Effects of attention manipulation on judgments of duration and of intensity in the visual modality

The “attentional model” of time estimation assumes that temporal judgments depend on the amount of attention allocated to the temporal processor (the timer). One of the main predictions of this model is that an interval will be judged shorter when attention is not allocated to the temporal parameters of the task. Previous studies combining temporal and nontemporal tasks (dual-task method) have suggested that the time spent processing the target duration might be a key factor: The less time devoted by the subject to the temporal task, the shorter the judged duration. In the two experiments presented here, subjects were asked to judge both the duration of a visual stimulus and an increment in intensity occurring at any time during this stimulus. In the second experiment, trials without intensity increments were added. The main result is that the judged duration was shorter when the increment occurred later in the stimulus or did not occur. In those cases, subjects had been expecting increment occurrence during most part of the stimulus and thus had focused for a shorter time on stimulus duration. We propose that attention shifts related to expectancy and to detection of the increment reduce subjective duration.     

An introduction to the phenomenology of religion

This article examines how a secular lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, queer (LGBTQ) community choir in New Zealand negotiates a relationship with sacred repertoire, and the church in which the choir is located. A mixed-methods study included semi-structured interviews with 26 current and past members, musical directors and a church representative. Themes that emerged included tensions between religion and an LGBTQ cultural secularism, intersections of reconciliation and affirmation and the identity constitutive uses of space. Findings suggest that although, as LGBTQ-identified people, secularism is an important identity, sacred music is pleasurable. The choir provides church-like functions, through a sense of community, ritual and an environment for spiritual reflection and the practice of values. The church location offers reconciliation for those with Christian backgrounds. Benefitting each other, the choir gives St. Andrew’s legitimacy in its identity as an LGBTQ-inclusive church, and the church space has a queering effect on the presentation of the choir.     

Eye movements disrupt episodic future thinking

Remembering the past and imagining the future both rely on complex mental imagery. We considered the possibility that constructing a future scene might tap a component of mental imagery that is not as critical for remembering past scenes. Whereas visual imagery plays an important role in remembering the past, we predicted that spatial imagery plays a crucial role in imagining the future. For the purpose of teasing apart the different components underpinning scene construction in the two experiences of recalling episodic memories and shaping novel future events, we used a paradigm that might selectively affect one of these components (i.e., the spatial). Participants performed concurrent eye movements while remembering the past and imagining the future. These concurrent eye movements selectively interfere with spatial imagery, while sparing visual imagery. Eye movements prevented participants from imagining complex and detailed future scenes, but had no comparable effect on the recollection of past scenes. Similarities between remembering the past and imagining the future are coupled with some differences. The present findings uncover another fundamental divergence between the two processes.     

Gentled and non-handled rats in a stressful open-field situation; differences in performance

Open-field behaviour of individually gentled and non-handled adult Wistar rats in a stressful test situation (loud noise with bright light) was studied. The behaviour on the whole of the two groups differed significantly. While the gentled rats showed mainly signs of stress and explorativity, signs of fear beside stress and, on later trials, explorativity were typical of the non-handled animals. On later trials the behaviour of the non-handled rats neared to that of the gentled ones. In the behaviour of the gentled rats there was but little change as a function of trials. We suggest that individual gentling, beside minimizing fear of human contact, also increases the stability of the rat's reactions.     

The evolutionary psychology of small‐scale versus large‐scale politics: Ancestral conditions did not include large‐scale politics

The current research question sought to examine political psychology as it relates to evolutionary mismatch. The basic hypothesis is that people will be more cognitively prepared to think about political situations that are relatively small in scale compared with political situations that are large in scale. This research also examined the effects of whether the political situation is highly relevant to oneself. To test these questions, 49 young adults were presented with four sets of instructions. They were asked to write paragraphs describing (i) a large‐scale, self‐relevant political situation, (ii) a large‐scale non‐self‐relevant political situation, (iii) a small‐scale self‐relevant political situation, and (iv) a small‐scale non‐self‐relevant political situation. Paragraphs generated by the participants were analyzed using Tyler's ( 2013 ) Writing Sample Readability Analyzer. Results demonstrated that paragraphs designed for large‐scale political situations had more sentences and were less readable than paragraphs designed for small‐scale situations—while paragraphs designed for small‐scale political situations were relatively readable and included more words per sentence, suggesting that, consistent with the core hypothesis, participants had an easier time processing information related to small‐scale political situations than large‐scale political situations. Implications for the nature of modern politics are discussed.     

