Continuous selection

Summary A model of target selection in continuous search tasks is outlined. The model was designed to account for two basic observations that are difficult to cover within the framework of the traditional target-control-type models of search, namely, pure detection (detection without identification) and pseudotarget detection (detection of new items not to be searched for). The model combines two basic assumptions: first, that targets are detected by default, that is, by virtue of the fact that they do not fit into an internal model of to-be-expected events (target detection by default) and second, that this internal model is generated, maintained, and updated on the basis of the nontarget information encountered during search (integration of non-target information). Furthermore, it is assumed that non-target integration and target detection can both be carried out at several processing levels simultaneously. The evidence available to support and develop the model is reviewed, and some of its general implications for a theory of selective attention are discussed.This paper is a selective summary of experimental work done in collaboration with Dieter Nattkemper and Cristina Meinecke and supported by the Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft (grant Pr 118/5)     

Attribution of Arousal as a Mediator of the Effectiveness of Fear-Arousing Communications1

Before watching a fear-arousing antismoking movie, male smokers were administered a placebo pill that was said to have either arousing, tranquilizing, or no side effects. Subjects reported less intention to reduce smoking when they could attribute their arousal to the presumably arousing pill, and greater intention to do so when they expected the pill to be tranquilizing, than when they expccted no side effects. The self-reported number of cigarettes smoked during a two-week period following the experiment decreased in both the tranquilizing and no side-effects conditions, but not in the arousing side-effects condition. The data on subjects' i]ntentions are consistent with predictions derived from Kelley's discounting and augmentation principles and demunstrate informational functions of affective states. Several explanations concerning the differences between intentions and behavior are discussed, and implications concerning strategies for behavior change are explored.     

Is ecology an ‘alternative’ natural science?

This article discusses whether ecology represents an alternative type of natural science, that is normatively committed. Central questions are:-how man and human action are integrated into the subject matter of ecology;-whether evaluative concepts like health are incorporated into the conceptual structure of ecology; and-whether ecology transcends the image of natural knowledge as control of nature.It is concluded that all hypotheses of ecology being inherently judgmental in character must be rejected.Like all the healing arts, ecology is through and through judgmental in character. It cannot be value-neutral.... What violates the natural harmony must be condemned; what enhances it be endorsed.... Ecology is the closest our science has yet come to an integrative wisdom. It, not physics, deserves to become the basic science of the future.     

UNESCO'S PROJECT ON THE EXCHANGE OF KNOWLEDGE FOR ENDOGENOUS DEVELOPMENT

“Information is knowledge. Knowledge is power.” More than ever, this saying is acquiring compelling force, although it has in fact been true since man sought to communicate and to free himself from the constraints and dangers threatening his survival or hampering the development of his highest potentialities. But with the extension of relationships with societies, this maxim of Auguste Comte becomes even more pertinent. Those who lack knowledge see their fate shaped by others in the light of their own interests. This is true of individuals as well as of social groups and of people. Millions of human beings are subjected to oppressive forms of domination, both covert and overt, because they lack access to knowledge. What will the situation be tomorrow? Does irreversible “planetarization” mean that some individuals or groups of people will become the brain, storing and originating knowledge, while others will be reduced to functioning as connective or muscular tissue? The metaphor (if such it is) may be open to criticism, but the question, which is at the heart of this whole research on the exchange of knowledge, remains valid. We must face the possibility, remote though it may be, of an unequal division of mankind into a more or less standardized, mechanized, and “functional” mass and an initiated elite in possession of all the power. Processes are moving ahead that will culminate in such a situation - unless we prove capable of instituting a new international economic order. No further evidence is needed than the increase in the disparities and inequalities of income and ability to acquire knowledge not only between industrialized and Third World countries, but also within each of these groups of countries, between sections of the population, between regions, and between town and country.     

