Sensorimotor synchronization: Motor responses to regular auditory patterns

Subjects (N = 32) were asked to synchronize a motor response with tones in auditory patterns. These patterns were created from six tones and six intertone intervals of equal duration. The pitch of the first tone differed from the others. It was found that subjects used three types of timing in their motor response: (1) the first intertone interval was prolonged and the second interval was shortened, (2) the second intertone interval was prolonged and the first interval was shortened, and/or (3) the first interval and the second interval were of approximately the same length. The prolongation of the fifth interval was observed during all three types of timing. The results are explained using the concept of suprasegmental control of timing, which explains a prolongation of intervals at critical control point of the patterns. The occurrence of three different strategies of timing is discussed in connection with similar principles in musical performance.     

The effect of exercise on the selective performance of an instrumental response

Dogs were used to condition two instrumental reactions—bending of the left or of the right forepaw respectively. In the experimental situation a dish containing food was presented to the dog at a distance but could be drawn close and retained by lifting the forepaw to which (left or right) a lever had been attached. If both paws were simultaneously attached to levers, the dog had to choose between two reactions. Preliminary trials showed a right paw preference in spite of the equal effectiveness (food reinforcement) of the left paw. The aim of this experiment was to alter this right paw preference by a paradigm of differential practice with left paw dominance. The plan was to have ten training sessions followed by one test with choice. According to the probabilities, P_left = 0.8, P_right = 0.2, a random table was used to determine the order of the right-left paw attachments to the levers during training. In all, 1,000 training sessions and 100 tests with choice were carried out in each of three dogs. According to the training program, in every 100 training sessions the left paw had to perform the reaction a total of 80 times and 20 times by the right paw. An absolute alteration in paw preference occurred P_lelt = 1.0) even though both forepaws were equally effective in obtaining food reinforcement on the test trials. The present results indicate that not only the Law of Effect but Exercise is also important in instrumental conditioning.     

Analytic practice: Convergences and divergences1

The author discusses current convergences and divergences concerning analytic practice. After presenting a clinical vignette that can be understood differently according to different theoretical approaches, he discusses Wallerstein’s proposal of a common ground in psychoanalysis and suggests that the present state of the art indicates that psychoanalysis is a pluralistic discipline, with different ways of training and practising it, and that the main challenge is to improve our ability to listen to and to learn from different approaches.     

Observer memory and immunity to error through misidentification

Synthese - Are those judgments that we make on the basis of our memories immune to error through misidentification (IEM)? In this paper, I discuss a phenomenon which seems to suggest that they are...     

Correction to: Lambek Calculus with Conjugates

Studia Logica - We, the authors, would like to thank Guillaume Aucher for informing us of his “Displaying Updates in Logic”, published in the Journal of Logic and Computation,...     

Correction to: The Hahn Embedding Theorem for a Class of Residuated Semigroups

Studia Logica - Let $${\mathcal {O}}$$ be the class of odd involutive $$\hbox {FL}_e$$ -chains which admit finitely many idempotent elements. The price for describing the structure of such a rich...     

Revisiting Reichenbach’s logic

Synthese - In this paper we show that, when analyzed with contemporary tools in logic—such as Dunn-style semantics, Reichenbach’s three-valued logic exhibits many interesting features,...