Freud with Charcot: Freud's discovery and the question of diagnosis

Although Charcot's seminal role in influencing Freud is widely stated, although Freud's trip to Paris to study with Charcot is well recognized as pivotal in his shift from neurological to psychopathological work, a key fact of the Freudian heuristic remains largely underestimated: namely, that Freud's psychopathological breakthrough, which gave birth to psychoanalysis, cannot be separated from his ‘diagnostic preoccupation’, which is a crucial and at times the first organizing principle of his earliest writings. The purpose of this article is therefore to reopen the question of diagnosis by following its development along the path leading from Charcot to Freud. The authors demonstrate that Freud's careful attention to diagnostic distinctions follows strictly in the direction of Charcot's ‘nosological method’. More importantly, the article intends to identify the precise way in which his ideas operate in Freud's own work, in order to understand how Freud reinvests them to forge his own nosological system. If the authors trace the destiny of Charcot's lessons as they reach Freud's hands, it is the importance granted to mixed neuroses in Freud's psychopathology that allows them to pinpoint the role played by the diagnostic process in the rationality of psychoanalysis.     

Cognitive therapy for social phobia: individual versus group treatment

Cognitive-behavioural group treatment is the treatment of choice for social phobia. However, as not all patients benefit, an additional empirically validated psychological treatment would be of value. In addition, few studies have examined whether a group treatment format is more effective than an individual treatment format. A randomized controlled trial addressed these issues by comparing individual cognitive therapy, along the lines advocated by Clark and Wells (Clark, D.M. and Wells, A., 1995. A cognitive model of social phobia. In: R. G. Heimberg, M. Liebowitz, D. Hope and F. Schneier (Eds.), Social Phobia: Diagnosis, assessment, and treatment (pp. 69-93). New York: Guilford.), with a group version of the treatment and a wait-list control condition. 71 patients meeting DSM-IV criteria for social phobia participated in the trial, 65 completed the posttreatment assessment and 59 completed a six-month follow-up. Social phobia measures indicated significant pretreatment to posttreatment improvement in both individual and group cognitive therapy. Individual cognitive therapy was superior to group cognitive therapy on several measures at both posttreatment and follow-up. The effects of treatment on general measures of mood and psychopathology were less substantial than the effects on social phobia. The results suggest that individual cognitive therapy is a specific treatment for social phobia and that it's effectiveness may be diminished by delivery in a group format.     

The Human Species Origin: Views of Biology Teachers from Three Latin American Countries

This paper intends to investigate whether the differences in country religiosity can influence biology teachers’ views about biological evolution, especially the human origin. Since Argentina, Brazil and Uruguay have differences in religiosity, teachers from these countries were asked to answer to the question of the European questionnaire BIOHEAD-CITIZEN: “The emergence of the human species (Homo sapiens) was just as improbable as the emergence of any other species.” From their answers, it was possible to estimate how biology teachers conceive the origin of the humankind, whether they perceive it as a natural phenomenon or a special event. The four Barbour’s categories concerning the relationship between science and religion (Conflict, Independence, Dialogue and Integration) were used to analyze the results in these three countries. Results showed that, in general, teachers of Uruguay (a secular country) and Argentina (a constitutional Catholic country) had a clearer position of separation between science and religion whereas the teachers of Brazil (with a relative secularism), tended to do not make a separation between science and religion. It could be concluded that the type of the teachers’ religion rather than the secularism of state is more influencial on building teachers’ views about human origin.