The role of imagery in the representation of linear orderings

Two experiments were carried out to investigate whether visual imagery was used in representing transitive linear ordering relationships. Subjects were presented with passages describing either a linear ordering or a set inclusion relationship, while being subjected to either visual or verbal interference. Performance was tested by asking subjects to judge the truth or falsity of statements concerning both the information presented in the passages and inferences that could be drawn from this information. In neither experiment was there any evidence for the linear ordering material being selectively disrupted by the visual interference task, as would have been predicted by the imagery theory. Thus it is concluded that linear orderings are probably not represented as visual images.     

Effects of Victim's Pain Cues,Victim's Race,and Level of Prior Instigation upon Physical Aggression1

Sixty-four white undergraduate males participated in an experiment designed to examine the effects of victin's pain cues, victim's racial identity, and level of prior instigation upon physical aggression. On the basis of previous research, it was tentatively predicted that pain cues from a different-race victim would exert less influence upon subjects' later behavior than similar feedback from a same-race victim. Results offered support for this prediction. Specifically, pain cues from a black victim were less effective in inhibiting subsequent aggression by nonangry white subjects, and less effective in facilitating subsequent aggression by angry white subjects, than identical feedback from a white victim. An interpretation of these findings in terms of aggressors' emotional reactions to pain cues from their victim was suggested.     

Physical Distance and Helping: Some Unexpected Benefits of “Crowding In” on Others1

One hundred and sixty undergraduates (80 males, 80 females) participated in a field experiment designed to examine the influence of invasions of personal space and sex of requester upon subsequent helping. On the basis of previous research, it was predicted that helping would be markedly inhibited by invasions of personal space, and that the magnitude of these effects would be mediated by the sex of the individuals who perpetrated such intrusions. Surprisingly, however, results indicated that subsequent helping was actually facilitated by such invasions. A follow-up investigation replicated these results and suggested that they stemmed from a tendency on the part of subjects to perceive close physical approach by the requester as indicative of a high need for assistance.     

The Reduction of Human Aggression: A Field Study of the Influence of Incompatible Reactions1

One hundred and twenty passing motorists were delayed for 15 sec at an intersection by a confederate who failed to move his vehicle after the light turned green. Prior to such annoyance, subjects in three groups were exposed to experimental treatments designed to cause them to experience reactions incompatible with anger or overt aggression (i.e., empathy, humor, mild sexual arousal). Results indicated that individuals in these groups were more reluctant to honk their horns at the confederate and showed fewer overt sjgns of irritation than subjects in two control groups not exposed to such treatments. In addition, it appeared that subjects' willingness to honk at the confederate was enhanced by uncomfortably warm ambient temperatures. The implications of these findings for the control of overt aggression, as well as the usefulness of horn-honking as a dependent measure for such behavior in field settings, were discussed.     

Clock control of human performance on avoidance and fixed-interval schedules

The avoidance and fixed-interval performances of human subjects were studied in two experiments. Addition of time-correlated stimuli (added clock) improved behavioral efficiency, since response rates decreased without decreases in reinforcement rates. Response-dependent display of the clock maintained a second, observing response and reductions in clock duration weakened such observing behavior. Generally, the reinforcing properties of the clock were more apparent with the avoidance than with the fixed-interval schedule, a finding attributed to temporal cues already provided by delivery of the fixed-interval reinforcers. Reduced rates of the main response when the clock was dependent on an observing response were more than offset by rates of the observing response in the majority of subjects. Thus, the results do not support an interpretation of the reinforcing properties of added clocks simply in terms of work reduction.     

The Priority of the Now

This article motivates and develops a new theory of time: priority presentism. Priority presentism is the view according to which (i) only present entities exist fundamentally and (ii) past and future entities exist, but they are grounded in the present. The articulation of priority presentism is an exercise in applied grounding: it draws on concepts from the recent literature on ontological dependence and applies those concepts in a new way, to the philosophy of time. The result, as I will argue, is an attractive position that can do much of the same work in satisfying our intuitions about time as presentism, but without the ontological cost.