Gender differences in synchrony: Females in sync during unstructured dyadic conversation

Although previous studies have reported that individual prosocial traits generally enhance synchrony, gender as a social factor was not the subject of focus. The present study examined gender differences in synchrony by conducting three experiments on dyadic unstructured conversations with same-gender strangers. Synchrony was assessed by calculating the cross-wavelet coherence and determining the relative phase. As expected, through the three experiments, the female dyads showed a higher degree of synchrony, compared to the male dyads. Moreover, the conversation type (i.e., structured monologue vs. unstructured dialogue) did not moderate the gender effect (Experiment 2), while synchrony in the female dyads was influenced by the preceding conversation (Experiment 3). In contrast, through the three experiments, the role of the relative phase was unclear. The findings indicate that the social factor, gender, has an impact on synchrony, and that interpersonal sensitivity contributes to synchrony.     

The development of conceptual interests in young children

We conducted a longitudinal analysis of the relative intensity and duration of interests associated with conceptual domains between the ages of 4 and 6 years, respectively. Results indicated a significant portion of preschool children do sustain an interest in conceptual domains during some portion of their childhood. Expected gender differences were found, with boys more likely to express an interest in a conceptual domain than girls. A latent growth curve analysis revealed that the probability of exhibiting a conceptual interest declined as school began, though the rate of that decline was similar for both boys and girls. Potential explanations for the decrease in conceptual interests as school begins are considered.     

Institutional Values of Managed Mental Health Care: Efficiency or Oppression?

The authors suggest that many managed mental health care (MMHC) practices have oppressive effects on members of cultural and ethnic minority groups. They examine the dissonance between institutional practices and cultural traditions that reflect insensitivity and forced conformity, particularly regarding time, pace, and intervention uniformity as applied to clients and commonly required in the MMHC industry. Los autores sugieren que muchas prácticas del cuidado administrado de la salud mental (MMHC, por sus siglas en inglés) tienen efectos opresivos sobre los miembros de grupos de minorías étnicas y culturales. Examinan también la disonancia entre prácticas institucionales y tradiciones culturales que reflejan insensibilidad y una conformidad forzada, sobre todo en lo referente a tiempo, ritmo y uniformidad de intervención tal y como se aplica a clientes y normalmente requeridos por la industria de MMHC.     

Do Conventions Need to Be Common Knowledge?

Do conventions need to be common knowledge in order to work? David Lewis builds this requirement into his definition of a convention. This paper explores the extent to which his approach finds support in the game theory literature. The knowledge formalism developed by Robert Aumann and others militates against Lewis’s approach, because it shows that it is almost impossible for something to become common knowledge in a large society. On the other hand, Ariel Rubinstein’s Email Game suggests that coordinated action is no less hard for rational players without a common knowledge requirement. But an unnecessary simplifying assumption in the Email Game turns out to be doing all the work, and the current paper concludes that common knowledge is better excluded from a definition of the conventions that we use to regulate our daily lives.     

老年人重要社会支持的特点及其与老化态度的关系

采用重要他人和老化态度问卷测查了441名老年人的社会支持和老化态度情况,并且从支持的数量和质量角度以及实际支持和期望支持的角度细致考察了社会支持与老化态度的关系。结果表明：（1）老年人的支持来源符合社会支持层级模式;（2）性别、年龄及受教育水平对老年人社会支持有显著影响;（3）老年人从重要他人那里获得的实际社会支持的质量越高,老化态度越积极。     

Temporal Vacua

I show to be unsuccessful several attempts to demonstrate the possibility of time without change. Consideration of the most prominent of these arguments (by Sydney Shoemaker) then leads to the formulation of a general argument: evidence which justifies a claim that a certain amount of time has elapsed also justifies a claim that continuous change has occurred during the period. Hence there is a sound basis for the relationist claim that there is no time without events.     

Spatial generalization and peak shift in humans

Using a computer betting game, five experiments tested university students on spatial generalization and peak shift. On each trial, one location was marked and the subject was invited to bet 0-4 points. At the winning location (S+), bets won four times the points betted. At nearby losing locations (S−s), points betted were lost. Generalization gradients were exponential in shape, supporting Shepard's (1987), law (Experiment 1). With peak shift manipulations, three kinds of peak shift or area shift were found. (1) Subjects betted more on the S+ side than on the S− side (Experiments 2-4). (2) When asked if a location was the winning location, subjects responded “yes” more often to locations on the S+ side than to locations on the S− side (Experiments 3-5). (3) When asked to point to the winning location on the screen, subjects' errors indicated peak shift (Experiment 5).     

Priming of pop-out: I. Role of features

We examined a visual search task, in which observers responded to the high-acuity aspect of a popout target (shape of an odd-colored diamond or vernier offset of an odd spatial-frequency patch). Repetition of the attention-driving feature (color or spatial frequency) in this task primes the popout; repetition of the high-acuity aspect (shape, vernier offset) does not. Priming of pop-out is due to a decaying memory trace of the attention-focusing feature laid down with each trial. The trace exerts a diminishing effect over the following five to eight trials (≈30 sec), and its influence over this time is cumulative. Observers cannot willfully overcome the priming, which suggests that it is passive and autonomous. Both target facilitation and distractor inhibition are evident; the former has a greater effect. The phenomenon shows complete binocular transfer.