Activating Semantic Knowledge During Spoken Words and Environmental Sounds: Evidence From the Visual World Paradigm

Two visual world experiments investigated the activation of semantically related concepts during the processing of environmental sounds and spoken words. Participants heard environmental sounds such as barking or spoken words such as “puppy” while viewing visual arrays with objects such as a bone (semantically related competitor) and candle (unrelated distractor). In Experiment 1, a puppy (target) was also included in the visual array; in Experiment 2, it was not. During both types of auditory stimuli, competitors were fixated significantly more than distractors, supporting the coactivation of semantically related concepts in both cases; comparisons of the two types of auditory stimuli also revealed significantly larger effects with environmental sounds than spoken words. We discuss implications of these results for theories of semantic knowledge.     

Anger,aggression, and humor in newfoundland floor hockey: An evolutionary analysis

This paper examines patterns of anger, aggression, and humor during 95 floor hockey games in a small fishing village in Newfoundland. The observed behaviors meet the prediction, based on evolutionary theory, that anger and aggression will be more frequent among males at the age when mate competition is most intense. Aggression was also found to be combined with humor most frequently in interactions among players attempting to form social relationships. This last finding is consistent with the hypothesis that combining humor (smiling and laughing) with what would otherwise be interpreted as aggressive behavior is a means of establishing trusting relationships between individuals. The potential contribution of an evolutionary approach to studies of anger and aggression is discussed. ©1993 Wiley-Liss, Inc.     

Parental Choice in Israel's Educational System: Theory vs. Praxis

In the last two decades the Israeli educational system has undergone major changes which have transformed it from a state-controlled, overly bureaucratic and almost fully state-financed system into a decentralized, partly locally controlled and increasingly privately financed system. Advocates of this transformation of the educational system appeal to the ideal of parental choice. They argue that the implementation of parental choice programs in education shows more respect to the children and their unique talents, take their self-realization seriously and promotes equal opportunities in education. The ideal of parental choice is also upheld in relation to value of cultural pluralism. Supporters of educational autonomy advocate the restructuring of schools in a way allowing them to develop a unique climate and curriculum consistent with respective communities and parents' preferences. The aim of this paper is to assess critically the changes that Israeli educational system has undergone against the background of the principle of equal educational opportunities. The main claim of the paper is that these changes undermine this principle. It will be argued that these changes actually cater mainly to the educational interests of middle and upper middle classes in Israeli society.     

短时记忆中的范畴组织和通道组织的比较

本文通过设置不同的线索条件对短时记忆中范畴组织和通道组织进行了比较研究。实验采用了通道线索组、范围线索组和混合线索组三种条件,并设置了五种词表比例。在通道线索组中,每个词表是同范畴字词,但一半用视觉呈现,一半用听觉呈现;在范畴线索组中,两类词分属两个不同的词义范畴,但以相同通道呈现;在混合线索组中,两类不同范畴的词,各有一半分别用视觉和听觉呈现。结果表明在三种线索条件下,ＡＲＣ分值差异显著,表现为     

Competitive fighting for shells in the hermit crab,Clibanarius vittatus

The aggressive behavior of large Clibanarius vittatus against small C. vittatus was investigated. Large C. vittatus were more aggressive and showed fewer fear reactions in all conditions tested. The degree of dominance of large over small C. vittatus was much more marked and more predictable when the smaller crab occupied a Polinices rather than a Littorina shell and the large crab occupied a Littorina shell in both conditions. Evidence is given to suggest that C. vittatus reacts more to the shape than the size dimensions of a Polinices shell, and that small crabs occupying a Polinices shell are less active than other crabs occupying a Littorina shell.     

