Color is necessary for face discrimination in the Northern paper wasp,Polistes fuscatus

Animal Cognition - Visual individual recognition requires animals to distinguish among conspecifics based on appearance. Though visual individual recognition has been reported in a range of taxa...     

The Disclosure–Intimacy Link in Computer‐Mediated Communication: An Attributional Extension of the Hyperpersonal Model

The present research investigated whether the attribution process through which people explain self‐disclosures differs in text‐based computer‐mediated interactions versus face to face, and whether differences in causal attributions account for the increased intimacy frequently observed in mediated communication. In the experiment participants were randomly assigned to a face‐to‐face or computer‐mediated interaction with a confederate who made either high‐ or low‐intimacy self‐disclosures. Results indicated that computer‐mediated interactions intensified the association between disclosure and intimacy relative to face‐to‐face interactions, and this intensification effect was fully mediated by increased interpersonal (relationship) attributions observed in the computer‐mediated condition. The article presents an attributional extension of the hyperpersonal model ( Walther, 1996 ) by demonstrating the role of causal attributions in interpersonal intensification processes in text‐based computer‐mediated interactions.     

Environmental context influences visually perceived distance

What properties determine visually perceived space? We discovered that the perceived relative distances of familiar objects in natural settings depended in unexpected ways onthe surrounding visual field. Observers bisected egocentric distances in a lobby, in a hallway, and on an open lawn. Three key findings were the following: (1) Perceived midpoints were too far from the observer, which is the opposite of the common foreshortening effect. (2) This antiforeshortening constant error depended on the environmental setting--greatest in the lobby and hall but nonsignificant on the lawn. (3) Context also affected distance discrimination; variability was greater in the hall than in the lobby or on the lawn. A second experiment replicated these findings, using a method of constant stimuli. Evidently, both the accuracy and the precision of perceived distance depend on subtle properties of the surrounding environment.     

Behavioral and electrical brain measures of semantic priming in patients with Alzheimer's disease: implications for access failure versus deterioration hypotheses

This study investigated the nature of anomia and semantic memory deficits in patients with Alzheimer's disease (DAT). We measured reaction time (RT) and the N400 event-related brain potential (ERP) in a word-picture semantic priming paradigm for DAT patients and elderly controls. For patients, pictures were classified as a function of the individual's naming ability to determine whether naming deficits reflected a failure to access a picture's name or reflected a deterioration of its semantic representation. As expected, DAT patients had significantly poorer naming performance than controls. For successfully named pictures, robust RT and ERP priming effects were obtained in both groups. In DAT patients, priming for unnamed pictures was heterogeneous. The results are discussed in terms of current hypotheses of semantic memory deficits in DAT.     

The medical student experience with disasters and disaster response

Medical students from New York City were integrally involved in the response by health professionals to aid the families of victims of the September 11, 2001, attacks on the World Trade Center. The present study was performed to investigate the emotional impact of this involvement on medical students from the Mount Sinai School of Medicine in New York City. One hundred fifty-seven students responded to a mail survey that explored their personal and professional involvement in the disaster as well as their psychiatric symptoms in the week after the event and at the time of the survey (3.5 months after the event). Findings suggested a differential emotional impact on female students and on students involved in less supervised and more emotionally intense activities. However, involvement in the relief effort, per se, did not contribute to psychiatric symptomatology. It may have been associated with enhanced professional self-esteem among the students. These findings have implications for future planning of psychiatric response to disasters.     

The role of subjective group memberships and perceptions of power in industrial conflict

A survey conducted with university academics (N = 187) investigated self‐reported behaviour, explanations, social identification and perceptions of power during a period of industrial disputation. The results point to the importance of subjective experience of group memberships rather than overt group memberships in understanding behaviour and perceptions of power during industrial conflict and demonstrate very little support for the idea that industrial action or inaction reflects coerced behaviour. Copyright © 2001 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Action planning in the presence of distracting stimuli: an investigation into the time course of distractor effects

Humans have a remarkable capability to respond efficiently to a stimulus of interest despite other stimuli competing for neural resources. The current study investigated how the human system copes with distracting stimuli. During each trial, participants viewed 2 sequential stimuli that were each associated with a specific action based on an arbitrary mapping. The 1st stimulus served as a distractor, and the 2nd stimulus required a response (target). When the distractor preceded the target by more than a few hundred milliseconds, response latencies were slower when the 2 stimuli were associated with the same response. The authors propose that this negative compatibility effect stemmed from an inhibitory mechanism that the human system utilizes to prevent the distractor from eliciting an unwanted response.