Comparing two perceived characteristics of autobiographical memory: Memory detail and accessibility

Four samples of participants recalled autobiographical memories. While some evidence emerged from regression analyses suggesting that judgements of the amount of detail contained in each memory and judgements of the ease with which events could be recalled were partially independent, the analyses generally showed that these judgements were similarly predicted by various event characteristics (age, typicality, self-importance, emotional intensity at event occurrence, rehearsal types). Co-occurrence frequency data yielded similar conclusions, showing that while ease ratings and detail ratings occasionally diverged, they were more often consistent with each other. Finally, the data also suggested that events that prompted emotional ambivalence were not judged to be more easily recalled, or to contain more detail, than non-ambivalent events.     

Against One Form of Judgment-Determinism

Taking 'rationalized judgments' to be those formed by inference from other judgments, I argue against 'Extreme Determinism': the thesis that theoretical rationalization just is a kind of predetermination of 'conclusion-judgments' by 'premise-judgments'. The argument rests upon two key lemmas: firstly, that a deliberator - in this case, his/her assent to some proposition - to be predetermined (I call this the 'Openness Requirement'): secondly, that a subject's logical insight into his/her premise-judgments must enter into the explanation of any judgment s/he forms that is rationalized by those judgments. My contention is that, given the Openness Requirement, no version of Extreme Determinsim can allow for the role played by logical insight in the rationalization of judgment. I end by indicating briefly how this result might figure in a wider argument against any form of determinism about rationalized judgment, and by explaining why I have focused specifically upon rebutting a deterministic view of theoretical as opposed to 'practical' rationalization.     

Stained Hands: Commentary on Paper by Gillian Straker

I attempt, in this discussion, to deconstruct the jouissance present in the witnessing of a deliberate annihilation of a human being. I propose that the crisis in the analyst's subjectivity is linked to an unconscious identification with that which is most abhorrent and unacceptable. The unknowability of trauma ensures that its presence will be enacted in a complex system of mutual influence between analyst and patient in which the roles of victim, perpetrator and bystander oscillate between and within the participants. Taking the discussion to the broader sociopolitical level, I make an analogy between the destructiveness of the South African regime under apartheid and the current destructiveness of the U.S. engaging in a pre-emptive war. In a similar way to how Straker may feel contaminated by her patient's complicity in annihilation, so too are we contaminated by the atrocities perpetuated in the name of our country, even if they are policies we condemn.     

Mind,Soul and Spirit: Conceptions of Immaterial Identity in Different Cultures

The cognitive science of religion has recently focused attention on whether concepts of mind, soul, and spirit derive from the same or different intuitive foundations of immaterial identity. The present research is the first to look at intuitions about these three concepts simultaneously in different cultures. Methodologically, hypothetical transplants or transfers of minds or brains have been commonly used to examine the development of inferences about the continuity of mental identity despite bodily displacement. The present research extends the transfer paradigm to compare inferences about transfers of “soul” and “spirit” as well as the “mind.” American, Brazilian, and Indonesian undergraduate participants were presented with a series of scenarios in which a character's soul, mind, or spirit is transferred to another character's body. Participants made judgments about the consequences of such transfers on behaviors selected to potentially differentiate underlying intuitive categories. Results indicate that intuitions of soul, spirit, and mind do appear to draw from different but overlapping intuitions, which are recruited in different ways depending on religion and country. For American and Indonesian participants, the mind transfer was judged more often to result in a displacement of cognitive attributes compared to bodily, social, and moral attributes. Across the three countries, the transfer of spirit led more frequently to judgments about displacement of passion than of ability; religiosity was associated with giving more weight to the transfer of the soul, thus resulting in a greater displacement of all types of attributes. The results emphasize the importance of considering how different intuitive foundations, such as essentialism, intuitive psychology, and vitalism, might be recruited by culture to highlight different aspects of immaterial identity.     

