Behaviour of Young Growing Pigs in a Resident‐Intruder Test Designed to Measure Aggressiveness

A total of 125 growing pigs (47 days old) were tested for aggressive responses on two occasions using a resident‐intruder (R‐I) design. Our aims were twofold: (1) to attempt to replicate earlier work on pigs showing that resident aggression is a consistent individual characteristic, unaffected by weight or sex of the resident or intruder and (2) to develop behavioural measures to characterise the wide range of aggressive responses in the test. Resident pigs, housed since birth with littermates, were placed individually in a divided‐off portion of their home pen, and a smaller, unfamiliar intruder (approximately 66% of the resident's weight) was introduced. The test ended 5 min after the first investigation of the intruder by the resident or when one of the pigs began to attack the other (by delivering a sudden, rapid series of bites). On days 1 and 2, 33.6% and 43.2% of tests, respectively, ended in an attack by a resident. Intruder attacks were rare. Pigs were consistent in whether they attacked or not over the two tests, although attack latencies for pigs attacking in both tests were not correlated. Females were more likely to attack and attacked more quickly than males on the first test day but not in the second test or overall. Intruder sex had some effect on the test outcome (males were attacked more rapidly in the second test only). Resident and intruder weight had no effect. Aggressive pigs (meaning pigs that attacked vs. pigs that did not and fast‐attacking pigs vs. slow‐attacking pigs) showed a number of differences in behaviour during the R‐I test: (1) they took longer to make initial contact with the intruder in their first test; (2) they showed a higher frequency of aggressive acts (single head knocks, bites, and shoves); (3) they spent a greater proportion of the test engaging in social contact with the intruder rather than non‐social behaviours; (4) their social behaviour involved more postures directed toward the head as opposed to flank‐ or rear‐directed postures or re‐establishing social contact; and (5) they showed closer physical contact with intruders during social encounters, as characterised by their lower head positions. Some of these behavioural measures could be used to improve the measuring power of the test in the future. Improved behavioural measures would enable aggressiveness scoring among pigs that did not attack instead of classifying them all together as “non‐attacking.” Aggr. Behav. 28:401–415, 2002. © 2002 Wiley‐Liss, Inc.     

The effects of alcohol and the salience of aggressive cues on triggered displaced aggression

Alcohol increases the aggression-augmenting effects of provocation. Theories of alcohol and aggression suggest that impaired cognitive processing induced by acute intoxication leads individuals to process aggression-inducing social cues differently depending on whether they are high or low in salience. We examined the effects of intoxication and aggressive cue salience within the triggered displaced aggression paradigm. An ethnically diverse sample of 74 primarily young adult participants (40 men and 34 women; M=23.28, SD=3.14 years) were recruited from the university community and surrounding area. All participants were provoked by an experimenter, randomly assigned to a 2 (alcohol condition: alcohol vs. placebo) x 2 (trigger salience: high vs. low salience) between-subjects design, and then given the opportunity to aggress against the undeserving triggering agent. As expected, intoxication combined with a salient triggering cue elicited the most displaced aggression among all conditions. These results provide the first evidence that the effect of alcohol on triggered displaced aggression is moderated by the salience of the triggering event.     

Gender, Video Game Playing Habits and Visual Memory Tasks

The current research examined whether visuospatial recall of both abstract and common objects was related to gender or object familiarity. Seventy two undergraduates from a university in the Southern U.S. were asked to draw the Rey Complex Figure and a series of common objects from memory. A pilot sample of seventy three undergraduates had previously identified common objects as “male” “female” and “neutral” exemplars. Males were significantly better at drawing “male” and “neutral” exemplars whereas females were better at drawing “female” exemplars. Neither gender was significantly better at the Rey task. These results question whether males have an inherent advantage in visual memory. Results also found that experience with playing violent video games was associated with higher visual memory recall.     

拟社会互动在年幼儿童视频学习中的作用

本研究采用表征理解任务和规则学习任务,通过比较真人互动、视频拟互动和视频非互动三种条件下年幼儿童的学习效果,考察拟互动在2-5岁儿童视频学习中的作用。结果表明,2岁儿童的视频学习存在视频缺陷现象,2.5岁到5岁儿童的拟社会互动视频学习效果明显,优于非互动视频学习,与真人互动学习相当。2.5岁至4.5岁是拟互动视频学习的最佳年龄。     

暴力视频游戏对个体亲社会性的影响：一项元分析

暴力视频游戏是一种新兴的娱乐媒介, 是指含有描绘个体试图对其他个体造成伤害等内容的视频游戏。亲社会性是人类区别于动物的重要特征, 包括在人际交往中个体所表现出的利他、助人等一切使他人受益的认知、情感和行为。本文采用元分析的方法整合国内外已有研究, 分析暴力视频游戏对玩家亲社会性影响的主效应, 并重点考察各调节变量在暴力视频游戏与亲社会性的关系中产生的作用。通过文献检索, 纳入符合要求的文献24篇, 包含63个效应值(effect size), 总样本量18554人。研究结果显示：暴力视频游戏与亲社会性总效应值显著, 但相关较弱(r = -0.10)。调节效应分析表明, 暴力视频游戏与亲社会性的关系受到被试性别、被试类型、被试年龄、测量类型与亲社会性测量指标的调节。未来研究可以进一步采用一般攻击模型与一般学习模型等理论模型指导暴力视频游戏对亲社会行为影响研究, 同时优化实证研究中测量亲社会性的实验范式, 并且需要重点考察个体差异对暴力视频游戏与亲社会性关系的影响。     

