Knowledge and Error in Early Chinese Thought

Drawing primarily on the Mòzǐ and Xúnzǐ, the article proposes an account of how knowledge and error are understood in classical Chinese epistemology and applies it to explain the absence of a skeptical argument from illusion in early Chinese thought. Arguments from illusion are associated with a representational conception of mind and knowledge, which allows the possibility of a comprehensive or persistent gap between appearance and reality. By contrast, early Chinese thinkers understand mind and knowledge primarily in terms of competence or ability, not representation. Cognitive error amounts to a form of incompetence. Error is not explained as a failure to accurately represent the mind-independent reality due to misleading or illusory appearances. Instead, it can be explained metaphorically by appeal to part-whole relations: cognitive error typically occurs when agents incompetently respond to only part of their situation, rather than the whole.     

The factorial structure of sleep dissatisfaction

Research into sleep problems has been dominated by a number of theoretical perspectives from each of which useful treatment applications have been derived. However, the rich diversity of problems that are subsumed under insomnia or sleep disturbance often remain unappreciated. This paper reports the results of a factor analysis performed on the combined items of two questionnaires designed to assess sleep disturbance. Six factors are described, two of which relate to cognitive aspects of sleep disturbance; two which map onto sleep onset and sleep maintenance problems; and two which are drawn from dissatisfaction with poor sleep. Correlations of factor scores with measures of neuroticism, worry and various sleep history variables provide a strong level of construct validity. The results are discussed in terms of their treatment implications.     

Synaesthesia: the prevalence of atypical cross-modal experiences

Sensory and cognitive mechanisms allow stimuli to be perceived with properties relating to sight, sound, touch, etc, and ensure, for example, that visual properties are perceived as visual experiences, rather than sounds, tastes, smells, etc. Theories of normal development can be informed by cases where this modularity breaks down, in a condition known as synaesthesia. Conventional wisdom has held that this occurs extremely rarely (0.05% of births) and affects women more than men. Here we present the first test of synaesthesia prevalence with sampling that does not rely on self-referral, and which uses objective tests to establish genuineness. We show that (a) the prevalence of synaesthesia is 88 times higher than previously assumed, (b) the most common variant is coloured days, (c) the most studied variant (grapheme-colour synaesthesia)--previously believed most common--is prevalent at 1%, and (d) there is no strong asymmetry in the distribution of synaesthesia across the sexes. Hence, we suggest that female biases reported earlier likely arose from (or were exaggerated by) sex differences in self-disclosure.     

Weber's Law influences numerical representations in rhesus macaques (Macaca mulatta)

We present the results of two experiments that probe the ability of rhesus macaques to match visual arrays based on number. Three monkeys were first trained on a delayed match-to-sample paradigm (DMTS) to match stimuli on the basis of number and ignore continuous dimensions such as element size, cumulative surface area, and density. Monkeys were then tested in a numerical bisection experiment that required them to indicate whether a sample numerosity was closer to a small or large anchor value. Results indicated that, for two sets of anchor values with the same ratio, the probability of choosing the larger anchor value systematically increased with the sample number and the psychometric functions superimposed. A second experiment employed a numerical DMTS task in which the choice values contained an exact numerical match to the sample and a distracter that varied in number. Both accuracy and reaction time were modulated by the ratio between the correct numerical match and the distracter, as predicted by Weber's Law.     

Stages of change in anxiety: psychometric properties of the University of Rhode Island Change Assessment (URICA) scale

Readiness for change is increasingly cited as an important variable in the health behaviours literature, yet there remains a dearth of research related to this construct in mental health. This study examined the psychometric properties of the University of Rhode Island Change Assessment (URICA) scale in two samples. In Study 1 (n = 252), undergraduates completed the URICA and were administered measures of hopelessness, the consequences of worry, self-esteem, anxious symptomatology, and social desirability. The reliability and validity of the URICA were generally supported, although the goodness-of-fit with the intended subscales was only moderate. The Precontemplation, Contemplation and Maintenance subscales correlated as expected with ancillary measures, but the Action subscale did not. In Study 2 (n = 81), individuals with panic disorder were administered the URICA at initial assessment and following cognitive behavioural therapy. The URICA demonstrated excellent reliability, significantly predicted treatment retention and dropout, and showed modest utility for predicting treatment outcome. Confirmatory factor analysis, however, revealed an inadequate fit to the intended subscales. The implications of these findings are discussed and directions for future research highlighted.     

A comparison of personality function among patients with seasonal depression, nonseasonal depression, and nonclinical participants

Although a large body of research has accumulated concerning the relationship between nonseasonal depression and personality, comparatively few studies have examined the relationship between seasonal affective disorder (SAD) and personality. This study compared dimensional aspects of personality in patients diagnosed with SAD (N = 60), nonseasonal depression (N = 273), and nonclinical controls (N = 297) using the Dimensional Assessment of Personality Pathology (DAPP-BQ; Livesley & Jackson, in press). Analysis by ANCOVA indicated that significant between-group differences occurred in several of the 18 DAPP-BQ dimensions, with patients with SAD exhibiting personality psychopathology that was intermediate between the nonclinical sample and patients with nonseasonal depression. The results demonstrated that the traits associated with seasonal and nonseasonal depression differ in degree, not kind.     

Gender,Race, and Speech Style Stereotypes

Considerable research has shown that people have stereotypical beliefs about the speech and communication style of women and men. There is less research about stereotypes of Black people's speech, and none that jointly or comparably investigates communication stereotypes as a function of both gender and race. In this study, White college students (n = 111) rated a fictional character's speech on 36 pairs of words characteristic of communication style (e.g., emotional–unemotional) and also generated dialogue for the character. Targets' race and sex were varied. Results showed that beliefs about speech style were stronger for race than gender. Black speakers, both women and men, were rated as more direct and emotional, and less socially appropriate and playful, than White speakers. The dialogue generated by participants for Black speakers was less grammatical and more profane than for White speakers. Gender effects were consistent with earlier research but suggest a weakening of stereotypes; women's speech was seen as somewhat less direct and more emotional than men's speech. Beliefs about speech and communication style are important because they may function not only to describe what is but to prescribe what should be in social interaction.     

Gender Differences in Sado-Masochistic Arousal Among College Students

This paper tests three competing explanationsfor male-female differences in sado-masochistic sexualarousal. The male arousal hypothesis posits that becauseof socialization that emphasizes sexual aggression and experimentation (and thus higher levels ofsexual arousal and activity in all areas), men will bemore aroused by both sadism and masochism than women.The female masochism hypothesis argues that because females are socialized to be passive, they willbe more aroused by masochistic (but not sadistic)activities than males. The convergence hypothesis notesthat male female socialization (and differences in most sexual attitudes and behavior) haveconverged in recent years, and hypothesizes that thesame convergence has taken place in arousal caused bysado-masochistic behavior and fantasy. Using a sample comprised of 320 undergraduate students (69%white, 27% African American, 4% other) from a largeurban university in the Southeast, we found no evidencefor the female masochism hypothesis and only weak evidence for the convergence hypothesis. Thestrongest evidence was for the male arousal hypotheses,with males scoring significantly higher than females onseven of the twelve measures of sado-masochistic arousal, and no differently from females on theremaining five.