Infants' perception of human body orientation and the effect of a surrounding square

We examined two hypotheses about infants' perception of orientation. The first is that infants develop an expectation that the human body is normally vertical. To examine this hypothesis, we compared the preferential looking to vertical and oblique versions of a silhouette of a human body, to an inverted body, and to a grating. Our second hypothesis is that presenting a figure inside a frame affects the perception of orientation. To examine the second hypothesis, we placed the figure inside a surrounding square that was oriented normally or at an oblique angle. Four‐ to seven‐month‐old infants (N = 78) participated. The results showed that 6–7‐month‐old infants preferred the oblique human body presented upright; no such preference was observed for the inverted body or the grating. For all types of displays, the surrounding square influenced preferences. Our results suggest that (a) 6–7‐month‐old infants have specific expectations about the orientation of the human body, and (b) surrounding displays with a square could influence the perception of the orientation of the human body, as well as that of a grating.     

Panpsychism,The Combination Problem,and Plural Collective Properties

Panpsychism claims that each fundamental entity is conscious, but then faces the problem of how such entities combine to make up our ordinary consciousness. In this paper, I show how panpsychism can avoid this so-called combination problem by taking seriously plural collective properties at the fundamental level.     

Sense and Reference of Predicates: Comments on Frege’s Theory of Sense-Reference

Frege argued that a predicate was a functional expression and the reference of it a concept, which as a predicative function had one or more empty places and was thus incomplete. Frege’s view gives rise to what has been known as the paradox of the concept “horse.” In order to resolve this paradox, I argue for an opposite view which retains the point that a predicate is a function, i.e. that a predicative function is complete in a sense. Specifically speaking, a predicate performing the function of a predicate has at least one empty place and has no reference, while a predicate performing the function of a subject does not have any empty place but does have a reference. Frege not only regarded a concept with one or more empty places as the reference of a predicate but also took a set of objects without any empty place to be the extension of a concept with one or more empty places. Thus, it presents a complex relationship between the reference of a predicate and its corresponding extension, leading to disharmony in his theory. I argue that this is because there is a major defect in Frege’s theory of meaning, namely the neglect of common names. What he called extensions of concepts are actually extensions of common names, and the references of predicates and the extensions of common names have a substantial difference despite being closely related.     

Intrinsic frames of reference and egocentric viewpoints in scene recognition

Three experiments investigated the roles of intrinsic directions of a scene and observer's viewing direction in recognizing the scene. Participants learned the locations of seven objects along an intrinsic direction that was different from their viewing direction and then recognized spatial arrangements of three or six of these objects from different viewpoints. The results showed that triplets with two objects along the intrinsic direction (intrinsic triplets) were easier to recognize than triplets with two objects along the study viewing direction (non-intrinsic triplets), even when the intrinsic triplets were presented at a novel test viewpoint and the non-intrinsic triplets were presented at the familiar test viewpoint. The results also showed that configurations with the same three or six objects were easier to recognize at the familiar test viewpoint than other viewpoints. These results support and develop the model of spatial memory and navigation proposed by Mou, McNamara, Valiquette, and Rump [Mou, W., McNamara, T. P., Valiquiette C. M., & Rump, B. (2004). Allocentric and egocentric updating of spatial memories. Journal of Experimental Psychology: Learning, Memory, and Cognition, 30, 142-157].     

空间参照体系对心理旋转的影响

人类视觉系统不仅运用多重参照体系来建构客体的空间位置表征,也运用这些参照体系进行空间表征的动力转换.本研究采用实验方法,在心理旋转任务中对想象空间自我中心参照体系和客体中心参照体系的转换策略进行对比研究.实验结果表明:空间参照体系对心理旋转产生显著影响,自我中心参照体系转换易于客体中心参照体系转换,即存在心理旋转的视者优势.     

