MICELAB: Spatial processing of mouse movement in Turbo Pascal

Pointing tasks with a mouse are very useful in psychological experiments concerned with a subject’s ability to track a visual object or to move to a target location (e.g., to find a word in text). Such tasks are quite easily performed by subjects, and numerous variables may be obtained from the mouse movement. In this article we describe a set of Turbo Pascal 6.0 units and a program running on the IBM PC family that show how data (x,y coordinates) recorded from a mouse movement can be analyzed to give dispersion, direction, and distance of the movement.     

Types of errors by referees and perception of injustice by soccer players: a preliminary study

This study investigated the effect of referees' errors on players' perceived injustice in soccer. The conditions investigated were Referee Decision, with three types: Correctly Called a foul vs Wrongly Called a foul vs Did not Call a foul and Repetition of the Situation, with two types: Isolated vs Repeated. Male soccer players at regional and departmental levels of practice (N = 95, M(age) = 23.2, SD = 5.1) were asked to rank six hypothetical situations according to the perceived injustice. Analysis indicated significant effects of Referee Decisions and Repetition of the Situation on the perception of injustice, but showed no differences between the types of error. However, age and years of soccer experience were associated with perception of injustice when the referee correctly called a foul.     

Memory for words location in writing

In two experiments, we investigated memory for words location after writing a text. Experiment 1 demonstrated the existence of a memory for words location in writing by showing that participants who first composed a text and were then asked to locate words extracted from their text performed above a chance level established using a computer simulation, and better than participants who did not compose a text but were told the subject of the text. Experiment 2 showed that memory for words location in writing is mainly supported by a visuospatial representation of the text, as indicated by the lower recall of words location by participants who performed a visuospatial concurrent task at the time of the composition, compared with participants who performed a verbal concurrent task. The findings highlight the role of a spatial representation of the physical layout of the text and the role of such a memory in the writing process.

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Sequential adjustments before and after partial errors

In choice reaction time tasks, subjects speed up before making an error, but slow down afterward to prevent the occurrence of a new error. In some trials, the correct response is preceded by an incorrect electromyographic (EMG) activation too small to reach the response threshold. In this article, we show that these incorrect EMG activations give rise to the same sequential effects as overt errors: Before a trial containing an incorrect EMG activation, subjects speed up, whereas after that trial, they slow down. These activations reflect errors that have been detected, inhibited, and corrected in time. As such, they index the involvement of online executive control.     

Influence of social conditions in song sharing in the adult canary

In songbirds, experience of social and environmental cues during a discrete period after birth may dramatically influence song learning. In the canary, the ability to learn new songs is assumed to persist throughout life. The aim of the present study was to investigate whether social context could guide changes in adult song. Three groups of canaries were kept in different social and temporal conditions. Results showed that the multiple hierarchical levels of the canary song structure were affected by social environment: songs of males housed together for 2 years were more similar than those of males that spent the same time in individual cages in regard to acoustic parameters, syllable repertoire and repertoire of sequences of two-syllable types. However, social housing did not result in the emergence of a group-specific vocal signature within songs. In conclusion, these results suggested that under the influence of social factors, a copying process could allow adult canaries to adjust, at least in part, their songs to those of other individuals.     

Valued Relations Aggregation with the Borda Method

The Borda method is a well-known method used to aggregate a profile of crisp binary relations into one weak order. We present a generalization of the Borda method, allowing it to aggregate a profile of valued relations. We give a characterization of the Borda method in this context and we show some links with the PROMETHEE method.     

Self‐affirmation,political value congruence,and support for refugees

This research tested the potential for self‐affirmation on left‐ and right‐wing political values to increase behavioral intentions to provide help and assistance to refugees. We present a pilot study defining left‐ and right‐wing values, and a main study in which participants completed either a self‐affirmation task, a group‐affirmation task, or participated in a control condition on values that were either congruent or incongruent with their own political views. Results show that left‐wing oriented participants showed more supportive intentions in the self‐affirmation condition compared to the group‐affirmation and control conditions, independent of values congruency. In contrast, right‐wing participants showed more supportive intentions in the self‐affirmation condition, but only when they affirmed on values that were congruent with their own political views.     

Is Liang Shuming 梁漱溟 Ultimately a Confucian or Buddhist?

Liang Shuming has been proclaimed the forerunner of Contemporary Neo-Confucianism. However, assessing Liang’s identity appears a much more complicated task. Taking a closer look at his copious writings on religion, this paper shows how Liang conceived the role of religion at the different steps of humanity’s quest. Applying this frame of understanding to twentieth century China, Liang saw a discrepancy between the task required in our present time and what the future was holding. Therefore, while he engaged the world in a certain way, he was still holding privately another belief. This “secret” of Liang reshuffles traditional boundaries between the secular and transcendence.     

Toward the use of approach/avoidance tendencies as attitude measures: Individual- and group-level variability of the ingroup bias

Approach/avoidance paradigms could constitute an interesting alternative in measuring intergroup attitudes, notably if they overcome one criticism often addressed toward classic indirect tasks: Measuring attitudes beyond the influence of cultural knowledge. Using intergroup stimuli and a population likely to be exposed to a similar cultural knowledge, we observed two informative results regarding this issue: Approach/avoidance effects measured by the Visual Approach/Avoidance by the Self Task (VAAST) varied across participants (i.e., consistent with the variability of intergroup attitudes; Experiment 1) and both participants of dominant and non-dominant groups produced an ingroup bias (Experiment 2). A last experiment (Experiment 3) showed that compatibility scores in the VAAST predict trustworthiness ratings of the ingroup/outgroup. This experiment also investigated potential differences between the VAAST and the IAT. These results suggest that approach/avoidance tasks (notably the VAAST) could be relevant to assess personal attitudes when it comes to normatively sensitive topics.