Intentionality and Interpersonal Relations

The present commentary re-introduces Heider’s (1958) common-sense psychology and his treatment of intentionality, comparing and contrasting his theoretical formulations with those of Elstrup (IPBS: Integrative Psychological & Behavioral Science 43:4, 2009). Special emphasis is made in all those aspects of Heider’s theory that are related to the perception, interpretation, prediction and control of our behavior and that of another person. Also, different social aspects of interpersonal relations are presented. Finally, some ideas regarding different approaches to the study of attributing are discussed.     

Tasty non-words and neighbours: The cognitive roots of lexical-gustatory synaesthesia

For lexical-gustatory synaesthetes, words trigger automatic, associated food sensations (e.g., for JB, the word slope tastes of over-ripe melon). Our study tests two claims about this unusual condition: that synaesthetic tastes are associated with abstract levels of word representation (concepts/lemmas), and that the first tastes to crystallise in early development are those triggered by food-names (e.g., apple tastes of apple; Simner & Ward, 2006). This concept/lemma-based proposal is difficult to immediately reconcile with the finding that non-words may also generate tastes (Ward, Simner, & Auyeung, 2005), since non-words have no concept/lemma representations. We manipulated the characteristics of non-words to provide three types of evidence that non-word tastes in fact stem from real word neighbours: Non-words with neighbours (e.g., keach) are more likely to generate tastes than those with no neighbours (e.g., vilps); pseudo-homophone non-words that are orthographically close to real words (e.g., peeple) are more likely to generate tastes than those that are more distant (baybee); and finally, the tastes of non-words are less consistent, and less intense, than those of real words. Additionally, we test the hypothesis that synaesthetic tastes develop initially from food-names by showing that non-words are more intensely flavoured if they are homophonic with food-names (e.g., toffie) versus non-foods (e.g., peeple). From this we conclude that synaesthetic tastes develop from food-names, and that tasty non-words do not challenge a concept/lemma-based account of lexical-gustatory synaesthesia.     

On the language specificity of basic number processing: transcoding in a language with inversion and its relation to working memory capacity

Transcoding Arabic numbers from and into verbal number words is one of the most basic number processing tasks commonly used to index the verbal representation of numbers. The inversion property, which is an important feature of some number word systems (e.g., German einundzwanzig [one and twenty]), might represent a major difficulty in transcoding and a challenge to current transcoding models. The mastery of inversion, and of transcoding in general, might be related to nonnumerical factors such as working memory resources given that different elements and their sequence need to be memorized and manipulated. In this study, transcoding skills and different working memory components in Austrian (German-speaking) 7-year-olds were assessed. We observed that inversion poses a major problem in transcoding for German-speaking children. In addition, different components of working memory skills were differentially correlated with particular transcoding error types. We discuss how current transcoding models could account for these results and how they might need to be adapted to accommodate inversion properties and their relation to different working memory components.     

Maternal Depression History Moderates the Association Between Criticism (but not Praise) and Depressive Symptoms in Youth

Research on Child and Adolescent Psychopathology - Children of mothers with past depression are at increased risk for developing the disorder themselves; however, the specific factors that increase...     

Correction to: Transformative experience and the shark problem

Philosophical Studies - In the original publication of the article     

保留的跨通道启动与老化：对于近期观点的总结

通道内重复启动的研究提示老年人内隐记忆未受损, 这不只体现在视觉通道上还包括其他感觉通道(例如触觉、听觉和嗅觉)。然而很少有研究考察启动任务是否具有通道特异性。在以年轻人为被试的研究中发现跨通道迁移(视觉到触觉和触觉到视觉)和通道内迁移(视觉到视觉, 触觉到触觉)具有相似性。一项最近的研究进一步探索老年人在跨通道启动任务上是否受损。结果显示视觉和触觉间的跨通道启动在年轻被试和老年被试上都是保留的且具有对称性。并且, 对于自然声响、图片的通道内和跨通道启动任务随着年老化发展仍旧保留。这些行为结果和其它最近神经科学结果显示跨通道启动发生于枕叶后纹状皮层区, 而这一区域在老年人中未损坏。这一领域未来的研究方向包括利用不同知觉通道间、利用熟悉的和新异的刺激并结合行为的和脑成像的方法, 通过设计完善的跨通道启动来研究正常老人与阿尔兹海默病人, 还包括将设计得完善的启动任务包括在用于改善老年人记忆功能的项目中。     

Interest and liking: Further sequential effects

This study was designed to investigate subjects’ interest and liking preferences for stimuli varying in type and level of familiarity. Subjects were presented with stimulus material in the form of slides, and were asked to view the slides firstly without instruction, and then twice more in order to rate the material for interest and liking. Half the subjects were asked to rate liking before interest, and half rated interest before liking. Results showed that interest ratings were relatively unaffected by the rating sequence, whereas ratings of liking were affected: when ratings of likingpreceded interest ratings, familiar items were preferred to less familiar items, but when ratings of liking were madeafter interest ratings, ratings of liking for less familiar items were preferred to more familiar items. This study forms part of the work of the Leicester Aesthetics Research Group. The work was supported by a grant from the Research Board, University of Leicester.     

Continuing in Mathematics: A Longitudinal Study of the Attitudes of High School Girls

The mathematics attitudes (determined by ratings on the Fennema-Sherman Mathematics Attitudes Scales) of ninth grade girls of similar intellect who subsequently took one to four years of college preparatory math were compared in 1975 and 1978 (n = 84). Math enrollment groups differed significantly on the following scales: Usefulness of Mathematics, Confidence in Learning Mathematics, Teacher (perceived attitude toward the student as a learner of mathematics), and Effectance Motivation in Mathematics as assessed both in Grades 9 and 12, and on the Math as a Male Domain Scale as assessed in Grade 12. From Grade 9 to 12, scores on the Attitude toward Success in Math Scale became significantly more positive.     

The effect of subject's race and other's race on judgments of causality for success and failure

This study examined the proposition that blacks and whites make dispositional attributions for an in-group's positive behaviors and an out-group's negative behaviors. The study also examined whether this positive in-group bias was caused by dislike of the out-group or belief in a stereotype. Thus, blacks and whites made attributions to black and white others who succeeded or failed on tasks for which there was either no stereotype or a more negative stereotype of whites than of blacks. An out-group other's failure on both tasks was attributed to lack of ability more than was an in-group other's failure. This finding suggests that the in-group bias is caused by dislike of the out-group. Furthermore, in success conditions subjects' attributions to the in-group or out-group other did not differ. It was suggested that these attributions may result from a combination of an in-group bias and a polarized appraisal.     

Complexity and colour preferences in chicks of different ages

Five- and six-day old chicks were found to prefer a complex stimulus to a simple one, whilst 2-day old ones showed no such preference; but a red stimulus, whether simple or complex, tended to be preferred at both age levels when it was paired with a non-coloured complex stimulus. Preference for complexity may be usefully viewed in any species in the context of the behavioural development of the individual.