Using optical illusions in the shoulder of a cycle path to affect lateral position

An important factor in single-sided accidents of older cyclists is that they ride off the cycle path onto the verge. Two experiments were performed to assess the feasibility of using virtual 3D objects in the verge to affect the lateral position of bicyclists. In the first experiment, different virtual objects were placed in the shoulder and 1150 passing bicyclists were observed using a fixed camera. The (standard deviation of the) lateral position and speed in four conditions with virtual objects differing in colour, structure, or 3D effect were compared with a control condition in which no virtual objects were applied. In a second experiment, the behaviour of 32 bicyclists aged 50 years or older was measured by mounting two digital action cameras with GPS on the participants’ bicycles. The participants cycled a route of approximately 12 km in which several locations were passed, one of these contained 15 virtual objects similar to the ones used in the first experiment placed in the shoulder of the cycle path. Cyclist behaviour was compared with behaviour at a control location consisting of a solitary two-way cycle path with a grass shoulder. Results indicate that the virtual objects in the tested format had little overall effect on cyclists’ behaviour. However, bicyclists were positioned closer to the virtual objects and the shoulder when they looked at the objects or when they reported that they saw them while cycling. This suggests that the overall visibility of the object design may have been too conservative.     

Rage and hatred in infants: conditions which facilitate development versus those which result in tragic delays or alarming distortions

The paper traces some possible trajectories of aggressive behaviour in children and adolescents. It distinguishes three contributing factors: 1. Disturbance or Disorder; 2. Deficit and Neglect; and 3. Deviance. Therapeutic technique may need adjusting depending on which factor is dominant at any moment. Two dimensions which seem to run through these categories are first, the question of which type of violence is occurring - that is, the motivation and emotion which accompany the violence; the second question is whose violence: that is, when we study the inner world of aggressive children we discover vast differences in the relationships between the self and the internal objects or representational figures of other people. These two questions will be raised whenever we try to treat these children or adolescents.     

场景知觉中物体加工的背景效应

在场景中加工物体信息时, 与物体相伴随的背景会影响对物体的加工。这种物体加工的背景效应在很多的研究中得到了证实。场景知觉中的背景效应有不同的表现, 对于场景中物体识别和背景的关系, 研究者从功能独立、相互作用和背景引导等理论角度给予了解释。其次, 自然场景材料和非自然场景材料所提供的背景信息不同, 研究者从不同的刺激水平探讨了这二者之间的背景效应存在的差异。同时, 随着技术的进步, 研究者也在探讨场景知觉过程中物体加工背景效应的生理机制, 并发现了一些与物体识别的背景效应有关的脑区定位。这些相关的研究为深入了解人是如何知觉和加工真实而复杂的环境提供了新的研究内容和视角。     

Transfer from “edible” categorization training to feeding behavior in pigeons (Columba livia)1

Abstract: We investigated a transfer from an operant experimental situation to a feeding situation in pigeons using real objects as stimuli. Four pigeons were trained in an operant box to categorize familiar edible items as positives and inedible items as negatives with a go/no‐go procedure. Next, two pairs of unfamiliar edible items were added as stimuli. One of the paired stimuli was arbitrarily assigned as positive and the other as negative. We tested the subjects in their home cages to see whether they would feed on the items they were trained to categorize as positives. In three of the six cases in which categorization training was successful, they continued to peck the positive items. This result suggests that the pigeons transfer what they learned in the operant training situation to the feeding situation.     

Introverted Metaphysics

This paper pulls together three debates fundamental in metaphysics and proposes a novel unified approach to them. The three debates are (i) between bundle theory and substrate theory about the nature of objects, (ii) dispositionalism and categoricalism about the nature of properties, and (iii) regularity theory and production theory about the nature of causation. The first part of the paper suggests that although these debates are metaphysical, the considerations motivating competing approaches in each debate tend to be epistemological. The second part argues that the two underlying epistemological pictures supporting these competing views lead to highly unsatisfying conceptions of the world. The final part proposes an alternative epistemological picture, which I call “introverted empiricism,” and presents the way this alternative provides for a more satisfying grasp of the ultimate nature of objects, properties, and causation. It is a consequence of this alternative picture that there is a kind of intimate self‐understanding that underlies our understanding of the deep nature of reality.     

