Concepts,mystics and post-Kantians

The presentist view of time is psychologically appealing. I argue that, ironically, contingent facts about the temporal properties of consciousness are very difficult to square with presentism unless some form of mind/body dualism is embraced.     

Visual impressions of force exerted by one object on another when the objects do not come into contact

Simple animations in which one object contacts another give rise to visual impressions that the former object causes the outcome for the latter, and that the former object is exerting force on the latter. How does the impression of force relate to the impression of causality? The main aim of this research was to investigate this issue using stimuli in which there is a gap between the objects at closest approach. Delay between the first object stopping and the second object starting to move had a strong effect on reported force impressions, which is consistent with findings of research on the causal impression. However, the reported force impression was little affected by either the size of the gap or the presence and features of an object in the gap, whereas the causal impression was strongly affected by both. The findings support the conclusion that the force impression and the causal impression are distinct components of the visual interpretation of the stimulus.     

Play it again: neural responses to reunion with excluders predicted by attachment patterns

Reunion behavior following stressful separations from caregivers is often considered the single most sensitive clue to infant attachment patterns. Extending these ideas to middle childhood/early adolescence, we examined participants' neural responses to reunion with peers who had previously excluded them. We recorded event‐related potentials among nineteen 11‐ to 15‐year‐old youth previously classified on attachment interviews (11 secure and 8 insecure‐dismissing) while they played a virtual ball‐toss game (Cyberball) with peers that involved fair play, exclusion and reunion phases. Compared to secure participants, dismissing participants displayed a greater increment in the N2 during reunion relative to fair play, a neural marker commonly linked to expectancy violation. These data suggest a greater tendency toward continued expectations of rejection among dismissing children, even after cessation of social exclusion. In turn, the link between self‐reported ostracism distress and neural signs of negative expectancy at reunion was moderated by attachment, such that self‐reports were discordant with the neural index of expectancy violation for dismissing, but not for secure children. A video abstract of this article can be viewed at http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qzoRel5c-4s .     

Body checking and avoidance in ethnically diverse female college students

Although body checking and avoidance behaviors are common in women with eating disorders, minimal research has examined the nature or correlates of these behaviors in ethnically diverse female college students without eating disorders. Self-identified European American (n = 268), Asian American (n = 163), Latina (n = 146), and African American (n = 73) women completed self-report measures of body checking and avoidance, thin-ideal internalization, eating pathology, and clinical impairment. Results indicated that European and Asian American women reported significantly more body checking and avoidance than African American and Latina women. Generally, correlates of body checking and avoidance were consistent across ethnic groups: Regression analyses indicated that type of ethnicity predicted body checking and avoidance; and ethnicity, body checking, and body avoidance predicted eating pathology and clinical impairment. These associations suggest that body checking and avoidance are not benign behaviors in diverse nonclinical women.     

Causal judgement from contingency information: Judging interactions between two causal candidates

In two experiments participants judged the extent to which occurrences and non-occurrences of an effect could be attributed to an interaction between two causal candidates A and B. In Experiment 1 judgements were influenced by the proportion of instances normatively evaluated as confirmatory for the interaction interpretation, when the objective contingency was held constant. Information about instances in which both candidates were present and the effect occurred was more influential than information about instances in which both candidates were absent and the effect did not occur. In Experiment 2 the occurrence rate of the effect when both candidates were present, when A alone was present, when B alone was present, and when both were absent was manipulated. Interaction judgements were mainly determined by occurrence rate when both were present. There was also a significant effect of occurrence rate when both were absent, but the other two occurrence rates had no significant effect. These results are interpreted as supporting a general model in which causal judgements are made according to the proportion of instances evaluated as supporting the interpretation being judged.     

Memory for events after twenty years

This is a study of one person's memory for events that occurred twenty years earlier. Memory was observed to follow an asymptotic rate of decay. No experience of recovered memories occurred. Factors found to be related to recall were the rarity of the event, its vividness, and the emotional intensity experienced at the time. Factors unrelated or only weakly related were perceived importance of the event, its association with knowledge, and intensities of physical sensations. Pleasant events were recalled a little better than unpleasant. Though less strongly associated with memory than is location, moderate marking of events with date and time was found. The results suggest that personal memory declines as the images of events one by one submerge into the mass of generalized experiences. The more vivid, rare, and emotional experiences are more likely to remain discriminable, and may be sustained by rehearsal. Copyright © 2002 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Neuropsychological Performance in Gulf War Era Veterans: Traumatic Stress Symptomatology and Exposure to Chemical–Biological Warfare Agents

Because complaints of diminished concentration and memory are among the most common health symptoms reported by Gulf War (GW) veterans with unexplained illnesses, this study investigated neuropsychological functions among GW veterans and controls. Relationships between neuropsychological performance, severity of posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD) symptomatology, and exposure to chemical–biological warfare agents (CBW) were assessed. Participants were 225 veterans recruited from three cohorts: GW-deployed veterans from Ft. Devens, MA ( n = 141) and New Orleans, LA (n = 37), and Germany-deployed veterans from a Maine National Guard unit (n = 47). A comprehensive evaluation was completed. Severity of subclinical PTSD symptomatology was significantly related to scores on specific neuropsychological tests. PTSD symptom severity in GW-deployed veterans was found to be greater and associated with a broader range of neuropsychological deficits than in Germany-deployed veterans. PTSD severity was associated with lower performance on a range of neuropsychological tasks, whereas CBW exposure contributed to performance deficits on specific cognitive tasks.