Three obstructions: forms of causation,chronotopoids, and levels of reality

The thesis is defended that the theories of causation, time and space, and levels of reality are mutually interrelated in such a way that the difficulties internal to theories of causation and to theories of space and time can be understood better, and perhaps dealt with, in the categorial context furnished by the theory of the levels of reality. The structural condition for this development to be possible is that the first two theories be opportunely generalized.

Enabling Interactive Exploration of Cultural Heritage: An Experience of Designing Systems for Mobile Devices

Interaction design of mobile systems is a complex activity because it requires considering new usability and user experience aspects in order to exploit the peculiar characteristics of mobile devices, such as their pervasive and ubiquitous nature. This paper discusses issues about designing, developing and evaluating mobile systems. Italy has a rich cultural heritage, and the focus in this study is on the design of systems that enable interactive exploration of historical sites, not only for enhancing the user experience but also for learning purposes. The experience of the researchers at the Interaction, Visualisation and Usability lab, University of Bari, Italy, in designing a mobile learning system, called Explore!, which supports young students learning ancient history during a visit to archaeological parks, is reported. The evaluation of Explore! through systematic field studies shows that the adopted approach is able to transform the visit to archaeological parks into a more complete and culturally rich experience.     

Interpersonal trust and organizational citizenship behavior

This study investigates the relationship between certain individual level determinants of interpersonal trust and its impact on organizational citizenship behavior. The participants (N=303) were top, middle, and lower level executives from manufacturing and services sectors. The results indicate that interaction frequency, consistency, and competence are significant predictors of interpersonal trust. Interpersonal trust is positively associated with organizational citizenship behavior, and it also partially mediated the relationship between individual level factors and organizational citizenship behavior. The results imply that the development of trust at the interpersonal level may be used as a strategy to motivate the employees to engage in extra role behaviors to ensure improved individual and organizational performance.     

Preference for impossible figures in 4-month-olds

Can infants use interposition and line junction cues to infer three-dimensional (3D) structure? Previous work has shown that in a task that required 4-month-olds to discriminate between static two-dimensional (2D) pictures of possible and impossible cubes, infants exhibited a spontaneous preference for displays of the impossible cube but left open the question of whether they did so on the basis of purely local “critical regions” or whether they were able to employ more global clues. Here infants were presented with possible and impossible cubes in which the strictly local cues that could have derived from exterior binding contours were deleted. Results showed that infants were still able to discriminate possible cubes from impossible cubes, suggesting that longer looking infants are sensitive to global properties and that the capacity to integrate pictorial information to perceive aspects of global 3D shape may develop earlier than demonstrated previously using reaching tasks.     

<Emphasis Type="Italic">Special Topic:</Emphasis> Confucian and Christian Conceptions of Creativity

In this article the concept of God as creativity (rather than as “the Creator”) is explored. Though creativity is a profound mystery to us humans, it is a plausible concept today because of its interconnectedness with the belief that our cosmos is evolutionary: new orders of reality come into being in the course of time. Three modalities of creativity are explored here: the initial coming into being of the universe (the Big Bang); the creativity manifest in evolutionary processes; the human creation of culture. It is suggested that this creativity itself should be thought of as God: God is creativity. Thus God-talk is given a referent that is specifiable in terms of today’s understandings of the world and the human. God remains a profound mystery here, but one with a significant place in our modern understanding of the world and human life. This article includes text and ideas taken from my book, In the beginning…Creativity (Kaufman 2004).     

3─6岁儿童层级类概念发展的实验研究

以３－６岁儿童为被试,以７个常见物体种类的图片为实验材料,按概念水平（基本类概念及上级类概念）以及选择图与目标图的感知相似程度（高、中、低）将实验材料分为四种类型,对３－６岁儿童层级类概念的发展过程进行了研究。结果表明：（１）３岁幼儿已能按基本类概念标准进行正确的种类匹配;对于上级类概念,３－５岁儿童的匹配能力尚较差,６岁基本达到掌握水平。（２）实验材料的感知相似程度对３－５岁儿童的上级类概念匹配操作有显著性影响,６岁儿童才摆脱了这种制约作用。     

3─6岁儿童层级类概念发展的实验研究

以３－６岁儿童为被试,以７个常见物体种类的图片为实验材料,按概念水平（基本类概念及上级类概念）以及选择图与目标图的感知相似程度（高、中、低）将实验材料分为四种类型,对３－６岁儿童层级类概念的发展过程进行了研究。结果表明：（１）３岁幼儿已能按基本类概念标准进行正确的种类匹配;对于上级类概念,３－５岁儿童的匹配能力尚较差,６岁基本达到掌握水平。（２）实验材料的感知相似程度对３－５岁儿童的上级类概念匹配操作有显著性影响,６岁儿童才摆脱了这种制约作用。     

Distinguishing between social reinforcement and social elicitation

The theoretical, procedural, analytic, and interpretive components of Poulson's (1983, Journal of Experimental Child Psychology, 36, 471–489) study were considered in an effort to clarify the distinction between social reinforcement and social elicitation. Contrary to Poulson's contention, DRO was not, and cannot by definition be, a control for reinforcement. More importantly, the speciestypical, social nature of the infant probably reflects the collaborative influence of elicitation and reinforcement. By carefully unravelling these two interacting processes, future conditioning studies might specially enhance our knowledge of early social development.     

Homotopic callosal inhibition

Previous theories concerning the function of the corpus callosum have included a “topographic” column-to-column excitatory theory and a diffuse “regional” inhibitory theory. Here it is shown that a topographic inhibitory model, in conjunction with a postulate concerning surround inhibition among cortical columns, produces complementary patterns of cortical column firing which, although qualitatively different, do not imply quantitative metabolic asymmetries. The cognitive implications of such homotopic inhibition are discussed.