Effect of stimulus intensity on manual and saccadic reaction time

Reaction time (RT) decreases with stimulus intensity. Hughes and Kesley (1984) demonstrated, however, that the effect of stimulus intensity on simple RT is larger for manual than for saccadic responses. We reexamined this relation under various conditions. The dissociation occurred when the task enabled the generation of exogenous saccades. We found, however, no dissociation if endogenous saccades had to be executed. It is hypothesized that the different effects of intensity result from the simplified neuronal processing of exogenous saccades performed in the direct route from the retina to the superior colliculus.     

The Role of Ease of Retrieval and Attribution in Memory Judgments: Judging Your Memory as Worse Despite Recalling More Events

Participants who had to recall 12 childhood events (a difficult task) were more likely to infer that they could not remember large parts of their childhood than participants who had to recall 4 events (an easy task), although the former recalled three times as many events. This pattern of results suggests that memory judgments are based on the experienced ease or difficulty of recall. Accordingly, the negative impact of recalling 12 events was attenuated when participants were led to attribute the experienced difficulty to the task rather than to the poor quality of their memory. The findings emphasize the role of subjective experiences and attribution in metamemory judgments.     

The relationship between latency of auditory evoked potentials,simple reaction time,and stimulus intensity

Summary The effects of loudness on the latency of evoked potentials and on simple reaction time were compared. It was found that both reaction time and the evoked-potential latency increases with decreasing stimulus intensity. However, different slopes of the curves were found. This is explained in terms of the arousal effect of loud auditory stimuli.     

On decision procedures for sentential logics

In Section 2 I give a criterion of decidability that can be applied to logics (i.e. Tarski consequence operators) without the finite model property. In Section 3 I study ukasiewicz-style refutation procedures as a method of obtaining decidability results.This method also proves to be more general than Harrop's criterion.     

Pareto simulated annealing—a metaheuristic technique for multiple-objective combinatorial optimization

This paper presents a multiple-objective metaheuristic procedure—Pareto simulated annealing. The goal of the procedure is to find in a relatively short time a good approximation of the set of efficient solutions of a multiple-objective combinatorial optimization problem. The procedure uses a sample, of so-called generating solutions. Each solution explores its neighbourhood in a way similar to that of classical simulated annealing. Weights of the objectives, used for their local aggregation, are tuned in each iteration in order to assure a tendency for approaching the efficient solutions set while maintaining a uniform distribution of the generating solutions over this set. A computational experiment shows that the method is a better tool for approximating the efficient set than some previous proposals. © 1998 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Social class and interpersonal trust: Partner's warmth,external threats and interpretations of trust betrayal

The present research investigated the effects of social class on interpersonal trust. In a series of experiments, we showed how the contextualist socio-cognitive tendencies of the lower class and the solipsistic tendencies of the upper class were reflected in their trusting attitudes and behaviors. In Study 1 (N = 491), upper class individuals expressed the same levels of trust towards all partners, while lower class individuals adjusted their trust choices to the affect-rich information about their interaction partner and trusted warm partners more than cold partners. The results of Study 2 (N = 210) showed that when threatened, lower class individuals had generally less trusting attitudes, while upper class members were equally trusting as in a neutral situation. Study 3 (N = 200) revealed that upper class individuals explained a betrayal of their trust with dispositional factors to a higher degree than lower class individuals. We discuss how these differences contribute to perpetuating the disadvantage of the lower class.     

Cn-Definitions of Propositional Connectives

We attempt to define the classical propositional logic by use of appropriate derivability conditions called Cn-definitions. The conditions characterize basic properties of propositional connectives.     

Perceptual learning can reverse subliminal priming effects

Masked primes presented prior to a target can result in inverse priming (i.e., benefits on trials in which the prime and the target are mapped onto opposite responses). In five experiments, time-of-task effects on subliminal priming of motor responses were investigated. First, we replicated Klapp and Hinkley's (2002) finding that the priming effect is initially straight (i.e., it benefits congruent trials, in which the prime and targets are mapped onto the same response) or absent, and only later reverses (i.e., faster responses in incongruent than in congruent trials). We show that the presentation of the mask plays a crucial role in this reversal and that the reversal occurs later if the mask pattern is very complex. We suggest that perceptual learning improves the recognition of task-relevant features. Once recognized, these features can trigger the preparation of the alternative response and/or inhibit the prime-activated response. These findings support an active role of the mask in priming.