Directionality of affective priming: effects of trait anxiety and activation level

Among the most influential models of automatic affective processing is the spreading activation account (Fazio, Sanbonmatsu, Powell, & Kardes, 1986). However, investigations of this model by different research groups using the pronunciation task in an affective priming paradigm yielded contradictory results. Whereas one research group reported congruency effects, another obtained reversed priming effects (contrast effects), and still another found null effects. In Experiment 1, we were able to show an influence of trait anxiety on the direction of the affective priming effect. By using a multiple priming paradigm in Experiment 2, we were able to link the occurrence of reversed priming effects to increased levels of activation of affective representations. We propose that this relation might underlie the influence of trait anxiety on the direction of affective priming effects. Both experiments indicate that automatic evaluation in an affective network is substantially moderated by personality traits and activation level.     

Darstellen und Rekonstruieren: Eine Hermeneutische Erwiderung auf Ian Hacking

Representing and Reconstructing: A Hermeneutical Reply to Ian Hacking. Hacking published in 1983 Representing and Intervening which has provoked, particularly in the US, the so called realism/anti-realism debate which is still alive today. He lays claim to anti-realism for theory and to realism for the experiment. Following him, only that which can be used for manipulating something (e.g., the path of an electon) is realistic. H. Putnam is a severe critic of this dualism. In my paper I am going to take the Hacking-Putnam controversy as a starting-point for the problem about the determination of the relation between theory and experiment in the natural sciences. I shall then follow M. Schlick's discussion of this problem and the current solution to the problem as offered by H. Pietschmann. The differing interpretation of Kant according to the three perspectives shall be the guideline for the argumentation. The goal of my argumentation is that theory and experiment do not live their own lives, that in experimenting one always continues traditional chains of action, and that natural science cannot be regarded independently of the life world it takes place in. This insight into the representing and reconstructing overturns in natural science, due to the necessity of human decisions, opens up their hermeneutical dimension. This revised version was published online in August 2006 with corrections to the Cover Date.     

Dream recall and the full moon

There is ongoing debate on whether the full moon is associated with sleep and dreaming. The analysis of diaries kept by the participants (N = 196) over 28 to 111 nights showed no association of a full moon and dream recall. Psychological factors might explain why some persons associate a full moon with increased dream recall.     

A semiautomatic method for adding behavioral data to videotape records in combination with the Noldus Observer system

The Observer 3.0 (Noldus, 1991) was used as the base for a time-saving fine analysis of animal behavior. A PC controlled a shuttlebox and a shuttlebox control unit. Learning behavior was recorded on videotapes by an S-VHS camcorder with vertical interval time code (VITC), which was used to generate an observational data file (ODF). The observational system was enhanced by automatically recorded status signals from the PC as event markers on the soundtrack of the videotape. These signals were used to subdivide a training session into numbered trials during generation of the ODF. They were later used for a PC-aided fine analysis of behavioral events, such as attention responses (AR) and orienting responses (OR) during shuttlebox learning. In this way, a large number of both automatically inserted PC event markers and manually inserted, key-defined behavioral events were registered and analyzed effectively in a semiautomatic fashion. The system is illustrated with an analysis of shuttlebox avoidance data from gerbils (Meriones unguiculatus).     

The role of key features in predator recognition by untrained birds

The most important role in the recognition and categorization of predators (as well as other animals) is usually attributed to so-called key features. Under laboratory conditions, we tested the role of yellow eyes (specific for the genus Accipiter in European raptors) and hooked beak (common for all European birds of prey) in the recognition of the sparrowhawk (Accipiter nisus) by untrained great tits (Parus major) caught in the wild. Using wooden dummies, we interchanged either one of these potential key features or the body of the sparrowhawk (predator) and domestic pigeon (harmless bird). The tested tits showed three types of behaviour in the presence of the dummies: fear, interest without fear, and lack of interest. Eye interchange lowered fear of the sparrowhawk, but did not cause fear of the pigeon. Beak interchange did not lower fear of the sparrowhawk. Eye interchange caused increased interest in both species. Thus, a specific sparrowhawk feature is necessary for correct sparrowhawk dummy recognition but a general raptor feature is not. On the other hand, a specific sparrowhawk feature on a pigeon dummy is not enough to prompt sparrowhawk recognition. Thus, key features play an important, but not exclusive, role in predator recognition. An increased interest in some of the modified dummies implies that the tits have a general concept of a sparrowhawk. The individual variability in behaviour of tits is discussed.     

Processes of religious individualisation: stocktaking and issues for the future

Abstract

The paper spells out implications of a perspective on religious individualisation that is both comparative and analytical and discusses the various issues that this line of research has to confront. Arguing against notions of modern Western exceptionalism, it points to the selectivity of Western forms of (religious) individualisation and makes a case for the inclusion of additional forms of articulating individual agency and ‘selfhood'. The paper takes individualisation as an inter-subjective, social phenomenon and connects it to the concept of social imaginaries. Opposing standard concepts of modernisation the paper nevertheless brings processuality centre stage, emphasising contingency. The paper discusses the possibility of the convergence of contextual developmental trends and the question of transculturality of notions of self and agency. With reference to the dimension of critique included in visions of religious individualisation, the paper finally points to the effects processes of religious individualisation can have on human actors within, and beyond, the realm of spirituality, including the recognition of subjectivities and the strengthening of actors’ resilience.     

Analytic Tableaux for all of <Emphasis Type="Italic">SIXTEEN</Emphasis><Subscript>3</Subscript>

In this paper we give an analytic tableau calculus P L _{1 6} for a functionally complete extension of Shramko and Wansing’s logic. The calculus is based on signed formulas and a single set of tableau rules is involved in axiomatising each of the four entailment relations ? _t , ? _f , ? _i , and ? under consideration—the differences only residing in initial assignments of signs to formulas. Proving that two sets of formulas are in one of the first three entailment relations will in general require developing four tableaux, while proving that they are in the ? relation may require six.     

A kestrel without hooked beak and talons is not a kestrel for the red-backed shrike (Lanius collurio)

Animal Cognition - Birds are strongly motivated to recognize various predators to secure survival and reproductive success. Thus, predator recognition provides a useful tool for the investigation...