Of particles and fields

In The Cosmic Blueprint,1 1 Paul Davies, The Cosmic Blueprint (Philadelphia: Templeton Foundation Press, 2004). View all notes Paul Davies takes note of the unresolved philosophical issues involved in the use of “field” imagery within evolutionary biology and quantum physics. The author proposes that the metaphysical scheme of Alfred North Whitehead with its notion of “actual occasions” might be key to solving these mysteries, but only if Whiteheadian “societies” were reinterpreted as enduring structured fields of activity for the ongoing succession of their constituent actual occasions. For, implicit in this revised understanding of Whiteheadian societies is a new paradigm for the philosophical relation between the One and the Many, which would allow for genuine top-down as well as bottom-up causation in the emergence of new forms or structures within the evolutionary process.     

Looking at others through implicitly or explicitly prejudiced eyes

It is well known that we utilize internalized representations (or schemas) to direct our eyes when exploring visual stimuli. Interestingly, our schemas for human faces are known to reflect systematic differences that are consistent with one's level of racial prejudice. However, whether one's level or type of racial prejudice can differentially regulate how we visually explore faces that are the target of prejudice is currently unknown. Here, White participants varying in their level of implicit or explicit prejudice viewed Black faces and White faces (with the latter serving as a control) while having their gaze behaviour recorded with an eye-tracker. The results show that, regardless of prejudice type (i.e., implicit or explicit), participants high in racial prejudice examine faces differently than those low in racial prejudice. Specifically, individuals high in explicit racial prejudice were more likely to fixate on the mouth region of Black faces when compared to individuals low in explicit prejudice, and exhibited less consistency in their scanning of faces irrespective of race. On the other hand, individuals high in implicit racial prejudice tended to focus on the region between the eyes, regardless of face race. It therefore seems that racial prejudice guides target-race specific patterns of looking behaviour, and may also contribute to general patterns of looking behaviour when visually exploring human faces.     

A glimpse is not a glimpse: Differential processing of flashed scene previews leads to differential target search benefits

The question of whether words can be identified without spatial attention has been a topic of considerable interest over the last five and a half decades, but the literature has yielded mixed conclusions. The present experiments manipulated the proportion of valid trials (the proportion of trials in which a cue appeared in the same location as the upcoming target word) so as to encourage distributed (50% valid cues; Experiments 1 and 3) or focused (100% valid cues; Experiments 2 and 4) spatial attention in a priming-type paradigm. Participants read aloud a target word, and the impact of a simultaneously presented distractor word was assessed. Semantic and orthographic priming effects were present when conditions promoted distributed spatial attention but absent when conditions promoted focused spatial attention. In contrast, Experiment 5 yielded a distractor word effect in the 100% valid cue condition when subjects identified a colour (Stroop task). We take these results to suggest that (1) spatial attention is a necessary preliminary to visual word recognition and (2) examining the role of spatial attention in the context of the Stroop task may have few implications for basic processes in reading because colour processing makes fewer demands on spatial attention than does visual word recognition.     

Visual attention and the temporal dynamics of feature integration

Two experiments studied the emergence of bindings between stimulus features (object files) and between stimulus and response features (event files) over time. Choice responses (R2) were signalled by the shape of a stimulus (S2) that followed another stimulus (S1) of the same or different shape, location, and colour. S1 did not require a response (Experiment 1) or trigger a precued simple response (R1) that was or was not repeated by R2 (Experiment 2). Results demonstrate that the mere cooccurrence of stimulus features, and of stimuli and responses, is sufficient to bind their codes. Bindings emerge quickly and remain intact for at least four seconds. Which features are considered depends on their task‐relevance; hence, integration reflects the current attentional set. There was no consistent trend toward higher order interactions as a function of time or of the amount of attention devoted to S1, suggesting that features are not integrated into a single, global superstructure, but enter independent local bindings presumably subserving different functions.     