E-sports are Not Sports

The conclusion of this paper will be that e-sports are not sports. I begin by offering a stipulation and a definition. I stipulate that what I have in mind, when thinking about the concept of sport, is ‘Olympic’ sport. And I define an Olympic Sport as an institutionalised, rule-governed contest of human physical skill. The justification for the stipulation lies partly in that it is uncontroversial. Whatever else people might think of as sport, no-one denies that Olympic Sport is sport. This seeks to ensure that those who might wish to dispute my conclusion might stay with the argument at least for as long as possible. Secondly, the justification for the stipulation lies partly in its normativity—I have chosen an Olympic conception of sport just because it seems to me to offer some kind of desirable version of what sport is and might become. Thirdly, I give examples which show how prominent promoters of e-sports agree with my stipulation, as evidenced by their strenuous attempts to comply with it in order to join the Olympic club. The justification for the definition lies in the conceptual analysis offered—an ‘exhibition-analysis’ which clarifies the concept of sport by offering ‘construals’ of the six first-level terms. The conclusion is that e-sports are not sports because they are inadequately ‘human’; they lack direct physicality; they fail to employ decisive whole-body control and whole-body skills, and cannot contribute to the development of the whole human; and because their patterns of creation, production, ownership and promotion place serious constraints on the emergence of the kind of stable and persisting institutions characteristic of sports governance. Competitive computer games do not qualify as sports, no matter what ‘resemblances’ may be claimed. Computer games are just that—games.     

Violent video games exposure and aggression: The role of moral disengagement,anger, hostility,and disinhibition

Based on the General Aggression Model (GAM), the current study investigated the interactive effect of personal factors (e.g., sensation-seeking) and situational factors (e.g., violent video games exposure [VVGE]) on the trait aggressive behavior, and the mediating role of individual difference trait (e.g., moral disengagement, anger, and hostility). We recruited 547 undergraduates (48.45% male) from five Chinese universities. The results showed that VVGE was positively associated with moral disengagement, disinhibition, and the four aggressive traits (physical aggression, verbal aggression, anger, and hostility), which were positively associated with each other. Moral disengagement was positively associated with both the disinhibition and the four aggressive traits. Disinhibition was positively associated with the four aggressive traits as well. When controlled for gender, moral disengagement, anger, and hostility wholly mediated the relationship between VVGE and aggression, but the moderation effect of disinhibition was not significant. These findings support the framework of GAM and indicate that moral disengagement, anger, and hostility may be the factors that increase the risk of a higher level of aggression following repeated exposure to violent video games.     

暴力暴露对大学生网络攻击行为的影响:有调节的中介模型

为探讨暴力暴露、大学生网络攻击行为、负性自动思维及自我控制之间的关系,选取黑龙江大学、哈尔滨师范大学两所高校共600名大一至大四的大学生为被试,采用暴力暴露问卷、网络攻击行为量表、自动思维问卷及自我控制问卷进行测试。结果表明：（1）暴力暴露对大学生网络攻击行为有着显著的正向影响,并间接地通过负性自动思维对大学生网络攻击行为产生作用;（2）自我控制在暴力暴露对大学生网络攻击行为的影响中起显著的调节作用,具体而言,在低自我控制水平下,暴力暴露能显著的正向预测大学生网络攻击行为,而在高自我控制水平下,暴力暴露对大学生网络攻击行为的预测作用不显著。     

青少年恋爱关系：研究取向、方法与影响因素

青少年恋爱关系是在性吸引基础上建立起来的一种相互认可的、至少持续一段时间的强烈的情感联系和互动关系, 其研究取向主要有生物社会取向、认知表征取向和发展背景取向, 研究方法主要包括自我报告法、观察法和录像回顾法。影响青少年恋爱关系的有个体因素、人际关系因素和社会因素, 未来可在理论的整合、关系品质的稳定性及微观背景作用的机制、样本的代表性等方面进一步研究。     

Retraction and Revocation in Agent Deliberation Dialogs

We present a generic denotational semantic framework for protocols for dialogs between rational and autonomous agents over action which allows for retraction and revocation of proposals for action. The semantic framework views participants in a deliberation dialog as jointly and incrementally manipulating the contents of shared spaces of action-intention tokens. The framework extends prior work by decoupling the identity of an agent who first articulates a proposal for action from the identity of any agent then empowered to retract or revoke the proposal, thereby permitting proposals, entreaties, commands, promises, etc., to be distinguished semantically.