Peace and Islam: In theory and practice

The article centres on the humanistic and peace‐oriented elements in the foundational sources of Islam, the Qur'an and the Prophet's life, especially on Muhammad's attitude towards war and peace. As the Qur'an clearly attests, Muhammad continued to search for reconciliation and mutual understanding,. with Jews and Christians as well as with opponents and enemies. As to jihad, Q. 2:90 and Q. 22:39 unambiguously prohibit offensive war, in fact, any kind of aggression, cruelty and wanton destruction. The Qur'an prescribes a humane conduct of war. Wherever politically possible, peace has the priority. Finally, the author exemplifies contemporary Muslim attitudes towards war and peace and describes Muslim peace initiatives.     

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 measurement of perceived opportunity for occupational attainment

Many writers implicate perceptions of the opportunity structure in the labor market as essential components of the formation, stability, and enactment of socioeconomic achievement attitudes. These perceptions of opportunity are thought to be observed structural constraints and reflective of more than just pure motivation. Previous attempts at measuring “perceived opportunity” have no consistent approach or conceptualization. This study evaluates a 10-item scale of perceived occupational opportunity in an attempt to overcome many of these problems. Using panel data covering the period of career decision making and labor force entry (adolescence to young adulthood), the internal reliability and construct validity of the linear composite are assessed. The scale's external validity is then further explored within the context of a structural equation model linking perceived opportunity to social origins, adolescent career plans, and early socioeconomic attainments.     

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.     

Der Einfluß der Reizverteilung auf die Strategienwahl beim Wahrscheinlichkeitslernen

Zusammenfassung Versuche zum Wahrscheinlichkeitslernen mit sechs Ereignissen wurden mit vier Gruppen von je 20 Vpn durchgeführt, um die Hypothese zu prüfen, daß auch bei mehr als zwei Ereignissen die Vpn die Wahrscheinlichkeiten der Vorgaben richtig schätzen können und daher in der Lage sind, eine optimale Strategie zu entwickeln und nicht die gemischte Strategie der Wahrscheinlichkeitsangleichung (probability-matching) bevorzugen. Im Gegensatz zu anderen Autoren hatten bereits Neimark und Shutord diese Hypothese in einem Versuch mit zwei Ereignissen bestätigen können. Bei mehr als zwei Ereignissen muß jedoch die unterschiedliche Informationsbedingung berücksichtigt werden, die eine sinngemäße Umwandlung des Vorhersageexperiments in ein Rateexperiment verlangte.In einem Planversuch wurden die Wahrscheinlichkeit des häufigsten Ereignisses mit p=0,33 und p=0,50 in Kombination mit der Struktur der Verteilung der restlichen Ereignisse (Gleichverteilung vs. abfallende Wahrscheinlichkeiten) variiert. Die Schätzungen der subjektiven Wahrscheinlichkeiten für die sechs Ereignisse weichen nicht von den objektiven Werten ab. Ferner ergeben die Analyse der Wahlen am Ende der Lernversuche sowie die Auswertung der durchschnittlichen Anzahl von Rateversuchen, daß in allen vier Gruppen die Versuchspersonen die optimale Strategie anstreben.

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Strategic behaviour in probability learning experiments with more than two choices

Summary Probability-matching in two-choice experiments has stimulated discussions about strategic behaviour of Ss'. Neimark and Shuford found that Ss in a two-choice situation estimated correctly the proportion of events to be predicted and did not use the suboptimal matching strategy. Does this finding generalize to situations with more than two choices ?A probability learning experiment with six events was conducted with 20 Ss in each of four groups. The usual prediction method had to be changed into a successive guessing method to secure the same information feedback on each trial as in the two-choice situation. A 2×2 design was used to vary the probability of the most frequent event at two levels (p=0.33 and p=0.50) and the distribution of the remaining events (equal proportions vs. decreasing proportions).Ss' estimates of subjective probabilities did not differ from objective probabilities. Analysis of Ss' choices in the final block of 30 trials and an analysis of variance on the number of guesses indicated that no probability-matching did occur. Ss used the optimal strategy instead but failed to do so consequently enough to reach optimum performance scores. The results show that even with more than two events Ss are able to learn the probability distribution and effectively try to adopt the optimal strategy if the situation is a well defined one.

