Matching auditory and visual signals: is sensory modality just another feature?

In order to perceive the world coherently, we need to integrate features of objects and events that are presented to our senses. Here we investigated the temporal limit of integration in unimodal visual and auditory as well as crossmodal auditory-visual conditions. Participants were presented with alternating visual and auditory stimuli and were asked to match them either within or between modalities. At alternation rates of about 4 Hz and higher, participants were no longer able to match visual and auditory stimuli across modalities correctly, while matching within either modality showed higher temporal limits. Manipulating different temporal stimulus characteristics (stimulus offsets and/or auditory-visual SOAs) did not change performance. Interestingly, the difference in temporal limits between crossmodal and unimodal conditions appears strikingly similar to temporal limit differences between unimodal conditions when additional features have to be integrated. We suggest that adding a modality across which sensory input is integrated has the same effect as adding an extra feature to be integrated within a single modality.     

One after the other: Effects of sequence patterns of breached and overfulfilled obligations

To date, the study of psychological contracts has primarily centred on the question how retrospective evaluations of the psychological contract impact employee attitudes and behaviours, and/or focus on individual coping processes in explaining responses to breached or overfulfilled obligations. In this study, we aim to assess the extent to which sequences of breached and overfulfilled obligations impact job satisfaction and citizenship behaviour intentions. By integrating psychological contract research and theories on cognitive information processing, we formulate competing hypotheses on how sequences of breached and/or overfulfilled obligations lead to patterns of job satisfaction and citizenship behaviour intentions. These competing hypotheses were tested using a vignette study and an experiment. A Bayesian approach was used to test these pattern hypotheses directly against each other. The results show that breached obligations have an immediate negative impact on our outcome variables. Moreover, sequentially breached obligations lead to a continuous decline of job satisfaction and citizenship behaviour intentions. Overfulfilled obligations do little to compensate this negative impact. Implications for theory and practice are discussed.     

Selective auditory grouping by zebra finches: testing the iambic–trochaic law

Humans have a strong tendency to spontaneously group visual or auditory stimuli together in larger patterns. One of these perceptual grouping biases is formulated as the iambic/trochaic law, where humans group successive tones alternating in pitch and intensity as trochees (high–low and loud–soft) and alternating in duration as iambs (short–long). The grouping of alternations in pitch and intensity into trochees is a human universal and is also present in one non-human animal species, rats. The perceptual grouping of sounds alternating in duration seems to be affected by native language in humans and has so far not been found among animals. In the current study, we explore to which extent these perceptual biases are present in a songbird, the zebra finch. Zebra finches were trained to discriminate between short strings of pure tones organized as iambs and as trochees. One group received tones that alternated in pitch, a second group heard tones alternating in duration, and for a third group, tones alternated in intensity. Those zebra finches that showed sustained correct discrimination were next tested with longer, ambiguous strings of alternating sounds. The zebra finches in the pitch condition categorized ambiguous strings of alternating tones as trochees, similar to humans. However, most of the zebra finches in the duration and intensity condition did not learn to discriminate between training stimuli organized as iambs and trochees. This study shows that the perceptual bias to group tones alternating in pitch as trochees is not specific to humans and rats, but may be more widespread among animals.     

Happiness Through Vacationing: Just a Temporary Boost or Long-Term Benefits?

Does vacationing add to our happiness in the long run? This question was addressed in a study of 3,650 Dutch citizens who reported their leisure travel every 3 months during 2 years and rated their happiness at the end of each year. Participants who had been on vacation appeared to be marginally happier, in terms of hedonic level of affect, than those who had not. This difference in Affect balance between vacationers and non-vacationers is probably due to a very minor causal effect of vacationing on hedonic level of affect. Possibly, vacationing is positively reminisced and these memories allow for the prevalence of more positive affect in people’s lives. Happiness did not predict vacationing. The effect of holiday trips on vacationers’ happiness is mostly short-lived; among vacationers, happiness was unrelated to the number of trips and days spent on vacation. A separate analysis of vacationers, who value vacationing most, yielded the same results. Implications for future research are discussed.     

