Staying on or getting off the sidewalk? Testing the Mehrabian-Russell Model on pedestrian behavior

Social and environmental psychology provide a variety of models based on which to understand how built environments can elicit people’s behavioral responses. The Mehrabian-Russell model (MRM), initially presented in 1974, provides a framework that explains avoid–approach behavior towards a place based on a primary emotional response (PER) and affective states elicited by the perceived stimuli from the environment. However, despite the potential applications of the MRM in travel behavior studies, traditional models (e.g., discrete choice models and integrated choice latent variable) do not incorporate this specific psychological process that converts environmental stimuli into behavioral responses. Hence, this paper aims to test the applicability of MRM to urban sidewalks. To fulfill this objective, we developed a two-level structural equation model using latent variables (LV) identified from a confirmatory factor analysis (CFA) based on 1056 in-person surveys on 30 different sidewalks in Bogotá, Colombia. We then evaluated the effect of the PER on declared avoidance as a proxy of behavioral intention. The CFA uncovered three LV equivalent to the three affective dimensions of the MRM—arousal, pleasure, and dominance—followed by a fourth LV, representing the PER, which explains the three previous LVs. This confirms the applicability of these kinds of psychological and environmental models in pedestrian behavior evaluation. We found that PER can explain the declared intention of avoidance towards the sidewalk in an urban setting. Proving that this kind of model can explain the way in which the built environment can elicit pedestrians’ emotional responses and subsequent behaviors, provides information that can be used as input in travel behavior studies focusing on the promotion of active traveling and mode change.     

非熟练中-英双语者跨语言的错误记忆通道效应

采用DRM范式以112名非熟练中-英双语者为被试进行了跨语言的错误记忆通道效应实验。实验采用三因素混合设计,根据学习通道和测验通道的不同,把被试分为4组,用由汉语与英语单词组成的DRM词表进行学习和测验。结果发现,⑴在非熟练中-英双语被试中存在错误记忆的跨语言现象;⑵非熟练中-英双语者跨语言的错误记忆存在很强的语言特异性,表现为相同语言条件高于不同语言条件、汉语高于英语;⑶在学习与测验相同语言条件下运用校正的再认分数——敏感性指标Pr,进一步探讨错误记忆的通道效应,发现了跟西方不一致的结论：即无论汉语词表还是英语词表,非熟练中-英双语者在视觉通道上的错误记忆明显高于听觉通道     

How grammar can cope with limited short-term memory: simultaneity and seriality in sign languages

It is known that in American Sign Language (ASL) span is shorter than in English, but this discrepancy has never been systematically investigated using other pairs of signed and spoken languages. This finding is at odds with results showing that short-term memory (STM) for signs has an internal organization similar to STM for words. Moreover, some methodological questions remain open. Thus, we measured span of deaf and matched hearing participants for Italian Sign Language (LIS) and Italian, respectively, controlling for all the possible variables that might be responsible for the discrepancy: yet, a difference in span between deaf signers and hearing speakers was found. However, the advantage of hearing subjects was removed in a visuo-spatial STM task. We attribute the source of the lower span to the internal structure of signs: indeed, unlike English (or Italian) words, signs contain both simultaneous and sequential components. Nonetheless, sign languages are fully-fledged grammatical systems, probably because the overall architecture of the grammar of signed languages reduces the STM load. Our hypothesis is that the faculty of language is dependent on STM, being however flexible enough to develop even in a relatively hostile environment.     

Sensory processing disorders in children with cerebral palsy

ObjectiveTo evaluate sensory processing in children with CP using the Sensory Profile questionnaire and to compare results with the ones of children with typical development (TD).MethodsWe assessed sensory processing of 59 TD children and 43 CP children using the Sensory Profile, a standardized parent reporting measure that records children's responses to sensory events in daily life. Mann-Whitney test was used to compare the results of sensory processing evaluation among the groups. Bonferroni correction was applied.ResultsWe found differences in sensory processing between groups in 16 out of the 23 categories evaluated in the Sensory Profile.ConclusionOur results pointed out to the existence of disturbances in the processing of sensory information in CP. Based on the importance of the sensory integration process for motor function, the presence of such important disturbances draw the attention to the implementation of sensory therapies which improve function in these children.     

Is sensory processing an issue for infants with colic?