Isolation-induced social pecking in domestic chicks: Contemporary correlates and sequelae

Aspects of the social pecking of domestic chicks in a free response situation were examined in a series of experiments. It was proposed that a dual pattern of responses involving (a) a preponderance of pecks at the head of a conspecific, and (b) heightened emotionality (as indicated by the emission of distress calls) might be taken to reflect an aggressive tendency, and evidence was reviewed that showed that a brief period of isolation was a sufficient condition to elicit such a pattern. The main questions asked in this paper are: (a) whether the gender of a chick had a material influence on the incidence of such social pecking, and (b) whether orders established in pecking exchanges reflected a unidimensional social ordering among chicks. In the 1st set of studies the effect of the sex of subject on rates of social pecking was tested. While an isolation procedure clearly produced the dual pattern of heightened head pecking and calling, reliable sex differences were not in evidence. In a 2nd study, concerned with the generality of social orders as observed in social pecking exchanges, the isolation procedure again was sufficient to produce apparently aggressive reactions but the resulting peck orders between chicks did not predict success in later tests when the same 2 subjects were pitted against one another in either approach or avoidance competitive tasks. These results are discussed in terms of the relationship of infant aggression to adult aggression, and suggestions are made for a revised view of the development of the aggressive behavior of fowl.     

Inferring causal networks from observations and interventions

Information about the structure of a causal system can come in the form of observational data—random samples of the system's autonomous behavior—or interventional data—samples conditioned on the particular values of one or more variables that have been experimentally manipulated. Here we study people's ability to infer causal structure from both observation and intervention, and to choose informative interventions on the basis of observational data. In three causal inference tasks, participants were to some degree capable of distinguishing between competing causal hypotheses on the basis of purely observational data. Performance improved substantially when participants were allowed to observe the effects of interventions that they performed on the systems. We develop computational models of how people infer causal structure from data and how they plan intervention experiments, based on the representational framework of causal graphical models and the inferential principles of optimal Bayesian decision‐making and maximizing expected information gain. These analyses suggest that people can make rational causal inferences, subject to psychologically reasonable representational assumptions and computationally reasonable processing constraints.     

Openness, fluid intelligence, and crystallized intelligence: Toward an integrative model

Many studies are concerned with the bivariate relationships between Openness, fluid intelligence (Gf), and crystallized intelligence (Gc). Results suggest an influence of Gf and Openness on Gc. However, the overlap between Gf and Openness is rarely controlled for. Moreover, interaction effects or longitudinal influences are also often neglected. The present two studies aimed to elucidate exactly these interactions and longitudinal influences. Besides a main effect of Gf on Gc, Study 1 (N = 180) revealed an interaction effect between Openness and Gf. Study 2 utilized longitudinal data (N = 172) and identified an effect of Openness on the development of Gf. Gf and Openness predicted Gc 6 years later. A model integrating the results and providing a theoretical framework and outlook is proposed.     

Social aggression and resource conflict across the female life-course in the Bolivian Amazon

This work explores sources of conflict among forager-horticulturalist women in Amazonian Bolivia, and applies life history theory as a tool for understanding competitive and cooperative social networking behaviors among women. In this study, 121 Tsimane women and girls were interviewed regarding current and past disagreements with others in their community to identify categories of contested resources that instigate interpersonal conflicts, often resulting in incidences of social aggression. Analysis of frequency data on quarrels (N = 334) reveals that women target several diverse categories of resources, with social types appearing as frequently as food and mates. It was also found that the focus of women's competition changes throughout the life-course, consistent with the notion that current vs. future reproduction and quantity-quality trade-offs might have different influences on competition and social conflict over resources within women's social networks across different age groups.     

Effects of a rival's perceived motives on constructive competition within organizations: A competitive dynamics perspective

Previous work on constructive competition has focused on competitors' motives and strategies; however, competition is an interactive process that is affected by both the competitor and the rival. Based on the competitive dynamics perspective and attribution theory, this study examines the impact of a perceived rival's motives on the constructiveness of competition. The results of a survey of 521 employees from 25 companies in the banking and insurance industry in Taiwan revealed that the perceptions of rivals' motives significantly affected the constructiveness of competition. By introducing the perspective of rival analysis to individual‐level competition, the present study provides a more comprehensive understanding of constructive competition within organizations.