Missing what was true: Problems of seeing and knowing in Henry James's The wings of the dove

The author examines a central theme in this late novel by Henry James in relation to current psychoanalytic ideas that link the Oedipus complex with the child's developing perception of reality (both psychic and external), specifi cally through the experience of seeing and being seen. Britton visualises the oedipal triangle as a psychic structure through which the child may achieve recognition not only of its parents' sexual relationship, from which it is excluded, but also of itself being observed by one parent while the child is with the other. Thus, it both observes and is observed. The differing perspectives achieved‐of subjectivity and objectivity‐ promote the perception of objective reality, as the world of relationships grows and becomes more complex. James captures with great subtlety and penetration the experience of three characters living out a symbolic oedipal relationship in which the truth is evaded or perverted. A young couple in love exploit the situation of a dying heiress whose vulnerability is intensifi ed by her reluctance to acknowledge the truth about their relationship. At the same time, she shrinks from the gaze of others and consigns herself to isolation and ultimate despair. The author presents three signifi cant scenes in which seeing and being seen are central to the development. In each, the dying woman is forced to face, if momentarily, her exclusion from the sexual relationship. Increasingly this connects with her approaching death‐but also with the anguished recognition that the couple have cruelly befriended her only to betray her. It is suggested that James's late style and novelistic technique require the reader to tolerate confusion and uncertainty. As the perspective shifts from one protagonist to another, we ourselves are in danger of ‘missing what is true’ in this characteristic Jamesian scenario, where relationships are gradually perverted by manipulation, evasion and lies. In psychoanalytic theory, this would represent a failure to work through the oedipal situation, where the struggle of the child to face reality is met by a parental relationship that is too weak or too perverse to contain the pain and confl ict.     

人脑眶额皮质表征奖赏信息的进展

文章围绕人脑眶额皮质在表征奖赏信息上的核心作用展开,分别从人脑眶额皮质表征奖赏信息的共同神经表征和特异性神经表征特点,奖赏加工和该脑区局部形态特征之间的关系以及眶额皮质表征奖赏信息的时间动态性等角度对最近的重要研究进展进行了一定的梳理和概括。最后,文章讨论了未来研究需要解决的由奖赏类型多样性和脑区间奖赏信息整合复杂性带来的系列问题。     

Implicit attentional orienting in a target detection task with central cues

Studies using Posner’s spatial cueing paradigm have demonstrated that participants can allocate their attention to specific target locations based on the predictiveness of preceding cues. Four experiments were conducted to investigate attentional orienting processes operating in a high probability condition (cues 75% predictive) as compared to a low probability condition (cues 50% predictive) using various types of centrally-presented cues. Spatially-informative cues (arrows and circles with gaps) resulted in cueing effects (CEs) for both probability conditions, with significantly larger CEs in the high probability conditions than the low probability conditions. Participants in the high probability conditions reported little or no awareness of cue–target probabilities after task completion. Our results provide support for an implicit learning account of the proportion valid effect under experimental conditions involving spatially-informative central cues and relatively short stimulus onset asynchronies (SOAs).     

Sensitivity to number: Reply to Gebuis and Gevers

Past research showing a bias towards the larger non-symbolic number by adults and children in line bisection tasks (de Hevia & Spelke, 2009) has been challenged by Gebuis and Gevers, suggesting that area subtended by the stimulus and not number is responsible for the biases. I review evidence supporting the idea that although sensitivity to number might be relatively affected by visual cues, number is a major, salient property of our environment. The influence of non-numerical cues might be seen as the concurrent processing of dimensions that entail information of magnitude, without implying that number is constructed out of those dimensions.     

Misleading cues improve developmental assessment of working memory capacity: The color matching tasks

The theory of constructive operators was used as a framework to design two versions of a paradigm (color matching task, CMT) in which items are parametrically ordered in difficulty, and differ only contextually. Items in CMT-Balloon are facilitating, whereas items in CMT-Clown contain misleading cues. Participants of ages 7–14 years and adults (N = 149) were studied. We found significant model-predicted graded differences in performance between the facilitating and misleading tasks, across and within age groups, expressing age versus items’ demand interactions. Younger children were differentially affected by contextual cues. Even though both task versions were highly correlated with a well-established developmental measure of attentional capacity, CMT-Clown, which contained misleading cues, was a better measure of working memory capacity. These results show a need to estimate degree of misleadingness whenever performance levels in working memory or mental attention tasks are compared and interpreted. Developmental profiles of both tasks are discussed in terms of contextual differences and neoPiagetian stages of development.     

