Access to reproductive technologies by single women and lesbians: Social representations and public debate

A landmark decision in 2000 by the Federal Court of Australia (FCA) allowed access to medically assisted reproductive technologies (MART) regardless of marital status, i.e. by single women and lesbians. This decision sparked much debate, including comments by the Prime Minister of Australia and hundreds of letters to newspapers around the country. In this study, 180 letters to the editor in two newspapers were analyzed to identify themes and processes relevant to conceptualizing who should have access to MART. Representations of family were particularly evident and themes supported the traditional family structure of a mother, father and children, arguing that access to MART should be restricted to this family form. However, emerging representations of family, based on themes of positive parenting values, independent of gender and number of parents, were also observed, suggesting that political agendas restricting MART to heterosexual family structures are not supported by public consensus, or by the emerging acceptance of alternative family forms. Copyright © 2008 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Hand–foot motor priming in the presence of temporary inability to use hands

To verify if the link between observed hand actions and executed foot actions found in aplasics is essentially induced by the constant use of foot substituting the hand, we investigated if the vision of a grasping hand is able to prime a foot response in normals. Participants were required to detect the time-to-contact of a hand grasping an object either with a suitable or a less suitable movement, an experimental paradigm known to induce a priming effect. Participants responded either with the hand or the foot, while having free or bound hands. Results showed that for hand responses motor priming effect was stronger when the hands were free, whereas for foot responses it was stronger when the hands were bound. These data are interpreted as a further evidence that a difficulty to move affects specific cognitive functions and that the vision of a grasping hand may prime a foot response.     

Telling faces together: Learning new faces through exposure to multiple instances

We are usually able to recognize novel instances of familiar faces with little difficulty, yet recognition of unfamiliar faces can be dramatically impaired by natural within-person variability in appearance. In a card-sorting task for facial identity, different photos of the same unfamiliar face are often seen as different people. Here we report two card-sorting experiments in which we manipulate whether participants know the number of identities present. Without constraints, participants sort faces into many identities. However, when told the number of identities present, they are highly accurate. This minimal contextual information appears to support viewers in “telling faces together”. In Experiment 2 we show that exposure to within-person variability in the sorting task improves performance in a subsequent face-matching task. This appears to offer a fast route to learning generalizable representations of new faces.     

The organization and dissolution of semantic-conceptual knowledge: Is the ‘amodal hub’ the only plausible model?

In recent years, the anatomical and functional bases of conceptual activity have attracted a growing interest. In particular, Patterson and Lambon-Ralph have proposed the existence, in the anterior parts of the temporal lobes, of a mechanism (the 'amodal semantic hub') supporting the interactive activation of semantic representations in all modalities and for all semantic categories. The aim of then present paper is to discuss this model, arguing against the notion of an 'amodal' semantic hub, because we maintain, in agreement with the Damasio's construct of 'higher-order convergence zone', that a continuum exists between perceptual information and conceptual representations, whereas the 'amodal' account views perceptual informations only as a channel through which abstract semantic knowledge can be activated. According to our model, semantic organization can be better explained by two orthogonal higher-order convergence systems, concerning, on one hand, the right vs. left hemisphere and, on the other hand, the ventral vs. dorsal processing pathways. This model posits that conceptual representations may be mainly based upon perceptual activities in the right hemisphere and upon verbal mediation in the left side of the brain. It also assumes that conceptual knowledge based on the convergence of highly processed visual information with other perceptual data (and mainly concerning living categories) may be bilaterally represented in the anterior parts of the temporal lobes, whereas knowledge based on the integration of visual data with action schemata (namely knowledge of actions, body parts and artefacts) may be more represented in the left fronto-temporo-parietal areas.     

本族和异族面孔的视觉工作记忆容量:面孔特征的影响

采用延迟探测刺激匹配再认任务,考察面孔种族和内外部特征是否会影响面孔视觉工作记忆容量。被试先识记2或4张中国人或白人的真实面孔图片,一半有内部特征(眼睛、鼻子和嘴巴),另一半有内部和外部特征(脸型、发型),再进行面孔再认判断。采用Cowan’s K值的分析显示,我国被试对本族和异族面孔的视觉工作记忆容量没有差异,但面孔数量与特征多少会影响面孔工作记忆容量,表明对本族和异族面孔的视觉加工不同。     

初级视觉皮层在表象表征方式研究中的作用

表象的信息表征方式一直是心理学研究的热点问题,脑成像技术在该问题的研究中发挥了巨大作用。本文以初级视觉皮层(V1)在表象表征方式研究中的作用为主线,系统梳理了基于脑成像技术开展的表象实质争论的核心问题,归纳分析了相关争论问题演绎发展的内在逻辑脉络,在此基础上指出了表象研究中需要进一步解决的关键问题,以期能够促进相关研究问题的进一步开展。