Self-consciousness,evaluation of physical characteristics,and physical attractiveness

Results from an investigation of the relationship between habitual awareness of oneself as a social object (Public self-consciousness) and speed of processing information about the overt self are reported. Since high public self-consciousness subjects report themselves to be concerned about their physical appearance, they were expected to have more readily retrievable evaluative judgments concerning their physical characteristics. Consistent with this prediction, high compared to low public consciousness subjects required significantly less time to report their evaluations of eleven of their physical features. In a second study, high public self-consciousness was shown to be positively related to judged physical attractiveness in two geographically diverse samples. The quicker evaluations of the high public self-consciousness group were discussed in terms of information processing model recently described by Markus (1977).     

What are human express saccades?

When a fixation point is removed 200 msec prior to target onset (the gap condition), human subjects are said to produce eye movements that have a short latency (80–120 msec), that form the early peak of a bimodal latency distribution, and that have been labeled “human express saccades” (see, e.g., Fischer, 1987; Fischer & Breitmeyer, 1987; Fischer & Ramsperger, 1984, 1986). In three experiments, we sought to obtain this express saccade diagnostic pattern in the gap condition, We orthogonally combined target location predictability with the presence versus absence of catch trials (Experiment 1). When target location was fixed and catch trials were not used, we found mostly anticipations. In the remaining conditions, where responses were under stimulus control, bimodality was not frequently observed, and, whether it was or not, latencies were not in the express saccade range. Using random target locations, we then varied stimulus luminance and the mode of stimulus presentation (LEDs vs. oscilloscope) in the gap and overlap (fixation is not removed) conditions (Experiment2). Bimodality was rarely observed, the gap effect (overlap minus gap reaction time) was additive with luminance, and only the brightest targets elicited saccades in the express range. When fixed locations and no catch trials were combined with latency feedback (Experiment 3), we observed many responses in the express saccade range and some evidence for bimodality, but the sudden introduction of catch trials revealed that many early responses were not under stimulus control. Humanscan make stimulus-controlled saccades that are initiated very rapidly (80–120 msec), but unless catch trials or choice reaction time is used, it is not possible to distinguish such saccades from anticipatory responses that are prepared in advance and timed to occur shortly after target onset. Because the express saccade diagnostic pattern is not a characteristic feature of human saccadic performance, we urge investigators to focus their attention on the robustgap effect     

Virtual Reality Exposure Therapy in the Treatment of Fear of Flying

A new and innovative approach to treating fear of flying has been developed using Virtual Reality Exposure Therapy. This article discusses the development of Virtual Reality Exposure Therapy and reviews a case study of a fear of flying patient seen in our practice. Early results are very promising and may indicate that Virtual Reality Exposure Therapy may also lead to creative interventions with other anxiety disorders.     

From Oughts to Goals: A Logic for Enkrasia

This paper focuses on (an interpretation of) the Enkratic principle of rationality, according to which rationality requires that if an agent sincerely and with conviction believes she ought to X, then X-ing is a goal in her plan. We analyze the logical structure of Enkrasia and its implications for deontic logic. To do so, we elaborate on the distinction between basic and derived oughts, and provide a multi-modal neighborhood logic with three characteristic operators: a non-normal operator for basic oughts, a non-normal operator for goals in plans, and a normal operator for derived oughts. We prove two completeness theorems for the resulting logic, and provide a dynamic extension of the logic by means of product updates. We illustrate how this setting informs deontic logic by considering issues related to the filtering of inconsistent oughts, the restricted validity of deontic closure, and the stability of oughts and goals under dynamics.

     

Citizen Neuroscience: Brain–Computer Interface Researcher Perspectives on Do-It-Yourself Brain Research

Science and Engineering Ethics - Devices that record from and stimulate the brain are currently available for consumer use. The increasing sophistication and resolution of these devices provide...     

