Inhibitory interaction: the effects of multiple non-predictive visual cues

When the interval between a non-predictive cue and a target appearing at the same spatial location is longer than about 200 ms, target performance is typically poorer than when the cue and target appear at different locations. Recent studies have shown that this effect, known as inhibition of return (IOR), can occur at multiple cued locations, and is enhanced when multiple cues are presented at the same spatial location. However, little is known about how the magnitude of IOR at one spatial location is influenced by a subsequent or preceding cue presented at a different spatial location. We investigated this issue by presenting single or multiple cues at varying inter-cue intervals prior to target onset. Results suggest that the magnitude of IOR at a given location is influenced by the presentation of a preceding cue, but that once IOR occurs, it is unaffected by the presentation of a subsequent cue.     

Necessity and Apriority

The classical view of the relationship between necessity and apriority, defended by Leibniz and Kant, is that all necessary truths are known a priori. The classical view is now almost universally rejected, ever since Saul Kripke and Hilary Putnam discovered that there are necessary truths that are known only a posteriori. However, in recent years a new debate has emerged over the epistemology of these necessary a posteriori truths. According to one view – call it the neo-classical view – knowledge of a necessary truth always depends on at least one item of a priori knowledge. According to the rival view – call it the neoempiricist view – our knowledge of necessity is sometimes broadly empirical. In this paper I present and defend an argument against the neo-empiricist view. I argue that knowledge of the necessity of a necessary truth could not be broadly empirical.     

Indeterminacy,identity and counterparts: Evans reconsidered

In this paper I argue that Gareth Evans’ famous proof of the impossibility of de re indeterminate identity fails on a counterpart-theoretic interpretation of the determinacy operators. I attempt to motivate a counterpart-theoretic reading of the determinacy operators and then show that, understood counterpart-theoretically, Evans’ argument is straightforwardly invalid.     

CONSTRUCTING AND DERIVING RECIPROCAL TRIGONOMETRIC RELATIONS: A FUNCTIONAL ANALYTIC APPROACH

Participants were pretrained and tested on mutually entailed trigonometric relations and combinatorially entailed relations as they pertained to positive and negative forms of sine, cosine, secant, and cosecant. Experiment 1 focused on training and testing transformations of these mathematical functions in terms of amplitude and frequency followed by tests of novel relations. Experiment 2 addressed training in accordance with frames of coordination (same as) and frames of opposition (reciprocal of) followed by more tests of novel relations. All assessments of derived and novel formula‐to‐graph relations, including reciprocal functions with diversified amplitude and frequency transformations, indicated that all 4 participants demonstrated substantial improvement in their ability to identify increasingly complex trigonometric formula‐to‐graph relations pertaining to same as and reciprocal of to establish mathematically complex repertoires.     

DERIVED MORE‐LESS RELATIONAL MANDS IN CHILDREN DIAGNOSED WITH AUTISM

In Experiment 1, more and less relations were trained for arbitrary Stimuli A1 and A2 with 3 children with autism. The following conditional discriminations were then trained: A1‐B1, A2‐B2, B1‐C1, B2‐C2. In subsequent tests, participants showed derived more‐less mands (mand with C1 for more and mand with C2 for less). A training procedure reversed the B‐C conditional discriminations, and participants then showed derived reversed more—less mands (mand with C1 for less, C2 for more). Baseline B‐C relations were retrained, and participants subsequently demonstrated a return to the original derived manding. A second experiment with 1 prior participant and 1 naive participant removed a possible confounding effect. Establishing derived manding may be an advantageous component when teaching a mand repertoire in applied settings.     

Protection,payback, or both? Emotional and motivational mechanisms underlying avoidance by victims of transgressions

In the wake of an interpersonal offense, victims often feel motivated to avoid their perpetrators, and the more severe the offense, the more pronounced this motivation is. On the surface, avoidance appears to serve a self-protective function such that victims, compelled by a sense of fear and apprehension, withdraw from their wrongdoers to prevent further harm. However, avoidance might also serve a retaliatory purpose in which victims shun their offenders out of anger and hostility, using interpersonal aloofness as a means of payback. In the present pair of studies, we examined victims’ self-reports of recent offense experiences and tested the mediating roles of fear and anger in the relationship between offense severity and avoidance motivations. Study 1 revealed that anger, not fear, was the emotion that mediated this relationship. Study 2 replicated this finding and also showed that the link between anger and avoidance was mediated both by revenge and self-protection motives, which demonstrates the complex nature of avoidance following a transgression.     

‘Unwilling’ versus ‘unable’: capuchin monkeys’ (Cebus apella) understanding of human intentional action

A sensitivity to the intentions behind human action is a crucial developmental achievement in infants. Is this intention reading ability a unique and relatively recent product of human evolution and culture, or does this capacity instead have roots in our non‐human primate ancestors? Recent work by Call and colleagues (2004) lends credence to the latter hypothesis, providing evidence that chimpanzees are also sensitive to human intentions. Specifically, chimpanzees remained in a testing area longer and exhibited fewer frustration behaviors when an experimenter behaved as if he intended to give food but was unable to do so, than when the experimenter behaved as if he had no intention of giving food. The present research builds on and extends this paradigm, providing some of the first evidence of intention reading in a more distant primate relative, the capuchin monkey (Cebus apella). Like chimpanzees, capuchin monkeys distinguish between different goal‐directed acts, vacating an enclosure sooner when an experimenter acts unwilling to give food than when she acts unable to give food. Additionally, we found that this pattern is specific to animate action, and does not obtain when the same actions are performed by inanimate rods instead of human hands (for a similar logic, see Woodward, 1998 ). Taken together with the previous evidence, the present research suggests that our own intention reading is not a wholly unique aspect of the human species, but rather is shared broadly across the primate order.