Presence and television.

Film and a number of emerging entertainment technologies offer media consumers an illusion of nonmediation known as presence. To investigate the possibility that television can evoke presence, 65 undergraduate students were shown brief examples of rapid point‐of‐view movement from commercially available videotapes on a television with either a small screen (12 inches [30.5 cm], measured diagonally) or a large screen (46 inches [116.8 cm]). Participants' responses were measured via a questionnaire and a computer‐based recording of arousal (electrodermal activity). Viewers of both televisions reported an enjoyable sense of physical movement, excitement, involvement, and a sense of participation. Furthermore, as predicted, participants who watched the large screen television thought the movement in the scenes was faster, experienced a greater sense of physical movement, enjoyed the movement to a greater extent, found the viewing experience more exciting, and were more physiologically aroused. Practical and theoretical implications are discussed.     

Forms, uses and functions of children's favourite objects

In this study, the notion of a favourite object is used as a heuristic concept for things that children are occupied with and absorbed by. According to earlier studies, favourite objects can be grouped into four categories: forerunners of transitional objects, primary and secondary transitional objects, and favourite toys. This initial classification was compared to results of cluster analyses of characteristics of favourite objects among 32 preschool and 30 primary school children, corroborating the initial classification and specifying the typology. The distribution of types of objects was different for the two groups of children, but was not dependent on age within groups or, for the preschool children, on mental development. These results indicate that changes of favourite objects with mental maturation are slow.
The softness of the material of primary and secondary transitional objects and the preference for objects that could be kept close to the body suggest that the comforting character of these favourite objects has its root in the child's self-soothing actions with the object.     

Nonconscious perception, conscious awareness and attention

Because it is unclear how a nonconscious stimulus is cognitively processed, there is uncertainty concerning variables that modulate the processing. In this context recent findings of a set of neuroimaging experiments are important. These findings suggest that conscious and nonconscious stimuli activate same areas of the brain during performance of a similar task. Further, different areas are activated when a task is performed with or without awareness of processing. It appears that the neural network involved in cognitive processing depends on the awareness of processing rather than awareness of perception. Since conscious and nonconscious cognitive processing use separate neural networks, each processing is modulated by different variables. Attention modulates most conscious cognitive processing and most, but not all, nonconscious processing is attention dependent. Nonconscious tasks that require attentional resources, with or without conscious awareness, are processed using the attention dependent system. Further, because attention dependent and attention independent tasks are processed by separate neural networks, the cognitive processing and modulating variables can be understood better if cognitive tasks are defined as attention dependent or attention independent, rather than conscious or nonconscious.     

Neuroimaging of Priming: New Perspectives on Implicit and Explicit Memory

Priming refers to a change in the ability to identify or produce an item as a consequence of a specific prior encounter. Priming has been studied extensively in cognitive studies of healthy volunteers, neuropsychological investigations of brain-damaged patients, and, more recently, studies using modern functional neuroimaging techniques such as positron emission tomography and functional magnetic resonance imaging. We review recent neuroimaging studies that have converged upon the conclusion that priming is reliably accompanied by decreased activity in a variety of brain regions. The establishment of this cortical signature of priming is beginning to generate new hypotheses concerning the relation between priming and explicit retrieval, which we illustrate by considering recent experiments on within- and cross-modality priming.     

Theory of mind and schizophrenia

A number of cognitive and behavioral variables influence the performance in tasks of theory of mind (ToM). Since two of the most important variables, memory and explicit expression, are impaired in schizophrenic patients, the ToM appears inconsistent in these patients. An ideal instrument of ToM should therefore account for deficient memory and impaired ability of these patients to explicitly express intentions. If such an instrument is developed, it should provide information that can be used not only to understand the pathophysiology but also to monitor patients.     

Book reviews

Institutions represent both the conscious and unconscious aspects of the interacting members. Psychotherapists need to address their unconscious position in the institution as well as the conscious aspects of their work. This paper describes the possible relevance that psychotherapy may have at the unconscious level. The notion of the ‘social defence system’ is extremely useful in finding one's way in the engulfing emotional attitudes, and for tolerating the often dismaying sense of irrelevance that psychotherapy appears to attract. The social defence system of a prison and a mental hospital are considered in this light and some thought are devoted to the changing state of the National Health Service at present.     

The Hypothesis Of Ether And Reid's Interpretation Of Newton's First Rule Of Philosophizing

My object is to question a recurrent claim made to the point that Thomas Reid (1710–1796) was hostile to ether theories and that this hostility had its source in his distinctive interpretation of the first of Newton's regulæ philosophandi. Against this view I will argue that Reid did not have any quarrel at all with unobservable or theoretical entities as such, and that his objections against actual theories concerning ether were scientific rather than philosophical, even when based on Newton's first rule. I argue further that Reid's insistence on Newton's rule concerns, not direct observation, but rather the notion of explanation itself.     

Suprachiasmatic injection of a vasopressin antagonist modifies the circadian rhythm of food intake

To study the effect on the circadian feeding rhythm, injections of AVP and its antagonist were made into the suprachiasmatic nuclei (SCN) of rats after implanting cannulae into the bilateral SCN. Injections of arginine vasopressin (AVP) antagonist at the beginning of the light and dark phases disrupted the circadian rhythm of food intake while injections of AVP during the beginning of the light or dark phase did not disrupt the circadian rhythm. It may be concluded that endogenous vasopressin has a modulatory role in the mediation of the circadian feeding rhythm at SCN.     

Some aspects on behavioral teratology research

A compelling question in teratology research is whether the experimental model used allows for extrapolation from laboratory animals to man. Our thesis is that behaviors that are biologically relevant for the animal are more likely to reveal the relationship between the behavior and its substrate than are non-specific behaviors. Applying this reasoning to the study of the ontogenesis of the behavior, we plead for including the use of species-typical behaviors in testing for teratogenic effects. Our further discussion is focussed upon the different levels at which an analysis of teratogenic effects may be carried out. At one level, the analysis is directed towards the behavioral effects of a given treatment; at another level to specify the function that is impaired by the treatment.