Local rather than global processing of visual arrays in numerosity discrimination by pigeons (Columba livia)

A series of experiments investigated which stimulus properties pigeons use when they discriminate pairs of visual arrays that differ in numerosity. Transfer tests with novel stimuli confirmed that the birds’ choices were based on relative differences in numerosity. However, pigeons differed from other species in the non-numerical cues that affected their choices. In human and non-human primates, numerical discrimination is often influenced by continuous variables such as surface area or overall stimulus brightness. Pigeons showed little evidence of using those cues, even when summed area and brightness had been correlated with numerosity differences and reward outcome. But when array-element sizes were asymmetrically distributed across numerosities, the birds readily utilized information about item sizes as an additional discriminative cue. These novel results are discussed in relation to pigeons’ tendency to focus on local, rather than global dimensions when they process other non-numerical complex visual stimuli. The findings suggest there may be inter-specific differences in the type of perceptual information that provides the input stage for mechanisms underlying numerical processing. Electronic supplementary material  The online version of this article (doi:) contains supplementary material, which is available to authorized users.     

When Walking Makes Perception Better

ABSTRACT— When we move, the visual world moves toward us. That is, self-motion normally produces visual signals (flow) that tell us about our own motion. But these signals are distorted by our motion: Visual flow actually appears slower while we are moving than it does when we are stationary and our surroundings move past us. Although for many years these kinds of distortions have been interpreted as a suppression of flow to promote the perception of a stable world, current research has shown that these shifts in perceived visual speed may have an important function in measuring our own self-motion. Specifically, by slowing down the apparent rate of visual flow during self-motion, our visual system is able to perceive differences between actual and expected flow more precisely. This is useful in the control of action.     

21世纪新发传染病--非典型肺炎

传染性非典型肺炎 (SARS)是全球人类健康非常严重的威胁 ,是由一种新病毒———SARS冠状病毒引起的新发传染病。具有全球大流行的潜在可能。面对一种新发传染病做好宣传教育工作 ,动员全社会参与尤为重要 ,信息发布要选择合适的途径、合适的对象、合适的信息和合适的时间。即使暴发过去了 ,详细的流行病学及环境调查分析 ,会丰富我们的认识 ,并可防止疫情的蔓延和再次暴发。控制新发传染病不是局部问题 ,是超越地域及政府界限的 ,需要全球支持 ,国际合作与协调 ,共同努力把疾病控制在萌芽之中。     

论儒家全球伦理金律

“儒家全球伦理金律”是儒家思想内所包含的或从中发展出的能够作为全人类共同遵守奉行的基本的伦理原则、价值观和行为规范。它可初步归纳为“十大金律”,其特点为普适性、基础性、悠久性、系统性、针对性、智慧性和简洁性,它的本质是人道主义、合理主义与和平主义。全球伦理的构建不能缺少儒家伦理,儒家全球伦理是中华民族文化对人类文明作出的独特贡献。     

Perception2

The article is an overview of some central philosophical problems associated with perception. It discusses what distinguishes perception from other sensory capacities and from conception. It discusses anti‐individualism, a view according to which the nature of a perceptual state is dependent not just causally but for its identity or ‘essence’ on relations to a normal environment in which systems containing that state were formed. It discusses different views about epistemic warrant. By emphasising the deep ways in which human and animal perceptual systems, especially visual systems, are similar, it criticises a dominant view of the last century, in both philosophy and large parts of psychology, according to which a range of sophisticated supplementary abilities have to be learned before a child can perceive objective features of the physical world.     

Framing the Lewinsky Affair: Third-Person Judgments by Scandal Frame

Recent studies have documented a “third-person effect” whereby people are found to judge others as more influenced than themselves by the mass media. Meanwhile, contemporary research on issue framing has demonstrated the powerful role of mass media in shaping people's political judgments. But are the perceptual judgments that define third-person effects sensitive to how the media frame an issue? Two studies investigated this question in the context of the Lewinsky-Clinton scandal, one in late August 1998 and the other during spring 1999. Several hundred undergraduates in each study were randomly assigned to one of two media frames. In the 1998 study, the political scandal was depicted as a matter of sexual indiscretion by the president or as legal wrongdoing; in the 1999 study, the recently concluded impeachment process was depicted as the consequence of partisanship or of Clinton's actions. The participants’ judgments of media influence on themselves and on the public were then recorded. The results show that third-person effects were sensitive to issue framing, but change occurred primarily in participants’ judgments about their own vulnerability to media influence.     

额叶在启动效应中的作用机制：对额叶损伤病人颜色命名和词命名任务的分析

以额叶损伤病人为被试,探讨在知觉型联想启动和知觉启动中,额叶的作用及其内在机制。实验任务包括颜色命名和词命名任务,以及相应的再认任务。结果表明,额叶损伤病人在颜色命名和词命名任务中,对旧词和重组颜色词的命名时间都没有明显差别,联想启动和颜色启动效应受损,但轻度记忆损伤病人与正常对照组之间的再认成绩相似。相关分析发现联想启动和颜色启动与额叶的多项功能有中度相关。这表明,额叶参与了知觉型联想启动效应和知觉启动,并且与其抑制和注意等执行功能有关。     

The Prospect of a Global Ethic on HIV/AIDS: The Religions and the Science–and–Religion Dialogue

This article introduces essays from a 2001 symposium on a global ethic and the issue of the spread of HIV/AIDS. The symposium began with the assumption that we can determine the possibility for such a global ethic if we both explore the potential of an interreligious dialogue and do so in the context of a science–and–religion dialogue. I argue that while the possibilities for a global ethic, in particular addressing the issue of HIV/AIDS, may be debated, the results of this symposium suggest that the dialogue ought to be continued and that there is significant potential in the interfaith dialogue for creating models for both an ethic and specific strategies for action.     

Leibniz Filters Revisited

Leibniz filters play a prominent role in the theory of protoalgebraic logics. In [3] the problem of the definability of Leibniz filters is considered. Here we study the definability of Leibniz filters with parameters. The main result of the paper says that a protoalgebraic logic S has its strong version weakly algebraizable iff it has its Leibniz filters explicitly definable with parameters.     

Attention level and negative priming in hierarchical patterns1

Abstract: This study explored object processing associated with attention level dependent on task, using a paradigm of negative priming. Participants were required to identify target characters that appeared at either the global or local level in hierarchically structured patterns. Two experiments were conducted to examine how the global and local characters were processed in the attended and unattended levels. In the results of Experiment 1, where stimuli were presented for 10 ms, negative priming was observed in a local‐directed task, but not in a global‐directed one. These results suggested that the inhibition of local characters in the unattended level did not occur during global attention. The results of Experiment 2 revealed that negative priming was observed in both global‐ and local‐directed tasks in the 500 ms presentation, showing that inhibition in the unattended level occurred. As a result, the exposure duration influences inhibition in the unattended, especially the local level. At short exposure duration, the local characters are not inhibited when one directs attention to the global characters, whereas these are inhibited at long exposure duration.