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Die Versuche wurden im Rahmen eines Forschungsauftrags der Deutschen Forschungsgemeinschaft über Subjektive Wahrscheinlichkeit durchgeführt, der von Prof. Dr. Dr. Hans Anger und Prof. Dr. J. Pfanzagl betreut wurde.     

Friendly or just polite? The effect of self-esteem on attributions

Studied the effect of a person's self-esteem on his inferences about another person's feelings toward him. Fifty-six mule and female college student subjects of high or low chronic self-esteem (median split; modified version of Janis and Field's ‘Feelings of Inadequacy Scale’) received either a negative or a positive evaluation of themselves. They were told that the evaluation had been written by another subject who had acted either under ‘sincere’ instructions, which allowed him to give his own opinion, or under ‘role-playing’ instructions, which assigned him to write either a positive or a negative evaluation. The subject's take was to decide under which instruction his evaluation had been written. It was predicted from a self-concistency logic that low self-esteem subjects would attribute negative evaluations to ‘sincere’ and positive evaluations to ‘role-playing’ instructions, while high self-esteem subjects would make the reverse attributions. A significant self-esteem × evaluation positivity interaction (p <.01) supported this prediction.     

Detectability of motion as a factor in depth perception by monocular movement parallax

A display of two objects at different distances was presented to 10 observers, who were requested in two experiments to match the width of the more distant (comparison) object to the width of the nearer (standard) one under conditions permitting monocular observation and lateral head motion. The matched width of the comparison object was considered a measure of the effectiveness of movement parallax. The effectiveness of movement parallax decreases with increasing angular separation of the objects and with increasing background distance. A background without visible texture leads to a better perception of depth between two objects than a textured background The results can be explained by postulating that, whenever the detectability of motion is enhanced, i.e., the threshold for the detection of motion is lowered, the effectiveness of movement parallax as a cue to depth is increased.     

Component processes in multiattribute stimulus classification

Summary In an attempt to analyze some aspects of the task requirements in multiattribute stimulus classification (MASC), actual task demands are contrasted with nominal (i.e. theoretically assumed) task demands. On the basis of theoretical considerations and some experimental data corrections of the usually adopted picture of the task are suggested in three respects: 1. For many MASC tasks the component processes involved can better be conceived to be feature detection operations than dimensional discrimination processes. 2. When few dimensions are relevant, irrelevant interrogation may interfere with relevant processing. 3. When many dimensions are relevant, attribute chunking may occur, i.e. there may actually be fewer component processes than is theoretically assumed. — It is concluded that using multiattribute stimulus sets does not help to solve the problem of controlling or identifying functional units of information processing.

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Zusammenfassung Es wird ein Versuch unternommen, einige Aspekte der Aufgabenanforderungen in Klassifikationsaufgaben mit mehrdimensional variierendem Figurenmaterial (MASC) zu analysieren und sie mit den entsprechenden nominellen (d. h. theoretisch postulierten) Aufgabenanforderungen zu vergleichen. Aufgrund von theoretischen Überlegungen und experimentellen Ergebnissen werden drei Korrekturen des allgemein akzeptierten Bildes dieser Art von Klassifikationsaufgaben vorgeschlagen: 1. Die Teilprozesse sind in vielen MASC-Aufgaben eher vom Typus der Merkmalsdetektion als vom Typus der dimensionalen Diskrimination. 2. Wenn nur ein Teil der variierenden Dimensionen relevant ist, kann irrelevante Variation mit der Verarbeitung der relevanten Information interferieren. 3. Wenn viele Dimensionen relevant sind, kann die Zahl der tatsächlichen Teilprozesse durch Zusammenfassung von Merkmalen reduziert sein, so daß in Wirklichkeit weniger Teilprozesse ablaufen als theoretisch angenommen wird. — Die Untersuchung führt zu der Schlußfolgerung, daß das Problem der Identifikation oder Kontrolle von funktionalen Einheiten der Verarbeitung durch die Verwendung von mehrdimensional variierendem Figurenmaterial nicht gelöst wird.