基于空间方位信息的构型对视觉工作记忆绩效的影响

通过考察构成视觉客体构型的两种因素在视觉工作记忆任务中的影响, 探讨了构型对视觉工作记忆绩效的作用机制。采用变化觉察实验范式, 在构型朝向不变和旋转两种条件下, 系统地控制构型中的客体相对方位和整体几何形态两种因素的变化, 考察其对视觉工作记忆绩效的影响。实验结果显示, 无论构型朝向不变还是旋转, 只要客体相对方位保持一致, 工作记忆绩效就可以维持较高水平, 而几何形态没有表现出显著作用。上述发现提示构型客体相对方位是构型影响视觉工作记忆绩效的主要因素。     

The dispensability of (merely) intentional objects

The ontology of (merely) intentional objects is a can of worms. If we can avoid ontological commitment to such entities, we should. In this paper, I offer a strategy for accomplishing that. This is to reject the traditional act-object account of intentionality in favor of an adverbial account. According to adverbialism about intentionality, having a dragon thought is not a matter of bearing the thinking-about relation to dragons, but of engaging in the activity of thinking dragon-wise.

正误样例组合学习的相似性效应和认知加工深度效应

为了考察物体受力分析图正、误样例的相似程度以及被试对错误受力分析的认知加工(即对错误受力分析的辨别、解释和改正)水平对物体受力分析规则正误样例组合学习迁移效果的影响,以初中三年级学生为被试进行两项实验研究。实验结果表明:在物体受力分析图正误样例组合学习中存在明显的相似性效应,即正、误样例的相似程度越高,学习迁移的效果越好;对错误受力分析进行"改正"加工的学习迁移效果明显优于对错误的"辨别"加工,即存在明显的认知加工深度效应。     

Freud's 'problem': COGNITIVE NEUROSCIENCE & PSYCHOANALYSIS WORKING TOGETHER ON MEMORY

The first part of this paper discusses the development of Freud's views on memory from the time of the Project up to the formulation of the second topography. Freud's attempts to match his psychological views with an organic model were necessarily inconclusive, but in the process many innovative ideas about memory can be seen to resonate with recent developments in cognitive neuroscience. A brief discussion of perceptual identity, internal perception and Freud's affect theory introduce the central theoretical idea in the second half of the paper, namely that Identification can be seen as a form of memory. Modern memory theory is linked with the superego, following which the author proposes that internal objects might be renamed 'memory-objects' and that these can be understood in terms of the distinction made in cognitive neuroscience between implicit and explicit memory and between different parts of the brain, in particular the amygdala, the basal ganglia and the hippocampus. Klein's 'memory in feeling' and the views of Fairbairn and Ogden in relation to the dynamic nature of internal objects are briefly discussed. The paper ends with a few comments on the aberrations of memory and some implications of the implicit memory-object system.     

The not-so-silent couple in the individual

This paper aims to examine two often separate areas of analytical enquiry, the nature of the self, with its foundation in the concept of a primary self which may achieve a sense of coherence over time, and the nature of internal objects, a concept that forms the basis of theories concerning part selves and sub-personalities. It is argued that these concepts might be integrated to provide a unified model of the self, thereby integrating theoretically disparate aspects of mental structure and functioning. Through an examination of clinical material, the archetype of the coniunctio is evoked to offer an understanding of how, in the absence of a stable conjunction of (maternal) reverie and (paternal) thinking functions, a series of linked but oppositional internal couples may be created which lends to the self the experience of a combined and sustaining inner couple. The internal couple creates a source of psychological survival for the self, with the function of providing a reliable structure in which the processes of the self may unfold, but equally requiring strict adherence to a pernicious system of internal defences that allows for very little interaction with others outside the self. At the same time, these defences inevitably become blocks to further development, and the work of transformation is thwarted. For transformation to occur, it is necessary for the self to find another, often the analyst, who may be allowed to partake in the internal conjunction, thereby promoting a better grounding for the self.