Gender differences in perception of self-orientation: software or hardware?

We evaluated the contribution of attentional strategy to the perception of self-orientation with and without a body tilt in the median plane. Reinking et al (1974 Journal of Personality and Social Psychology 30 807-811) found that the frame dependence of females on the rod-and-frame test could be mediated by instructions prompting them to focus on internal cues (ie arising from inside of the body). Here, we measured the influence of attentional instructions on the perception of the morphological horizon. Eleven females and thirteen males estimated their morphological horizon in an upright and a 45 degrees body tilt in the median plane under three instruction conditions. All participants first performed without attentional instructions. Then, participants performed under both internal and external attentional instructions. For females, but not for males, perception of morphological horizon was more footward in the supine than in the upright orientation. Although instructions did not eliminate gender differences, internal instructions allowed females to reduce their perceptual bias in the supine orientation.     

Phonological processing of words in right- and left-handers

It is commonly accepted that phonology is the exclusive domain of the left hemisphere. However, this pattern of lateralization, which posits a right visual field advantage, has been questioned by several studies. In fact, certain factors such as characteristics of the stimuli and subjects' handedness can modulate the right visual field advantage. Thus, the goal of this study was to compare the hemispheric dynamics of right-handers and left-handers during a divided visual field presentation of words that varied in terms of their phonological transparency. For non-transparent words, the left hemisphere seems more competent in both handedness groups. With regard to transparent words, the right hemisphere of both groups also appears competent. Surprisingly, left-handers achieved optimal processing with a functionally isolated left hemisphere, whereas right-handers needed the participation of both hemispheres. The pattern of performance cannot be fully explained by either the callosal or the direct access model.     

Does auditory streaming require attention? Evidence from attentional selectivity in short-term memory

R. P. Carlyon, R. Cusack, J. M. Foxton, and I. H. Robertson (2001) have argued that attention is crucial for auditory streaming. The authors review R. P. Carlyon et al.'s (2001) arguments and suggest that a pertinent literature, the irrelevant sound paradigm--demonstrating preattentive auditory streaming--has been overlooked. In illustration of this alternative approach, the authors include a novel single experiment demonstrating the impact of preattentive auditory streaming on short-term serial memory. It is concluded that R. P. Carlyon et al.'s (2001) results do not definitively demonstrate that auditory streaming processes are dependent on attention; indeed, they are compatible with alternative accounts of the relationship between perceptual organization and attention.     

Break expectancy in duration discrimination

Effects of break expectancy, observed previously in time production, were examined in 3 experiments using a discrimination paradigm. Participants classified a tone as being short or long. Location and duration of breaks in tone presentation were varied. Proportion of short responses increased as the break occurred later in the duration to be estimated in all experiments. With a higher number of break locations covering a wider range of location values, functions relating proportion of short responses to location were sigmoid and tended to flatten at extreme values of location. The authors conclude that attentional time-sharing elicited by break expectancy induces loss in accumulation of temporal information, but its effect on discrimination depends on the accumulation outcome relative to a decisional criterion.     

Physical aggression and expressive vocabulary in 19-month-old twins

In the prevention of physical aggression, possible etiological links with language development are rarely taken into account. Indeed, little is known about when language and aggressive behavior become linked during development and which mechanisms are responsible for this association. This study investigated the association between physical aggression and language in late infancy with a genetic design that involved 562 19-month-old twins. A modest but significant correlation (r = -.20) was found between physical aggression and expressive vocabulary. Substantial heritability was found for physical aggression. Quantitative genetic modeling suggests that the correlation between expressive vocabulary and physical aggression cannot be explained by shared etiologies. However, phenotype-to-phenotype models indicate that the covariation can be entirely accounted for by a significant phenotypic path from expressive vocabulary to physical aggression. The implications of these results for early prevention of chronic physical aggression are discussed.     

You are Cruel Even If He Did It: Behavior and Face Processing in Spontaneous Trait Inference and Transference

Spontaneous trait inferences (STIs) occur when people infer, without intention or awareness, personality traits from other people’s behaviors. Spontaneous trait transferences (STTs) occur when the trait inferred from the behavior of an actor is erroneously transferred to a person who is not the actor of the behavior. Here, we show that STIs and STTs are similar in the activation of the trait from the behavior and they differ in the link that is established between the inferred trait and the person, with stronger link being created in the STIs than in STTs.     

Reverse production effect: children recognize novel words better when they are heard rather than produced

This research investigates the effect of production on 4.5‐ to 6‐year‐old children's recognition of newly learned words. In Experiment 1, children were taught four novel words in a produced or heard training condition during a brief training phase. In Experiment 2, children were taught eight novel words, and this time training condition was in a blocked design. Immediately after training, children were tested on their recognition of the trained novel words using a preferential looking paradigm. In both experiments, children recognized novel words that were produced and heard during training, but demonstrated better recognition for items that were heard. These findings are opposite to previous results reported in the literature with adults and children. Our results show that benefits of speech production for word learning are dependent on factors such as task complexity and the developmental stage of the learner.     

Nikolai Lossky’s Reception and Criticism of Husserl

Nikolai Lossky is key to the history of the Husserl-Rezeption in Russia. He was the first to publish a review of the Russian translation of Husserl’s first volume of the Logische Untersuchungen that appeared in 1909. He also published a presentation and criticism of Husserl’s transcendental idealism in 1939. An English translation of both of Lossky’s publications is offered in this volume for the first time. The present paper, which is intended as an introduction to these documents, situates Lossky within the Rezeptionsgeschichte of Husserl in Russia and explains why he is central to it. It also explains what Lossky principally found in Husserl: he saw in the latter’s critique of psychologism support for his own ontology, epistemology, and axiology. Lossky characterizes his ontology as an ideal-realism. According to ideal-realism, both the realm of ideal beings (in Plato’s sense) and the realm of real beings (i.e., the world of becoming) are mind-independent. Per his epistemology, which he calls “intuitivism,” real beings are intuited by sensual intuition and ideal beings by intellectual intuition. The realm of ideal beings includes the subrealm of values, which is intuited by axiological intuition. This thoroughly realist conception contrasted sharply with the subjectivist tendencies of the time. So, when Lossky took cognizance of Husserl’s critique of psychologism, he thereupon found an ally in his battle against the various subjectivisms. But, when Husserl took the transcendental idealist turn, Lossky was at the forefront of the backlash against the new direction Husserl wanted to give to phenomenology.     

The evolution of problem and social competence behaviors during toddlerhood: A prospective population‐based cohort survey

Research in developmental psychopathology has long been preoccupied with rather broad categories of behavior, but we know little about the specific behaviors that comprise these categories. The objective of this study was to: (a) estimate the prevalence of problem and social competence behaviors in the general population of children at 17 months of age, and (b) describe the continuity and discontinuity in the degree to which children exhibit these behaviors between 17 and 29 months of age. The results show that frequent problem behaviors are not typical of children under two years of age. Further, the results suggest that it is possible to distinguish between different types of problem behaviors before two years of age. In addition, the results show that gender differences in some problem behaviors are already present before two years of age, and increase in magnitude during toddlerhood. Finally, the results show that interindividual differences in problem behaviors observed before two years of age are stable. The predictive accuracy of frequent problem behaviors in children at 17 months of age was limited, however, with often a majority of toddlers not behaving this way a year later. Overall, our results suggest that toddlerhood represents a critical period when behavioral and emotional problems of potentially clinical significance emerge. Pediatricians should routinely ask parents to report the frequency of their young children's problem behaviors during child health supervision visits so that children whose frequent problem behaviors persist over time can be identified and possibly referred for treatment.