponent hue attributes.

     

Multimedia instructions and cognitive load theory: Effects of modality and cueing

Background: Recent research on the influence of presentation format on the effectiveness of multimedia instructions has yielded some interesting results. According to cognitive load theory (Sweller, Van Merriënboer, & Paas, 1998) and Mayer's theory of multimedia learning (Mayer, 2001), replacing visual text with spoken text (the modality effect) and adding visual cues relating elements of a picture to the text (the cueing effect) both increase the effectiveness of multimedia instructions in terms of better learning results or less mental effort spent. Aims: The aim of this study was to test the generalisability of the modality and cueing effect in a classroom setting. Sample: The participants were 111 second‐year students from the Department of Education at the University of Gent in Belgium (age between 19 and 25 years). Method: The participants studied a web‐based multimedia lesson on instructional design for about one hour. Afterwards they completed a retention and a transfer test. During both the instruction and the tests, self‐report measures of mental effort were administered. Results: Adding visual cues to the pictures resulted in higher retention scores, while replacing visual text with spoken text resulted in lower retention and transfer scores. Conclusions: Only a weak cueing effect and even a reverse modality effect have been found, indicating that both effects do not easily generalise to non‐laboratory settings. A possible explanation for the reversed modality effect is that the multimedia instructions in this study were learner‐paced, as opposed to the system‐paced instructions used in earlier research.     

All is well that ends well,at least for proselfs: emotional reactions to equality violation as a function of social value orientation

In step‐level public good dilemmas the equality rule serves as an important distribution rule to tacitly coordinate group members' decisions. In two studies, we examined the motives that may underlie the use of the equality rule. More specifically, we examined whether people use the equality rule out of fairness concerns or out of efficiency concerns. For this purpose, we assessed people's emotional reactions toward a violator of the equality rule when the group succeeded vs. failed, as a function of social value orientation. The results of both experiments showed that proselfs' emotional reactions towards a violator were a function of the success or the failure of the group, whereas prosocials' emotional reactions did not vary as a function of the outcome feedback. These results suggest that prosocials prefer the equality rule out of fairness concerns whereas for proselfs efficiency concerns dominate. Copyright © 2005 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Two Accounts of Moral Objectivity: from Attitude-Independence to Standpoint-Invariance

How should we understand the notion of moral objectivity? Metaethical positions that vindicate morality’s objective appearance are often associated with moral realism. On a realist construal, moral objectivity is understood in terms of mind-, stance-, or attitude-independence. But realism is not the only game in town for moral objectivists. On an antirealist construal, morality’s objective features are understood in virtue of our attitudes. In this paper I aim to develop this antirealist construal of moral objectivity in further detail, and to make its metaphysical commitments explicit. I do so by building on Sharon Street’s version of “Humean Constructivism”. Instead of the realist notion of attitude-independence, the antirealist account of moral objectivity that I articulate centres on the notion of standpoint-invariance. While constructivists have been criticized for compromising on the issue of moral objectivity, I make a preliminary case for the thesis that, armed with the notion of standpoint-invariance, constructivists have resources to vindicate an account of objectivity with just the right strength, given the commitments of ordinary moral thought and practice. In support of this thesis I highlight recent experimental findings about folk moral objectivism. Empirical observations about the nature of moral discourse have traditionally been taken to give prima facie support to moral realism. I argue, by contrast, that from what we can tell from our current experimental understanding, antirealists can capture the commitments of ordinary discourse at least as well as realists can.     

A Christian Cancellation of the Secularist Truce? Waning Christian Religiosity and Waxing Religious Deprivatization in the West

Analysis of International Social Survey Program (ISSP) data collected in 18 Western countries in 1998 demonstrates that Christian desires for a public role of religion are strongest in countries where Christian religiosity is numerically most marginal. Moreover, Dutch data covering the period 1970–1996 confirm that the decline of the number of Christians in the Netherlands has been coincided by a strengthening of the call for public religion among the remaining faithful and by increased polarization about this with the nonreligious. Religious decline and religious privatization, two of the most crucial dimensions of secularization ( Casanova 1994 ), hence develop dialectically: as the number of Christians declines, the remaining faithful seem increasingly unwilling to accept the “secularist truce”—the secularist contract that guarantees religious freedom yet bans religion from the public sphere by relegating it to the private realm.     

