Beholding the beholder: The reception of “Dutch” painting

While a lucid and understandable interpretation can be given for most pictures, typically Dutch paintings (i.e. seventeenth-century genre and still-life pictures) seem to allow for or even demand some measure of freedom for the beholder. The cause of this ambiguity lies in the typically Protestant disregard for works of art and in a concomitant characteristic of these works: they address the viewer in an ethical manner.In memoriam Sixten Ringbom, 1935-1992     

The independence of size perception and distance perception

Research on distance perception has focused on environmental sources of information, which have been well documented; in contrast, size perception research has focused on familiarity or has relied on distance information. An analysis of these two parallel bodies of work reveals their lack of equivalence. Furthermore, definitions of familiarity need environmental grounding, specifically concerning the amount of size variation among different tokens of an object. To demonstrate the independence of size and distance perception, subjects in two experiments were asked to estimate the sizes of common objects from memory and then to estimate both the sizes and the distances of a subset of such objects displayed in front of them. The experiments found that token variation was a critical variable in the accuracy of size estimations, whether from memory or with vision, and that distance had no impact at all on size perception. Furthermore, when distance information was good, size had no effect on distance estimation; in contrast, at far distances, the distances to token variable or unknown objects were estimated with less accuracy. The results suggest that size perception has been misconceptualized, so that the relevant research to understand its properties has not been undertaken. The size-distance invariance hypothesis was shown to be inadequate for both areas of research.     

Medicus technologicus

The development of modern programmable pacemaker-systems has led to a series of questions which until now have apparently not existed in the treatment of cardiac rhythm disturbances. These questions touch especially on the problem of whether the relation which usually exists between a diagnostic step and its therapeutic consequence, namely its therapeutic relevance, is abolished or at least changed.     

Friends in family therapy: use of a neglected resource

This article describes a rationale and methodology for expanding the therapeutic system to include clients' friends. Relevant literature and clinical research validate the resourcefulness of friends in dealing with the problems and developmental struggles from childhood to young adulthood. Examples are used to illustrate how consultation with friends can bridge generation gaps, provide positive peer pressure, foster increased perspective-taking and empathy for all members of the family, challenge family enmeshment, provide support for the client in the therapeutic process, and provide helpful child-management suggestions to parents based on the friends' experiences.     

More than just the mean: moving to a dynamic view of performance-based compensation

Compensation decisions have important consequences for employees and organizations and affect factors such as retention, motivation, and recruitment. Past research has primarily focused on mean performance as a predictor of compensation, promoting the implicit assumption that alternative aspects of dynamic performance are not relevant. To address this gap in the literature, we examined the influence of dynamic performance characteristics on compensation decisions in the National Basketball Association (NBA). We predicted that, in addition to performance mean, performance trend and variability would also affect compensation decisions. Results revealed that performance mean and trend, but not variability, were significantly and positively related to changes in compensation levels of NBA players. Moreover, trend (but not mean or variability) predicted compensation when controlling for future performance, suggesting that organizations overweighted trend in their compensation decisions. Theoretical and practical implications are discussed.     

The need to belong can motivate belief in God

The need to belong can motivate belief in God. In Study 1, 40 undergraduates read bogus astrophysics articles "proving" God's existence or not offering proof. Participants in the proof-for-God condition reported higher belief in God (compared to control) when they chronically imagined God as accepting but lower belief in God when they imagined God as rejecting. Additionally, in Study 2 (72 undergraduates), these effects did not occur when participants' belongingness need was satisfied by priming close others. Study 3 manipulated 79 Internet participants' image of God. Chronic believers in the God-is-rejecting condition reported lower religious behavioral intentions than chronic believers in the God-is-accepting condition, and this effect was mediated by lower desires for closeness with God. In Study 4 (106 Internet participants), chronic believers with an accepting image of God reported that their belief in God is motivated by belongingness needs.