Visual experience is not necessary for efficient survey spatial cognition: evidence from blindness

This study investigated whether the lack of visual experience affects the ability to create spatial inferential representations of the survey type. We compared the performance of persons with congenital blindness and that of blindfolded sighted persons on four survey representation-based tasks (Experiment 1). Results showed that persons with blindness performed better than blindfolded sighted controls. We repeated the same tests introducing a third group of persons with late blindness (Experiment 2). This last group performed better than blindfolded sighted participants, whereas differences between participants with late and congenital blindness were nonsignificant. The present findings are compatible with results of other studies, which found that when visual perception is lacking, skill in gathering environmental spatial information provided by nonvisual modalities may contribute to a proper spatial encoding. It is concluded that, although it cannot be asserted that total lack of visual experience incurs no cost, our findings are further evidence that visual experience is not a necessary condition for the development of spatial inferential complex representations.     

The role of appraisal in human emotions: a cross-cultural study.

Several theories of emotion propose that emotional responses are largely determined by the way events are appraised. To determine whether the proposed dimensions of appraisal are consistent across cultures, 973 Ss from the United States, Japan, Hong Kong, and the People's Republic of China were asked to describe emotional experiences. Few differences between the 3 cultures were observed on the more primitive dimensions (pleasantness, attentional activity, certainty, coping ability, and goal/need conduciveness) and on 2 of the more cognitively complex dimensions (legitimacy and norm/self compatibility). More substantial differences were observed on 3 other complex dimensions (control, responsibility, and anticipated effort). Considerable pan-cultural consistency was also observed in the dimensions of subjective experience of emotion and in the relations between these dimensions and cognitive appraisals.     

Caricature and face recognition

Although caricatures are often gross distortions of faces, they frequently appear to be super-portraits capable of eliciting recognition better than veridical depictions. This may occur because faces are encoded as distinctive feature deviations from a prototype. The exaggeration of these deviations in a caricature may enhance recognition because it emphasizes the features of the face that are encoded. In two experiments, we tested the superportrait hypothesis and the encoding-by-caricature hypothesis. In the first experiment, caricatures were recognized better than faces, and true caricatures of previously seen faces were recognized better than the faces from which the caricatures had been developed. In the second experiment, faces and their caricatures were tachistoscopically presented in a sequential same/different reaction time task. Subjects were slower to distinguish the stimuli when the face preceded its caricature, indicating that caricatures are more similar to the encoded representation of a face than are stimuli in which the distinctive features are deemphasized.     

Choice in a self-control paradigm: Quantification of experience-based differences

Previous quantitative models of choice in a self-control paradigm (choice between a larger, more-delayed reinforcer and a smaller, less-delayed reinforcer) have not described individual differences. Two experiments are reported that provide additional quantitative data on experience-based differences in choice between reinforcers of varying sizes and delays. In Experiment 1, seven pigeons in a self-control paradigm were exposed to a fading procedure that increased choices of the larger, more-delayed reinforcer through gradually decreasing the delay to the smaller of two equally delayed reinforcers. Three control subjects, exposed to each of the small-reinforcer delays to which the experimental subjects were exposed, but for fewer sessions, demonstrated that lengthy exposure to each of the conditions in the fading procedure may be necessary in order for the increase to occur. In Experiment 2, pigeons with and without fading-procedure exposure chose between reinforcers of varying sizes and delays scheduled according to a concurrent variable-interval variable-interval schedule. In both experiments, pigeons with fading-procedure exposure were more sensitive to variations in reinforcer size than reinforcer delay when compared with pigeons without this exposure. The data were described by the generalized matching law when the relative size of its exponents, representing subjects' relative sensitivity to reinforcer size and delay, were grouped according to subjects' experience.     

Differences in the effect of Pavlovian contingencies upon behavioral momentum using auditory versus visual stimuli.

We examined the role of Pavlovian and operant relations in behavioral momentum by arranging response-contingent alternative reinforcement in one component of a three-component multiple concurrent schedule with rats. This permitted the simultaneous arranging of different response-reinforcer (operant) and stimulus-reinforcer (Pavlovian) contingencies during three baseline conditions. Auditory or visual stimuli were used as discriminative stimuli within the multiple concurrent schedules. Resistance to change of a target response was assessed during a single session of extinction following each baseline condition. The rate of the target response during baseline varied inversely with the rate of response-contingent reinforcement derived from a concurrent source, regardless of whether the discriminative stimuli were auditory or visual. Resistance to change of the target response, however, did depend on the discriminative-stimulus modality. Resistance to change in the presence of visual stimuli was a positive function of the Pavlovian contingencies, whereas resistance to change was unrelated to either the operant or Pavlovian contingencies when the discriminative stimuli were auditory. Stimulus salience may be a factor in determining the differences in resistance to change across sensory modalities.     

What do humans feel with mistreated humans,animals, robots,and objects? Exploring the role of cognitive empathy

Motivation and Emotion - The aim of this paper is to present a study in which we compare the degree of empathy that a convenience sample of university students expressed with humans, animals,...     

Cross‐national comparisons of attitudes towards suicide and suicidal persons in university students from 12 countries

This paper reports the results of a comparative investigation of attitudes to suicide and suicidal persons in 5,572 university students from 12 countries. Participants filled out two scales measuring attitudes towards suicide and suicidal persons, a measure of psychological distress together with the questions about suicidal behavior. Results showed that the highest suicide acceptance scores were observed in Austrian, UK, Japanese and Saudi Arabian samples and the lowest scores were noted in Tunisian, Turkish, Iranian and Palestinian samples. While the highest social acceptance scores for a suicidal friend were noted in Turkish, US, Italian and Tunisian samples, the lowest scores were seen in Japanese, Saudi Arabian, Palestinian and Jordanian samples. Compared to participants with a suicidal past, those who were never suicidal displayed more internal barriers against suicidal behavior. Men were more accepting of suicide than women but women were more willing to help an imagined suicidal peer. Participants with accepting attitudes towards suicide but rejecting attitudes towards suicidal persons reported more suicidal behavior and psychological distress, and were more often from high suicide rate countries and samples than their counterparts. They are considered to be caught in a fatal trap in which most predominant feelings of suicidality such as hopelessness or helplessness are likely to occur. We conclude that in some societies such as Japan and Saudi Arabia it might be difficult for suicidal individuals to activate and make use of social support systems.     

Exercise commitment and proneness to eating disorders in a group of physical education teachers

The study examined the association of exercise commitment with proneness to eating disorders in 50 physical education teachers who had been practicing various aerobic sports at least three times a week for at least 5 years. Significant coefficients were found between Commitment to Exercise Scale scores, the number of weekly training sessions, and scores on the Eating Disorders Inventory-2 scales measuring Maturity Fears, Social Insecurity, Perfectionism, and Asceticism. However, no relationship was found between the Commitment to Exercise Scale and the Eating Disorders Inventory-2 variables measuring anorexic tendencies (such as Drive for Thinness, Body Dissatisfaction, and Bulimia). Findings suggest the presence of some psychological factors common to both anorexic tendencies and excessive exercising but not complete overlap, so a rather more complex pattern of relationships appears to be mediated by sex and personality characteristics.     

The phenomenology and cognitive neuroscience of experienced temporality

Phenomenology and the Cognitive Sciences - We discuss the three dominant models of the phenomenological literature pertaining to temporal consciousness, namely the cinematic, the retentional, and...