Operate your own World-Wide Web server

Although many researchers wishing to use the World-Wide Web for academic purposes rely on centralized Web services, they should be aware that it is neither expensive nor difficult to operate their own server. Doing so provides research-related benefits such as complete control over their host name and documents provided, the guaranteed ability to execute common gateway interface and server-side include programs, immediate access to their collected data, and the ability to better control who participates in their experiments. This paper surveys Web-server software features likely to be of interest to psychologists and conceptually summarizes their operation and use. The basic steps required to set up a Web server on popular microcomputers are reviewed, and security issues concerning Web-server operation are discussed. An accompanying resource Web page can assist users in setting up their own servers.     

Externalism and first-person authority

Externalism in the philosophy of mind is threatened by the view that subjects are authoritative with regard to the contents of their own intentional states. If externalism is to be reconciled with first-person authority, two issues need to be addressed: (a) how the non-evidence-based character of knowledge of one's own intentional states is compatible with ignorance of the empirical factors that individuate the contents of those states, and (b) how, given externalism, the non-evidence-based character of such knowledge could place its subject in an authoritative position. This paper endorses a standard strategy for dealing with (a). The bulk of the paper is devoted to (b). The aim is to develop an account of first-person authority for a certain class of intentional states that is capable of explaining (1) why knowledge of one's own intentional states is peculiarly authoritative, and (2) why such authority is compatible with externalism.     

AN ENERGY/AWARENESS/INFORMATION INTERPRETATION OF PHYSICAL AND MENTAL REALITY

Abstract. Interpreting the universe as a medium-message process has explanatory value in both scientific and philosophical/spiritual contexts. From this perspective, reality is seen to comprise an enduring medium modulated by transient information. Physically, the medium is energy. Mentally, the medium is awareness. Algorithmically, the medium is an information generator, a programmatic entity that generates temporary informational patterns which modulate the medium's energy aspect in space and time to produce matter and physical phenomena and modulate the medium's awareness aspect to produce subjective experience, mind. In philosophical terms, the medium is Being; the medium modulated by the message is existence.     

Fear of Success,Need Achievement,and Fear of Failure: A factor analytic study

Several tests of Fear of Success (FOS), Fear of Failure (FOF), and Need Achievement (nAch), plus Taylor's Manifest Anxiety Scale and a social desirability scale were administered to 104 males and 101 females. FOS, FOF, and nAch did not show factor validity. Results for predictive validity were also poor. Anxiety defined the first factor in the factor analysis. All first-factor tests negatively predicted female grade point average and American College Test scores. All the first-factor tests showed sex differences, with females scoring higher. A clarifying role for anxiety in the study of sex differences in achievement is indicated.     

The assessment of obsessionality using the Padua inventory: its validity in a British non-clinical sample

The Padua Inventory (PI) is a measure of obsessive–compulsive phenomena, which permits measurement of both number and severity of symptoms. Data is available from Italy, the US, the Netherlands and Australia on non-clinical samples. The present study provides a psychometric evaluation of the PI on a British non-clinical sample (N=1855). Comparisons are made with other data and further suggestions for the use of the PI are made. Results from the present study indicate that the PI has similar, though not identical, factor structure to previous studies, adequate internal reliability and construct validity. Four factors emerged, containing clusters of items broadly relating to ‘impaired control over mental activities/doubting', ‘contamination', ‘checking' and ‘worries about losing control over motor behaviour' and these included most of the items loading on the same factors in earlier studies together with additional items.The relationships of age and gender with the PI scores are investigated. Differences were found from the Sanavio (1988) [Sanavio, E. (1988). Obsessions and compulsions: the Padua Inventory. Behaviour Research and Therapy, 26, 169–177.] Italian sample. These differences are in keeping with other available data from British samples and other data on the epidemiology of Obsessive Compulsive Disorder. The five factor structure found in the one study using clinical and non-clinical subjects is discussed in relation to the present analyses.     

A comparison of four approaches to account for method effects in latent state-trait analyses

Latent state-trait (LST) analysis is frequently applied in psychological research to determine the degree to which observed scores reflect stable person-specific effects, effects of situations and/or person-situation interactions, and random measurement error. Most LST applications use multiple repeatedly measured observed variables as indicators of latent trait and latent state residual factors. In practice, such indicators often show shared indicator-specific (or method) variance over time. In this article, the authors compare 4 approaches to account for such method effects in LST models and discuss the strengths and weaknesses of each approach based on theoretical considerations, simulations, and applications to actual data sets. The simulation study revealed that the LST model with indicator-specific traits (Eid, 1996) and the LST model with M - 1 correlated method factors (Eid, Schneider, & Schwenkmezger, 1999) performed well, whereas the model with M orthogonal method factors used in the early work of Steyer, Ferring, and Schmitt (1992) and the correlated uniqueness approach (Kenny, 1976) showed limitations under conditions of either low or high method-specificity. Recommendations for the choice of an appropriate model are provided.     

Segregated processing of facial identity and emotion in the human brain: A pet study

Abstract

The brain is organized into segregated areas of relative functional autonomy and specialization. This basic principle of cerebral organization is well documented for cognitive functions that differ drastically from one another, but less so for functions that belong to the same domain, such as face processing. Yet several sources of evidence point to a functional and structural dissociation of various aspects of face processing, as suggested by (1) an analysis of the perceptual and cognitive demands made by the processing of diverse properties conveyed by facial configurations, (2) selective impairment of aspects of face processing in brain-damaged patients, and (3) different localizations of face cells responsive to properties conveyed by faces such as identity and emotion in the monkey's brain. This study used positron emission tomography (PET) and magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) to delineate better the neurofunctional organization of face processing in the human brain, by measuring cerebral blood flow while subjects performed tasks involving the recognition of faces or the recognition of emotions expressed by faces. The results showed segregated processing of facial identity and facial emotion, with the former being performed predominantly in the ventro-mesial region of the right hemisphere including the limbic system, whereas the latter was carried out predominantly in the latter part of the right hemisphere and the dorsal region of the limbic system. This structural organization allows the parallel processing of different information contained in physiognomies and underlies the high efficiency with which humans process faces.     

Self-Knowledge and the ‘Inner Eye’

Mutual perceptual knowledge is a prevalent feature of our everyday lives, yet appears to be exceptionally difficult to characterise in an acceptable way. This paper argues for a renewed understanding of Stephen Schiffer's iterative approach to mutual knowledge, according to which mutual knowledge requires an infinite number of overlapping, embedded mental states. It is argued that the charge of ‘psychological implausibility’ that normally accompanies discussion of this approach can be offset by identifying mutual knowledge, not with the infinite iterations themselves, but with the finite base which Schiffer proves is capable of generating those iterations. An understanding of this finite base as a primitive, relational property holding between two or more people, allows us to understand the iterations as an implicit and ‘harmless’ intrapersonal feature of what is an interpersonal phenomenon. The paper concludes by relating the account to joint attention in infant interaction.