Reversing how to think about ambiguous figure reversals: spontaneous alternating by uninformed observers

Ambiguous figures are a special class of images that can give rise to multiple interpretations. Traditionally, switching between the possible interpretations of an ambiguous figure, or reversing one's interpretation, has been attributed either to top-down or to bottom-up processes (e.g. attributed to having knowledge of the nature of the ambiguity, or to a form of neuronal fatigue). Here we present evidence that is incompatible with both forms of explanations. Observers aged 5-9 years can reverse ambiguous figures when uninformed about the ambiguity, negating purely top-down explanations. Further, those children who make these 'spontaneous' reversals are more likely to succeed on a high-order theory-of-mind task, negating purely bottom-up explanations.     

The persistence of object file representations

Coherent visual experience of dynamic scenes requires not only that the visual system segment scenes into component objects but that these object representations persist, so that an object can be identified as the same object from an earlier time. Object files (OFs) are visual representations thought to mediate such abilities: OFs lie between lower level sensory processing and higher level recognition, and they track salient objects over time and motion. OFs have traditionally been studied via object-specific preview benefits (OSPBs), in which discriminations of an object's features are speeded when an earlier preview of those features occurred on the same object, as opposed to on a different object, beyond general displaywide priming. Despite its popularity, many fundamental aspects of the OF framework remain unexplored. For example, although OFs are thought to be involved primarily in online visual processing, we do not know how long such representations persist; previous studies found OSPBs for up to 1500 msec but did not test for longer durations. We explored this issue using a modified object reviewing paradigm and found that robust OSPBs persist for more than five times longer than has previously been tested-for at least 8 sec, and possibly for much longer. Object files may be the "glue" that makes visual experience coherent not just in online moment-by-moment processing, but on the scale of seconds that characterizes our everyday perceptual experiences. These findings also bear on research in infant cognition, where OFs are thought to explain infants' abilities to track and enumerate small sets of objects over longer durations.     

The management of science and the mismanagement of the world

The truth of a scientific proposition, finding, or an abstract ethical principle is not a static property inherent in it. Truth happens as the result of the management of human affairs. It becomes true, is discovered and made true by actions. Its verity is in fact a series of actions, a process: the process of its implementation. Its validity is gained through what may generally be called “the management of truth: (C. West Churchman and Ian I. Mitroff). ... The truth of an idea is not a stagnant property inherent in it. Truth happens to an idea. It becomes true, is made true by events. Its verity is in fact an event, a process: the process namely of its verifying itself, its verification. Its validity is the process of its validation. William James This paper will also appear in the volumeThe Experimenting Society: Policy Essays in Honor of Donald T. Campbell. New Brunswick, N.J., Transaction Publishers, 1994 (in press).     

The provision of advocacy services to women leaving abusive partners: An examination of short-term effects

Examined the short-term impact of providing advocacy services to women leaving battered women's shelters. The study employed a true longitudinal experimental design. Women in the advocacy condition received intensive one-on-one services with trained paraprofessional advocates. Advocates assisted women in accessing needed community resources. Women in the control condition received no additional postshelter services. Findings corroborated earlier research suggesting that battered women lack many resources necessary for independent living and that working with advocates produced greater effectiveness in accessing needed resources. Ongoing research will examine the long-term impact on life satisfaction, future victimization, and living arrangements.     

Rare targets are rarely missed in correctable search

Failing to find a tumor in an x-ray scan or a gun in an airport baggage screening can have dire consequences, making it fundamentally important to elucidate the mechanisms that hinder performance in such visual searches. Recent laboratory work has indicated that low target prevalence can lead to disturbingly high miss rates in visual search. Here, however, we demonstrate that misses in low-prevalence searches can be readily abated. When targets are rarely present, observers adapt by responding more quickly, and miss rates are high. Critically, though, these misses are often due to response-execution errors, not perceptual or identification errors: Observers know a target was present, but just respond too quickly. When provided an opportunity to correct their last response, observers can catch their mistakes. Thus, low target prevalence may not be a generalizable cause of high miss rates in visual search.     

Space and time,not surface features,guide object persistence

Successful visual perception relies on the ability to keep track of distinct entities as the same persisting objects from one moment to the next. This is a computationally difficult process and its underlying nature remains unclear. Here we use the object file framework to explore whether surface feature information (e.g., color, shape) can be used to compute such object persistence. From six experiments we find that spatiotemporal information (location as a function of time) easily determines object files, but surface features do not. The results suggest an unexpectedly strong constraint on the visual system’s ability to compute online object persistence.     

Object files can be purely episodic

Our ability to track an object as the same persisting entity over time and motion may primarily rely on spatiotemporal representations which encode some, but not all, of an object's features. Previous researchers using the 'object reviewing' paradigm have demonstrated that such representations can store featural information of well-learned stimuli such as letters and words at a highly abstract level. However, it is unknown whether these representations can also store purely episodic information (i.e. information obtained from a single, novel encounter) that does not correspond to pre-existing type-representations in long-term memory. Here, in an object-reviewing experiment with novel face images as stimuli, observers still produced reliable object-specific preview benefits in dynamic displays: a preview of a novel face on a specific object speeded the recognition of that particular face at a later point when it appeared again on the same object compared to when it reappeared on a different object (beyond display-wide priming), even when all objects moved to new positions in the intervening delay. This case study demonstrates that the mid-level visual representations which keep track of persisting identity over time--e.g. 'object files', in one popular framework can store not only abstract types from long-term memory, but also specific tokens from online visual experience.     

The Way It Is and the Way It Could Be: Fear,Lessness and the Quest for Fearless Dialogues™

“Fearless Dialogues? is the Civil Rights Movement of the 21st century,” says Dr. Bernard Lafayette, an original Freedom Rider and internationally renowned human rights activist. This article examines the history and philosophy of a burgeoning movement called Fearless Dialogues?, which seeks to alter the perspective of how we see and hear those who are perceived to be marginal. Drawing wisdom from a hard, heartfelt conversation documented in Ralph Ellison’s essay, “The Way It Is,” this interdisciplinary article utilizes resources from 20th and 21st century mystics to examine four primary fears that stifle dialogue and introduces an attitude of “lessness” that is necessary to create perspectival change.