Experiments Behind the Veil: Structural Influences on Judgments of Social Justice

In two experiments, participants judged the fairness of different distributions of wealth in hypothetical societies. In the first study, the level of meritocracy in the hypothetical societies and the frame of reference from which participants judged alternative distributions of wealth interacted to influence fairness judgments. As meritocracy increased, all participants became more tolerant of economic inequality, particularly when they judged fairness from a redistribution frame of reference that made salient transfers among socioeconomic classes. Liberal participants, however, placed a greater emphasis on equality than did conservative participants across all conditions. In the second study, reactions to income transfers depended on the efficiency of the transfers and the identity of the groups receiving the benefits, but conservatives placed a greater emphasis in their fairness judgments on tying benefits to workfare requirements, whereas liberals did not distinguish between unconditional welfare transfers and workfare transfers.     

Modeling dynamic inconsistency with a changing reference point

A rational principle of decision making called dynamic consistency was tested by presenting decision makers with a sequence of two gambles. The first gamble was obligatory. Before playing the first gamble, participants were asked to make a planned choice as to whether they would take the second gamble. After experiencing the actual results of the first gamble, decision makers were asked to make a final choice regarding the second gamble. Dynamic consistency requires agreement between the planned and final choices. Violations of dynamic consistency were observed, e.g. anticipating a gain in the first gamble, decision makers planned to take the second gamble; after experiencing the gain, they changed their minds and rejected the second gamble. Two models of dynamic inconsistency were compared. One assumes that experience shifts the reference point and changes the utility associated with the gamble; another assumes that experience changes the subjective probability associated with the gamble. The reference point model provided the best account for the findings. Copyright © 2003 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Determinants of a Negotiator's Initial Opening Offer

Although the initial offer is a crucial aspect in the process of most negotiations, there is still a complete lack of empirical evidence on what underpins initial offer decisions. For this reason, the effects of different reference points on the negotiator's initial offer were examined in this study. Results from a sample of 596 managers indicate that knowledge of the opponent's best available alternative, or (Best Alternative To a Negotiated Agreement BATNA), is by far the strongest determinant. Criteria of fairness, as reflected in an estimated market price, are also important. However, awareness of the dependency of the other party has no direct effect on the initial offer. Apparently, negotiators define the negotiation game as the management of interdependency in an extremely egocentric way and base their opening offers largely on cues regarding the power structure within the dyad.     

Social Identity versus Reference Frame Comparisons: The Moderating Role of Stereotype Endorsement

Two studies tested the prediction that belief in a negative stereotype about an in-group will cause members to shift from viewing their in-group as a social identity to viewing it as a frame of reference. The stereotype that was the focus of inquiry was the belief that women have less aptitude at math and spatial tasks than do men. In both studies, female participants took a test of math and spatial ability and then received social comparison information about their abilities relative to a male and a female confederate. In Study 1, participants felt enhanced when the two women outperformed the male confederate, even when this meant that the participants themselves performed worse than the other woman. If participants were first reminded of the negative stereotype, however, they felt best when they outperformed the other woman, even if this meant that the two women performed worse than the man. Study 2 showed that the effects of stereotype activation were especially pronounced among female participants who showed moderate to high levels of stereotype endorsement. These findings suggest that belief in stereotypes about the in-group can lead to in-group comparison and contrast, even in contexts in which a group member's ability level challenges the validity of the stereotype.     

The Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy: A Developed Dynamic Reference Work

The present information explosion on the World Wide Web poses a problem for the general public and the members of an academic discipline alike, of how to find the most authoritative, comprehensive, and up-to-date information about an important topic. At the Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy (SEP), we have since 1995 been developing and implementing the concept of a dynamic reference work (DRW) to provide a solution to these problems, while maintaining free access for readers. A DRW is much more than a web-based encyclopedia, and its scope far exceeds that of an electronic journal or preprint exchange. In this article we document the progress of the SEP toward full implementation of the DRW concept. We discuss the fiscal challenges posed by our desire to maintain free or low-cost access to the contents of the SEP, and we consider technological challenges posed by the desire to stay abreast of technological developments in document markup while making it easy for authors and subject editors to write and maintain entries representing the very best scholarship.