The influence of external stimulation in missing knowledge retrieval

We investigated the effects of sensory reduction on the retrieval of information during tip-of-the-tongue (TOT) experiences. As conscious access results from severe competition in which external stimuli often have priority, we hypothesised that reducing external stimulation would allow individuals greater access to weakly activated inner knowledge. In Study 1, when participants experienced a TOT while answering a general knowledge question, they were given additional time to find the solution in a restricted (eyes closed?+?silence) or a non-restricted (eyes open?+?ambient noise) external stimulation environment. Results indicated that knowledge was more often retrieved when external stimulation was restricted than when not restricted. This result was replicated in a second study. Using an independent manipulation of the level of auditory and visual stimulation, Study 2 also indicated that the presence of visual stimulation was more disruptive for TOT resolution than the presence of auditory stimulation. Overall, the findings suggest that sensory restriction (especially of visual stimuli) facilitates the retrieval of weakly accessible knowledge through a greater processing of inner stimuli.     

Skin Tone,Crime News,and Social Reality Judgments: Priming the Stereotype of the Dark and Dangerous Black Criminal1

An experiment examined the extent to which viewers’ emotional discomfort with a crime story and perceptions and memorability of a perpetrator and victim could be influenced by the race and skin tone of the perpetrator portrayed in a newscast. Participants were exposed either to a White, light–skinned Black, medium–skinned Black, or dark–skinned Black perpetrator. In addition, participants provided self–reports of their news viewing habits. Results revealed that heavy television news viewers were more likely than light viewers to feel emotional discomfort after being exposed to the dark–skinned Black perpetrator. Heavy news viewers also had favorable perceptions of the victim when the perpetrator was Black, regardless of skin tone. Results also indicated that all participants, regardless of prior news exposure, found the perpetrator more memorable when the perpetrator was a dark–skinned Black male. The methodological and theoretical implications of these findings are discussed.     

Regulatory fit effects on stimulus identification

This article examines the effects of a fit between a person's global regulatory focus and the local task reward structure on perceptual processing and judgment. On each trial, participants were presented with one of two briefly presented stimuli and were asked to identify it. Participants were placed in a promotion focus (a situationally induced sensitivity to gains) or a prevention focus (a situationally induced sensitivity to losses) and were asked to maximize gains or minimize losses. An asymmetric payoff ratio biased the overall reward toward one identification response over the other. Two experiments tested the role of regulatory fit when internal familiarity and perceptual sensitivity were low or high. When familiarity and sensitivity were low, participants in a regulatory fit (promotion focus with gains or a prevention focus with losses) showed greater perceptual sensitivity but no response bias differences, relative to participants in a regulatory mismatch. When familiarity and sensitivity were high, participants in a regulatory fit showed a response bias toward the high-payoff stimulus but no differences in perceptual sensitivity. Speculations are offered on the neurobiological basis of this effect, as well as implications of this work for clinical disorders such as depression.     

Longitudinal associations between children's understanding of emotions and theory of mind

Theory of mind competence and knowledge of emotions were studied longitudinally in a sample of preschoolers aged 3 (n=263) and 4 (n=244) years. Children were assessed using standard measures of theory of mind and emotion knowledge. Three competing hypotheses were tested regarding the developmental associations between children's theory of mind abilities and their knowledge of emotions. First, that an understanding of emotion develops early and informs children's understanding of others' thinking. Alternatively, having a basic theory of mind may help children learn about emotions. Third, that the two domains are separate aspects of children's social cognitive skills such that each area develops independently. Results of hierarchical regressions supported the first hypothesis that early emotion understanding predicts later theory-of-mind performance, and not the reverse.     

The role of forgetting rate in producing a benefit of expanded over equal spaced retrieval in young and older adults

The current study examined the effects of two manipulations on equal and expanded spaced retrieval schedules in young and older adults. First, we examined the role that the type of expansion (systematic vs. nonsystematic) has in producing a benefit of expanded retrieval. Second, we examined the influence of an immediate retrieval attempt to minimize forgetting after the original encoding event. It was predicted that including multiple retrieval attempts with minimal intervening spacing (best accomplished in a nonsystematic retrieval schedule) would be necessary to produce a benefit of expanded retrieval over equal spaced retrieval for older adults but not young adults due to age differences in working memory capacity. Results from two experiments revealed that the presence of an expanded over equal spaced retrieval benefit is modulated by the extent to which the spacing conditions minimize forgetting in the early retrieval attempts in the spaced conditions. As predicted, these conditions differ substantially across young and older adults. In particular, in older adults two intervening items between early retrieval attempts produce dramatic rates of forgetting compared to one intervening item, whereas younger adults can maintain performance up to five intervening events in comparable conditions. Discussion focuses on age differences in short term forgetting, working memory capacity, and the relation between forgetting rates and spaced retrieval schedules.     

Enjeux majeurs de santé publique versus autonomie personnelle : le cas spécifique de l’obligation vaccinale

While the triple individual, altruistic and collective dimension of the preventive vaccination obligation serves a major public health objective, it only prevents such a choice by public authorities, by imposing a constraint on individuals and thus violating several of their fundamental rights, from going against personal freedom. The first question raised is then that of the legitimacy of such a policy. Could less coercive means, and therefore less intrusive on fundamental rights and freedoms, not be deployed? If not, at what risk alert threshold(s) could the vaccination obligation be justified?     

Lived Body vs Gender: Reflections on Social Structure and Subjectivity

Toril Moi has argued that recent deconstructive challenges to the concept of gender and to the viability of the sex/gender distinction have brought feminist and queer theory to a place of increasing theoretical abstraction. She suggests that we should abandon the category of gender once and for all, because it is founded on a nature–culture distinction and it tends incorrigibly to essentialize women's lives. Moi argues that feminist and queer theories should replace the concept of gender with a concept of the lived body derived from existential phenomenology. In this essay I take up and develop this suggestion, and argue that there are several advantages that a category of the lived body has over a category of gender for feminist and queer theories: (1) no nature–culture distinction is necessary but the body can be described as historically and socially specific; (2) it is not necessary to break out a gendered and "raced" part of identity with this category; (3) differences of sexual desire can be described without recourse to an "inner core" of identity or "sexual orientation." I go on to argue, however, that it is important to retain a concept of gender for a theoretical purpose beyond that which Moi and those she criticizes conceive. In recent years feminist and queer theories have tended to conceive their theorizing as restricted to identity and subjectivity. How large scale social structures differentially position people in relations of privilege and disadvantage has been ignored, relatively. This essay argues then that theorizing structural processes and inequalities is crucial, and that a concept of gender is important for such theorizing. I propose three aspects of gendered social structure that are irreducible to one another: (1) a sexual division of labor (2) normative heterosexuality, and (3) hierarchies of power. In each case I illustrate the social theoretical work these categorizations of gendered structure can and should do.