When ethics create misfit: Combined effects of despotic leadership and Islamic work ethic on job performance,job satisfaction,and psychological well-being

This study applies social exchange and person–environment fit theories to predict that despotic leaders tend to hinder employee job performance, job satisfaction, and psychological well-being, whereas employees' own Islamic work ethic (IWE) enhances these outcomes. Also, IWE moderates the relationship of despotic leadership with the three outcomes, such that it heightens the negative impacts, because employees with a strong IWE find despotic leadership particularly troubling. A multi-source, two-wave, time-lagged study design, with a sample (303 paired responses) of employees working in various organisations, largely supports these predictions. Despotic leadership and IWE relate significantly to job performance, job satisfaction and psychological well-being in the predicted directions, except that there is no significant relationship between IWE and job satisfaction. A test of moderation shows that the negative relationships of despotic leadership with job outcomes are stronger when IWE is high. These findings have pertinent implications for theory, as well as for organisational practice.     

Interaction of semantic and perceptual processes in repetition blindness

Two experiments examined the effect of activation of higher-level semantic representations on lower-level perceptual representations. A forced-choice discrimination paradigm was used, a method known to produce repetition blindness (RB) for words unconfounded by memory demands or response bias. In Experiment 1, equivalent reductions in RB (as measured by omission error rate and by d') occurred when successive word pairs were identical in: (1) form, pronunciation, and meaning (both uppercase versions of the same word); (2) pronunciation and meaning but not form (lowercase versus uppercase; lexical identity); and (3) pronunciation, but not form or meaning (homonyms; phonological identity), relative to when the words were unrelated on all dimensions. The RB effect was markedly attenuated, but not eliminated, when the words were semantically related. Similar results were obtained in Experiment 2 using a larger group of subjects. These findings show that higher-order semantic representations can have a top-down influence on judgements based on lower-order perceptual representations. The results are discussed within the framework of a cascade model of object processing in the human brain.     

Neural Correlates of Age-related Reduction in Visual Motion Priming

ABSTRACT

Previously we reported that priming of visual motion perception is reduced in older adults compared to younger adults (Jiang, Greenwood, & Parasuraman, 1999 Jiang, Y., Greenwood, P. and Parasuraman, R. 1999. Age-related reduction in 3-D motion priming. Psychology and Aging, 14(4): 619–626.  [Google Scholar], Psychology and Aging, 14(4), 619; Jiang, Luo, & Parasuraman, 2002b Jiang, Y., Luo, Y. J. and Parasuraman, R. 2002b. Two-dimensional visual motion priming is reduced in older adults. Neuropsychology, 16(2): 140–145.  [Google Scholar], Neuropsychology, 16(2), 140). To examine the neural mechanisms underlying this age-related effect, event-related brain potentials (ERPs) were recorded during perceptual judgments of motion directions by younger and older adults in two experiments. When judging single-step motion, both younger and older adults evoked significantly larger ERP late positive component (LPC) responses to unambiguous motion compared to LPC responses elicited by ambiguous motion. In contrast, compared to the younger adults, the older adults evoked comparable but delayed ERP responses to single motion steps. In the second experiment the younger and older groups judged the directions of two successive motion-steps (either motion priming or motion reversals). Under short (200–400 ms) stimulus onset asynchrony (SOA), the difference between the ERP responses to priming and reversal conditions was significantly larger for the younger than for the older adults. This study provides the first electrophysiological evidence that brain aging leads to delayed processing of single motion direction and visual motion priming as early as 100 ms in the early visual cortex. Age-related changes in strength and temporal characteristics of neural responses in temporal-parietal regions were particularly pronounced in older adults when successive motion signals are placed closely in time, within 400 ms.     

