The bank of standardized stimuli (BOSS): comparison between French and English norms

Throughout the last decades, numerous picture data sets have been developed, such as the Snodgrass and Vanderwart (1980) set, and have been normalized for variables such as name and familiarity; however, due to cultural and linguistic differences, norms can vary from one country to another. The effect due specifically to culture has already been demonstrated by comparing samples from different countries where the same language is spoken. On the other hand, it is still not clear how differences between languages may affect norms. The present study explores this issue by collecting and comparing norms on names and many other features from French Canadian speakers and English Canadian speakers living in Montreal, who thus live in similar cultural environments. Norms were collected for the photos of objects from the Bank of Standardized Stimuli (BOSS) by asking participants to name the objects, to categorize them, and to rate their familiarity, visual complexity, object agreement, viewpoint agreement, and manipulability. Names and ratings from the French speakers are available in Appendix A, available in the supplemental materials. The results show that most of the norms are comparable across linguistic groups and also that the ratings given are correlated across linguistic groups. The only significant group differences were found in viewpoint agreement and visual complexity. Overall, there was good concordance between the norms collected from French and English native speakers living in the same cultural setting.     

Three-dimensional spatial representation in freely swimming fish

Research on spatial cognition has focused on how animals encode the horizontal component of space. However, most animals travel vertically within their environments, particularly those that fly or swim. Pelagic fish move with six degrees of freedom and must integrate these components to navigate accurately--how do they do this? Using an assay based on associative learning of the vertical and horizontal components of space within a rotating Y-maze, we found that fish (Astyanax fasciatus) learned and remembered information from both horizontal and vertical axes when they were presented either separately or as an integrated three-dimensional unit. When information from the two components conflicted, the fish used the previously learned vertical information in preference to the horizontal. This not only demonstrates that the horizontal and vertical components are stored separately in the fishes' representation of space (simplifying the problem of 3D navigation), but also suggests that the vertical axis contains particularly salient spatial cues--presumably including hydrostatic pressure. To explore this latter possibility, we developed a physical theoretical model that shows how fish could determine their absolute depth using pressure. We next considered full volumetric spatial cognition. Astyanax were trained to swim towards a reward in a Y-maze that could be rotated, before the arms were removed during probe trials. The subjects were tracked in three dimensions as they swam freely through the surrounding cubic tank. The results revealed that fish are able to accurately encode metric information in a volume, and that the error accrued in the horizontal and vertical axes whilst swimming in probe trials was similar. Together, these experiments demonstrate that unlike in surface-bound rats, the vertical component of the representation of space is vitally important to fishes. We hypothesise that the representation of space in the brain of vertebrates could ultimately be shaped by the number of the degrees of freedom of movement that binds the navigating animal.     

When up-words meet down-sentences: evidence for word- or sentence-based compatibility effects?

Participants were presented with sentences mentioning an entity with a typical location in the upper or lower vertical space (e.g., roof vs. root). Sentences supported or reversed the typical location of the target entity. Sensibility judgments requiring upwards or downwards responses were faster when the response matched rather than mismatched the target entity's typical location. This compatibility effect was independent of whether the sentence context supported or reversed the target entity's typical location. The results, therefore, provide clear evidence for word-based but no evidence for sentence-based simulation processes.     

Religion,Religious Tradition,and Nationalism: Jewish Revival in Poland and “Religious Heritage” in Québec

This article uses and develops Martin Riesebrodt's distinction between religion and religious tradition to shed light on the making of various articulations of religious identities and political projects. Based on extensive research on the Polish and Québécois cases, I show how social and state actors in these societies reactivate past religious traditions to respond to current social transformations and articulate societal projects and advance political agendas in the present. In both cases, religion and religious tradition are juxtaposed to articulate new national identities or fortify older ones, and to respond more specifically to the challenges posed by “pluralism.” I suggest that sociologists who work at the intersection of religion and politics can contribute to our understanding of the various registers through which religion, religious action, and religious tradition are rendered meaningful to social actors, used for different goals (religious and not) and transformed in the process.     

What Does the Alliance Predict in Group Interventions for Early Psychosis?

The therapeutic alliance is considered an essential component of any clinical or psychological intervention. The therapeutic alliance can however change over time, and therefore it is relevant to determine if the alliance and its variations are related to clinical outcomes. The present study had three objectives: (1) determine the impact of the alliance measured by the client and the therapist, on clinical and psychosocial outcomes of individuals with early psychosis receiving group interventions; (2) measure the concordance between the client and the therapists’ ratings of the alliance; and (3) determine the best predictor of the client’s alliance in our sample. A total of 36 individuals with early psychosis who participated in group interventions for symptom management answered the WAI three times, and so did the group therapists. Outcomes included measures of insight, symptoms (total, positive and negative), and self-esteem. Attendance and group participation were also measured. Results suggest that the overall client’s alliance predicted total symptoms and self-esteem at post-therapy, whereas both clients’ and therapists’ ratings predicted group attendance and participation. Greater variations in the alliance overtime for the clients were somewhat linked to worse negative symptoms at post-therapy. Alliance ratings were generally high and fairly concordant between therapists and clients. Only the baseline measure of capacity for attachment, predicted the client’s overall alliance scores. Clinical implications are discussed.     

