Crime, Social Capital, and Community Participation

Social disorganization at the neighborhood and community levels has been consistently linked to various forms of criminal activity. However, a very much smaller body of literature addresses the effects of crime on community organizations. In some studies, crime appears to energize communities while in others, crime leads to withdrawal from community life. Using department of health crime victimization data and interviews with 2,985 low-income inner city residents living in 487 multi-family dwellings, a multi-level model examined the relationships among crime victimization, social organization, and participation in neighborhood organizations. Social organization at the individual and building levels was measured using recent formulations of social capital theory. Findings regarding crime suggested more signs of a chilling effect on participation than of an energizing effect, especially at the building level. Social capital at the building level was more strongly and consistently related to participation in community organizations than was crime.     

Acquiring new spatial intuitions: learning to reason about rotations

There are certain simple rotations of objects that most people cannot reason about accurately. Reliable gaps in the understanding of a fundamental physical domain raise the question of how learning to reason in that domain might proceed. Using virtual reality techniques, this project investigated the nature of learning to reason across the domain of simple rotations. Learning consisted of the acquisition of spatial intuitions: there was encoding of useful spatiotemporal information in specific problem types and a gradual accumulation of this understanding across the domain. This pattern of learning through the accumulation of intuitions is especially interesting for rotational motion, in which an elegant domain-wide kinematics is available to support insightful learning. Individual ability to reason about rotations correlated highly with mastery motivation, skill in fluid reasoning, and skill in reasoning about spatial transformations. Thus, general cognitive advantages aided the understanding of individual rotations without guaranteeing immediate generalization across the domain.     

Shadowed reality or the 'Prometheus-complex': analytical psychotherapy after political imprisonment and persecution

Traumatic experiences of violence like those that were brought about by the communist regime of the former German Democratic Republic (GDR) are still present as if they happened yesterday, causing severe disadvantages in everyday life even after all those years. Consequently, in cases of extreme traumatization induced by political imprisonment, persecution and applied psychological methods of disintegration, regressive processes take place which corrode the ego. The breakdown of cathexis, i.e., the failure of empathic connection at the time of the trauma, is the strongest characteristic of severe traumatization. As a result of this destruction for the traumatized there is an inability to keep upright an inner empathic, emotional connection. As we try to grasp, from a Jungian point of view, the psychodynamics of severe traumatization, we can speak of a powerful pathogenous complex, which I call the 'Prometheus-complex'. Gustav Bovensiepen speaks of this complex as a sub-network, a limited fragment of the matrix of all internalized experiences, consisting of internal working models, feelings and patterns of anticipation which interact mutually. The human being, captured in such isolation and paralysis of the mind, can find himself 'in the therapist' on a mental level.     

The shape of holes

The shape of holes can be recognized as accurately as the shape of objects (Palmer, S. E. (1999). Vision science: photons to phenomenology. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press), yet the area enclosed by a hole is a background region, and it can be demonstrated that background regions are not represented as having shape. What is therefore the shape of a hole, if any? To resolve this apparent paradox, we suggest that the shape of a hole is available indirectly from the shape of the surrounding object. We exploited the fact that observers are faster at judging the position of convex vertices than concave ones (Perception 30 (2001) 1295), and using a figural manipulation of figure/ground we found a reversal of the relative speeds when the same contours were presented as holes instead of objects. If contours were perceived as belonging to the hole rather than the surrounding object then there would have been no qualitative difference in responses to the object and hole stimuli. We conclude that the contour bounding a hole is automatically assigned to the surrounding object, and that a change in perception of a region from object to hole always drastically changes the encoded information. We discuss the many interesting aspects of holes as a subject of study in different disciplines and predict that much insight especially about shape will continue to come from holes.     

