The Hemispheric Lateralization for Processing Geometric Word/Shape Combinations: The Stroop-Shape Effect

The authors conducted 4 experiments to test whether hemispheric lateralization occurs for the processing of geometric word–shape combinations. In 3 experiments, participants responded to geometric shapes combined with geometric words (square, circle, triangle). In the 4th experiment, stimuli were combinations of geometric shapes and nongeometric words. The authors predicted that it would take longer to respond in incongruent conditions (e.g., the word “square” combined with the shape of a circle) than in congruent conditions. The authors found the strongest incongruency effects for the dominant hemisphere—that is, the left hemisphere for responding to words and the right hemisphere for responding to shapes. A Shape Interfering Properties hypothesis (SIP) is a possible explanation for these results.     

Reflection-Impulsivity in Mexican Children: Cross-Cultural Relationships

Urban Mexican children aged 5 (n = 23) and 9 (n = 87) years were given the Matching Familiar Figures Test (MFFT). The results indicate that the MFFT was a valid test of cognitive style for Mexican children. The younger children's MFFT performance was characterized as fast and inaccurate in relation to the older children's performance, which was slower and more accurate. Cross-cultural comparisons of Mexican MFFT scores with normative data from America, Japan, and Israel indicated that Mexican children were relatively impulsive in cognitive style in relation to children of other cultures. Potential factors contributing to these cross-cultural differences are discussed here.     

The Origin of Error

The present two experiments were designed to investigate the effects of two competing retrieval strategies—category and position cueing.

One hundred college students participated in Experiment I in which Presentation Rate, List Type, and Stimulus Position were manipulated within an FR paradigm. Sixty students participated in Experiment II in which Formal Response Similarity and Stimulus Position were manipulated within a PA paradigm.

Findings were the following: (a) that greater clustering and FR is obtained at slower presentation rates; (b) that greater than chance clustering occurs with a category list structure; and (c) that HS response learning is more difficult than LS response learning. No support was found for position cueing.

Results were discussed within FR cueing, von Restorff, and intentional versus incidental learning paradigms as possible explanations for the nonsignificant position cueing results in the present experiments. A competing strategy hypothesis of category and position cues was preferred with category recall and clustering as the dominant mode of retrieval.     

A Test of the Overconfidence Phenomenon Using Audio Signals

The existence of the overconfidence phenomenon was examined using a signal detection paradigm. Fifty-five participants were asked to decide whether they heard a signal or noise only, and to rate how certain they were of their decisions. The results confirmed the existence of overconfidence as well as the “hard-easy” effect.     

The Influence of Attitude on Learning

Automaticity theory and the effect of coloring a single element were tested with all or only 1 element colored in Stroop tasks. The 312 participants in 5 experiments indicated stimulus presentation color by key press. Experiments 1 and 2 replicated those of D. Besner, J. A. Stoltz, and C. Boutilier (1997) with some changes, and revealed similar results: less Stroop interference with only 1 letter colored. Besner et al. (1997) interpreted the results as indicating that coloring a single letter eliminates automatic reading processes. The cause of that reduction in Stroop interference was investigated in Experiments 3, 4, and 5 using color words, bars, and rectangles. The effect of coloring 1 element was to increase color-naming time by the same amount for congruent and neutral, nonverbal stimuli, but not for incongruent stimuli. The results are interpreted in terms of automaticity theory, and a continuous flow approach to the Stroop effect is presented.     

Dynamic Visual Acuity

Forty subjects took part in a one-handed catching task in which the period for which the mechanically projected tennis ball was illuminated in flight was varied systematically. Additionally, they were tested for (a) static visual acuity and (b) dynamic visual acuity, in which angular velocity was varied. As expected, both viewing period in the catching task and angular velocity in the acuity task were significant variables in performance. Correlation and principal-components analyses confirmed the findings of a previous experiment in that the correlated static visual acuity tasks were unrelated to both dynamic visual acuity (even when angular velocity was only 75°/sec) and catching performance. Further, dynamic acuity and catching were related under the majority of the combinations, and most frequently at the highest angular velocity, a fact which suggested that the dynamic element in both tasks is the common factor.     

Acquisition of Predictable Vertical Visual Targets: Eye-Head Coordination and the Triggering Effect

The study was designed to investigate target acquisition in the vertical plane with emphasis on establishing strategy differences associated with acquisition triggering methods. Eight subjects were tested. Measurements consisted of target acquisition time, eye-head latency differences, velocity of gaze, eyes and head, and head amplitude. Using 3-way repeated measures analyses of variance the results show that the strategy for acquisition of predictable visual targets in vertical plane with the head unrestrained significantly depended on (a) the direction of the gaze motion with respect to the gravity vector (i.e., there is significant up-down asymmetry), (b) the angular distance of the target, and (c) the method of triggering the command to acquire the target—external versus internal. The data also show that when vertical acquisition is compared with triggering methods in the horizontal plane there is a difference in overall strategy for the acquisition of targets with the same spatial distances from straight ahead gaze when both the eyes and head are used. Among the factors contributing to the difference in strategy for vertical target acquisition are the gravitational vector, the relationship of target displacement and vestibular activitation, biomechanical and neural control asymmetries, and the difference in the vertical field of view.     

The structure of “communities” and communications in the new millennium

The three lineages of information,—the genetic, the cultural and artifactual—will increasingly merge their constituent information contents through advances in biotechnology and information technology. This will redefine what constitutes “social” and what constitutes “community.” A community's members communicate with their “significant others” and change their internal information states (and their internal and external behaviors). Under conditions of merging, information exchanges occur across all the three lineages. In this sense, the concept of significant other,—that is, a communicating entity—, is now spread from human communities to encompass also the biological and the artifactual. A seamless merging between the three realms now occurs affecting their respective internal information stores. The resulting image of interactions that now arises is of multiple oceans of communities, operating at different levels, the genetic, the cultural and the artifactual. There are exchanges across the different levels, up and down and sideways, as information is translated from one realm to the other. These dynamics result in changes in the evolutionary characteristics of each lineage and sub‐lineage, including the internal perceptions from within a lineage, namely in the language of evolutionary epistemology, its “meanings” and “hypotheses” on the world. A future sociology must necessarily take into account these factors and incorporate the dynamics of all three realms.     

The Theory Of Social–Cultural Genetic Gene (S- c Dna)

It took a long time for humanity to know about biogenetics. And yet its role as a determinant in the living system was not proven until the twentieth century when DNA was discovered. Similarly, it took a long time for humanity to know about culture and civilization. And yet until now there is neither definite standards for differentiating them nor a definition that is commonly acceptable. By taking an evolutionary pluralism as ontology framework and the transdisciplinary research method of the systems science, we have in the new social system model discovered the central rules that govern the social–cultural heredity: Culture–Production–Civilization. The relationship between culture and civilization is exactly that of genotype and phenotype. Culture is the S-cDNA within the social system while civilization is the social phenotype. Culture is a determinant that ultimately determines the existence, stagnation, change, and evolution of the social system.     

Critical factor analysis: An exploratory general model for understanding diverse systems

Critical Factor Analysis (CFA) is presented as an exploratory general model for uniting the sciences and the humanities through identification and use of critical factors common to both. Two primary and eight subordinate critical factors, with corresponding principles, are identified and placed in a model that can be used for prediction, analysis, and design of systems. Use of CFA could conceivably raise system IQ, reduce unnecessary variety, and assist with the general acceptance of systems science.