ObjectivesTo determine the association between sensory functioning, sleep, cry/fuss, and feeding behaviors of infants with colic younger than 4 months of age.MethodsDunn’s Infant/Toddler Sensory Profile™ and a modified Barr Baby Day Diary^© were used to assess 44 breastfed infants with colic under four months of age. Colic was defined according to Wessel’s criteria.ResultsThirty-four of the 44 infants with colic (77%) scored as atypical for sensory processing. Of these, 56% scored atypical for sensory processing on quadrant one (Q1) (Low Registration), with 24%, 65%, and 18% scoring as atypical for sensory processing on Q2 (Sensory seeking), Q3 (Sensory sensitivity), and Q4 (Sensation avoiding), respectively. All infants demonstrating sensation avoiding also scored as Low Threshold. A moderate statistically significant correlation was found between sensation seeking and time spent sleeping (r = 0.31; p = 0.04). No other statistically significant associations between infant behaviors and their sensory functioning were demonstrated. Overall, infants demonstrating atypical sensory responses (in any quadrant) slept significantly more than infants demonstrating typical sensory responses (mean difference = −67.8 min/day; 95% CI = −133.6 to −2.1; p = 0.04).ConclusionVery limited associations between infant behaviors and sensory functioning were demonstrated, suggesting that sensory functioning may not be a significant factor in the multifactorial nature of infant colic. Further well-designed studies using validated tools for infants with colic are required to determine whether associations between infant behaviors and sensory functioning exist.     

Atmospheric memories: Affect and minor politics at the ten-year anniversary of the London bombings

This paper addresses how the ten-year anniversary of the London bombings was made present through political affects and atmospheres on 7 July 2015. Although the anniversary of a terrorist event forms an opportune moment for invoking the nation as united in feeling, we are interested in how people attune to political atmospheres of memory and trauma in multiple ways, which do not always cohere to sovereign narratives about unity and certainty. By focusing on these events through an attentiveness to the atmospheric and affective, we examine how these events were recalled, memorialised, felt and sensed in the small-scale ceremonies taking place across London on that morning, by way of a multi-authored sensory auto-ethnography. As such, we are led towards various moments of encounter, which involve ‘minor gestures’ (Manning, 2016), and imply ways of responding to acts of terror that rub against the unifying forces of the state. In contrast to the ‘rolling maelstroms of affect’ (Thrift 2004: 57) pursued by the state and media following a terrorist attack, this project is attentive to multiple, uncertain and ambivalent encounters. These matter because they suggest other ways of being political and of responding to both terrorist and state-led violence.     

No Benefit of Eye-Closure Rehearsal in a Unimodal Recognition Memory Test for Word Items

Recent studies have suggested that closing the eyes helps memory retrieval in recall tests for audiovisual clips that contain multimodal information. In two experiments, we examined whether eye-closure improves recognition memory performance for word lists presented unimodally (i.e., visually or aurally). In the encoding phase, participants saw or heard a list of unrelated, meaningful word items. After a fixed retention interval of 1 week (Experiment 1, n = 110) and 5 min (Experiment 2, n = 44), the participants were asked to mentally rehearse the items with their eyes open or closed, and then they performed a recognition test. The results revealed no effect of eye-closure rehearsal on recognition performance. We discuss the possible reasons why no eye-closure benefit was found in recognition memory tests for unrelated word items.     

Cerebellar contributions to tactile perception in people with varying sensorimotor experiences: Examining the sensory acquisition hypothesis

The sensory acquisition hypothesis states that the sensory demand of a task is the most crucial factor in determining the level of cerebellar activity. The present study was conducted to examine whether the prediction of sensory demand holds when participants have different sensorimotor training experiences. Archery athletes and non-athletic control participants were asked to perform tactile discrimination tasks during fMRI scanning. In archery athletes, a pattern of reduced cerebellar activation accompanying higher sensory cortical activity was observed, whereas in non-athletic control participants the visual network was found to be in concert with extensive cerebellar activation. These findings are in accordance with the prediction that the cerebellum plays a supportive role for the cerebral cortex in sensory data acquisition.     

视觉感觉记忆在字音选取作业中的作用

该研究通过四项实验探讨了视觉感觉记忆(VSM)在字音选取作业中的作用。实验材料为48个汉字。实验结果表明:当被试只能利用短时记忆(STM)中的信息进行选取作业时,能选取的汉字数与转换到STM中的汉字数之间无显著性差异;当被试可以同时利用VSM和STM中的信息时,能选取的汉字数要显著多于转换到STM中的汉字数。这表明,人能根据字音特征从VSM信息中选取字符。     

From Modal Discourse to Possible Worlds

The possible-worlds semantics for modality says that a sentence is possibly true if it is true in some possible world. Given classical prepositional logic, one can easily prove that every consistent set of propositions can be embedded in a ‘maximal consistent set’, which in a sense represents a possible world. However the construction depends on the fact that standard modal logics are finitary, and it seems false that an infinite collection of sets of sentences each finite subset of which is intuitively ‘possible’ in natural language has the property that the whole set is possible. The argument of the paper is that the principles needed to shew that natural language possibility sentences involve quantification over worlds are analogous to those used in infinitary modal logic.