The attentional blink: Resource depletion or temporary loss of control?

Identification of the second of two targets is impaired if it is presented less than about 500 ms after the first. Theoretical accounts of this second-target deficit, known as attentional blink (AB), have relied on some form of limited attentional resource that is allocated to the leading target at the expense of the trailing target. Three experiments in the present study reveal a failure of resource-limitation accounts to explain why the AB is absent when the targets consist of a stream of three items belonging to the same category (e.g., letters or digits). The AB is reinstated, however, if an item from a different category is inserted in the target string. This result, and all major results in the AB literature, is explained by the hypothesis that the AB arises from a temporary loss of control over the prevailing attentional set. This lapse in control renders the observer vulnerable to an exogenously-triggered switch in attentional set.     

组织中的社会阻抑:概念界定、影响结果和形成机制

社会阻抑是指长期的、蓄意地妨碍个体积极人际关系的建立和维持,影响个体在工作上的成功及良好名誉的行为.文章在介绍社会阻抑概念和测量的基础上,综述了社会阻抑在心理健康、自我效能感等个人层面和组织氛围层面的消极影响;接着阐明了个体对社会阻抑行为的实施和反应一方面受到人格、认知等内在因素的影响,另一方面也受到社会情境、社会支持等外在因素的影响.未来研究需进一步加强对社会阻抑概念、测量、研究方法、影响因素等方面的深入探讨.     

Perceived Distributive Fairness of European Transfer Payments and EU‐Taxes in Austria,the Czech Republic,and the United Kingdom

The present research compared a distributive fairness model of EU transfer payments (Hartner, Rechberger, Kirchler, & Wenzel, 2011) between three countries: Austria, the Czech Republic, and the UK. The model postulates an interplay between EU‐tax compliance, distributive fairness, outcome favorability as well as national and European identification. Results across countries showed that EU‐tax compliance was positively related to distributive justice, which was in turn related to outcome favorability and identification. National identifiers perceived EU membership as unfavorable in financial and socio‐political terms, and thus considered the transfer payments as less fair. Dual identifiers perceived the socio‐political outcomes as more favorable, and thus evaluated the transfer payments as fairer. Although the basic structure of the model was valid across all three countries, two country‐specific results were found. First, in the UK individual tax paying behavior was influenced by outcome favorability, whereas in Austria and the Czech Republic this relationship was mediated via distributive fairness. Second, in the Austrian sample, the differentiation between patriots and nationalists proved fruitful since nationalists considered the EU transfer payments as unfair, unlike patriots. In the UK and the Czech Republic the distinction between nationalists and patriots did not add any further information.     

Can probability theory explain why closure is both intuitive and prone to counterexamples?

Epistemic closure under known implication is the principle that knowledge of \(\varphi\) and knowledge of \(\varphi \rightarrow \psi\), together, imply knowledge of \(\psi\). This principle is intuitive, yet several putative counterexamples have been formulated against it. This paper addresses the question, why is epistemic closure both intuitive and prone to counterexamples? In particular, the paper examines whether probability theory can offer an answer to this question based on four strategies. The first probability-based strategy rests on the accumulation of risks. The problem with this strategy is that risk accumulation cannot accommodate certain counterexamples to epistemic closure. The second strategy is based on the idea of evidential support, that is, a piece of evidence supports a proposition whenever it increases the probability of the proposition. This strategy makes progress and can accommodate certain putative counterexamples to closure. However, this strategy also gives rise to a number of counterintuitive results. Finally, there are two broadly probabilistic strategies, one based on the idea of resilient probability and the other on the idea of assumptions that are taken for granted. These strategies are promising but are prone to some of the shortcomings of the second strategy. All in all, I conclude that each strategy fails. Probability theory, then, is unlikely to offer the account we need.     

The role of observer strategy in the single-target AB paradigm

Identification of the second of two targets (T1, T2) inserted in a stream of distractors is impaired when presented 200–500 ms after the first (attentional blink, AB). An AB-like effect has been reported by Nieuwenstein, Potter, and Theeuwes, Journal of Experimental Psychology: Human Perception and Performance, 35, 159-169, (2009, Experiment 2), with a distractor stream that contained only one target and a gap just before the target. Nieuwenstein et al. hypothesized that the gap enhanced the salience of the last distractor, causing it to be processed much like T1 in conventional AB studies. This hypothesis can also account for Lag-1 sparing (enhanced target performance when presented directly after the last distractor, without an intervening gap). We propose an alternative account of the Lag-1 sparing in the single-target paradigm based on observer strategy, and test it by presenting the single-target and dual-target conditions to separate groups (Experiment 2) instead of mixed across trials (Experiment 1 and Nieuwenstein et al.'s study). The single-target condition exhibited Lag-1 sparing when it was mixed with the dual-target condition, but Lag-1 deficit when it was done in isolation. This outcome is consistent with an observer-strategy account but not with an enhanced salience account of the Lag-1 sparing effect in the single-target condition.