Characteristics of finger force production during one- and two-hand tasks

Relations among finger forces were studied during one-hand and two-hand isometric maximal force production tasks in right- and left-handers. We particularly focused on the phenomena of force deficit during one-hand multi-finger tasks and of bilateral force deficit during two-hand tasks. Ten healthy subjects (five of them left-handed) performed maximal voluntary force production tasks with different finger combinations involving fingers of one of the hands or of both hands together. In one-hand tasks, finger enslaving (forces produced by fingers that were not instructed to produce force) was larger in the dominant hand, while force deficit (drop in individual finger peak force during multi-finger tasks) showed no differences between the hands. An additional drop in finger forces was seen in two-hand tests (bilateral deficit). The magnitude of the bilateral deficit for a hand was larger for tasks involving fewer fingers within the hand and more fingers in the other hand, with a ceiling effect. Smaller bilateral deficit was seen in tasks involving symmetrical finger combinations. In two-hand tasks that could potentially lead to the generation of large total moments in the frontal plane, the hand that was expected to generate larger moments showed larger bilateral deficit, so that the magnitude of the total moment was reduced. These observations suggest that force deficit within a hand and bilateral deficit have different origins but their effects are combined at a certain level of the multi-finger control hierarchy. Bilateral deficit may display task dependence reflecting, in particular, the principle of minimization of secondary moments. A double-representation, mirror-image hypothesis is suggested to provide a neurophysiological basis for the observed patterns of bilateral deficit.     

Claiming a moral minority, saccades help create a biased majority: Tracking eye movements to base rates in social predictions

How do people hold erroneous views about their own moral behavior? This study investigated the use of distributional information in self and social predictions by measuring eye movements to base rates. Across 15 scenarios, participants claimed moral superiority over a comparison peer by predicting that base rates would be less predictive of one’s own behaviors than a comparison peer’s. In support of the differential use of distributional information hypothesis, participants looked less often to base rate information when making self rather than social predictions. Eye movements mediated the relationship between target of the prediction and the strength of the relationship between base rates and behavioral likelihood estimates. Implications for self-deception in self and social judgment are discussed.     

中学生个人认识论的理论构建与测量

基于个人认识论理论中较为成熟的反省判断模型,本研究构建了中学生个人认识论的理论框架,并进一步编制了中学生个人认识论问卷,随后调查了459名中学生,结果发现:(1)初测问卷具有良好的项目区分度、结构效度和内部一致性信度。(2)个人认识论的结构由五个一阶因素、两个二阶因素构成:一阶因素分别包括知识的确定性、知识的简单性、知识的来源、求知的论证性、表征多元;二阶因素包括知识的本质和求知的本质。     

Flanders and Helmand: chaplaincy,faith and religious change in the British Army, 1914–2014

Abstract

The year 2014 marked the centenary of the outbreak of the First World War and the end of eight years of major British combat operations in Afghanistan. Against the background of profound religious changes in British society over the course of the intervening century, this article examines the continuities and discontinuities between British army chaplaincy on the Western Front from 1914 to 1918 and in southern Afghanistan from 2006 to 2014, and explores the religious beliefs and practices of British soldiers caught up in the deadly and protracted struggles on the Western Front and in Helmand Province. While acknowledging major differences in the operational contexts involved and seismic shifts in British religious life over the course of the twentieth century, besides important divergences this article identifies striking degrees of continuity between the ministry of army chaplains and the religious attitude and behaviour of soldiers themselves.     

The influence of asymmetric force requirements on a multi-frequency bimanual coordination task

An experiment was designed to determine the impact of the force requirements on the production of bimanual 1:2 coordination patterns requiring the same (symmetric) or different (asymmetric) forces when Lissajous displays and goal templates are provided. The Lissajous displays have been shown to minimize the influence of attentional and perceptual constraints allowing constraints related to neural crosstalk to be more clearly observed. Participants (N = 20) were randomly assigned to a force condition in which the left or right limb was required to produce more force than the contralateral limb. In each condition participants were required to rhythmically coordinate the pattern of isometric forces in a 1:2 coordination pattern. Participant performed 13 practice trials and 1 test trial per force level. The results indicated that participants were able to effectively coordinate the 1:2 multi-frequency goal patterns under both symmetric and asymmetric force requirements. However, consistent distortions in the force and force velocity time series were observed for one limb that appeared to be associated with the production of force in the contralateral limb. Distortions in the force produced by the left limb occurred regardless of the force requirements of the task (symmetric, asymmetric) or whether the left or right limb had to produce more force than the contralateral limb. However, distinct distortions in the right limb occurred only when the left limb was required to produce 5 times more force than the right limb. These results are consistent with the notion that neural crosstalk can influence both limbs, but may manifest differently for each limb depending on the force requirements of the task.     

