The attitudinal view and the integration of the particular object of emotions

In recent years, Julien Deonna and Fabrice Teroni have proposed to understand emotions as embodied evaluative attitudes we take towards objects that figure in nonevaluative representational states. Although their account nicely explains some of the key features that emotions are widely taken to have, it runs into a version of what I call the problem of integration. In the case of the attitudinal view, the integration problem takes the form of explaining how, from the point of view of the subject, the bodily responses that make up the attitude part of the emotion and the representational states that provide the particular object of the emotion come to form an intentionally structured unitary experience, that is, one in which the bodily responses are intentionally directed towards the object. I argue that what explains this integration is the way in which the experience of bodily responses and the experience of the representational states interact. This, I propose, produces what I call an experience of convergence. I also suggest that understanding emotional experience in this way not only solves the problem of the integration but also provides a more solid ground for the claim that emotions qua embodied attitudes are evaluative.     

Correction to: Towards a Better Understanding of Cognitive Deficits in Absence Epilepsy: a Systematic Review and Meta-Analysis

Neuropsychology Review - Due to an error during the editorial phase, a correction regarding Fig. 2 is added to the original article: “Towards a Better Understanding of Cognitive...     

Does cognitive reflection mediate the math gender gap at university admission in Chile?

Social Psychology of Education - In Chile, a vast and persistent gender gap in math performance at university admission has negative consequences for women’s opportunities. International...     

Do dogs rescue their owners from a stressful situation? A behavioral and physiological assessment

Animal Cognition - Rescue behavior is considered a type of pro-social response, defined as a voluntary action directed to benefit another individual who is in a stressful or dangerous situation. In...     

Where and when to look: Sequential effects at the millisecond level

Attention, Perception, & Psychophysics - Learning and imitating a complex motor action requires to visually follow complex movements, but conscious perception seems too slow for such tasks....     

The assessment of individual “Aggressiveness” in pigeons by a variety of means

Pigeons attack or threaten animate and inanimate targets. The assessment of their aggressiveness was studied by exposing them in their home cages to three different stimuli: the experimenter's hand, a live pigeon, and a rear-projected conspecific image when the birds were exposed to intermittent access to food. A positive correlation between the hand test and live pigeon test was evident, but no relationship between either of these responses and the response to a pictorial image was observed. These results combined with other ethological observations cast doubts on the usefulness of schedule-induced responses to pictorial targets in the assessment of the individual aggressiveness in pigeons, but suggest that the hand test is an adequate and reliable procedure for such evaluations.     

The structure of language abilities at 4 years: a twin study

Normal language development was studied in 310 pairs of 4-year-old twins born in the United Kingdom in 1994. Twins were assessed individually in their homes on a diverse battery of language and nonverbal measures. Rotated factor analyses indicated the presence of a general Language factor (L) as well as a general Nonverbal (NV) factor. Moderate genetic influence was found for both L and NV abilities. Bivariate genetic analysis estimated a genetic correlation of .63 between L and NV abilities, implying that over half of the genetic influence on L overlaps with genetic influence on NV. These results suggest that at age 4, genetic influences on individual differences in language overlap substantially with genetic influences on individual differences in other cognitive abilities, although perhaps less so than later in development.     

Behavioral consequences of fluctuating group success: an internet study of soccer-team fans

The authors tested the hypothesis that fans of a sports team avoid private contact with their team when it is unsuccessful (cutting off reflected failure, or CORF), whereas fans actively seek private contact with their team when it is successful (basking in reflected glory, or BIRG). During the 2nd half of the 1999-2000 soccer season, the authors registered the number of visitors who had surfed the Web sites of 16 Belgian and 18 Dutch 1st-division teams on the 1st working day following a championship game. The authors obtained 586 valid measurements, which were transformed into z scores for each team separately. In line with the hypothesis, there were significantly more visitors after the teams won (BIRG) than after they lost (CORF). The effects of game outcome were not mediated by pregame expectations or by the size of the wins or losses.     

Deformation of the useful visual field with state of vigilance,task priority,and central task complexity

In a dual-task situation, peripheral perception can deteriorate due to different variables related to the experimental situation, such as central task complexity and the relative priority given to the two tasks. Recent studies have also shown that individual characteristics (such as the state of vigilance) can alter the useful visual field. The ability to perceive signals presented at different places in the visual field decreases in situations that lead to episodes of low vigilance. In Exp. 1, 27 subjects (18-29 years) had to perform a monotonous and prolonged dual-monitoring task involving central and peripheral vision. The test was carried out with two different sets of instructions regarding priority: the more important task was either the central task or the peripheral one. In Exp. 2, 18 subjects (18-30 years) performed the same test, but this time with two levels of complexity of the central task, either a simple monitoring activity or the same monitoring task coupled with a counting activity. Elliptical interpolation of the data enabled assessment of the deformation of the useful visual field in both experiments. The analysis of the parameters of the elliptical model indicated that the useful visual field mainly shrinks on the vertical axis, as the individual becomes drowsy. The useful visual field also shrinks on the horizontal axis when the peripheral task has priority and the monitoring activity is prolonged, or when the central task is complex.