When being disadvantaged grows into vengeance: The effects of asymmetry of interest and social rejection in social dilemmas

In public good dilemmas, group members often differ in the extent to which they benefit from provision of the public good (asymmetry of interest). In the current paper, we argue that people may readily accept such financial differences in interest when their social needs are met by being accepted by the others. When people are socially rejected, however, members having a low rather than a high interest in the public good may display negative emotional and retributive reactions. This reasoning was supported by the findings of a first experimental study in which we manipulated people's interest in the public good and social rejection. These effects were replicated in a second experimental study and it was further shown that this two‐way interaction between social rejection and interest in the public good was moderated by people's social value orientation. The negative reactions to low interest (vs. high interest) in the public good when being socially rejected were especially prominent among group members with a proself orientation. Taken together, the current studies illustrate the importance of studying how financial and social needs interact to determine emotional and retributive actions in social dilemmas. Copyright © 2008 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Simultaneous processing of visual information and planning of hand movements in a visuo-manual search task

When searching for a target with eye movements, saccades are planned and initiated while the visual information is still being processed. If hand movements are needed to perform a search task, can they too be planned while visual information from the current position is still being processed? To find out we studied a visual search task in which participants had to move their hand to shift a window through which they could see the items. The task was to find an O in a circle of Cs. The size of the window and the sizes of the gaps in the Cs were varied. Participants made fast, smooth arm movements between items and adjusted their movements, when on the items, to the window size. On many trials the window passed the target and returned, indicating that the next movement had been planned before identifying the item that was in view.     

Challenging the Leader or the Follower: Influence of Need for Emotion and Equality Violations on Emotional and Retributive Reactions in Social Dilemmas1

Research has shown that if equality is violated in public‐good dilemmas, group members react with more anger if another group member (a follower), rather than if the leader violates equality. The present research argued that people's personality—particularly, need for emotion—moderates group members’ reactions if equality is violated by either the leader or a follower. Results revealed that group members low in need for emotion reacted with more anger and were more inclined to exclude the violator if this person was a follower, rather than the leader of the group. Group members high in need for emotion, however, reacted with more anger and wished to exclude the violator more if this person was the leader, rather than a follower.     

Palliative sedation until death: an approach from Kant’s ethics of virtue

This paper is concerned with the moral justification for palliative sedation until death. Palliative sedation involves the intentional lowering of consciousness for the relief of untreatable symptoms. The paper focuses on the moral problems surrounding the intentional lowering of consciousness until death itself, rather than possible adjacent life-shortening effects. Starting from a Kantian perspective on virtue, it is shown that continuous deep sedation until death (CDS) does not conflict with the perfect duty of moral self-preservation because CDS does not destroy capacities for agency. In addition, it is argued that CDS can frustrate the imperfect duty of self-cultivation by reducing consciousness permanently. Nevertheless, there are cases where CDS is morally acceptable, namely, cases where the agent has already permanently lost the possibility for free action in advance of sedation—for example, due to excruciating and ongoing pain. Because the latter can be difficult to diagnose properly, safeguards may be needed in order to prevent the application of CDS for the wrong reasons.

The meta-ethical significance of experiments about folk moral objectivism

The meta-ethical commitments of folk respondents – specifically their commitment to the objectivity of moral claims – have recently become subject to empirical scrutiny. Experimental findings suggest that people are meta-ethical pluralists: There is both inter- and intrapersonal variation with regard to people’s objectivist commitments. What meta-ethical implications, if any, do these findings have? I point out that current research does not directly address traditional meta-ethical questions: The methods used and distinctions drawn by experimenters do not perfectly match those of meta-ethicists. However, I go on to argue that, in spite of this mismatch, the research findings should be of interest to moral philosophers, including meta-ethicists. Not only do these findings extend the field of moral psychology with new data and hypotheses, but they also provide tentative evidence that touches on the adequacy of theses in moral semantics and moral metaphysics. Specifically, they put pressure on arguments in support of moral realism.