SPREADING OF VISUAL ATTENTION TO MODALLY VERSUS AMODALLY COMPLETED REGIONS

Abstract— Regions of objects that are partially obscured at the current retinal image are often perceptually filled in by the visual system (Kanizsa, 1979). In some cases (modal completion), this causes the filled-in region to appear tinged with the color and brightness of unobscured parts of that object, but m other cases (amodal completion), it does not (Michotte & Burke, 1951). It has recently been argued that modal and amodal completion both arise in preattentive vision, and may operate equivalently at that level (Davis & Driver, 1994, He & Nakayama, 1992, Shipley & Kellman, 1992). In this article, we show that they have different effects on attentive vision, with attention tending to spread to (and from) modally completed regions and their visible inducers, but not to (or from) comparable amodally completed regions and their inducers. This finding is consistent with visual attention operating on surfaces (e g, He & Nakayama, 1995) in a viewer-centered representation of the scene, after the operation of filling-in processes.     

Children‘s ability to remember an occurrence of a repeated event

The authors summarise the findings of four recent experiments whichexamined childrens capacity to remember a particular occurrence of arecurring event. Issues discussed include the timing of the interview, thetype of errors, the questioning techniques, the age of the child, theconsistency of the childs account, and the impact of an interveninginterview. Implications for professionals who conduct investigatory orevidentiary interviews with child witnesses are discussed and suggestionsfor future research are also offered.     

Social Values and Relationships with Parents among American College Women of Chinese and European Descent

This study compared social values and relationships with parents among American college women of Chinese and European descent. Chinese-American women scored higher on a measure of practicality and pragmatism (mastery), hierarchy, and traditionality. The Euro-American women showed a greater interest in voluntary prosocial behaviour and philanthropy. Both groups of women reported having a sense of self, autonomous of their parents. Within the Chinese-American group, ethnic identification and religion, but not generation, moderated scores on a measure of traditionality of outlook regarding issues of law and order and social equality. We discuss the implications of our findings for recent debates in cross-cultural psychology, including the growing challenge to the individualism-collectivism dimension.     

EFFECTS OF HIGH-PROBABILITY REQUESTS ON THE SOCIAL INTERACTIONS OF YOUNG CHILDREN WITH SEVERE DISABILITIES

High-probability requests were used to increase social interactions in 3 young boys with severe disabilities who had been identified as severely socially withdrawn. A multiple baseline design across participants was used to evaluate the effects of high-probability request intervention on (a) social initiations, (b) social responses, (c) continued interactions, and (d) performance of high- and low-probability requests. The students were observed in a second setting to examine generalization effects across peers who did not participate in the training sequence and settings. The results demonstrated that the high-probability requests increased the students' responsiveness to low-probability requests to initiate social behavior. Increases were also found in (a) unprompted initiations and extended interactions to the training peers, (b) unprompted initiations and extended interactions to peers who were not involved in the training procedure, and (c) generalized unprompted initiations and interactions in a second nontraining setting. The students maintained increased levels of initiations and interactions after all prompts were removed from both the training and nontraining settings.     

The Heritability of Characteristics Associated with Dispositional Empathy

ABSTRACT This investigation used data from Loehlin and Nichols's (1976) study of over 800 sets of twins to examine evidence for the heritability of three facets of empathy: empathic concern, personal distress, and perspective taking. Expert judges first identified sets of adjectives, included within Loehlin and Nichols's original data, which reflected each empathy construct; these items were then validated in an independent sample. Comparisons of the responses given to these items by identical and fraternal twins in the Loehlin and Nichols investigation revealed evidence of significant heritability for characteristics associated with the two affective facets of empathy—empathic concern and personal distress—but not for the nonaffective construct of perspective taking. This pattern is consistent with the view that temperamental emotionality may underlie the heritability of affective empathy.     

On the unavoidability of power in child-rearing: Is the language of rights educationally appropriate?

I am indebted to Graham Haydon for his help with the correct English wording of my thoughts.