认知风格对大学生不确定条件下判断和决策的影响

通过3个实验,研究了认知风格对大学生不确定条件下判断和决策的影响。结果表明:(1)认知风格影响大学生在不确定条件下的判断和决策,表现在概率推理中,场依存型比场独立型更容易受“代表性启发”影响。在赌徒推理中,场独立型更少受“赌徒谬误”影响。在风险决策中,场独立型倾向选择受益大、风险也大的决策,场依存型倾向选择稳妥、风险较小的决策。(2)大学生在概率推理、赌徒推理和风险决策时存在显著的性别差异。(3)概率知识学习有助于克服“代表性启发”,但对“赌徒谬误”影响不大。     

Externalism and the Content of Moral Motivation

In his fetishist argument, Michael Smith raises an important question: What is the content of the motivational states that constitute moral motivation? Although the argument has been widely discussed, this question has not received the attention it deserves. In the present paper, I use Smith’s argument as a point of departure for a discussion of how advocates of externalism as regards moral judgements can account for moral motivation. More precisely, I explore various explanations of moral motivation that externalists can employ to answer the question Smith poses.     

道德情绪判断、错误信念与行为问题的关系——损人情境中幼儿反应的一项研究

运用投射性情境故事和Rutter量表(教师问卷)研究了204名幼儿对损人情境的道德情绪判断、错误信念水平、行为问题及其关系。结果表明:(1)男性幼儿的违纪行为显著高于女性,神经症行为得分在不同年龄之间差异达到显著性水平。(2)随年龄增长,对成功损人者之情绪判断为积极的人数会减少、而判断为消极的人数会增加,对失败损人者之情绪判断为消极的居多、而对成功损人者情绪判断为积极的为主。(3)幼儿已经基本能完成道德情境中的错误信念任务,当接受别人的"错误"表扬时会产生积极情绪。(4)未完成错误信念任务儿童的神经症得分显著高于完成者,对成功损人者之情绪判断为积极的儿童的神经症得分显著高于判断为消极者。     

Impairment in judgement of the moral emotion guilt following orbitofrontal cortex damage

Although neuroimaging studies have provided evidence for an association between moral emotions and the orbitofrontal cortex, studies on patients with focal lesions using experimental probes of moral emotions are scarce. Here, we addressed this topic by presenting a moral emotion judgement task to patients with focal brain damage. Four judgement tasks in a simple pairwise choice paradigm were given to 72 patients with cerebrovascular disease. These tasks consisted of a perceptual line judgement task as a control task; the objects’ preference task as a basic preference judgement task; and two types of moral emotion judgement task, an anger task and a guilt task. A multiple linear regression analysis was performed on each set of task performance scores to take into account potential confounders. Performance on the guilt emotion judgement task negatively correlated with the orbitofrontal cortex damage, but not with the other variables. Results for the other judgement tasks did not reach statistical significance. The close association between orbitofrontal cortex damage and a decrease in guilt emotion judgement consistency might suggest that the orbitofrontal cortex plays a key role in the sense of guilt, a hallmark of morality.     

Beauty in the blink of an eye: The time course of aesthetic experiences

Under normal circumstances, perception runs very fast and seemingly automatic. In just a few ms, we go from sensory features to perceiving objects. This fast time course does not only apply to general perceptual aspects but also to what we call higher-level judgements. Inspired by the study on ‘very first impressions’ by Bar, Neta, and Linz (2006, Emotion, 6 , 269) the current research examined the speed and time course of three aspects of the aesthetic experience, namely beauty, specialness, and impressiveness. Participants were presented with 54 reproductions of paintings that covered a wide variety of artistic styles and contents. Presentation times were 10, 50, 100 and 500 ms in Experiment 1 and 20, 30 and 40 ms in Experiment 2. Our results not only show that consistent aesthetic judgements can be formed based on very brief glances of information, but that this speed of aesthetic impression formation also differs between different aesthetic judgements. Apparently, impressiveness judgements require longer exposure times than impressions of beauty or specialness. The results provide important evidence for our understanding of the time course of aesthetic experiences.