Distinctiveness and expertise effects with homogeneous stimuli: towards a model of configural coding

Recent studies using Brennan's computerized caricature generator have demonstrated distinctiveness effects consistent with the idea that faces are coded in terms of their individual distinctive properties. Based on these findings it is suggested that, for homogeneous classes whose members share a common configuration, distinctive configural information may be coded as metric deviations from a spatial norm. Experiments are described which demonstrate similar distinctiveness effects in bird identification. Transformations that increase distinctiveness (caricatures) produced faster identification and a higher recognition proportion, for both experts and nonexperts, than transformations that reduce distinctiveness (anticaricatures). This distinctiveness advantage is consistent with the norm-based coding idea. Furthermore, within certain limits, increasing distinctiveness did not impair performance relative to that for veridical drawings. For experts there was also a caricature advantage, such that 50% caricatures of birds in a highly homogeneous and familiar class (passerines) were identified more quickly, provided that they were recognized at all, than uncaricatured veridical drawings. The significance of a caricature advantage for the visual coding of configural information is discussed.     

Information technology in municipal environmental policy: Automated registration,sure, but what about expert systems?

Dutch municipalities are confronted with an increased number of prescribed environmental tasks and also with a growing demand, both from the central government and environmental pressure groups, to undertake environmental activities on their own initiative. This development over-taxed the information management of most municipalities. In the past few years, computer technology was introduced to relieve part of this pressure (e.g., by automation of registration systems). In this article we present a classification of computer applications for environmental management, investigate their possible impact on the environmental knowledge and information system, and distinguish between a formal and informal knowledge domain. Special attention will be paid to expert systems.     

Helping patients by analyzing self-criticism

This paper is addressed to patients' need for help with punitive self-critical attitudes. Such help has not always been sufficiently provided by psychoanalysts, owing to an unrecognized failure of neutrality. Historically, a gradual overemphasis on the concept of an unconscious sense of guilt has acted as a barrier to the appreciation of shame. An alternative concept, punitive unconscious self-criticism, which stands in contrast to constructive self-criticism and is common to the painful affects of guilt, shame, humiliation, and depression, can facilitate helpful analytic treatment. Heinz Kohut's contributions are examined. His analytic stance is differentiated from his theories of development. In the former, characterized by an affirmative attitude, he takes a position of functional neutrality toward shame and pays consistent though unstated attention to the effects of punitive unconscious self-criticism. The affirmative attitude can be employed without adoption of Kohut's self psychology, i.e., without abandoning the basic psychoanalytic approach to mental conflict and development. The concept of punitive unconscious self-criticism and the concept of divergent conflict, provide sufficient explanatory power. Clinical examples are used to illustrate these ideas.     

THE SENSE OF THE BEAUTIFUL AND APOPHATIC THOUGHT: EMPIRICAL BEING AS IKON

This essay is an interdisciplinary study of beauty that attempts to bridge the gap between religion/theology and science in some measure by drawing from Dionysius the Areopagite (c. 500) a notion of being that I argue is consonant with the notion of the sense of the beautiful, which I develop using Steven Weinberg's and Werner Heisenberg's discussions of empirical beauty. I use the term ikon to refer concisely to Dionysius' theophanic notion of being, namely, that the beyond‐being is nonsubstantially present in being.     

The own-age bias in face recognition: a meta-analytic and theoretical review

A large number of studies have examined the finding that recognition memory for faces of one's own age group is often superior to memory for faces of another age group. We examined this own-age bias (OAB) in the meta-analyses reported. These data showed that hits were reliably greater for same-age relative to other-age faces (g = 0.23) and that false alarms were reliably less likely for same-age compared with other-age faces (g = -0.23). Further meta-analyses of measures of signal detection demonstrated that, although no difference in response criterion was evident (g = -0.01), discriminability was reliably better for same-age compared with other-age faces (g = 0.37). As well, children, younger adults, and older adults exhibited superior discriminability for same-age compared with other-age age faces. Thus, the OAB appears to be a robust effect that influences the accuracy of face recognition. Theoretical accounts of the OAB have generally suggested that it reflects more extensive, recent experiences with one's own age group relative to other-age groups. Additional analyses were supportive of this account as the OAB was present even for groups (e.g., older adults) that had prior experiences as members of another age group. However, the most comprehensive account of the OAB will also likely invoke mechanisms suggested by social-cognitive theories.     

The Test of Time in School-Based Mentoring: The Role of Relationship Duration and Re-Matching on Academic Outcomes

The influence of match length and re-matching on the effectiveness of school-based mentoring was studied in the context of a national, randomized study of 1,139 youth in Big Brothers Big Sisters programs. The sample included youth in grades four through nine from diverse racial and ethnic backgrounds. At the end of the year, youth in intact relationships showed significant academic improvement, while youth in matches that terminated prematurely showed no impact. Those who were re-matched after terminations showed negative impacts. Youth, mentor, and program characteristics associated with having an intact match were examined. Youth with high levels of baseline stress and those matched with college student mentors were likely to be in matches that terminated prematurely, while rejection-sensitive youth and mentors who had previous mentoring experience were more likely to be in intact relationships. Implications for research and practice are discussed.     

Hedges enhance memory but inhibit retelling

We examined the effects of hedges and the discourse marker like on how people recalled specific details about precise quantities in spontaneous speech. We found that listeners treated hedged information differently from like-marked information, although both are thought to be indicators of uncertainty or vagueness. In addition, hedges had different effects depending on whether speakers were (1) retelling conversations to another person or (2) answering questions about material they had heard. When retelling to another person, listeners were more likely to report information that was either unmarked or marked with a like than hedged information (Experiment 1). Yet when answering questions by themselves, hedges enhanced memory for details, in comparison with likes (Experiment 2). Hedges appear to provide pragmatic cues about what information is reliable enough to repeat in a conversational context. But although hedged information may be left out, it is not forgotten.