积极情景线索对内隐攻击性的影响

通过向被试呈现代表积极情景线索的材料(一段含有互助、和谐信息的公益短片),运用内隐联想测验(IAT)范式,从内隐社会认知的角度来研究积极情境线索对个体内隐攻击性的影响,并分析这种影响是否具有性别差异。结果表明:未观看积极情景线索材料的被试表现出显著的内隐攻击性,而观看积极情景线索材料的被试的内隐攻击性不显著;积极情景线索的主效应显著,且这一效应不存在性别差异。这说明,积极情景线索能有效抑制个体的内隐攻击性,并支持自我攻击信念IAT是测量个体内隐攻击性的有效工具。     

面孔参照或观察者参照：性别二态线索、面孔吸引力与表情对正视面孔偏好的影响

本研究探讨了性别二态线索、面孔吸引力和表情对正视面孔偏好的影响。实验1基于面孔参照,被试普遍偏好正视面孔;相对男性化/厌恶和生气/低吸引力的面孔,被试更偏好女性化/高兴和中性/高吸引力的正视面孔;实验2基于观察者参照,总体并未表现出正视偏好;对低吸引力/中性表情/男性化面孔更偏好斜视面孔。     

Crossmodal spatial attention shift produced by centrally presented gaze cues1

Abstract: Despite previous failures to identify visual‐upon‐auditory spatial‐cuing effects, recent studies have demonstrated that the abrupt onset of a lateralized visual stimulus triggers a shift of spatial attention in response to auditory judgment. Nevertheless, whether a centrally presented visual stimulus orients auditory attention remained unclear. The present study investigated whether centrally presented gaze cues trigger a reflexive shift of attention in response to auditory judgment. Participants fixated on a schematic face in which the eyes looked left or right (the cue). A target sound was then presented to the left or right of the cue. Participants judged the direction of the target as quickly as possible. Even though participants were told that the gaze direction did not predict the direction of the target, the response time was significantly faster when the gaze was in the target direction than when it was in the non‐target direction. These findings provide initial evidence for visual‐upon‐auditory spatial‐cuing effects produced by centrally presented cues, suggesting that a reflexive crossmodal shift of attention does occur with a centrally presented visual stimulus.     

Verbal and nonverbal behaviour as a basis for credibility attribution: The impact of task involvement and cognitive capacity

Three experiments were able to demonstrate the usefulness of dual-process models for the understanding of the process of credibility attribution. According to the assumptions of dual-process models, only high task involvement and high cognitive capacity leads to intensive processing of verbal and nonverbal information when making credibility judgments. Under low task involvement and/or low cognitive capacity, people predominantly use nonverbal information for their credibility attribution. In Experiment 1, participants under low or high task involvement saw a film in which the nonverbal behaviour (fidgety vs. calm) and the verbal information (low versus high credibility) of a source were manipulated. As predicted, when task involvement was low, only the nonverbal behaviour influenced participants’ credibility attribution. Participants with high task involvement also used the verbal information. In Experiment 2 and 3, the cognitive capacity of the participants was manipulated. Participants with high cognitive capacity, in contrast to those of low cognitive capacity, used the verbal information for their credibility attribution.     

Bringing out the agreeableness in everyone: Using a cognitive self-regulation model to reduce aggression

Research has shown that those individuals high in agreeableness recruit helpful thoughts in hostile contexts, presumably in the service of controlling aggressive behavior. The present experiment follows from such work, but importantly does so in a manner seeking to support causal conclusions. Participants were randomly assigned to an experimental training condition, in which hostile prime words were followed by helpful target words, or to a control condition that did not involve such pairings. Those assigned to the experimental condition subsequently exhibited lower levels of aggression in a laboratory task. Additional considerations and findings support the potential involvement of self-regulation processes. In general terms, the experiment reveals that a brief cognitive manipulation targeting processes thought to underlie aggression control was in fact causally effective in reducing subsequent levels of aggressive behavior.