The 'double face' illusion

We report three experiments intended to characterise aspects of the 'double face' illusion, formed by replicating the eyes and mouth below the originals. Such doubled faces are disturbing to look at. We find there are wide individual differences in the ability to detect that a face has been doubled when presented briefly and masked. These differences appear to relate to perceptual speed, since they correlate with the ability to identify a briefly presented famous face. Doubling has a significant effect on identification, though much less than inversion. In a reaction-time study, participants are faster to decide that a face has been doubled as it is rotated away from upright. The final study shows that normal and doubled faces do not pop out from each other, but reveals a processing overhead of 40-60 ms per doubled face. We offer some speculations as to the cause of the perceptual effects.     

Improving Discrimination and Face Matching with Caricature

Identification of faces from photographs is a common security measure, but matching unfamiliar faces produces high rates of error. Caricatures of familiar people are highly identifiable because they exaggerate distinctive features. We investigated whether exaggerating unfamiliar faces through caricaturing could also improve face‐matching accuracy. In Experiment 1, face‐matching arrays were caricatured relative to an average by 30%, 50% and 70%. Correct rejection of the target‐absent arrays was improved at all levels. Accurate matches increased at 30%, but at 70%, the transformation was too extreme, and all of the arrays were more likely to be rejected. In Experiment 2, photographic identification (ID) images were caricatured by 30% and 50% and matched to life‐size photographs. Rejection of foils improved, but the ID of matching images was impaired. Modest levels of caricature may improve discrimination in unfamiliar face matching, but at stronger levels, a conservative response bias may inhibit accurate ID. Copyright © 2013 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Character profiles and adolescents’ self-reported affect

Cognitive and behavioral changes during adolescence might be understood from the perspective of increased executive functioning that is expressed as gradual maturing character. Character profiles (combinations of low and high scores in three character traits: Self-directedness, Cooperativeness, and Self-transcendence) of 439 Swedish adolescents were used to evaluate the linear and non-linear relationship between character traits and self-reported positive and negative affect. Linear analysis showed that all three character traits were associated to positive and negative affect. Non-linear analysis showed that Self-directedness was associated with high positive affect and low negative affect when Cooperativeness was high. No association of higher Cooperativeness with positive and negative affect was found. Higher Self-transcendence was associated with higher negative affect when both Self-directedness and Cooperativeness were high. Although, Self-directedness, Cooperativeness, and Self-transcendence are associated to adolescents’ affective experience, these character traits are not associated to positive and negative affect in the same manner or linearly. Self-directedness’s positive relationship to high positive affect and low negative affect was present only when Cooperativeness was high. In other words, an autonomous adolescent (i.e., high Self-directedness) might experience more positive and less negative emotions as long as she/he feels as an integral part of society (i.e., high Cooperativeness).     

Ordinal relationships between constructs

Abstract

The concept of ordination, that is, the hierarchical organization of constructions ranging from more peripheral to more central dimensions of meaning, is examined. The process of laddering is focused on as a technique for accessing superordinate constructs. It is argued that laddering frequently does not produce constructs that qualify as superordinate and that this problem reflects a misconception of construct systems as cognitive entities that control behavior. An alternative understanding of personal construct theory as a theory of social action is advocated as better suited to its central task–helping people to reconstrue their lives. The implications for investigating construing in the light of this interpretation are examined.     

Sedimentation and elaborative choice

Abstract

Choice is an essential feature in personal construct psychology, and arguably the main task of the personal construct is to clarify why the person chooses one course of action rather than another. Yet the choice corollary appears to be in danger of being tautological, saying that whatever the person did constituted the elaborative choice. G. A. Kelly proposed the choice corollary as a useful heuristic device to counter external observers' beliefs that they can know what is best for the person. However, there is a danger in overcorrecting, in assuming that every action of the person constitutes an elaborative choice. This is most likely to occur in the neurotic paradox, where clients experience self-definition as problematic for them. I argue that we should emphasize construing as inseparable from action. This leads us to a phenomenological rather than a cognitive reading of construct theory. M. Merleau-Ponty's (1962) concept of sedimentation is then helpful in understanding the type of self-definition that is characterized in the neurotic paradox. The implications of this position for psychological reconstruction are briefly discussed.     

PRAGMATISM,CONSTRUCTIVISM, AND ETHICS

Stojnov (1996) has argued that personal construct psychology furnishes us with a universalist, as opposed to a relativist, ethics. This is a universalism of form rather than content of construing: we have a "personal responsibility of knowledge". The author critiques Stojnov's view, arguing that the Sociality Corollary does indeed provide an ethical basis for Kelly's thought. However, he contends that the construct universalism/relativism is of limited value, and that the apparent relativism in constructivism provides a valuable guide to moral construing. It is argued that the certainty that comes from moral absolutism readily leads not to moral action, but to moralism. The foundationlessness of constructivism provides a valuable counterbalance to this moralism.     

A Review of: “Studies in Meaning 2: Bridging the Personal and Social in Constructivist Psychology”

Abstract

As repertory grids are often used in the making of important decisions about people's lives, it seems reasonable to demand that the technique accurately reflect the mental structure and processes of the person. This need has not gone unnoticed, either by proponents of the grid technique or its critics, but their calls for psychometric rigor are couched in terms of reliability and validity, terms that have specific operational meanings, and have been derived from the theories proposed for standard psychological tests. This article examines the bases and structures of such theories in the context of repertory grid data     

Multiple repetition priming of faces: Massed and spaced presentations

Previously viewing a face typically leads to a decrease in the amount of time taken to later identify it (“repetition priming”). Five repetition priming experiments are reported, which investigate whether multiple presentations of a face increase the amount of repetition priming. The results demonstrate similar amounts of priming from massed multiple presentations of the same face or a series of different images (freeze frames selected from a moving clip and presented in sequence), compared with a single unchanging presentation (Experiments 1 and 2). This is true even when different images are presented at prime and test (Experiment 3). However when multiple presentations were presented in a spaced fashion, with one or more intervening items between each repeat, there was significantly more priming in the multiple than single presentation condition (Experiment 4). This was true even when the face was named only once in both the multiple and single spaced conditions (Experiment 5). The results are discussed in relation to face motion.     

The effect of controllability and causality on counterfactual thinking

Previous research on counterfactual thoughts about prevention suggests that people tend to focus on enabling rather than causing events and controllable rather than uncontrollable events. Two experiments explore whether counterfactual thinking about enablers is distinct from counterfactual thinking about controllable events. We presented participants with scenarios in which a cause and an enabler contributed to a negative outcome. We systematically manipulated the controllability of the cause and the enabler and asked participants to generate counterfactuals. The results indicate that when only the cause or the enabler is controllable participants undid the controllable event more often. However, when the cause and enabler are matched in controllability participants undid the enabler slightly more often. The findings are discussed in the context of the mental model, functional and judgement dissociation theories as well as previous research on counterfactual thinking. The importance of controllability and possible reasons for the special role of enablers are considered.