Emotion as patheception

Emotions cannot be fully understood in purely cognitive terms. Nor can they be fully understood as mere feelings with no content. But it has not been easy to give an account of the relation of affect and cognition in a way that preserves the perceived unity of emotional experience. Consequently, emotion theories tend to lean either toward cognitivism, or, alternatively, the view that emotions are basically non-cognitive affairs. The aim of this paper is to argue for an account of emotion as a unity of affect and cognition. Emotions, it will be suggested, do not combine, blend, add, or causally relate cognition to affect, or affect to cognition, but are rather original unities which should be viewed as coordinate with, rather than subordinate to, either cognition, perception, feeling, or any other basic mental category.     

Event-related cerebral hemodynamics reveal target-specific resource allocation for both “go” and “no-go” response-based vigilance tasks

Transcranial Doppler sonography was used to measure cerebral blood flow velocity (CBFV) in the right and left cerebral hemispheres during the performance of a 50-min visual vigilance session. Observers monitored a simulated flight of unmanned aerial vehicles for cases in which one of the vehicles was flying in an inappropriate direction relative to its cohorts. Two types of vigilance tasks were employed: a traditional task in which observers made button press (“go”) responses to critical signals, and a modification of the traditional task called the Sustained Attention to Response Task (SART) in which “go” responses acknowledged nonsignal events and response withholding (“no-go”) signified signal detection. Signal detections and global CBFV scores declined over time. In addition, fine-grained event-related analyses revealed that the detection of signals was accompanied by an elevation of CBFV that was not present with missed signals. As was the case with the global scores, the magnitude of the transient CBFV increments associated with signal detection also declined over time, and these findings were independent of task type. The results support the view of CBFV as an index of the cognitive evaluation of stimulus significance, and a resource model of vigilance in which the need for continuous attention produces a depletion of information-processing assets that are not replenished as the task progresses. Further, temporal declines in the magnitude of event-related CBFV in response to critical signals only is evidence that the decrement function in vigilance is due to attentional processing and not specific task elements such as the required response format.     

Introduction to The Philosopher as Public Intellectual

This introductory essay offers a general survey of some of the conceptual and normative issues that arise with respect to the philosopher as a public intellectual, arguing that philosophers should be public intellectuals. It also briefly introduces the themes of the essays that follow.     

The role of memory representation in the vigilance decrement

Working memory load is critically important for the overall level of performance on vigilance tasks. However, its role in a key aspect of vigilance—sensitivity decrement over time—is unclear. We used a dual-task procedure in which either a spatial or a nonspatial working memory task was performed simultaneously with a spatial vigilance task for 20 min. Sensitivity in the vigilance task declined over time when the concurrent task involved spatial working memory. In contrast, there was no sensitivity decrement with a nonspatial working memory task. The results provide the first evidence of a specific role for working memory representation in vigilance decrement. The findings are also consistent with a multiple resource theory in which separate resources for memory representation and cognitive control operations are differentially susceptible to depletion over time, depending on the demands of the task at hand.     

Neural correlates of age-related reduction in visual motion priming

Previously we reported that priming of visual motion perception is reduced in older adults compared to younger adults (Jiang, Greenwood, & Parasuraman, 1999, Psychology and Aging, 14(4), 619; Jiang, Luo, & Parasuraman, 2002b, Neuropsychology, 16(2), 140). To examine the neural mechanisms underlying this age-related effect, event-related brain potentials (ERPs) were recorded during perceptual judgments of motion directions by younger and older adults in two experiments. When judging single-step motion, both younger and older adults evoked significantly larger ERP late positive component (LPC) responses to unambiguous motion compared to LPC responses elicited by ambiguous motion. In contrast, compared to the younger adults, the older adults evoked comparable but delayed ERP responses to single motion steps. In the second experiment the younger and older groups judged the directions of two successive motion-steps (either motion priming or motion reversals). Under short (200-400 ms) stimulus onset asynchrony (SOA), the difference between the ERP responses to priming and reversal conditions was significantly larger for the younger than for the older adults. This study provides the first electrophysiological evidence that brain aging leads to delayed processing of single motion direction and visual motion priming as early as 100 ms in the early visual cortex. Age-related changes in strength and temporal characteristics of neural responses in temporal-parietal regions were particularly pronounced in older adults when successive motion signals are placed closely in time, within 400 ms.