Caricaturing facial expressions

The physical differences between facial expressions (e.g. fear) and a reference norm (e.g. a neutral expression) were altered to produce photographic-quality caricatures. In Experiment 1, participants rated caricatures of fear, happiness and sadness for their intensity of these three emotions; a second group of participants rated how 'face-like' the caricatures appeared. With increasing levels of exaggeration the caricatures were rated as more emotionally intense, but less 'face-like'. Experiment 2 demonstrated a similar relationship between emotional intensity and level of caricature for six different facial expressions. Experiments 3 and 4 compared intensity ratings of facial expression caricatures prepared relative to a selection of reference norms - a neutral expression, an average expression, or a different facial expression (e.g. anger caricatured relative to fear). Each norm produced a linear relationship between caricature and rated intensity of emotion; this finding is inconsistent with two-dimensional models of the perceptual representation of facial expression. An exemplar-based multidimensional model is proposed as an alternative account.     

Sex differences in judgments of physical attractiveness: a social relations analysis

Men and women rated the physical attractiveness of other men and women who were sitting nearby and were rated by them in return. They also provided meta-perceptions of how they thought those others rated them. Attractiveness ratings were partly a function of both the target being rated and the perceiver providing the ratings regardless of the sex of the perceiver or target, but the highest levels of consensus occurred when men judged the attractiveness of women and the highest levels of idiosyncrasy occurred when men rated other men. Meta-perceptions were also idiosyncratic; some believed that they were consistently considered attractive, whereas others thought they were seen as unattractive. People were aware of what others thought of them and, in particular, women's meta-perceptions were highly related to men's judgments of them. People agree about others' attractiveness, and those who are attractive to others know they are pretty or handsome.     

Attention modulates the learning of multiple contingencies

We employed a novel version of the serial reaction time task to test the idea that human implicit learning allows the simultaneous learning of multiple independent contingencies and that this learning may proceed in the absence of attention. Using probabilistic sequences, we showed that both a primary sequence (the focus of the experimental task) and a statistically independent secondary sequence could be learned across 4,800 target localization trials, provided the perceptual load of the primary task was low. However, learning of the secondary sequence was abolished under conditions of high perceptual load. These findings suggest that there are attentional limitations on the learning of multiple contingencies.     

Chaos and designing social systems

Growing appreciation of work done in the past several decades in complexity science is changing how we see the world. Efforts to apply what has been learned there to human systems such as organizations, perhaps through metaphor, challenges our views of social structures and how we may influence their organization and functioning. This article considers the implications of some key propositions from chaos theory for the design of social systems.     

On Shame – In Response to Dan Zahavi,Self and Other

Abstract

In chapter 14 of Zahavi’s recent book, Self and Other, the notion of shame is discussed. In feeling shame one experiences oneself as experienced by others. For Sartre, that experience in itself is sufficient for shame, as one experiences oneself as determined in the experience of others and hence as shamefully not self-determining. But Zahavi introduces an extra condition for shame, which is a ‘global decrease in self-esteem’. This paper questions the need for this condition and argues that seeing oneself as shameful in the eyes of others needs to be spelt out in a pragmatist way in terms of certain shame-involving practices rather than in a purely phenomenological way.     

The Relationship of Suicidal Ideation to Objective and Subjective Executive Functioning

Prior research on executive ability and suicidal ideation (SI) has frequently failed to account for either symptom or performance validity. Similarly, studies have not adequately examined both objective performance on executive tests and subjective report of executive deficits in relationship to SI. The purpose of this study was to address these gaps in research by accounting for performance validity, symptom validity, and considering self-reported executive complaints with objective performance. We hypothesized that (a) increases in self-reported SI on the Personality Assessment Inventory (PAI; Morey, 1991 Morey, L. C. (1991). Personality Assessment Inventory: Professional manual. Tampa, FL: Psychological Assessment Resources. [Google Scholar]) Suicidal Ideation subscale would be related to poorer performance on objective and subjective tests of executive function and (b) level of self-reported depressive symptoms would moderate the relationship between SI and measures of executive function, such that individuals with higher levels of both depressive symptoms and executive dysfunction would be more likely to experience higher levels of SI. No measure of executive function was related to SI when accounting for demographic variables and depressive symptoms. Wisconsin Card Sort Test categories completed was the only measure of executive function to interact significantly with depressive symptoms to predict SI (β = .43). Of particular note, self-reported executive dysfunction was highly correlated with Beck Depression Inventory?II ( Beck, Steer, &; Brown, 1996 Beck, A. T., Steer, R. A., &; Brown, G. K. (1996). Beck Depression Inventory (2nd ed.). San Antonio, TX: The Psychological Corporation. [Google Scholar]) scores (r = .78). Clinical implications and future directions for research are discussed.     

The development of abstract syntax: Evidence from structural priming and the lexical boost

Structural priming paradigms have been influential in shaping theories of adult sentence processing and theories of syntactic development. However, until recently there have been few attempts to provide an integrated account that explains both adult and developmental data. The aim of the present paper was to begin the process of integration by taking a developmental approach to structural priming. Using a dialog comprehension-to-production paradigm, we primed participants (3–4 year olds, 5–6 year olds and adults) with double object datives (Wendy gave Bob a dog) and prepositional datives (Wendy gave a dog to Bob). Half the participants heard the same verb in prime and target (e.g. gave–gave) and half heard a different verb (e.g. sent–gave). The results revealed substantial differences in the magnitude of priming across development. First, there was a small but significant abstract structural priming effect across all age groups, but this effect was larger in younger children than in older children and adults. Second, adding verb overlap between prime and target prompted a large, significant increase in the priming effect in adults (a lexical boost), a small, marginally significant increase in the older children and no increase in the youngest children. The results support the idea that abstract syntactic knowledge can develop independently of verb-specific frames. They also support the idea that different mechanisms may be needed to explain abstract structural priming and lexical priming, as predicted by the implicit learning account (Bock, K., & Griffin, Z. M. (2000). The persistence of structural priming: Transient activation or implicit learning? Journal of Experimental Psychology – General, 129(2), 177–192). Finally, the results illustrate the value of an integrative developmental approach to both theories of adult sentence processing and theories of syntax acquisition.