Context-specific freezing and associated physiological reactivity as a dysregulated fear response

The putative association between fear-related behaviors and peripheral sympathetic and neuroendocrine reactivity has not been replicated consistently. This inconsistency was addressed in a reexamination of the characterization of children with extreme fearful reactions by focusing on the match between distress behaviors and the eliciting context. Eighty 24-month-old children were observed in 4 mildly threatening contexts, and the relations among different measures of fear-related behaviors, reactive and basal cortisol levels, and baseline cardiac measures of heart rate, respiratory sinus arrhythmia, and preejection period (PEP) were examined. The hypothesis that only behaviors under the less threatening context would be associated with higher cortisol and sympathetic cardiac activity was confirmed; only task-specific freezing behavior predicted higher reactive and basal cortisol levels and resting PEP measured 1 week later. Implications for the conceptualization of dysregulated fear behaviors in the classification of extremely fearful children are discussed.     

On language and the passage of time

Conclusion In short, the situation regarding language and the passage of time is this. A person may consistently hold either of the two views concerning time's special treatment in our ordinary language, LP and LNP, provided that that person holds the appropriate view from among several semantical views available. Each of these different semantical views, in turn, can be consistently maintained in such a way that it is not susceptible to arguments from the other side, provided that these arguments do not appeal to metaphysical considerations. But of course advocates of either The Linguistic Argument For SPT or The Linguistic Argument Against SPT may not appeal to metaphysical claims in defense of either LNP or LP, since these allegedly linguistic theses are to be used in arguments designed to prove just such metaphysical claims. Moreover, if the different parties to the dispute between LP and LNP do appeal to metaphysical considerations, then they may be able to develop non-circular, non-question-begging arguments for their respective linguistic theses. What those metaphysical considerations might be, and what arguments might be developed from them, are important topics to be considered, but I will not consider them here. The point of this paper has been to show that those who wish to debate the question of whether time passes cannot settle the debate merely by discussing linguistic matters.     

Introduction to the special issue on Bayesian journey-to-crime modelling

In this special issue of the Journal of Investigative Psychology and Offender Profiling, we explore a Bayesian approach to journey-to-crime (JTC) estimation with an emphasis on the statistical models used. The approach conceptualises the probability that an offender lives at one location as the product of the probability distribution from a JTC estimate along with the probability distribution of other offenders who committed crimes in the same locations. The Bayesian approach is appropriate as the second part is conditional on the first part. The introduction gives the background behind the methodology and suggests how future improvements can be made by integrating new information. Finally, the papers in the special issue are introduced. Copyright © 2009 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

If Mozart had Died at Your Age: Psychologic Versus Statistical Interence

In an alternative world, Mozart lived to 65 and, as a result, neither World War nor the Holocaust happened. Two contemporary Germans in this world debate the implications of the counterfactual of Mozart dying young and cannot begin to conceive of the horrors of our twentieth century. A imaginary critic with a structural orientation reviews the story and challenges its premise. He denies that artistic changes could have far-reaching political implications and uses the laws of probability to show the vanishingly low likelihood of the alternate future described by the main character of the story. The author responds with a defense of his counterfactual as an exercise in psychologic, where credibility is achieved through vividness.     

ATTENTION AND MENTAL PAINT1

Much of recent philosophy of perception is oriented towards accounting for the phenomenal character of perception—what it is like to perceive—in a non‐mentalistic way—that is, without appealing to mental objects or mental qualities. In opposition to such views, I claim that the phenomenal character of perception of a red round object cannot be explained by or reduced to direct awareness of the object, its redness and roundness—or representation of such objects and qualities. Qualities of perception that are not captured by what one is directly aware of or by representational content are instances of what Gilbert Harman has called “mental paint” ( Block, 1990 ; Harman, 1990 ). The claim of this paper is that empirical facts about attention point in the direction of mental paint. The argument starts with the claim (later modified) that when one moves one's attention around a scene while keeping one's eyes fixed, the phenomenology of perception can change in ways that do not reflect which qualities of objects one is directly aware of or the way the world is represented to be. These changes in the phenomenology of perception cannot be accounted for in terms of awareness of or representation of the focus of attention because they manifest themselves in experience as differences in apparent contrast, apparent color saturation, apparent size, apparent speed, apparent time of occurrence and other appearances. There is a way of coping with these phenomena in terms of vague contents, but vague contents cannot save direct realism or representationism because the kind of vagueness required clashes wth the phenomenology itself.     

Increased theft as a side effect of sales promotion activities: An exploratory study

A combination of commonly used promotional activities, i.e., advertising, price reductions and increased exposure, was associated with increased thefts of six candy products. Thefts increased for each of the six products during the period the combination of promotional activities was used. Large increases in sales were observed for only two of the products. Sales of the other four products increased marginally or decreased in conjunction with promotional activities. When compared to normal sales conditions, the period of promotional activities produced less net profit per week for five of the six products. The results are of interest to retailers since they indicate that promotional activities for some products may produce a negative side effect, namely, increased theft. Further, promotional activities may not always produce increased sales.     

Two neural correlates of consciousness

Neuroscientists continue to search for "the" neural correlate of consciousness (NCC). In this article, I argue that a framework in which there are at least two distinct NCCs is increasingly making more sense of empirical results than one in which there is a single NCC. I outline the distinction between phenomenal NCC and access NCC, and show how they can be distinguished by experimental approaches, in particular signal-detection theory approaches. Recent findings in cognitive neuroscience provide an empirical case for two different NCCs.     

Acute cortisol elevations cause heightened arousal ratings of objectively nonarousing stimuli

To test the effects of cortisol on affective experience, the authors orally administered a placebo, 20 mg cortisol, or 40 mg cortisol to 85 men. Participants' affective responses to negative and neutral stimuli were measured. Self-reported affective state was also assessed. Participants in the 40-mg group (showing extreme cortisol elevations within the physiological range) rated neutral stimuli as more highly arousing than did participants in the placebo and 20-mg groups. Furthermore, within the 20-mg group, individuals with higher cortisol elevations made higher arousal ratings of neutral stimuli. However, cortisol was unrelated to self-reported affective state. Thus, findings indicate that acute cortisol elevations cause heightened arousal in response to objectively nonarousing stimuli, in the absence of effects on mood.