Information-Hierarchical Organization of Natural Systems II: Futures of Man–Biosphere Interactions and Climate Control

The informational influence of both the vegetation and human society on climate dynamics in moderate and arid zones is revealed. The stability of the Eurasia climate during the last 2,000 years was determined by the specific structure of the Christianity-Judaism sociobiosystem. The study has also revealed the potential information-hierarchical organization of human society with a 71,874-year existence. This organization includes three world religions (Buddhism, Christianity, and Islam) as subsystems and provides both the global stability of climate processes and the conservation of evolutionary developed information-hierarchical organization of the biosphere.     

Cultural influences on preference consistency: Consistency at the individual and collective levels

Previous research has shown that there are cultural differences in self-concept consistency across situations. However, little is known about cultural differences in preference consistency over time. The present research examined whether Americans are more consistent in their preferences over time than are Japanese. As hypothesized, there were cultural differences in self-reported ( and ) and actual ( and ) preference consistency over time. Further, cultural differences in preference consistency at the individual level (Study 1) were found to aggregate into collective level differences ( and ) in the consistency of preference trends, such as the popularity of baby names. Implications and future directions are discussed.     

Cost minimization during simulated evolution of paired neural networks leads to asymmetries and specialization

Motivated by specialization (lateralization) that occurs in corresponding left and right regions of the cerebral cortex, several past computational models have studied conditions under which functional specialization can arise during learning due to underlying asymmetries in paired neural networks. However, these past studies have not addressed the basic issue of how such underlying asymmetries arise in the first place. As an initial step in addressing this issue, we investigated the hypothesis that underlying asymmetries will appear in paired neural networks during a simulated evolutionary process when fitness is based not only on maximizing performance, but also on minimizing various ‘costs’ such as energy consumption, neural connection weights, and response times. Simulated evolution under these conditions consistently produced networks with left–right asymmetries in region size, excitability and plasticity. These underlying asymmetries were often synergistic, leading to subsequent functional lateralization during network training. While our computational models are too simple for these results to be directly extrapolated to real nervous systems, they provide support for the hypothesis that brain asymmetries and lateralization in biological nervous systems may be a consequence of cost minimization present during evolution, and are the first computational demonstration of emergent population lateralization.     

Incomplete figure perception and invisible masking

The Gollin test (measuring recognition thresholds for fragmented line drawings of everyday objects and animals) has traditionally been regarded as a test of incomplete figure perception or 'closure', though there is a debate about how such closure is achieved. Here, figural incompleteness is considered to be the result of masking, such that absence of contour elements of a fragmented figure is the result of the influence of an 'invisible' mask. It is as though the figure is partly obscured by a mask having parameters identical to those of the background. This mask is 'invisible' only consciously, but for the early stages of visual processing it is real and has properties of multiplicative noise. Incomplete Gollin figures were modeled as the figure covered by the mask with randomly distributed transparent and opaque patches. We adjusted the statistical characteristics of the contour image and empty noise patches and processed those using spatial and spatial-frequency measures. Across 73 figures, despite inter-subject variability, mean recognition threshold was always approximately 15% of total contour in naive observers. Recognition worsened with increasing spectral similarity between the figure and the 'invisible' mask. Near threshold, the spectrum of the fragmented image was equally similar to that of the 'invisible' mask and complete image. The correlation between spectral parameters of figures at threshold and complete figures was greatest for figures that were most easily recognised. Across test sessions, thresholds reduced when either figure or mask parameters were familiar. We argue that recognition thresholds for Gollin stimuli in part reflect the extraction of signal from noise.     

Comparing solid-body with point-light animations

The movement of faces provides useful information for a variety of tasks and is now an active area of research. We compare here two ways of presenting face motion in experiments: as solid-body animations and as point-light displays. In the first experiment solid-body and point-light animations, based on the same motion-captured marker data, produced similar levels of performance on a sex-judgment task. The trend was for an advantage for the point-light displays, probably in part because of residual spatial cues available in such stimuli. In the second experiment we compared spatially normalised point-light displays of marker data with solid-body animations and pseudorandom point-light animations. Performance with solid-body animations and normalised point-light displays was similar and above chance, while performance with the pseudorandom point-light stimuli was not above chance. We conclude that both relatively few well-placed points and solid-body animations provide useful information about facial motion, but that a greater number of randomly placed points does not support above-chance performance. Solid-body animations have the methodological advantages of reducing the importance of marker placement and are more effective in isolating motion information, even if they are subsequently rendered as point-light displays.     

American and Japanese women use different coping strategies during normal pregnancy

In this longitudinal study, pregnant women in Japan and the United States reported on three coping strategies. Two are individually phrased: personal influence over outcomes and acceptance of outcomes. The third, social assurance, is grounded in relationships, noting that close others can influence outcomes. A European American sample rated acceptance highest as a strategy, whereas Japanese women rated social assurance highest. For Americans, acceptance correlated with better pregnancy outcomes (less distress over time, better prenatal care, and less weight gain). For Japanese women, social assurance predicted a more positive maternal relationship. Acceptance correlated with less Time 1 distress in both samples. Surprisingly, personal influence generally did not predict positive outcomes in either sample, perhaps because normal pregnancy is a time-limited event with a positive prognosis. The findings are consistent with the view that well-being is related to individual variables in the United States but also to features of social relationships in Japan.     

Feminist ideology as a predictor of body dissatisfaction in women

A relationship between feminist attitudes and body satisfaction has been suggested in the literature, but has received no empirical support. Multiple regression analyses were performed on a sample of 200 primarily Caucasian women. Results indicated that after controlling for certain known predictors of body dissatisfaction, the Physical Attractiveness(PA) subscale of the CFIS was negatively related to both General and Specific Body Dissatisfaction, but that the total CFIS score was not. These findings suggest that women's feminist attitudes regarding physical attractiveness relate significantly to body satisfaction, but an overall feminist identification does not. Applications of this finding may contribute to the reduction of women's excessive concerns with their bodies. The authors wish to thank Adele LeMaire for her assistance with the data collection.     

Enduring and Perduring Objects in Minkowski Space-Time

I examine the issue of persistence over time in thecontext of the special theory of relativity (SR). Thefour-dimensional ontology of perduring objects isclearly favored by SR. But it is a different questionif and to what extent this ontology is required, andthe rival endurantist ontology ruled out, by thistheory. In addressing this question, I take theessential idea of endurantism, that objects are whollypresent at single moments of time, and argue that itcommits one to unacceptable conclusions regardingcoexistence, in the context of SR. I then propose anddiscuss a plausible account of coexistence forperduring objects, which is free of these defects. This leaves the endurantist room for some maneuvers. I consider them and show that they do not really helpthe endurantist out. She can accommodate the notionof coexistence in the relativistic framework only atthe cost of renouncing central endurantist intuitions.