Implicit and explicit spatial-numerical representations diverge in number-form synesthetes

In number-form (NF) synesthesia—a condition in which people report vivid, automatic and consistent mental layouts for numerical sequences—numbers and space are closely linked. These explicit associations are similar to the implicit associations demonstrated by the Spatial-Numerical Association of Response Codes (SNARC) effect. Thus, NF synesthesia offers a unique opportunity to investigate spatial-numerical associations. We tested implicit and explicit representations in NF synesthetes using a multiple case-study design. Over two sessions, synesthetes participated in a semi-structured interview focusing on the nature of their associations, as well as SNARC and number line estimation tasks. Contrary to our hypotheses, only one synesthete demonstrated SNARC effects congruent with her reported form, whereas two others exhibited SNARC effects that were the opposite of their explicit NFs. While this inconsistency between implicit and explicit representations may indicate separate underlying cognitive mechanisms, factors such as task-specific constraints and strategic variability must also be considered.     

Jewish women in intercommunal political movements in colonial Morocco

ABSTRACT

The goal of this paper is to study Jewish participation in intercommunal – Muslim, Jewish, Christian – Moroccan women’s organizations that promoted national Moroccan socio-political aims, and to analyze their origins, effects, demise and memory. The paper focuses on a unique organization - Union des Femmes marocaines (Union of Moroccan Women) – which, for almost ten years during the colonial period, had carried out intercommunal work for shared Moroccan causes. The study reveals that during the period that intercommunal women’s associations operated (1943–1952), they were first French-oriented and dealt with issues considered, from a gendered perspective, to be within women’s domain (i.e. helping the poor and needy, doing charity, fighting for women’s education), but from 1947, they “Moroccanized” and worked towards general political Moroccan aims. The paper refers to a relatively unknown chapter in Moroccan history, and opens a new perspective of the Moroccan identity of Jews before their massive emigration from the country.     

The Normative Legitimacy Gap: International Sports Associations,Human Rights and Stakeholder Democracy

ABSTRACT

This conceptual paper explores whether the normative legitimacy of International Sports Associations (ISAs) such as Fédération Internationale de Football Association (FIFA) and Fédération Internationale de l’Automobile (FIA) requires an active promotion of human rights conventions. The contention is that ISAs, which are founded on principles of neutrality and autonomy, can no longer rely merely on their internal stakeholders to make legitimate decisions when it comes to episodes where sport and human rights clash. Two situations where this claim applies are the FIA’s funding of Syrian motorsport activities and the FIFA’s involvement in the Israel/Palestine conflict, which have created considerable debate outside the ISAs. These examples are therefore used as basis for a discussion of the ISAs’ philosophical stance on human rights as much as their legal duties as non-governmental organizations.     

A little bird told me…: Consequences of holding an implicit association between women and birds

Past research has shown that humans possess implicit associations that, when activated, affect subsequent behavior. In three studies, we demonstrated a novel implicit association held by some men: an association between women and birds. Additionally, we demonstrated three consequences of possessing and activating a Women–Birds association. For those who strongly associated women and birds, activating the association caused an increase in dehumanization of women, perceptions of female incompetence, and sexist hiring decisions. Perceptions of female incompetence mediated the effect of Women–Birds implicit association activation on sexist hiring decisions. These findings provide insight into a potential cause of bias toward women that should be accounted for when attempting to reduce discrimination toward women and speak to the need for careful consideration when making analogies linking social groups to animals or objects.     

Alterity,Intimacy, and the Cultural Turn in Religious Ethics

This essay responds to four critics of Friends and Other Strangers: Studies in Religion, Ethics and Culture: Diana Fritz Cates, Eric Gregory, Ross Moret, and Atalia Omer. Focusing on the book’s organizing concepts of intimacy and alterity, engagement with empirical sources, discussion of Augustine’s thought, and attention to moral psychology and political morality, these interlocutors take up various strands in the book’s argument and extend them into metaethical, normative, and metadisciplinary domains. The author organizes his response under three rubrics: Metaethics and Personal Relationships; Political Morality; and Multidisciplinary Horizons.     