Additional weight influences the reaching behavior of low-risk preterm infants

The authors investigated the influence of additional weight in the reaching behavior of preterm infants. Nine low-risk preterm and 10 full-term infants age 5-7 months participated. A toy was presented in two procedures: (a) baseline and (b) additional weight (bracelet with weight of 20% of the infant's upper limb mass). The additional weight reduced the straightness index at 5 months, increased the mean velocity and decreased the movement units at all months, and increased unsuccessful grasps at 5 and 7 months in preterm infants. Preterm infants showed less movement units at all months and less unsuccessful grasps at 6 months compared with full-term infants. Weight disturbance seems to change the intrinsic dynamics involved in reaching movements of 5-7-month-old preterm infants.     

The interaction of temporal generalization gradients predicts the context effect

In a temporal double bisection task, animals learn two discriminations. In the presence of Red and Green keys, responses to Red are reinforced after 1-s samples and responses to Green are reinforced after 4-s samples; in the presence of Blue and Yellow keys, responses to Blue are reinforced after 4-s samples and responses to Yellow are reinforced after 16-s samples. Subsequently, given a choice between Green and Blue, the probability of choosing Green increases with the sample duration-the context effect. In the present study we asked whether this effect could be predicted from the stimulus generalization gradients induced by the two basic discriminations. Six pigeons learned to peck Green following 4-s samples (S(+)) but not following 1-s samples (S(-)) and to peck Red following 4-s samples (S(+)) but not following 16-s samples (S(-)). Temporal generalization gradients for Green and Red were then obtained. Finally, the pigeons were given a choice between Green and Red following sample durations ranging from 1 to 16 s. Results showed that a) the two generalization gradients had the minimum at the S(-) duration, an intermediate value between the S(-) and the S(+) durations, and the maximum at the S(+) as well as more extreme durations; b) on choice trials, preference for Green over Red increased with sample duration, the context effect; and c) the two generalization gradients predicted the average context effect well. The Learning-to-Time model accounts for the major trends in the data.     

Integrating the study of conformity and culture in humans and nonhuman animals

Conformity--defined here by the fact that an individual displays a particular behavior because it is the most frequent the individual witnessed in others--has long been recognized by social psychologists as one of the main categories of social influence. Surprisingly, it is only recently that conformity has become an active topic in animal and comparative biology. As in any new and rapidly growing field, however, definitions, hypotheses, and protocols are diverse, not easy to organize in a coherent way, and sometimes seriously in conflict with one another. Here we pursue greater coherence by reviewing the newer literature on conformity in behavioral ecology and evolutionary biology in light of the foundational work in social psychology. We suggest that the knowledge accumulated in social psychology can be exploited by behavioral ecologists and evolutionary biologists to bring conceptual clarity to the field, avoid some experimental pitfalls, and help design new and challenging experiments. In particular, we propose that the notions of informational and normative conformity that, until now, have been little recognized in recent literature can resolve some important controversies. In turn, research on animal culture should be of great interest to social scientists, because understanding human culture and human uniqueness requires an evolutionary analysis of our cognitive capacities and their evolutionary origins. Our review suggests excellent opportunities for social and natural scientists to join forces in building an interdisciplinary and integrative approach to the pervasive phenomenon of conformity.     

License to sin: Self‐licensing as a mechanism underlying hedonic consumption

Hedonic overconsumption is often considered to be caused by impulsive factors. The current paper investigates whether self‐licensing, relying on reasons to justify subsequent gratification, can also be included as a significant contributor to hedonic consumption. Two studies were conducted to investigate whether self‐licensing can account for an increase in hedonic consumption while ruling out impulsive factors such as resource depletion, negative affect, and visceral state as alternative explanations. A pilot study indicated that perceiving oneself as having invested greater effort and thus having a self‐licensing cue did not lead to a decline in self‐control capacity compared with not having a self‐licensing cue. The main study employed the same procedure and established that having a licensing cue did lead to increased snack intake while controlling for impulsive factors. Together, these studies support the notion that self‐licensing is a separate mechanism leading to hedonic gratification independent of impulsive factors. Copyright © 2011 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.