Movement as an emergent form: Its structural limits

The purpose of this paper is to view the structure of goal-directed movement as an emergent property of a system interacting with its surround. Principles of the genesis of form are presented and arguments offered to extend these concepts to the analysis of human movement. Movement is viewed as a dynamic form having structural limits which define its functionality or its potential in solving a particular motor problem.The morphology of the system, and its experience with external objects and the field of external forces are considered to be the primary factors determining the emerging form of a movement. These interacting factors and their influence on the structural limits of a movement are discussed in detail. While the degree of effectiveness may vary, it is suggested that the structure of the movement tends towards efficiency and represents the current problem-solving capacity of the individual at any one point in time. Coordination of a system is thus viewed as a reflection of the individual's ability to integrate its internal states and processes with external demands.Lastly, goal-directedness, as a characteristic of living systems, is believed to provide the basis for defining the morphological, biomechanical and environmental constraints which are relevant to the task. The role of the task and the intentionality of the system in its goal-directedness and organization of movement is explored.The framework for viewing movement offered in this paper is enhanced by philosophical arguments and supported by evidence from the arts and the physical, biological and behavioral sciences. It is intended to encourage the reader to re-examine ideas, reflect on movement in a unique way and to generate questions regarding the underlying mechanisms and synergies supporting the emergence of movement in compliance with the factors that constrain it.     

Context, categorization, and recall: The “change-of-standard” effect

A psycholinguistically based conception of the relation among context, categorization, and memory is tested by examining what happens to people's memory of an object when the object is initially categorized in terms of the context in which it appears, but, when the object is later recalled, this context is no longer salient. Subjects read about the sentencing decisions of a target trial judge in the context of other trial judges who consistently gave either higher sentences or lower sentences than the target judge. As predicted, subjects tended to categorize the target judge as “lenient” in the former, harsh context condition, and as “harsh” in the latter, lenient context condition. A week later, subjects read about the sentencing decisions of some additional judges, and then recalled the sentencing decisions of the target judge they had read about the week before. Across the two sessions, either a harsh, moderate, or lenient category norm for judges' sentencing decisions was established by having subjects read about decisions that involved either high, medium, or low sentences, respectively. The results indicated that subjects recalled the target judge's decisions by interpreting their prior categorization of his behavior in terms of the category norm established across the two sessions rather than the original context. Thus, subjects who were exposed to the same target in the same circumstances, and initially categorized the target in the same way, nevertheless remembered his behavior differently if their category norm was different at the moment of recall. Other types of “change of standard” and their implications for human judgment and memory are discussed.     

Behavioral economics of drug self-administration. II. A unit-price analysis of cigarette smoking.

In behavioral economics, the ratio of response requirement to reinforcer magnitude is referred to as unit price. Previous research with nonhuman subjects has demonstrated that (a) comparable amounts of food are consumed at the same unit price even though different response requirements and reinforcer magnitudes comprise that unit price and (b) increases in unit price decrease food consumption in a positively decelerating fashion. The present study assessed the generality of these findings to the cigarette smoking of 5 human volunteers. During approximately 18 3-hr sessions, various combinations of response requirement (fixed-ratio 200, 400, and 1,600) and reinforcer magnitude (1, 2, and 4 puffs per bout) were arranged. Consumption (i.e., the number of puffs) generally was comparable at the same unit price independent of the response requirement and reinforcer magnitude comprising that unit price. In addition, increasing unit price generally decreased consumption in a positively decelerating fashion. These results extend the generality of the unit-price analysis to human cigarette smoking. Moreover, these results further support the position that reinforcer magnitude and response requirement are functionally equivalent and interact to determine consumption. The concept of unit price, by integrating and summarizing the effects of those two operations, provides a more parsimonious explanation of the results than do separate evaluations of the effects of response requirement and reinforcer magnitude.     

Locus of causality and the use of information in the development of causal attributions1

Two studies were conducted to examine whether attributions made about events may be influenced by individual assumptions regarding causation that are age related. In Study 1, 96 subjects at three age levels (four and five years, eight and nine years, and college students) observed a target actor on videotape select an item from an unseen array, and four other actors either agree (high consensus) or disagree (low consensus) with the choice. Subjects were asked to decide why the actor liked the chosen object best—because of something about the actor (person attribution) or because of something about the item (entity attribution). The results showed that perceived locus of causality shifted from entity to person attributions with age. In addition, subjects at all ages were able to utilize the consensus information when they had no opportunity to form their own impressions about the items in the array. In Study 2, 126 subjects at four age levels (five and six years, seven and eight years, nine and ten years, and high school students) chose an item from among an array for themselves and responded to a person (self)/entity attribution question regarding the locus of their own choice. The entity to person shift with age was again found and was supported by additional measures. The results are discussed in terms of children's causal reasoning capacities and social environmental factors affecting developmental change in social judgments.     

The effect of alcoholic intoxication upon calorically induced oculogyral illusion

Ten male and 10 female subjects, half of whom were classified as “heavy” and half as “light” drinkers, ingested a 4-1 combination of tonic water and 80-proof vodka in an amount calculated to produce a state of moderate intoxication (average estimated peak blood alcohol level=.075). This resulted in an increased sensitivity (latency, magnitude, and duration) to the calorically induced “oculogyral illusion” (OGI) relative to a placebo (tonic water) condition. “Heavy” and “light” drinkers did not differ significantly on any of the measures. It was speculated that the alcoholic enhancement of the OGI was due either to a decreased ability to suppress vestibular nystagmus when attempting to fixate a visual stimulus or to the expenditure of extra-normal effort in order to maintain fixation.     

The ‘We’ in ‘Me’: An Account of Minimal Relational Selfhood

Topoi - Many philosophers contend that selfhood involves a uniquely first-personal experiential dimension, which precedes any form of socially dependent selfhood. In this paper, I do not wish to...     

Pragmatic use of stereotyping in teamwork: social loafing and compensation as a function of inferred partner-situation fit

Using 4 experiments, the authors examined how stereotypic information about teammates influences social loafing and compensation during collective tasks. In each experiment, participants performed better on cognitive tasks when there was a poor (vs. good) fit between the stereotypic strengths of their partner and the requirements of the task. This pattern occurred whether participants used gender stereotypes (Experiment 1) or occupational stereotypes (Experiments 2 to 4) and occurred even when participants only anticipated working on a collective task (Experiment 4). In Experiment 3, the pattern occurred only in the collective (not in the coactive) condition, providing direct evidence for social loafing. Together, these results suggest that people use stereotypes to tune their motivation to optimize the ratio of their own individual effort to the team's expected output.     

How global versus local perception fits regulatory focus

We propose a reciprocal relation between regulatory-focus systems and global versus local processing styles-specifically, that global processing fits a promotion focus on advancement, whereas local processing fits a prevention focus on security. In Study 1, participants were shown large letters made of small letters and decided if either of two specific letters appeared on the screen. Strength of promotion focus was positively correlated with speed of processing global letters and negatively correlated with speed of processing local letters, whereas the reverse was true for strength of prevention focus. In Study 2, participants first worked on a global or local task and later chose between two objects. Consistent with our fit proposal, participants who had performed the global task assigned a higher price to their chosen object if they had chosen it in a promotive, eager manner than if they had chosen it in a preventive, vigilant manner, whereas the reverse was true for participants who had performed the local task.