Correction to: Brain oscillation recordings of the audience in a live concert-like setting

Cognitive Processing -     

Black magic and respecting persons—Some perplexities

Black magic (henceforth BM) is acting in an attempt to harm human beings through supernatural means. Examples include the employment of spells, the use of special curses, the burning of objects related to the purported victim, and the use of pins with voodoo dolls. For the sake of simplicity, we shall focus on attempts to kill through BM. The moral attitude towards BM has not been, as far as we know, significantly discussed in contemporary analytic philosophy. Yet the topic brings up interesting questions and poses challenges, occasionally even reaching the level of paradoxes. Ideas of respecting persons, in particular, will be seen to be challenged by this form of magic. The notion of respecting persons will be treated here broadly and pluralistically. Indeed part of the interest in the discussion will be the unfolding of the diverse ways in which this term should be understood, and the contrasts between its various uses. Often, as we shall see, respect for persons and disrespect for them, in different senses, will co-exist, and the dilemma will be one where avoiding some forms of disrespect will involve us in disrespect in other senses.     

Rivals without a cause? Relative performance feedback creates destructive competition despite aligned incentives

Whether people compete or cooperate with each other has consequences for their own performance and that of organizations. To explain why people compete or cooperate, previous research has focused on two main factors: situational outcome structures and personality types. Here, we propose that—above and beyond these two factors—situational cues, such as the format in which people receive feedback, strongly affect whether they act competitively, cooperatively, or individualistically. Results of a laboratory experiment support our theorizing: After receiving ranking feedback, both students and experienced managers treated group situations with cooperative outcome structures as competitive and were in consequence willing to forgo guaranteed financial gains to pursue a—financially irrelevant—better rank. Conversely, in dilemma situations, feedback based on the joint group outcome led to more cooperation than ranking feedback. Our study contributes to research on competition, cooperation, interdependence theory, forced ranking, and the design of information environments.     

The eye of the retriever: developing episodic memory mechanisms in preverbal infants assessed through pupil dilation

Studying memory in infants can be challenging, as they cannot express their subjective recollection verbally. In this study we use a novel method with which we can assess episodic recognition memory through pupillometry, using identical procedures and stimuli for infants and adults. In three experiments of 4‐ and 7‐month‐old infants, and adults we show that the adult pupillary response is larger to previously seen than to never seen items (old/new effect). Pupil dilations index subjective memory experience in adults, producing distinct pupil dilations to items judged as remembered, familiar, and new, regardless of actual previous exposure (Experiment 1). Seven‐month‐old infants demonstrate a clear pupillary old/new effect, very similar to that of adults (Experiment 2), whereas 4‐month‐olds do not demonstrate such an effect (Experiment 3). Our findings suggest that the mnemonic mechanisms that serve infants' and adults' episodic recognition memory are more similar than previously asserted: they are not fully developed at 4 months of age but that there is contiguity in human episodic memory development from 7 months of age.     

Composing lexical versus functional adjectives: Evidence for uniformity in the left temporal lobe

Psychonomic Bulletin & Review - Featural information (e.g., color or shape) allows interlocutors to focus their attention on the specific items under discussion from the vast set of...     

“Now there are diversities of gifts,but the same spirit.” (1Cor 12:4): images of the self and concepts of office of LGBTQ* pastors in Germany

ABSTRACT

After providing background information on the legal status and admission of LGBTIAQ* pastors in Germany, the paper focusses on experiences of LGBTQ* Protestant pastors in the major German Protestant church (Evangelische Kirche in Deutschland) to explore how they include their sexual orientation and/or gender in their pastoral work. LGBTIAQ* pastors face the challenge of managing visibility and discretion, in relation to a heteronormative setting, as well as the specific expectations of LGBTIAQ* Christians. The presumption of shared experiences and knowledge by similarly marginalized people plays a part in their ministry. The paper argues that embracing those experiences and community knowledge as part of pastoral theology can strengthen their reflection on pastoral work.     

Ocular signatures of proactive versus reactive cognitive control in young adults

During the execution of a cognitive task, the brain maintains contextual information to guide behavior and achieve desired goals. The AX-Continuous Performance Task is used to study proactive versus reactive cognitive control. Young adults tend to behave proactively in standard testing conditions. However, it remains unclear how interindividual variability (e.g., in cognitive and motivational factors) may drive people into more reactive or proactive control under the same task demands. We investigated the use of control strategies in a large population of healthy young adults. We computed the proactive behavioral index and consequently divided participants into proactive, reactive, and intermediate groups. We found that reactive participants were generally slower, presented lower context sensitivity, and larger response variability. Pupillary changes and blink rate index cognitive effort allocation. We measured, concomitantly to the task, the pupil size and frequency of blinks associated with the cue maintenance and response intervals. During the cue period, nonfrequent, nontarget cues led to increased pupil dilation and number of blinks in all participants. During the response interval, we found more errors and increased pupil dilation to the probe when all participants had to overcome a response bias generated by the frequent cue. Only reactive participants showed larger response-related pupil when they had to overcome a response bias related to the frequent probe. Contrary to expectations, groups did not differ in ocular measures in the cue period. In conclusion, interindividual differences in cognitive control between healthy adults can be mapped onto different patterns of effort allocation indexed by the pupil.