识图方式与地图难度对定向运动员识图决策绩效与视觉搜索特征的影响

目的：研究旨在探究定向运动员在识别定向运动地图时的决策绩效与视觉搜索特征。方法：研究采用组内设计,操控地图难度（简单和复杂）和运动员识图方式（精确识图和概略识图）对高水平定向运动员进行实验研究。结果：（1）随着地图难度的加大,定向运动员识图准确性下降,概略识图反应时增加。（2）识图时,简单地图比复杂地图注视频率和眼跳距离更大,注视次数更少;概略识图比精确识图注视次数更多、注视频率更高、眼跳距离更大;概略识图时,简单地图条件下运动员从起点开始正向搜索,复杂地图条件下从终点开始逆向搜索,注视区域面积大且分散;精确识图时,无论是简单地图还是复杂地图,所有运动员均首先搜索检查点说明表和终点,注视区域面积小且集中。结论：地图难度制约着定向运动员的识图决策绩效。定向运动员识图的视觉搜索特征受识图方式与地图难度影响,表现出不同的视觉搜索策略。     

Meaning in life and its relationships with intrinsic religiosity,deliberate rumination,and emotional regulation

Meaning in life is one of the core elements of well‐being. Although meaning in life has received considerable research interest over the years, much of this research did not differentiate between the two categories of meaning, that is, search for meaning and meaning in life. The present study first investigated collective explanatory powers that intrinsic religiosity, deliberate rumination, and emotional regulation – three predictors selected based on past literature – have on these two types of meaning. In addition, mediational effects of deliberate rumination and emotional regulation in the links between intrinsic religiosity and search for meaning and presence of meaning were investigated. The participants were 326 undergraduate students in Seoul, South Korea. The hierarchical regression analyses found that while intrinsic religiosity contributed significantly in explaining only presence of meaning, deliberate rumination and emotional regulation had significant contributions in explaining both search for meaning and presence of meaning. Also, double mediational analysis using structural equation modelling revealed that deliberate rumination, but not emotional regulation, mediated the relationship between intrinsic religiosity and meaning in life. The implications and directions for future studies are also discussed.     

Latent Inhibition Depends on Inhibitory Attentional Learning to the Preexposed Stimulus: Evidence from Visual Search and Rule-Learning Tasks

Latent inhibition (LI) refers to findings of poorer learning with stimuli preexposed as irrelevant, compared to novel stimuli. In order to investigate the role of attention in traditional LI, two experiments with human subjects were conducted. Experiment 1 used a simplified visual-search design. As in previous studies, but now with a simpler design, there was a LI-like effect, thereby supporting the position that attentional learning to irrelevantly preexposed stimuli is reduced. Experiment 2 introduced conditions that were designed to exclude a potential contribution of novel popout to the visual-search LI-like effect. It was shown that the effect could be observed independently of contributions from novel popout. In addition, when participants were divided into good and poor attentional learners on the basis of visual-search LI scores, traditional rule-learning LI was established in good attentional learners, whereas it was absent in poor attentional learners. Together, these results indicate that visual-search procedures can be used to provide a measure for LI, and, as such, they support attention-based explanations of traditional LI.     

Can job seekers achieve more through networking? The role of networking intensity,self-efficacy,and proximal benefits

The authors develop and evaluate an online networking intervention, Building Relationships and Improving Opportunities (BRIO), built in conjunction with the networking literature and social cognitive theory (Bandura, 1986, 1999). A field experiment using 491 unemployed job seekers shows that the intervention increases networking intensity, networking self-efficacy, and proximal networking benefits. Further, the intervention generates higher quality reemployment through its positive effects on networking self-efficacy. Individuals who completed the intervention and were also lower in extraversion showed the most positive improvements in networking self-efficacy and reemployment quality. The study advances the literature by uncovering the mechanisms through which a networking intervention may result in improved reemployment success, and demonstrating the moderating role of individual differences in affecting intervention outcomes. The study helps practice by providing a publicly available, research-based training to improve job search networking.     

A visual auditory model based on Growing Self-Organizing Maps to analyze the taxonomic response in early childhood

In this paper we present an extension of a visual auditory neural network model previously proposed by Mayor and Plunkett (2010) in order to explain the emergence of the taxonomic response in early childhood. The original model consists of two self-organizing maps (respectively, visual and acoustic) connected with Hebbian connections. With respect to the original model, our proposal adds two major features. First, our model follows a dynamic training regime, learning categories and word-object associations that evolve through time. Second, the visual and acoustic maps are Growing self-organizing maps that grow during training, when they are no longer able to consistently represent categories. With these two new characterizing features, our model replicates the performance of the original Mayor and Plunkett (2010)’s model, acquires psychological plausibility in the training regime, and avoids the risk of catastrophic interference.     

SEARCHING FOR ANOTHER EARTH: THE RECENT HISTORY OF THE DISCOVERY OF EXOPLANETS

The discovery of exoplanets is a small part of the array of scientific arguments for and against the existence of extraterrestrial intelligence. Yet the recent stunning achievement of this program of observational astronomy has had a significant effect on scientific opinion and public interest. It also raises some key theological questions. New observing techniques are leading to the discovery of extrasolar planets daily. Earth‐like planets outside of our Solar System can now be identified and in future years explored for signs of life. This article maps the history of these discoveries and highlights some of the theological issues which are important to bring into dialogue with these scientific insights.     

Modules in spatial vision: intrinsic reasons of their functional attributes

Visual modules can be viewed as expressions of a marked analytic attitude in the study of vision. In vision psychology, this attitude is accompanied by hypotheses that characterize how visual modules are thought to operate in perceptual processes. Our thesis here is that there are what we call “intrinsic reasons” for the presence of such hypotheses in a vision theory, that is, reasons of a deductive kind, which are imposed by the partiality of the basic terms (input and output) in the definition of a module, and by peculiar characteristics of those terms. Specifically, we discuss three hypotheses of functional attributes: successive stages in the action of modules, residual indeterminacy of their effects, and the role of prior constraints. For each of the three, we indicate its occurrence in perceptual psychology, explain corresponding intrinsic reasons, and illustrate such reasons with examples.     

Straight gaze facilitates face processing but does not cause involuntary attentional capture

This study aimed to investigate the conditions under which eyes with a straight gaze capture attention more than eyes with an averted gaze, a phenomenon called the stare-in-the-crowd effect. In Experiment 1, we measured attentional capture by distractor faces with either straight or averted gaze that were shown among faces with closed eyes. Gaze direction of the distractor face was irrelevant because participants searched for a tilted face and indicated its gender. The presence of the distractor face with open eyes resulted in slower reaction times, but gaze direction had no effect, suggesting that straight gaze does not result in more involuntary attentional capture than averted gaze. In three further experiments with the same stimuli, the gaze direction of the target, and not the distractor, was varied. Better performance with straight than averted gaze of the target face was observed when the gaze direction or gender of the target face had to be discriminated. However, no difference between straight and averted was observed when only the presence of a face with open eyes had to be detected. Thus, the stare-in-the crowd effect is only observed when eye gaze is selected as part of the target and only when features of the face have to be discriminated. Our findings suggest that preference for straight gaze bears on target-related processes rather than on attentional capture per se.