Ethics and Nanopharmacy: Value Sensitive Design of New Drugs

Although applications are being developed and have reached the market, nanopharmacy to date is generally still conceived as an emerging technology. Its concept is ill-defined. Nanopharmacy can also be construed as a converging technology, which combines features of multiple technologies, ranging from nanotechnology to medicine and ICT. It is still debated whether its features give rise to new ethical issues or that issues associated with nanopharma are merely an extension of existing issues in the underlying fields. We argue here that, regardless of the alleged newness of the ethical issues involved, developments occasioned by technological advances affect the roles played by stakeholders in the field of nanopharmacy to such an extent that this calls for a different approach to responsible innovation in this field. Specific features associated with nanopharmacy itself and features introduced to the associated converging technologies- bring about a shift in the roles of stakeholders that call for a different approach to responsibility. We suggest that Value Sensitive Design is a suitable framework to involve stakeholders in addressing moral issues responsibly at an early stage of development of new nanopharmaceuticals.     

The evaluation of perpetrators and victims of peer victimization: An extended crossed‐categorization approach

This research uses a crossed‐categorization design for examining the perception of peer victimization. Using vignettes and an experimental design, perpetrator and victim evaluations of Dutch and Turkish‐Dutch early adolescents were examined in terms of ethnic and gender similarities between (1) respondent and perpetrator, (2) respondent and victim, and (3) perpetrator and victim. When the perpetrator was a double‐ingroup member of the respondent (same ethnicity and same gender), perpetrators were evaluated less negatively and victims less positively than when the perpetrator was a single (gender or ethnicity) or double‐outgroup member. Further, when the victim was a double‐ingroup member of the respondent, perpetrators were evaluated more negatively and victims more positively. No perpetrator–victim crossed‐categorization effects were found for perpetrator and victim evaluations. Perceived norms of intervention in the classroom had the expected main effects but did not moderate the crossed‐categorization effects. The usefulness of a crossed‐categorization approach for examining the perception of negative peer behavior is discussed. Copyright © 2010 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Indispensability Arguments in Favour of Reductive Explanations

Instances of explanatory reduction are often advocated on metaphysical grounds; given that the only real things in the world are subatomic particles and their interaction, we have to try to explain everything in terms of the laws of physics. In this paper, we show that explanatory reduction cannot be defended on metaphysical grounds. Nevertheless, indispensability arguments for reductive explanations can be developed, taking into account actual scientific practice and the role of epistemic interests. Reductive explanations might be indispensable to address some epistemic interest answering a specific explanation-seeking question in the most accurate, adequate and efficient way. Just like explanatory pluralists often advocate the indispensability of higher levels of explanation pointing at the pragmatic value of the explanatory information obtained on these higher levels, we argue that explanatory reduction—traditionally understood as the contender of pluralism—can be defended in a similar way. The pragmatic value reductionist, lower level explanations might have in the biomedical sciences and the social sciences is illustrated by some case studies.     

Perception of intersensory synchrony in audiovisual speech: not that special

Perception of intersensory temporal order is particularly difficult for (continuous) audiovisual speech, as perceivers may find it difficult to notice substantial timing differences between speech sounds and lip movements. Here we tested whether this occurs because audiovisual speech is strongly paired (“unity assumption”). Participants made temporal order judgments (TOJ) and simultaneity judgments (SJ) about sine-wave speech (SWS) replicas of pseudowords and the corresponding video of the face. Listeners in speech and non-speech mode were equally sensitive judging audiovisual temporal order. Yet, using the McGurk effect, we could demonstrate that the sound was more likely integrated with lipread speech if heard as speech than non-speech. Judging temporal order in audiovisual speech is thus unaffected by whether the auditory and visual streams are paired. Conceivably, previously found differences between speech and non-speech stimuli are not due to the putative “special” nature of speech, but rather reflect low-level stimulus differences.     

The Importance of Ethics in Modern Universities of Technology

Science and Engineering Ethics -