On Principal Congruences in Distributive Lattices with a Commutative Monoidal Operation and an Implication

Studia Logica - In this paper we introduce and study a variety of algebras that properly includes integral distributive commutative residuated lattices and weak Heyting algebras. Our main goal is...     

The speed of recognition of personally familiar faces

Despite the generally accepted notion that humans are very good and fast at recognising familiar individuals from their faces, the actual speed with which this fundamental brain function can be achieved remains largely unknown. Here, two groups of participants were required to respond by finger-lift when presented with either a photograph of a personally familiar face (classmate), or an unfamiliar one. This speeded manual go/no-go categorisation task revealed that personally familiar faces could be categorised as early as 380 ms after presentation, about 80 ms faster than unfamiliar faces. When response times were averaged across all 8 stimulus presentations, we found that minimum RTs for both familiar and unfamiliar face decisions were substantially lower (310 ms and 370 ms). Analyses confirmed that stimulus repetition enhanced the speed with which faces were categorised, irrespective of familiarity, and that repetition did not affect the observed benefit in RTS for familiar over unfamiliar faces. These data, representing the elapsed time from stimulus onset to motor output, put constraints on the time course of familiar face recognition in the human brain, which can be tracked more precisely by high temporal resolution electrophysiological measures.     

“Der Weisheits letzter Schluss”? Wisdom’s Last Conclusion?

Unexpected empirical findings lead Schwarz (2009) to question current methodological approaches within psychology. He claims that distribution anomalies, which cannot be explained by independent variables, actually prove an error in classical test theory, which then leads him to criticize current scientific conventionalism. In this commentary, it is shown that the current university system not only uses, but often reproduces conventionalism. It is, of course, necessary to teach certain techniques and tools to future psychologists, but using these critically seem to be essential in preventing scientific approaches turn into ideologies that are or must not be questioned—even if this is sometimes less threatening to one’s identity as a scientist/psychologist. This is true for all sciences, but understanding the bio-psycho-social interdependencies of human nature (ambiguities), as Schwarz describes it, seems to be a particular challenge that is in many ways different from other disciplines. Instead of striving to be like them, it is suggested we establish an ambiguity-accepting and critical environment in psychology in which theories and approaches are not considered final but temporary to foster change and progress.

Genetic architecture of verbal abilities in children and adolescents

The etiology of individual differences in general verbal ability, verbal learning and letter and category fluency were examined in two independent samples of 9‐ and 18‐year‐old twin pairs and their siblings. In both age groups, we observed strong familial resemblance for general verbal ability and moderate familial resemblance for verbal learning, letter and category fluency. All familial resemblance was explained by genetic factors. There was significant covariance among the tests, which was stronger in magnitude in the adolescent cohort. The covariance was mainly explained by genetic effects shared by subtests, both in middle childhood and in late adolescence. In addition to a shared set of genes that influenced all phenotypes, there were also genetic influences specific to the different verbal phenotypes.     

Abstract modal logics

In this paper we develop a general framework to deal with abstract logics associated with a given modal logic. In particular we study the abstract logics associated with the weak and strong deductive systems of the normal modal logicK and its intuitionistic version. We also study the abstract logics that satisfy the conditionC ⁺(X)=C( _in I ⁿ X) and find the modal deductive systems whose abstract logics, in addition to being classical or intuitionistic, satisfy that condition. Finally we study the deductive systems whose abstract logics satisfy, in addition to the already mentioned properties, the property that the operatorC ⁺ is classical relative to some new defined operations.Work partially supported by Spanish DGICYT grant PB90-0465-C02-01.Presented byJan Zygmunt     

The Macintosh as a user-friendly laboratory for perception and cognition

We present a radically user-friendly Macintosh laboratory, MindLab, for instruction in perception and cognition. MindLab’s forte is its ability to display pictorial stimuli, including digitized photographs, transferred via the clipboard from Macintosh graphics applications. An experiment is programmed by specifying sequences of event primitives, represented by icons, to which stimuli, temporal parameters, and feedback options are assigned.     

Remembering the place with the tiger: Survival processing can enhance source memory

Rating the relevance of words for survival in the grasslands of a foreign land often leads to a memory advantage. However, it is as yet unclear whether the survival processing effect generalizes to source memory. Here, we examined whether people have enhanced source memory for the survival context in which an item has been encountered. Participants were asked to make survival-based or moving-based decisions about items prior to a classical source memory test. A multinomial model was used to measure old–new discrimination, source memory, and guessing biases separately. We replicated the finding of a survival advantage in old–new recognition. Extending previous results, we also found a survival-processing advantage in source memory. These results are in line with the richness-of-encoding explanation of the survival processing advantage and with an adaptive perspective on memory.     

Infrahumanization or familiarity? Attribution of uniquely human emotions to the self, the ingroup, and the outgroup

People attribute more secondary emotions to their ingroup than to outgroups. This effect is interpreted in terms of infrahumanization theory. Familiarity also could explain this differential attribution because secondary emotions are thought to be less visible and intense than primary ones. This alternative explanation to infrahumanization was tested in three studies. In Study 1, participants attributed, in a between-participants design, primary and secondary emotions to themselves, to their ingroup, or to an outgroup. In Study 2, participants answered for themselves and their ingroup or for themselves and an outgroup. In Study 3, participants made attributions to the ingroup or a series of outgroups varying in terms of familiarity. The data do not support an explanation in terms of familiarity. The discussion centers on conditions not conducting to infrahumanization.