Testing attitudes,social desirability and behavioral regulations as moderators of implicit-explicit exercise discrepancies: A replication study in Iranian students

IntroductionThere is mixed evidence regarding moderators of the relationship between implicitly and explicitly measured constructs. This study examined this issue with evaluations of exercise relative to health or appearance in a sample of Iranian adolescents. Investigaing automatic associations and reflective constructs might provide important implications for developing interventions targeting exercise behavior in a population with different cultural, social, and economic barriers to exercise than European or North American adolescents.MethodsParticipants were 471 students enrolled in grades 9 to 12, of whom 269 (54.9%) were female. Behavioral regulations, explicit attitudes, and social desirability were investigated as possible moderators. All students completed questionnaire measures of physical activity behavior, attitudes, social desieality and behavioral regulation. They also completed two Go/No Go Association tasks to measure automatic associations of exercise with health and apperarance.ResultsAttitude was a significant moderator of discrepancies between automatic associations of exercise with health and health motives. Interjected regulation moderated implicit-explicit appearance discrepancies. Participants with low social desirability and negative automatic appearance associations had the highest appearance motivation.ConclusionsParticipants focused on the potential of achieving positive health outcomes of exercise rather than physical appearance outcomes, which differs from research from other countries. It is possible that, health was strongly linked with exercise by the pervasive societal pressures in Iran to have a healthy body.     

Factor structure of the Friends and Family interview

The aim of this study was to specify the latent construct structure of the Friends and Family Interview (FFI: Steele & Steele, 2005) based on its dimensional scale coding protocol. The FFI is a semi-structured interview measuring attachment in middle childhood. We analyzed data from 341 FFI interviews with children aged 7–12 years, recruited in the Scandinavian Öresund Region. Exploratory Factor Analysis revealed a three-component model as best fitting the data. The first component, denoting attachment security, gathered all dimensional scales for evidence of secure base/safe haven regarding mother/father and coherence in the child’s narrative style, along with scales regarding reflective functioning, self-perception, and social functioning. The second component comprised preoccupying feelings of anger, but also derogation. The third component gathered all scales coding idealization. Inter-relations among the components were consistent with attachment theory, and respondents’ scores for all three components differed significantly across the four categorical attachment classifications. Affect regulation of negative emotion through anger and through derogation co-occurred, and was distinct from regulation through maintaining a belief that things are better than they appear (idealization). These two affect regulation strategies appeared commonly when reflective functioning, and an organized self-perception, and positive peer relations were less in evidence. The multi-dimensional FFI coding system appears to measure successfully these diverse features of the child’s narrative provided in response to the interview. Overall, our findings support the construct validity of the FFI and provide further evidence of its usefulness for assessing attachment in middle childhood and early adolescence.     

数字-空间联结的内在机制：基于工作记忆的视角

已有研究证实数字-空间联结是普遍存在的现象，但关于这种联结的解释仍存在争论。当前对数字-空间联结主要有两种解释。其中，心理数字线假设数字的心理表征是一条从左到右方向的水平线，而工作记忆假设认为数字-空间联结是任务执行期间暂时的工作记忆表征。本文通过分析心理数字线不能解释的数字-空间联结现象及局限性，来探讨工作记忆解释的适用性，并通过工作记忆的核心观点来解释数字-空间联结现象，以期更好地揭示数字-空间联结的内在机制。但关于工作记忆解释仍有亟待解决的问题，还需实证研究探讨。     

One version of direct response priming requires automatization of the relevant associations but not awareness of the prime

Priming is the influence of one event on performance during a second event. One type of priming is known as semantic priming because it biases interpretation of the subsequent stimulus. Another type, direct response priming, biases responding directly without semantic mediation. Research reviewed in this article indicates that two versions of the second type, direct response priming, can be distinguished. One version, explicit priming, requires awareness of the prime. The other version, associative response priming, occurs even if the prime is masked and not phenomenally visible. This version, which is attributed to associations relating specific sensory events to movements of particular muscles, is enabled only if the association has previously been automatized by brief practice in which the to-be-primed response is made to the stimulus that subsequently appears as the prime. Associative response priming can be explained by a simple stimulus–response interpretation; other varieties of priming are more theoretically challenging.     

When self-prioritization crosses the senses: Crossmodal self-prioritization demonstrated between vision and touch

The investigation of self-prioritization via a simple matching paradigm represents a new way of enhancing our knowledge about the processing of self-relevant content and also increases our understanding of the self-concept itself. By associating formerly neutral material with the self, and assessing the resulting prioritization of these newly formed self-associations, conclusions can be drawn concerning the effects of self-relevance without the burden of highly overlearned materials such as one’s own name. This approach was used to gain further insights into the structure and complexity of self-associations: a tactile pattern was associated with the self and thereafter, the prioritization of the exact same visual pattern was assessed – enabling the investigation of crossmodal self-associations. The results demonstrate a prioritization of self-associated material that rapidly extends beyond the borders of a sensory modality in which it was first established.