BINOCULAR INTERACTION IN MOTION PERCEPTION

An earlier experiment has shown a high degree of overestimation of small motion tracks as compared with static space perception. In the present paper this is hypothesized as the visual outcome of a central nerve process specific for motion stimulation. The hypothesis is submitted to a test in an attempt to show a possible binocular intereaction of the effect. The experiment demonstrated a significant binocular summation and thus supported the hypothesis.     

Stroop facilitation in tinnitus patients: an experiment conducted via the world wide web.

Cognitive mechanisms have been proposed to play an important role in tinnitus. In the present study, tinnitus participants were administered an emotional Stroop test via the Internet, incorporating words related to tinnitus concerns. In line with previous research using this Web-based version of the emotional Stroop test, faster color naming was demonstrated for concern-relevant words relative to neutral words. The present results thus provided support for a role for cognitive factors that are important for the understanding of tinnitus. However, future research is warranted in order to clarify the precise mechanisms involved in tinnitusrelated Stroop effects.     

The Association Between Childhood Gender Atypical Behavior and Adult Psychiatric Symptoms is Moderated by Parenting Style

The association between childhood gender atypical behavior (GAB) i.e. behavior traditionally considered more typical for children of the opposite sex, and adult psychiatric symptoms as well as cold or over-controlling parenting style as a moderator of the association were studied in a sample of 1767 Finnish participants aged 33 to 43 years (M?=?37.5). Participants completed the Gender Identity/Gender Role Questionnaire, the Brief Symptom Inventory 18, and the Measure of Parenting Style. Regression analyses showed that women recalled more GAB than men did, and that participants who recalled more GAB reported significantly more psychiatric symptoms. Negative parenting style was associated with psychiatric symptoms. Structural equation modeling showed that parenting style significantly moderated the association between childhood GAB and adult psychiatric symptoms with positive parenting reducing the association and negative parenting sustaining it.     

The Live Outdoor Webcams and the Construction of Virtual Geography

The live outdoor webcam seems inseparable from the mid-1990s’ popular proliferation of the Internet. Combining a well-known medium, i.e. the photograph, with a new one, i.e. the Internet, the live outdoor webcam seems in the rear-view mirror to have contributed significantly to the popular perception of the Internet as a globally distended and thus “geographical” medium. Moreover, due to its role in the NASA Triana mission, the never-realised flagship of the Clinton–Gore administration’s Digital Earth project, the live webcam seemed to play an important part in the construction of what leading geographers coined a “virtual geography”—the geography of the Internet, and the networked geography—that sought to establish itself as a new field of study during the late 1990s. In order to substantiate for this interpretation, I would like in the first part of this article to identify a number of basic characteristics of the outdoor webcam and, in the second, to analyse and discuss two papers written by leading scholars in the field; papers which have been important in the assessment of the impact of the Internet and geographical information systems (GIS) before the scientific community as well as policy makers within technological innovation and the public sector.

Implicit memory bias for eating- and body appearance-related sentences in eating disorders: an application of Jacoby's white noise task

Jacoby's white noise task and an explicit recognition task were used to investigate whether individuals with eating disorders demonstrate implicit memory bias and explicit memory bias, respectively, for information related to eating and body appearance. Included were 33 women with eating disorders (seven with anorexia nervosa and 26 with bulimia nervosa), 29 with nonclinical eating disorder-related concerns, and 36 healthy controls. Results showed partial support for implicit memory bias but no support for explicit memory bias. These findings suggest that eating disorders may be characterized by relative initial automatic bias for eating disorder-relevant information but not by bias at later stages of information processing. However, previous studies have demonstrated explicit memory bias in eating disorders, which is inconsistent with this interpretation. Future research is required to clarify the precise cognitive biases associated with eating disorders.     

Piece of cake? Allocating rewards to third parties when fairness is costly

Reactions to third-party inequality were investigated in three experiments. In Experiment 1, 52 undergraduates allocated money between themselves and two others. Preferences for equal and unequal distributions were also rated. The results show that people are averse to inequalities between themselves and others, and to inequalities between others. Post-experimental ratings indicate that egocentric equality, third-party equality, and max–min preferences are important motives. The findings were replicated in Experiment 2, where 74 undergraduates allocated compensation for a previously conducted task, and in Experiment 3, where 112 participants rated preferences. In these experiments random determination of rewards to third parties altered participants’ behavior and preferences. The results indicated that random determination decreases the importance of all fairness motives while increasing the importance of monetary payoff. While people still care about economic equality under these conditions, contextual factors, such as perceived responsibility for unfair outcomes, seem to alter the impact of fairness.     

Scale‐dependent automatic shifts in brand evaluation standards

Different schema-based expectations for competing brands can produce shifting evaluative standards in consumers' relative ratings of these brands. This shift in standards differentially affects objective (number-based) and subjective (word-based) rating scales. Several studies support the proposition that a brand rated as objectively inferior to another can be subjectively perceived as equivalent to—or even better than—the same brand. Such anomalous response inconsistency originates in consumers' recourse to different expectations for the competing brands and their automatic adjustment of expectations for the inferior brand when responding to subjective measures. The implicit relaxing of evaluative standards for the objectively dominated brand leads to an unconscious upward bias in its subjective ratings. The effect is moderated by consumer expertise and is asymmetric—it is not accompanied by an escalation of evaluative standards for objectively dominating brands.     

Fitting Attitudes, Welfare, and Time

Chris Heathwood has recently put forward a novel and ingenious argument against the view that intrinsic value is analyzable in terms of fitting attitudes. According to Heathwood, this view holds water only if the related but distinct concept of welfare—intrinsic value for a person—can be analyzed in terms of fitting attitudes too. Moreover, he argues against such an analysis of welfare by appealing to the rationality of our bias towards the future. In this paper, I argue that so long as we keep the tenses and the intrinsic/extrinsic distinction right, the fitting-attitudes analysis of welfare can be shown to survive Heathwood’s criticism.

Own-other differences in the realism of some metacognitive judgments

The present study investigated differences in judgments of one's own and others' knowledge (the own-other difference). Consistent with the below-average effect (e.g., Kruger, 1999), our main results showed that the participants gave lower knowledge ratings of their own extent of knowledge than of another person's extent of knowledge (Experiment 1). Furthermore, lower and more realistic judgments were found when the participants judged their own as compared with when judging another person's overall accuracy (frequency judgments) of answering knowledge questions correctly (Experiment 1 and 2). On the basis of these results it is argued that judgmental anchoring may be important also in the context of indirect comparisons, and that previous conclusions of cross-cultural psychology regarding the above-average effect may be oversimplified.