Unconscious and out of control: Subliminal priming is insensitive to observer expectations

We asked whether the influence of an invisible prime on movement is dependent on conscious movement expectations. Participants reached to a central target, which triggered a directional prime–mask arrow sequence. Participants were instructed that the visible arrows (masks) would most often signal a movement modification in a specific (biased) direction. Kinematic analyses revealed that responses to the visible mask were influenced by participants’ intentional bias, as movements were fastest when the more probable mask was displayed. In addition, responses were influenced by the invisible prime without regard to its relationship to the more probable mask. Analysis of the time of initial trajectory modifications revealed that both primes influenced responses in a similar manner after accounting for participants’ bias. These results imply that invisible stimuli automatically activate their associated responses and that unconscious priming of the motor system is insensitive to the conscious expectations of the participant making the pointing movements.     

How immigrant adolescents' self‐views in school and family context relate to academic success in Germany

Immigrants' sense of self can be derived both from being members of their ethnic in‐group and their country of residence. We examined how the ways in which immigrant adolescents integrate these self‐views in relation to academic success in German schools. Students describe themselves at school and when with family. Using a standardized literacy performance test, analyses revealed that immigrants whose school‐related self‐view did not include Germany were less successful: Students who described their self as including both aspects of their ethnic group and Germany, and students who saw themselves predominantly as German, outperformed students with purely ethnic school‐related selves. As expected, though, an ethnic family‐related self‐view did not have a negative impact on scholastic achievements.     

A Visual Representation and the Control of Manual Aiming Movements

Three experiments were conducted to determine if a representation of the movement environment is functional in the organization and control of limb movements, when direct visual contact with the environment is prevented. In Experiment 1, a visual rearrangement procedure was employed to show that a representation of the environment that provides inaccurate information about the spatial location of a target can disrupt manual target aiming. In Experiment 2, we demonstrated that spatial information about the position of a target can be destroyed by a visual pattern mask, supporting our claim that the representation is visual. A target-cuing procedure was used in Experiment 3 to show that representation of target position can be useful for premovement organization in a targetaiming task. Together our findings suggest that a short-lived visual representation of the movement environment may serve a useful role in the organization and control of limb movements.     

An Analysis of Motor Coordination Components for Various Localization Tasks

Localization abilities of subjects in three perceptual-motor tasks were considered before and after an exposure to a visual distortion. During this distortion the subject observed his hand ballistically point to an invisible but audible target while either receiving or not receiving knowledge of results (KR) concerning pointing accuracy. Also, subjects either received a 1-or a 4-sec rest period between each of 30 exposure ballistic pointing actions. The pre-and postexposure tasks involved the ability of a subject to accurately point to an occluded and stationary auditory target, to point to the straight-ahead position in space, and to indicate when a moving, auditory target was perceived as being in the straight-ahead position. For these tasks, the pre-vs. postexposure localization difference scores are referred to as the negative aftereffect, the proprioceptive shift, and the auditory shift, respectively. Wilkinson’s (1971) two-component additive model (negative aftereffect= proprioceptive shift plus auditory shift) held when KR was given regardless of amount of rest between exposure pointing responses. With a 4-sec rest and no KR, the relationship between coordination components was nonadditive (negative aftereffect greater than proprioceptive shift plus auditory shift).     

Social problem solving in early childhood: Developmental change and the influence of shyness

The purpose of this study was to examine developmental change and the influence of shyness on social problem-solving (SPS). At 24, 36, and 48 months, children (N = 570) were observed while interacting with an unfamiliar peer during an SPS task and at 24 months, maternal report of shyness was collected. Results showed that across the full sample, children displayed low but stable levels of withdrawn SPS and increasing levels of SPS competence over development. In addition, results showed multiple trajectories of withdrawn and competent SPS. Shyness was associated with high-increasing and high-decreasing withdrawn SPS trajectories compared with the low-increasing withdrawn SPS trajectory. Shyness was also associated with the low-increasing compared with the high-increasing SPS competence trajectory. Findings demonstrate the development of SPS competence over early childhood, and the influence of early shyness on this developmental course, with some shy children showing improvement in SPS skills and others continuing to show SPS difficulties over time.