Backward masking interrupts spatial attention,slows downstream processing,and limits conscious perception

The attentional blink (AB) is a difficulty in correctly processing a target when it follows one or more other targets after a short delay. When no backward mask is presented after the last critical target, there is no or little behavioral AB deficit. The mask plays an important role in limiting conscious access to target information. In this electrophysiological study, we tested the impact of masking on the deployment and engagement of attention by measuring the N2pc and P3 components in an RSVP paradigm. We found that the presence of a mask in an AB paradigm reduced the amplitude of the N2pc, P3a, and P3b components. In addition to reducing encoding in memory, masking also reduced the effectiveness of the deployment and engagement of attention on the last target. We discuss the role of these findings in the context of current masking, consciousness, and AB models.     

返回抑制训练效应的认知神经机制——来自ERP研究的证据

返回抑制是指个体对呈现在先前(约250 ms前)线索化或注视过位置的刺激反应更慢的现象。尽管有研究表明IOR在长时训练下存在稳定的训练效应,但其相应的认知神经机制,即训练究竟是如何影响IOR的迄今为止尚不明确。本研究采用对信息加工过程高敏感的事件相关电位技术结合长时训练和线索-靶子范式来对该问题进行考察。结果发现:在行为上同前人研究结果相一致,返回抑制效应在长时训练下表现出稳定的下降趋势;更重要的是在脑电上同IOR行为效应量在训练后变小的结果相一致,标识早期知觉加工的成分如N1等在有效和无效线索条件间的差异也表现出在训练后的降低。结果表明早期的知觉加工阶段是训练影响IOR的一个重要阶段,为探明IOR训练效应的认知神经机制提供了来自电生理学的重要证据。     

Stages-of-learning analysis of developmental interactions in memory,with illustrations from developmental interactions in picture-word effects

Although Age × Treatment interactions have been widely viewed as key results in theories of memory development, most examples of such results (e.g., Age × Treatment interactions in the effects of item concreteness, item elaboration, and organizational context) have been identified in list-learning experiments where children of different ages receive a small, fixed number of study-test cycles on the target list. A stages-of-learning analysis reveals that such designs confound a treatment's potential interactions with age and its potential interactions with stage of learning. The analysis also reveals specific situations in which such designs will produce converging, diverging, and crossover Age × Treatment interactions even though the treatment does not interact with age in any way. A series of experiments is reported in which a mathematical model that incorporates stages-of-learning distinctions is applied to the well-known interaction between age and item concreteness (pictures versus words) in cued recall. Although a diverging Age × Treatment interaction has been observed in previous research, it was found that there are at least four different interactions between the picture-word manipulation and age; (a) a diverging interaction at storage that operates throughout elementary school; (b) a diverging interaction localized within retrieval learning and operating during the first half of the elementary school; (c) a converging interaction localized within retrieval learning and operating during the second half of elementary school; and (d) a diverging interaction localized within retrieval performance and operating throughout elementary school.     

Electrophysiological responses in mothers to their own and unfamiliar child's gaze information

An attachment bond between a mother and her child is one of the most intimate human relationships. It is important for a mother to be sensitive to her child's gaze direction because exchanging gaze information plays a vital role in their relationship. Furthermore, recent studies have revealed differential neural activation patterns in mothers when presented the faces of their own children or the unfamiliar child of other people. Based on these findings, in the present study, we investigated whether mothers show differential neural responses to gaze information of their own child compared to that of an unfamiliar child. To this end, event-related-potentials elicited by the faces of one's own or an unfamiliar child with straight or averted gaze directions were measured using an oddball-paradigm. The results showed that peak amplitudes of the N170 component were enlarged by viewing the straight gazes compared to the averted gazes of one's own child, but not of an unfamiliar child. When the gaze was directed straight, the P3 amplitude elicited by one's own child's face is smaller than that elicited by an unfamiliar child's face. P3s elicited in viewing one's own child's face with averted gaze and in viewing an unfamiliar child's face with straight gaze were positively correlated with state-anxiety. These results bolster the hypothesis that processing the gaze information of one's own child elicits differential neural activation compared to the gaze information of an other person's unfamiliar child at both perceptual and evaluative stages of face processing.     

From religious emotions to affects: historical and theoretical reflections on injury to feeling,self and religion

ABSTRACT

Images of angry Muslims have become a common sight in repeated controversies problematising the compatibility of Islam and freedom of speech. To explain such outrage, it is often put forward that Muslims reacted to the disrespect and violation of their ‘religious feelings’. In this paper, we challenge the trope of hurt religious feelings in the explanation of unrest. Referring to the writings of Schleiermacher, James and Taylor, the discussion traces how religion and feeling have become inextricably intertwined, located within the individual self and institutionalised as a dominant interpretation of religion. We introduce affect as a conceptual alternative to such understandings, which allows us to analyse the emphasis on Muslim emotionality as a relationship between Muslim and secular bodies, hence no longer reduced to the interiority of Muslim subjects. We will illustrate the potential of an affect-based approach discussing Muslim feelings’ vital role in the construction of European democracies.     

The Evolution of a Scientific Concept

A philosophically comprehended account is given of the genesis and evolution of the concept of protein. Characteristic of this development were not shifts in theory in response to new experimental data, but shifts in the range of questions that the available experimental resources were fit to cope with effectively. Apart from explanatory success with regard to its own range of questions, various other selecting factors acted on a conceptual variant, some stemming from a competing set of research questions, others from an altogether different field of inquiry, and still others from the external environment. These results are best explained on, hence support, an evolutionary model of the progress of experimental investigation, whose outlines are briefly discussed. This revised version was published online in August 2006 with corrections to the Cover Date.