Social and Cognitive Aspects of the Vulnerability to Political Misinformation

In the last few years, especially after the Brexit referendum and the 2016 U.S. elections, there has been a surge in academic interest for misinformation and disinformation. Social, cognitive, and political scientists' work on these phenomena has focused on two main aspects:

• Individuals' (and by extension societies') vulnerability to misinformation;
• Factors and interventions that can increase individuals' (and societies') resistance to misinformation.

In this article, we offer a critical review of the psychological research pertaining to these two aspects. Drawing on this review, we highlight an emerging tension in the relevant literature. Indeed, the current state of the art of the political misinformation literature reflects the combined operation of two opposing psychological constructs: excess gullibility on the one hand and excess vigilance on the other. We argue that this conceptualization is important in both advancing theories of individuals' and societies' vulnerability to misinformation and in designing prospective research programs. We conclude with proposing what, in our view, are the most promising avenues for future research in the field.     

Relationships between attentional blink magnitude, RSVP target accuracy, and performance on other cognitive tasks

When two masked, to-be-attended targets are presented within approximately half a second of each other, performance on the second target (T2) suffers, relative to when the targets are presented further apart in time or when the first target (T1) can be ignored. This pattern of results is known as the attentional blink (AB). Typically, participants differ with respect to the magnitude of their AB and their overall target accuracy. Despite investigations as to what participant characteristics may influence AB performance (e.g., age, brain damage, or mood state), there has been no focused examination of whether individual differences in cognitive performance measures predict the magnitude of the AB or overall rapid serial visual presentation(RSVP) target accuracy. Our university studentparticipants performed single-target and dual-target RSVP tasks, as well as a selection of cognitive tasks that did not use RSVP presentations, with color, letter, digit, and object stimuli. Overall performance on each of the RSVP targets (T1, T2, and single target) was predicted by speeded manual and vocal identification times to isolated stimuli and by performance with other RSVP targets. However, the magnitude of the AB was predicted only by T1 accuracy, not by any other performance measures. The results suggest that individual differences in AB magnitude do not result from differences in effective RSVP target encoding and are not well explained by varied information-processing abilities.     

Libet's temporal anomalies: a reassessment of the data

Benjamin Libet compared the perceived time of direct brain stimulation to the perceived time of skin stimulation. His results are among the most controversial experiments at the interface between psychology and philosophy. The new element that I bring to this discussion is a reanalysis of Libet's raw data. Libet's original data were difficult to interpret because of the manner in which they were presented in tables. Plotting the data as psychometric functions shows that the observers have great uncertainty about the relative timing of events, as seen the shallow psychometric slopes. A second indication of uncertainty comes from Libet's use of three response categories, A first; B first; and A and B simultaneous. The large number of "perceptually simultaneous" responses provides a further measure of the difficulty of the judgment. There are thus a very broad range of stimulus delays in which the subject is unable to make an accurate ordering response. These points provide evidence that there is no compelling reason to invent exotic or ad hoc mechanisms to account for Libet's data since the uncertainty window is large enough to allow simple mechanism such as memory shifts. Libet argued that his data provide evidence for a backward referral in time. I argue that even though Libet's own data are weak, there are good arguments for a backward referral mechanism to help the subject make sense out of the tangled chaos of asynchronous information associated with experienced events.     

A role for olfaction in object recognition by normal and hippocampal-damaged rats

To examine how olfactory and visual factors affect object discriminations in rats with and without hippocampus damage, the authors trained Long-Evans rats on simple object discriminations. They then examined how these discriminations were affected by rotations of the objects, by coating the objects in a transparent acrylic coating, or by both rotating and coating the objects in acrylic. The rats displayed no impairments when the objects were only sprayed in acrylic, and they displayed minor impairments when the objects were rotated. However, when the objects were both rotated and acrylic coated, the rats displayed severe impairments. This suggests that the rats are solving the rotated-only phase based on surface features of the objects (probably odor) and not based on the visual information. Such species' biases for obtaining object information are important factors to consider when designing and interpreting visual memory experiments across species. There was no difference in performance between the rats with hippocampus damage and the sham rats, and this is consistent with the literature on similar tasks.