Testing a modified cognitive interview with category clustering recall in Iran

The cognitive interview (CI) has been an effective method for interviewing eyewitnesses often leading to changes in legislation and practice in many countries. This study was the first to employ the CI in Iran and test whether category clustering recall (CCR) was superior to a free recall when incorporated within an investigative interview. A between‐subjects design assigned 66 participants to one of three interview conditions after they watched a mock robbery. The participants were interviewed 48 hr later using either a structured interview (SI), the CI, or a modified cognitive interview (MCI) that replaced free recall with CCR at the first retrieval attempt. Analysis of variance suggests CCR was more effective than free recall and the CI group recalled more information than the SI group, replicating the CI superiority effect. This has implications for law enforcement in Iran and worldwide by suggesting these techniques can be used to enhance recall.     

Minimum presentation time for masked facial expression discrimination

Backward masking is a popular method of preventing awareness of facial expressions, but concerns have been expressed as to the effectiveness of masking in previous research, which may have resulted in unjustified claims of unconscious processing. We examined the minimum presentation time for discrimination of fearful, angry, happy and neutral faces in a backward masking task using both objective sensitivity measures, based on signal detection analysis, and subjective awareness ratings. Results from two experiments showed for all expressions the mean sensitivity and the sensitivity scores of most individual participants were above chance at presentation times of 20 ms. Awareness ratings for happy, fearful and angry also exceeded baseline ratings from 20 ms onwards. Overall sensitivity in both experiments was greatest for happy expressions, which is an agreement with previous reports. The results support the possibility of incomplete masking in earlier studies that used masking to prevent awareness of facial expressions.     

Is there a genuine tension between cosmopolitan egalitarianism and special responsibilities?

Samuel Scheffler has recently argued that some relationships are non-instrumentally valuable; that such relationships give rise to “underived” special responsibilities; that there is a genuine tension between cosmopolitan egalitarianism and special responsibilities; and that we must consequently strike a balance between the two. We argue that there is no such tension and propose an alternative approach to the relation between cosmopolitan egalitarianism and special responsibilities. First, while some relationships are non-instrumentally valuable, no relationship is unconditionally valuable. Second, whether such relationships give rise to special responsibilities is conditional on those relationships not violating certain moral constraints. Third, these moral constraints arise from within cosmopolitan egalitarianism itself. Thus the value of relationships and the special responsibilities to which they give rise arise within the parameters of cosmopolitan egalitarianism itself. The real tension is not between cosmopolitan equality and special responsibilities, but between special responsibilities and the various general duties that arise from the recognition, demanded by cosmopolitan egalitarianism, of a multiplicity of other basic goods. Indeed, even the recognition of special relationships itself gives rise to general duties that may condition and/or weigh against putative special responsibilities.

Awareness of faces is modulated by their emotional meaning

A central question in perception is how stimuli are selected for access to awareness. This study investigated the impact of emotional meaning on detection of faces using the attention blink paradigm. Experiment 1 showed that fearful faces were detected more frequently than neutral faces, and Experiment 2 revealed preferential detection of fearful faces compared with happy faces. To rule out image artifacts as a cause for these results, Experiment 3 manipulated the emotional meaning of neutral faces through fear conditioning and showed a selective increase in detection of conditioned faces. These results extend previous reports of preferential detection of emotional words or schematic objects and suggest that fear conditioning can modulate detection of formerly neutral stimuli.     

Hobbes’s agnostic theology before Leviathan

Prior to 1651, Hobbes was agnostic about the existence of God. Hobbes argued that God’s existence could neither be demonstrated nor proved, so that those who reason about God’s existence will systematically vacillate, sometimes thinking God exists, sometimes not, which for Hobbes is to say they will doubt God’s existence. Because this vacillation or doubt is inherent to the subject, reasoners like himself will judge that settling on one belief rather than another is epistemically unjustified. Hobbes’s agnosticism becomes apparent once we attend to his distinctions between the propositional attitudes one might adopt towards theological claims, including supposing, thinking, having faith and knowing.     

Discussion on the reverberatory model of short-term memory: a computational approach

Up to now a number of models have been proposed to underlie memory formation in the central nervous system. Two of these models are the reverberatory circuit model and the other one the self-feedback loop model. This paper considers these two models regarding their ability to preserve neural activity and to hold information. In the self-feedback loop model, the activity level of the loop output is computed regarding the short lasting initial input. In the reverberatory circuit model, the activity levels of the proposed two-layer network outputs were computed regarding the short lasting initial inputs of the network. In the self-feedback loop model, the activity level of the loop output changes with each reverberation until it reaches a specific limit and then remains at that level. In the reverberatory circuit model, the activity levels of the proposed two-layer network outputs display an oscillatory behavior. These models can preserve the input activity, but they change its level with each reverberation. Information carried by a single neuron is related to its activity level. Therefore these models change the information during the reverberation. Short-term memory must hold the information for a certain period of time, so these models cannot be proposed to underlie short-term memory formation.     

Munker-White-like illusions without T-junctions

Some interpretations of the Munker-White illusion were evaluated by designing new versions of this illusion devoid of T-junctions (Munker-White-like images). The magnitudes of both Munker-White and Munker-White-like illusions were then quantified by using a brightness-matching technique. The results showed the effect to persist in all proposed versions. Since the illusion still remains despite the absence of explicit T-junctions and any explanation considering transparency, mechanisms other than those proposed by these interpretations must be responsible.     

Oculomotor control and the maintenance of spatially and temporally distributed events in visuo-spatial working memory

Previous studies have demonstrated that working memory for spatial location can be significantly disrupted by concurrent eye or limb movement (Baddeley, 1986; Smyth, Pearson, & Pendleton, 1988). Shifts in attention alone can also interfere with spatial span (Smyth & Scholey, 1994), even with no corresponding movement of the eyes or limbs (Smyth, 1996). What is not clear from these studies is how comparable is the magnitude of effect caused by different forms of spatial disrupter. Recently, it has been demonstrated that limb movements produce as much interference with spatial span as do reflexive saccades (Lawrence, Myerson, Oonk, & Abrams, 2001). In turn this has led to the hypothesis that all spatially directed movement can produce similar effects in visuo-spatial working memory. This paper reports the results of five experiments that have contrasted the effect of concurrent eye movement, limb movement, and covert attention shifts on participants' working memory for sequences of locations. All conditions involving concurrent eye movement produced significantly greater reduction in span than equivalent limb movement or covert attention shifts with eyes fixated. It is argued that these results demonstrate a crucial role for oculomotor control processes during the rehearsal of location-specific representations in working memory.