How owls structure visual information

Recent studies on perceptual organization in humans claim that the ability to represent a visual scene as a set of coherent surfaces is of central importance for visual cognition. We examined whether this surface representation hypothesis generalizes to a non-mammalian species, the barn owl (Tyto alba). Discrimination transfer combined with random-dot stimuli provided the appropriate means for a series of two behavioural experiments with the specific aims of (1) obtaining psychophysical measurements of figure–ground segmentation in the owl, and (2) determining the nature of the information involved. In experiment 1, two owls were trained to indicate the presence or absence of a central planar surface (figure) among a larger region of random dots (ground) based on differences in texture. Without additional training, the owls could make the same discrimination when figure and ground had reversed luminance, or were camouflaged by the use of uniformly textured random-dot stereograms. In the latter case, the figure stands out in depth from the ground when positional differences of the figure in two retinal images are combined (binocular disparity). In experiment 2, two new owls were trained to distinguish three-dimensional objects from holes using random-dot kinematograms. These birds could make the same discrimination when information on surface segmentation was unexpectedly switched from relative motion to half-occlusion. In the latter case, stereograms were used that provide the impression of stratified surfaces to humans by giving unpairable image features to the eyes. The ability to use image features such as texture, binocular disparity, relative motion, and half-occlusion interchangeably to determine figure–ground relationships suggests that in owls, as in humans, the structuring of the visual scene critically depends on how indirect image information (depth order, occlusion contours) is allocated between different surfaces. Electronic Publication     

行为科学在中国的回顾与前瞻——为悼念孙友余同志而作

过去因孙友余同志的倡导 ,行为科学曾在中国 80年代盛极一时 ,对管理实践与理论研究 ,都作出了许多成绩 ,并且成立了全国的行为科学学会 ,办了几期厂长经理的培训班 ,为我国的管理工作的科学化成为一种推动作用。后孙友余同志因病离职 ,行为科学学会名存实亡 ,现在已无全国的学会组织。因为下一世纪进入转型时期 ,行为科学在知识经济中的地位更加重要 ,因而提出恢复全国行为科学学会以开展工作 ,兼以此纪念孙友余同志的逝世。     

Discovery algorithms for hierarchical relations

Two algorithms based on a latent class model are presented for discovering hierarchical relations that exist among a set ofK dichotomous items. The two algorithms, stepwise forward selection and backward elimination, incorporate statistical criteria for selecting (or deleting) 0–1 response pattern vectors to form the subset of the total possible 2 ^k vectors that uniquely describe the hierarchy. The performances of the algorithms are compared, using computer-constructed data, with those of three competing deterministic approaches based on ordering theory and the calculation of Phi/Phi-max coefficients. The discovery algorithms are also demonstrated on real data sets investigated in the literature.     

The Spiritual Task of Religion in Culture: An Evolutionary Perspective

It is quite impossible to consider human nature within an evolutionary perspective if we leapfrog over culture and establish some direct relation between cosmic and human evolution without taking culture into consideration. Culture holds a significant place within the structures of nature, as the "epic" of evolution portrays nature—cosmic, physical, and biological. Religion emerges within culture, and it plays a role in organizing the human consciousness and in generating the stories, rituals, and morality that constitute the organization of consciousness. Since organization of consciousness determines how culture is conducted, and since we face a global crisis today because of the ways we are conducting our culture, religion's role is critical for the future of culture. Wherever it is attempted, whether in terms of traditional or posttraditional modes, the fashioning of adequate worldviews, rituals, and morality is an essentially religious activity. For both traditional and posttraditional modes, the task is to weave structures of meaning with the sciences of evolution so as to effect the most suitable organization of consciousness.     

An investigation of hierarchical Bayes procedures in item response theory

Hierarchical Bayes procedures for the two-parameter logistic item response model were compared for estimating item and ability parameters. Simulated data sets were analyzed via two joint and two marginal Bayesian estimation procedures. The marginal Bayesian estimation procedures yielded consistently smaller root mean square differences than the joint Bayesian estimation procedures for item and ability estimates. As the sample size and test length increased, the four Bayes procedures yielded essentially the same result.The authors wish to thank the Editor and anonymous reviewers for their insightful comments and suggestions.