Unconscious, stimulus-dependent priming and conscious, percept-dependent priming with chromatic stimuli

Using metacontrast masking to suppress the conscious registration of a prime stimulus, Breitmeyer, Ro, and Singhal (2004) showed that color priming produced by a masked prime disk occurs at unconscious stimulus-dependent rather than at percept-dependent levels of visual processing. The current set of experiments compares this type of unconscious stimulus-dependent priming to conscious priming produced by a prime that, in two separate ways, is rendered visible and thus activates percept-dependent visual processes. The results indicate that while the masked prime again acts at a stimulus-dependent level of processing, the unmasked, visible primes additionally act at a later percept-dependent level of processing.     

Theorizing Democratic Education from a Senian Perspective

Despite the growing body of literature and general interest in the intersection between the capabilities approach (CA) and education, little work has been done so far to theorize democratic education from a CA perspective. This essay attempts to do so by, first, getting clear about the theory of democracy that has emerged from Amartya Sen’s recent work and understanding how it informs his CA; and, second, by carefully drawing out the implications of these aspects of Sen’s thinking for democratic education. Ultimately, I argue that Senian democratic education (SDE) is a composite of various learning processes that enhance one’s capability for social and political (democratic) participation. Particular attention is given to the learning that happens through one’s actual engagement in democratic practices and that which happens through one’s formal schooling. I call the former of these learning processes SDEp and the latter SDEs. SDEp is democratic life itself, and its effectiveness both depends on and contributes to the development of a culture of political participation within society. SDEs is best understood as the process of facilitating children’s achievement of democratic functioning, that is, children’s achievement of certain “beings and doings” associated with the emergence and exercise of their individual and collective democratic existence.     

Amodal completion of unconsciously presented objects

In the visual environment, objects often appear behind occluding surfaces, yet they are automatically and effortlessly perceived as complete. Here, we examined whether visually occluded objects that are presented below the threshold of awareness are amodally completed. We used a priming paradigm in which participants responded to consciously perceived targets that were preceded by unconsciously presented primes. In two experiments, we show that discrimination responses to targets were faster when they were preceded by congruent shapes, regardless of whether these shapes were intact and complete or occluded by a horizontal bar. This priming effect was not produced by a partial match in features, since the occluded primes did not facilitate responses to targets that shared local features (Experiment 1) or contained only the object features that remained visible after occlusion (Experiment 2). These results show that objects presented below the threshold of awareness can be amodally completed and provide compelling evidence that unconscious processing occurs to a greater extent than previously considered.     

Using Vignette Methodology as a Tool for Exploring Cultural Identity Positions of Language Brokers

This article examines how vignette methodology can aid understanding of cultural identity. This is demonstrated through a study of child language brokers, wherein a child is engaged in the cultural contexts of both the host culture and the home culture and must therefore negotiate new cultural identities. Participants were young people aged 15 to 18 years; some of them were brokers, others were not. Drawing on notions of adequacy and inadequacy, visibility and invisibility, theoretical ideas around cultural identity theory and dialogical self-theory can provide an understanding of how the young people moved through different (often conflicting) identity positions.     

Very long‐term recall and recognition of well‐learned material

Three experiments examined very long‐term verbatim memory (from 4 months to 28 years) for lengthy, complex material. Experiments 1 and 2 found that recall (12 and 20 months after the material was last accessed) was at or near ceiling for many participants, and was significantly higher than free‐choice recognition, with recognition failure for recallable words (RF) being observed. The magnitude of the effect corresponded to that predicted by the Tulving–Wiseman ( 1975 ) function. Experiment 3 found that recall was at or near ceiling for 3 years, then declined dramatically as the retention interval increased. However, given equal amounts of context as retrieval cues, forced‐choice recognition remained relatively strong for as long as 28 years. These findings provide evidence of long‐term memory for exact details of complex discourse far in excess of previous demonstrations, and, under certain circumstances, extend the RF phenomenon to lengthy, well‐learned texts over long retention intervals. Copyright © 2002 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

The Management of Risk and the Design of Good Lives

In this paper, I attempt to integrate the risk-nesd and good lives models of offender rehabilitation. I set out to show how it is possible to capitalise on the strengths of the risk management perspecwve by locating or embedding it within a more constructive, strength based capabilities approach – what I have called the good lives model of offender rehabilitation. In the good lives model risk factors are viewed as obstacles that erode individuals' capacity to live more fulfilling lives. Thus the therapeutic focus is on implementing offender's good lives conceptualisation rather than simply managing risk, although risk is not neglected. First, I briefly outline the risk-need and good lives models and then discuss how they might be integrated. Second, I consider a clinical example, demonstrating in some detail how a good lives perspective impacts on assessment and treatment. Finally, I conclude with a few comments on the clinical and policy implications of this integrated approach.