Linguistically guided anticipatory eye movements in scene viewing

The present study replicated the well-known demonstration by Altmann and Kamide (1999) that listeners make linguistically guided anticipatory eye movements, but used photographs of scenes rather than clip-art arrays as the visual stimuli. When listeners heard a verb for which a particular object in a visual scene was the likely theme, they made earlier looks to this object (e.g., looks to a cake upon hearing The boy will eat …) than when they heard a control verb (The boy will move …). New data analyses assessed whether these anticipatory effects are due to a linguistic effect on the targeting of saccades (i.e., the where parameter of eye movement control), the duration of fixations (i.e., the when parameter), or both. Participants made fewer fixations before reaching the target object when the verb was selectionally restricting (e.g., will eat). However, verb type had no effect on the duration of individual eye fixations. These results suggest an important constraint on the linkage between spoken language processing and eye movement control: Linguistic input may influence only the decision of where to move the eyes, not the decision of when to move them.     

Klaus B: The success story of an entrepreneur - a case study

Interorganizational teams are rapidly becoming more prevalent as a means to improve organizations' responsiveness. To achieve their objective, interorganizational teams must engage in extensive amounts of boundary spanning activity. This study juxtaposed three structural variables, namely team informational diversity, team boundedness, and extrateam links, in an integrated model aimed at promoting our understanding of how to increase interorganizational team boundary spanning activity and its effectiveness. The model was tested with 49 health promotion teams. Our findings indicated that three types of boundary spanning—scouting, ambassadorial, and coordinating—were positively associated with interorganizational team effectiveness. In addition, for team informational diversity, team boundedness, and extrateam links, scouting and ambassadorial activities fully mediated their relationships with team effectiveness; for team boundedness, coordinating activity also fully mediated its relationship with team effectiveness. These findings highlight the importance of incorporating structural considerations into the management of interorganizational teams.     

Are Preferences in Emotional Processing Affected by Distraction? Examining the Age-Related Positivity Effect in Visual Fixation within a Dual-Task Paradigm

ABSTRACT

Recent research has suggested that age-related positivity effects are eliminated under conditions of dual-task load (Knight et al., 2007 Knight, M., Seymour, T. L., Gaunt, J. T., Baker, C., Nesmith, K. and Mather, M. 2007. Aging and goal directed emotional attention: Distraction reverses emotional biases. Emotion, 7: 705–714. [Crossref], [PubMed], [Web of Science ®] , [Google Scholar], Emotion, 7, 705; Mather & Knight, 2005 Mather, M. and Knight, M. 2005. Goal directed memory: The role of cognitive control in older adults' emotional memory. Psychology and Aging, 20: 554–570. [PubMed], [Web of Science ®] , [Google Scholar], Psychology and Aging, 20, 554), because the cognitive control resources necessary to enact such preferences are not available when individuals are distracted by competing information. We further examined how older adults' emotional information processing preferences are affected by distracting information by utilizing a within-subjects dual-task measure. Younger and older adults viewed a series of positive, negative, and neutral images both in conditions of full and divided attention. Fixation preferences to valenced images were assessed through eye tracking. Regardless of whether images were viewed in full or divided attention conditions, older adults demonstrated a preference in their fixation for positive and neutral in comparison to negative images. These results provide evidence that older adults' positive fixation preferences may not always necessitate full, cognitive control.     

Les effets des activités auto-descriptives sur la clarté du concept de soi : le rôle modérateur des variables sociodémographiques

This research questions the possibility of inducing the development of self-concept clarity (SCC), through a self-describing activity. A test-retest device comprises three groups: neutral (no intermediate activity), control (logical-cognitive activity), experimental (self-describing activity). The results indicate that the self-describing activity generates the largest effect, but become significantly stronger when individuals start with a low CCS, which is often the when belonging to less values socio-demographic categories. We reinterpet these process in terms of “remediation” et we explore possibilities to measure and develop professional orientation practices for this purpose.     

Post-traumatic stress disorder and health risk behaviour among persons 15 years and older in South Africa

The aim of this study was to investigate the association between post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) and health risk behaviours among persons 15 years and older in South Africa. We analysed data from the South African National Health and Nutrition Examination Survey (SANHANES-1, 2012) (N = 15 201; mean age = 36.9 years, SD = 16.5; 2.1% with PSTD, 4.0% with partial PTSD). The survey included questions from validated measures of the following health risk behaviours: problem drinking, current tobacco use, physical activity, sedentary behaviour, vegetable consumption, and fast food and frequent soft drinks consumption. In adjusted logistic regression analysis, only self-reporting with PTSD was associated with problem drinking. The data did not yield significant association between PTSD status and any of the other health risk behaviours (tobacco use, low physical activity, and fast food consumption).