Attention and sensitivity in visual search

Summary In continuous visual search, targets can be detected within a certain area around the fixation point (control area). Recent observations have suggested that these areas are asymmetrical in their vertical extent, i.e., that targets can be detected at greater distances below than above the fixation point. In order to obtain more direct evidence on this asymmetry, two experiments were conducted using a contingent-display technique. Pronounced asymmetry of the vertical detection span was observed. A model is presented according to which the asymmetry results from the superposition of two sources: the permanent distribution of sensitivity and the actual distribution of attention along the vertical axis of the visual field. The detectability of a target at a given location is a joint function of the strength of these two factors at that location.     

Pavlovian conditional stimuli cannot always be defined solely in physical terms

Twenty-four university students received differential Pavlovian conditioning with two colored stimuli separately accompanied by shock, and two other colored stimuli separately presented without shock. The reinforced and nonreinforced pairs of stimuli both contained complementary elements. After differentiation between the reinforced and nonreinforced elements was established, the complementary pairs were each additively mixed, (i.e., presented at the same time and in the same locus), producing two identical white compounds (established by pilot study). The subjects’ skin-conductance responses to the two compounds showed that their different conditioning histories did not result in different responses. Rather, a simple declining function was obtained, resembling habituation or extinction. It was concluded that the definition of the conditional stimulus as a physical event is inappropriate in studies in which physically different stimuli may result in identical internal processes (or phenomenologic experiences)—for example, in additive color mixture.     

The gradient of spatial auditory attention in free field: An event-related potential study

Young adult subjects attended selectively to brief noise bursts delivered in free field via a horizontal array of seven loudspeakers spaced apart by 9° of angle. Frequent “standard” stimuli (90%) and infrequent “target/deviant” stimuli (10%) of increased bandwidth were delivered at a fast rate in a random sequence equiprobably from each speaker. In separate runs, the subjects’ task was to selectively attend to the leftmost, center, or rightmost speaker and to press a button to the infrequent “target” stimuli occurring at the designated spatial location. Behavioral detection rates and concurrently recorded event-related potentials (ERPs) indicated that auditory attention was deployed as a finely tuned gradient around the attended sound source, thus providing support for gradient models of auditory spatial attention. Furthermore, the ERP data suggested that the spatial focusing of attention was achieved in two distinct stages, with an early more broadly tuned filtering of inputs occurring over the first 80–200 msec after stimulus onset, followed by a more narrowly focused selection of attended-location deviants that began at around 250 msec and closely resembled the behavioral gradient of target detections.     

Zum gegenwärtigen Stand der psychoanalytischen Selbstpsychologie

Zusammenfassung Die psychoanalytische Selbstpsychologie wird dargestellt als postmodernes Paradigma zur Analyse des postpatriarchalen Selbst mit dem methodischen Zugang über Introspektion und Empathie. Die eingeschr?nkten Behandlungsm?glichkeiten vor allem bei narzi?tisch gest?rten Patienten führte Heinz Kohut zur Annahme einer eigenen Entwicklungslinie des Narzi?mus und eines Motivationsprimats des Selbst, welches er bipolar konzipierte. Sexuelles und aggressives Verhalten werden in der Folge nur dann als prim?r angesehen, wenn ein koh?rentes, vitales, nicht fragmentiertes Selbst vorliegt. Wesentliche Bedingungen für Selbstkoh?renz sind die Selbstobjekterfahrungen, die in ihrer Vielfalt ebenso wie Selbstst?rungen dargestellt werden. Aus den Selbstobjekterfahrungen leiten sich die Hauptübertragungsformen in der psychoanalytischen Selbstpsychologie ab. Ein kurzer Abri?über den therapeutischen Proze? sowie über die Integration der S?uglings- und Kleinkindforschung in die Selbstpsychologie und eine andere Sicht des ?dipuskomplexes vervollst?ndigen die hier gegebene übersicht und werden abschlie?end durch einige Neukonzeptionen der psychoanalytischen Selbstpsychologie erg?nzt.