ONE-SHOT VIEW INVARIANCE IN A MOVING WORLD

Abstract— How do people recognize an object in a novel orientation? Psychophysical and neurophvsiological studies have suggested that extensive practice is required before observers can recognize an object that has been rotated to a new orientation Because object orientation frequently vanes with object movement, we examined whether observers might more readily recognize a moving object in a new orientation Results from a priming study indicate that motion significantly arid readily enhances the recognition of new object orientations when those orientations fait within the path of the motion That is motion promotes view-invariant object recognition without practice     

Contemporary ethics from an ambiguous past.

Kaveny recommends models drawn from the Gospel of John and the practices of the early church for modern Christians in their response to older women and their health needs. She draws upon a historical reconstruction of the early Christian Order of Widows to propose a normative standard of care for elderly women, one that attends seriously to their bodily needs but also to their needs for inclusion and engagement in the social and vocational world both as givers and recipients of care. This is also to serve as an overarching model for a bioethics that prizes the embodied existence of all women and rejects judgments of appropriate treatment based on their social utility. The following response raises questions about the exegetical and historical foundations of Kaveny's analysis. However, these caveats may not detract substantially from the normative usefulness of her work.     

Linking form and motion in the primate brain

Understanding dynamic events entails the integration of information about form and motion that is crucial for fast and successful interactions in complex environments. A striking example of our sensitivity to dynamic information is our ability to recognize animate figures by the way they move and infer motion from still images. Accumulating evidence for form and motion interactions contrasts with the traditional dissociation between shape and motion-related processes in the ventral and dorsal visual pathways. By combining findings from physiology and brain imaging it can be demonstrated that the primate brain converts information about spatiotemporal sequences into meaningful actions through interactions between early and higher visual areas processing form and motion and frontal-parietal circuits involved in the understanding of actions.     

Yohimbine impairs extinction of cocaine-conditioned place preference in an alpha2-adrenergic receptor independent process

Extinction, a form of learning that has the ability to reshape learned behavior based on new experiences, has been heavily studied utilizing fear learning paradigms. Mechanisms underlying extinction of positive-valence associations, such as drug self-administration and place preference, are poorly understood yet may have important relevance to addiction treatment. Data suggest a major role for the noradrenergic system in extinction of fear-based learning. Employing both pharmacological and genetic approaches, we investigated the role of the alpha(2)-adrenergic receptor (alpha(2)-AR) in extinction of cocaine-conditioned place preference (CPP) and glutamatergic transmission in the bed nucleus of the stria terminalis (BNST). We found that pre-extinction systemic treatment with the alpha(2)-AR antagonist yohimbine impaired cocaine CPP extinction in C57BL/6J mice, an effect that was not mimicked by the more selective alpha(2)-AR antagonist, atipamezole. Moreover, alpha(2A)-AR knockout mice exhibited similar cocaine CPP extinction and exacerbated extinction impairing effects of yohimbine. Using acute brain slices and electrophysiological approaches, we found that yohimbine produces a slowly evolving depression of glutamatergic transmission in the BNST that was not mimicked by atipamezole. Further, this action was extant in slices from alpha(2A)-AR knockout mice. Our data strongly suggest that extinction-modifying effects of yohimbine are unlikely to be due to actions at alpha(2A)-ARs.     

Significant other primes and behavior: motivation to respond to social cues moderates pursuit of prime-induced goals

Significant others can automatically activate a variety of goals, including goals that significant others have for an individual and the individual's personal goals that are associated with the significant others. Across three studies, this article shows that the effects of significant other primes (i.e., mother, roommate) on behavior depend on individual differences in both personal goals and responsiveness to social cues (i.e., self-monitoring, need to belong). Specifically, individuals who are motivated to respond to social cues assimilate to a goal that their primed significant other has for them, regardless of whether they personally hold the goal. Individuals not so motivated, on the other hand, assimilate to the goal only when it is one that they also personally hold. Implications of these findings for research on the prime-to-behavior relationship and interpersonal goal pursuit are discussed.     

The effects of stereotype activation on behavior: a review of possible mechanisms.

Considerable recent research has examined the effects that activated stereotypes have on behavior. Research on both self-stereotype activation and other-stereotype activation has tended to show that people behave in ways consistent with the stereotype (e.g., walking more slowly if the elderly stereotype is activated). Interestingly, however, the dominant account for the behavioral effects of self-stereotype activation involves a hot motivational factor (i.e., stereotype threat), whereas the dominant account for the behavioral effects of other-stereotype activation focuses on a rather cold cognitive explanation (i.e., ideomotor processes). The current review compares and contrasts the behavioral research on self- and other-stereotype activation and concludes that both motivational and cognitive explanations might account for effects in each domain.     

Two Threats To Representation

I consider two threats to the idea that on-line intelligent behaviour (the production offluid and adaptable responses to ongoing sensory input) must or should be explainedby appeal to neurally located representations. The first of these threats occurs whenextra-neural factors account for the kind of behavioural richness and flexibility normallyassociated with representation-based control. I show how this anti-representationalchallenge can be met, if we apply the thought that, to be a representational system,an action-oriented neural system must not only be the source of at least some of theobserved behavioural richness and flexibility, it must also feature two architecturaltraits, namely arbitrariness and homuncularity. Unfortunately, however, this solutionopens the door to our second threat to representation. The homuncularity conditionwill not be met by any system in which the causal contribution of each component ismassively context-sensitive and variable over time. I end by discussing the empiricalbet that biological nervous systems will not exhibit this style of causation.