Innocent but proven guilty: Eliciting internalized false confessions using doctored‐video evidence

More powerful computers and affordable digital‐video equipment means that desktop‐video editing is now accessible and popular. In two experiments, we investigated whether seeing fake‐video evidence, or simply being told that video evidence exists, could lead people to believe they committed an act they never did. Subjects completed a computerized gambling task, and when they returned later the same day, we falsely accused them of cheating on the task. All of the subjects were told that incriminating video evidence existed, and half were also exposed to a fake video. See‐video subjects were more likely to confess without resistance, and to internalize the act than told‐video subjects, and see‐video subjects tended to confabulate details more often than told‐video subjects. We offer a metacognitive‐based account of our results. Copyright © 2008 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Small Acts of Living: Everyday Resistance to Violence and Other Forms of Oppression

The author describes an approach to therapy which is based on the observation that whenever persons are badly treated, they resist. Case illustrations are given in which individuals seeking therapy had been subjected to violence and oppression.     

Binocular rivalry with moving patterns

Binocular rivalry between a horizontal and a vertical grating was examined in six experiments. The gratings could be presented in a static form or dynamically so that either one or both gratings moved. The motion consisted of a symmetrical transformation of the gratings about their centers, so that the lines moved outwards or inwards. During rivalry, a moving pattern was visible for about 50% longer than an equivalently oriented static pattern (Experiments 1, 2, and 4). When both gratings were in motion (Experiments 3 and 5), the course of rivalry was similar to that found for two static gratings. The duration of dominance of the moving grating was influenced by its velocity (Experiment 6). The results are interpreted in terms of the stimulus strengths of the static and dynamic patterns.     

The interaction of perceived distance with the perceived direction of visual motion during movements of the eyes and the head

A horizontally moving target was followed by rotation of the eyes alone or by a lateral movement of the head. These movements resulted in the retinal displacement of a vertically moving target from its perceived path, the amplitude of which was determined by the phase and amplitude of the object motion and of the eye or head movements. In two experiments, we tested the prediction from our model of spatial motion (Swanston, Wade, & Day, 1987) that perceived distance interacts with compensation for head movements, but not with compensation-for eye movements with respect to a stationary head. In both experiments, when the vertically moving target was seen at a distance different from its physical distance, its perceived path was displaced relative to that seen when there was no error in pereived distance, or when it was pursued by eye movements alone. In a third experiment, simultaneous measurements of eye and head position during lateral head movements showed that errors in fixation were not sufficient to require modification of the retinal paths determined by the geometry of the observation conditions in Experiments 1 and 2.     

Book Review The Journey Home: What Near-Death Experiences and Mysticism Teach Us about the Gift of Life,by Phillip L. Berman. New York,NY: Pocket Books, 1996, 207pp + xiv, $14.00 pb

Journal of Near-Death Studies -     

Biorhythms in the activity of children during free play

The interaction between the arousal to action of environmental stimuli and recovery from that activity was presumed to generate biorhythms in the activity level of children. The level of environmental stimuli was manipulated by varying the play-group size and the apparatus, and higher environmental complexity was expected to produce more pronounced rhythms. The heart rates of 16 subjects playing in monad, dyad, and tetrad group sizes, in two playroom configurations, were monitored and spectral analysis used to locate significant biorhythms. There was a tendency toward 40-min (slow frequency) and 15-min (fast frequency) biorhythms. The group size manipulation produced the strongest biorhythmic behavior in the dyadic groups. Apparatus differences were not significant but the configuration containing a minimum quantity of play apparatus produced more variable activity than the configuration containing a large amount of play apparatus.     

The effect of orientation in binocular contour rivalry of real images and afterimages

Binocular rivalry was investigated using gratings of different orientations in three experiments. No consistent effects of orientation were found for predominance measures of rivalry between real images. Rivalrous afterimages, on the other hand, did exhibit orientation selectivity: vertical gratings were visible for longer than were 45-deg gratings. This effect was compared to the similar orientation selectivity found for monocular observation of grating afterimages. Comparisons of binocular rivalry between real images and afterimages were made in terms of the frequency distributions of the dominance periods.