Differential use of distance and location information for spatial localization

Five experiments are reported in which subjects judged the movement or spatial location of a visible object that underwent a combination of real and induced (illusory) motion. When subjects attempted to reproduce the distance that the object moved by moving their unseen hands, they were more affected by the illusion than when they pointed to the object's perceived final location. Furthermore, pointing to the final location was more affected by the illusion when the hand movement began from the same position as that at which the object initially appeared, as compared with responses that began from other positions. The results suggest that people may separately encode two distinct types of spatial information: (1) information about the distance moved by an object and (2) information about the absolute spatial location of the object. Information about distance is more susceptible to the influence of an induced motion illusion, and people appear to rely differentially on the different types of spatial information, depending on features of the pointing response. The results have important implications for the mechanisms that underlie spatially oriented behavior in general.     

Gender differences in emotional support and depressive symptoms among adolescents: A prospective analysis

Investigated components of perceived emotional support, including support from family members, nonfamily adults, and peers, as predictors of depressive symptoms in a sample of 333 high school students (age 14-18) using a prospective design. Analyses of panel questionnaire data at two points in time suggest there are significant gender differences both in the quality of perceived support reported by adolescents and in the importance of support variables as predictors of depressive symptoms. Although there are no gender differences in the magnitude of perceived support from family members, girls report higher emotional support from both nonfamily adults and peers than boys report. Simple correlations between family support and depression are significantly stronger for girls than for boys. Results of hierarchical regression analyses, controlling for initial level of symptoms, reveal that whereas both nonfamily adult and friend components of perceived support are significant predictors of changes in symptoms for girls, none of these variables significantly predicts changes in symptoms for boys in this sample. In addition, initial symptoms predict changes in family support for girls but not for boys.     

Iconic memory and central processing capacity

Three experiments were conducted to assess whether or not iconic memory is influenced by demands placed upon central processing capacity. In Experiment 1 S was required to store material in short-term memory while performing an iconic memory task. In Experiments 2 and 3 S performed an auditory classification task concurrently with iconic storage. The three experiments did not reveal any significant impairment of iconic memory as a function of performing a subsidiary task. Similarly, performance on the subsidiary tasks did not suffer as a result of the concurrent iconic memory task.     

The dependency of the validity of information integration on cognitive variables and the judgement task

Simple models of information integration focus essentially on the combination of the components of information. This research investigated whether cognitive variables in the constructs of intelligence and cognitive complexity, as well as concentration, could predict the conditions of simple models of judgement. As additional predictors, the two qualitative variables [type of information] and [experience of the judgement task] were introduced. Subjects judged three types of stimuli using the pair comparison method. The conditions of the judgement models were analysed in the framework of the conjoint-measurement approach. Five different regression functions provided mediocre approximations to the 10 conditions of the models, when the 9 cognitive variables were considered. The small differences did not favour one of the five functions. The introduction of the qualitative predictor [type of information] improved the estimations more clearly than the experience of the judgement task, the effect of which was small.     

Subjectively salient dimensions of emotional appraisal

Four empirical studies of cognitive appraisals in emotion are reported. In studies 1 and 2, a simplified version of the repertory grid method was used to determine subjectively salient dimensions of cognitive appraisal. For a representative sample of 30 emotions, subjects considered pairwise comparisons of remembered eliciting events (study 1) or those typically conducive to the emotions (study 2) and indicated attributes on which the situations differed. The attributes were classified using a category system derived a priori from the theoretical and empirical literature. Some evidence was obtained for the majority of the 25 distinguished potential dimensions of appraisal, and no further dimensions of appraisal were suggested by the data. The most frequently mentioned dimensions—accounting together for 85% of the attributes—were subjective evaluation, causality/agency/responsibility, focus of event, controllability, importance, moral evaluation, stability, social relation positive-negative plus close-distant, self-evaluation, time of event, evaluation of others, intentionality/activity and expectedness. A reduced set of 22 dimensions for which some evidence was obtained in the grid studies was further examined in studies 3 and 4 using a nominal scale analogue of the rating method. It was found that (a) the appraisal dimensions which emerged as the most salient ones in the grid studies tended to be those relevant for the greatest number of emotions, (b) the dimensions were largely statistically independent within the investigated domain of emotions, and (c) they permitted from moderate to good statistical classification of the situations into the emotion categories. Potential limitations of the grid method as well as the issue of the criteria for cognitive appraisals in emotion are discussed.     

Lateral information transfer across saccadic eye movements

Our perception of the visual world remains stable and continuous despite the disruptions caused by retinal image displacements during saccadic eye movements. The problem of visual stability is closely related to the question of whether information is transferred across such eye movements-and if so, what sort of information is transferred. We report experiments carried out to investigate how presaccadic signals at the location of the saccade goal influence the visibility of postsaccadic test signals presented at the fovea. The signals were Landolt rings of differ-ent orientations. If the orientations of pre- and postsaccadic Landolt rings were different, the thresholds of the test signals were elevated by about 20%–25% relative to those at the static control condition. When the orientations were identical, no such elevation occurred. This selective threshold elevation effect proved to be a phenomenon different from ordinary saccadic suppression, although it was closely related to the execution of the saccadic eye movement. The consequences for visual stability are discussed.     

Zur logikabh?ngigkeit wissenschafts-theoretischer Paradoxien

Investigations in meta-theoretical topics such as the definability of disposition terms or the explication of qualitative and quantitative concepts of confirmation, as well as discussions of various systems of modal logic, e.g., deontic logic, often deal with a number of well known paradoxes. In general, classical logic is used in deriving the paradox of the ravens, Goodman's paradox, the paradoxes of derived obligation, etc. The questions whether these paradoxes depend essentially on the use of classical logic and whether they can be avoided by using intuitionistic or minimal logic are considered.     

Genetic and Environmental Influences on Personality: A Study of Twins Reared Together Using the Self- and Peer Report NEO-FFI Scales

ABSTRACT Previous behavior-genetic research on personality has been almost exclusively based on self-report questionnaire measures. The purpose of this research was to measure personality constructs via self- and peer reports on the items of the NEO Five-Factor Inventory (Costa & McCrae, 1989). The sample included 660 monozygotic and 200 same sex and 104 opposite sex dizygotic twin pairs. We collected self- and two independent peer reports for each of the twins. Our analysis of self-report data replicates earlier findings of a substantial genetic influence on the Big Five (h²= .42 to .56). We also found this influence for peer reports. Our results validate findings based solely on self-reports. However, estimates of genetic contributions to phenotypic variance were substantially higher when based on peer reports (h²= .51 to .81) or self- and peer reports (h²= .66 to .79) because these data allowed us to separate error variance from variance due to nonshared environmental in-fluences. Correlations between self- and peer reports reflected the same genetic influences to a much higher extent than identical environmental effects.