No need for inhibitory tagging of locations in visual search

Participants find it no harder to search for a T among Ls when the items move around at velocities of up to 10.8°/sec than when the items remain static. This result demonstrates that inhibitory tagging of locations is not necessary for successful search, and it provides a challenge to any models of visual search that use a fixed location as the index during accumulation and storage of information about search items.     

The information in intuitionistic logic

Issues about information spring up wherever one scratches the surface of logic. Here is a case that raises delicate issues of ‘factual’ versus ‘procedural’ information, or ‘statics’ versus ‘dynamics’. What does intuitionistic logic, perhaps the earliest source of informational and procedural thinking in contemporary logic, really tell us about information? How does its view relate to its ‘cousin’ epistemic logic? We discuss connections between intuitionistic models and recent protocol models for dynamic-epistemic logic, as well as more general issues that emerge.     

Behavioral consequences of agonistic experiences in the male S3 (Tryon Maze Dull) rat

Aggression occurring during an initial confrontation between two rats may result in significant behavioral changes in one or both animals. The present experiment was designed to study behavioral changes occurring in the course of an agonistic interaction and the consequences of winning or losing. In order to ensure winning, male CPB-S3 Tryon Maze Dull) rats were confronted with males of a more aggressive strain (Long Evans); and to ensure losing they were confronted with those of a less aggressive strain Wistar). Winners were tested against losers, this test being repeated after an interval of 17 days. Winners and losers were also tested with naive S3 opponents. Possible effects of winning and losing in nonagonistic behavioral tests were then examined. These measured open field activity, passive avoidance learning, and masculine sexual behavior. The results replicate and extend earlier findings using a different strain, indicating that significant and relatively permanent behavioral changes are induced in male winners and losers. Behavioral change is most prominent in the losers. Despite the behavioral differences between winners and losers in tests for agonistic behavior, no consistent differences were noted in any of the other behavioral tests.     

Intensive family therapy: a way to change family functioning in multi-problem families

TA single group treatment outcome study of intensive family therapy (IFT) is presented. One hundred and nine families from five Swedish units participated and results on family measures for eighty-six of these families are reported. This multi-centre study is the largest so far of this treatment model. The units offered a full-day multi-impact treatment programme for families during an intensive period of approximately one month preceded by a period of extensive planning. Measures used were the self-rating 'Family Climate' and Family Relation Scale and observer-rated CRS-Turbo and the Beavers' System Scales. Significant changes in the direction towards a better family climate and a higher family functioning occurred. Given the very difficult circumstances of these multi-problem families the results are considered promising.     

Religions,modulators in Pluri‐ethnic cities: An anthropological analysis of the relative shift from ethnic to supra‐ethnic and meta‐ethnic faith communities in Brussels

Anthropological analysis of how and to what extent socio‐ethnic shifts take place in a pluri‐ethnic urban setting reveals that the process occurs from a situation of group‐clustering on the basis of ethnicity to a situation of ethnicity that is absorbed and sometimes left behind in faith communities. Situations are identified of social and religious‐cultural bridging to the region of origin, but also of socio‐cultural integration, supra‐ and meta‐ethnic self‐affirmation, cultural‐religious syncretisin and (non‐)adaptation to the host country. Religion is seen as a grammar with elements that may be considered as a form of modulation leading to social transformation. A number of generational and gender dimensions are also briefly discussed.     

Responses to novelty in phobic and non-phobic cynomolgus monkeys: The role of subject characteristics and object features

In two previous studies it has been shown that most surrogate-reared cynomolgus monkeys became phobic of a harmless object (a big paper bag) while most mother-reared monkeys approached that object. Results of the first study seemed to indicate that the phobic reaction was restricted to the bag. Barnett and Cowan (Interdisciplinary Science Review, 1, 43–62, 1976) and Suomi (Anxiety disorder in childhood, pp. 1–23, 1986), however, reported that subjects (respectively rats and monkeys) that avoided a first novel object also avoided subsequent novel objects. In the present study we exposed phobic (bag-avoiding) and non-phobic (bag-approaching) monkeys from the study by Röder, Timmermans and Vossen (Behaviour Research and Therapy, 27, 221–231, 1989) to several big and small novel objects. Our results show that, irrespective of their rearing conditions, subjects that were phobic also avoided big novel objects while subjects that were non-phobic approached big novel objects. The reaction to small novel objects was independent of the previous reaction to the bag.     

Language in action

A number of general points behind the story of this paper may be worth setting out separately, now that we have come to the end.There is perhaps one obvious omission to be addressed right away. Although the word information has occurred throughout this paper, it must have struck the reader that we have had nothing to say on what information is. In this respect, our theories may be like those in physics: which do not explain what energy is (a notion which seems quite similar to information in several ways), but only give some basic laws about its behaviour and transmission.     

A reaction-time paradigm to measure reward-oriented bias in rats

The authors devised a nose-poke task with asymmetric position-reward mapping to distinguish between effects of bias and sensitivity in reaction times of rats. In all trials, the rats had to poke their noses into the hole to the left or to the right of center, corresponding to the side at which 4 lights were illuminated, while ignoring distracters on the other side. Reaction times were faster for large-reward trials than for small-reward trials. In large-reward trials, there was no influence of the number of distracters, whereas in small-reward trials, distracters produced an increase in reaction time. Analysis of reaction-time distributions according to a linear model of decision making suggests that most of the systematic variability was due to a reward-oriented bias.