Reading times and adaptive styles among patients diagnosed with psychosis as assessed by the Serial Color-Word Test

The present study focuses on how patients diagnosed with psychosis deal with a conflicting situation. In the study, two groups of patients were assessed. One group consisted of patients diagnosed with psychosis (n = 41), while the comparison group (n = 135) consisted of inpatients diagnosed either with anorexia nervosa or with bulimia nervosa. The groups were assessed using the Serial Color Word Test (S-CWT), designed for studying an individual's successive adaptation over time to a conflicting situation. The S-CWT differentiated the two groups regarding both reading time and adaptive styles. Patients diagnosed with psychosis had longer reading times and an adaptive style that was deviant throughout the test, indicating poorer cognitive functioning and more serious psychopathology. These problems may in turn influence functioning in work or study and daily living, all of which are important in treatment planning.     

Comparative analysis of the risk-handling procedures for gene technology applications in medical and plant science

In this paper we analyse how the risks associated with research on transgenic plants are regulated in Sweden. The paper outlines the way in which pilot projects in the plant sciences are overseen in Sweden, and discusses the international and national background to the current regulatory system. The historical, and hitherto unexplored, reasons for the evolution of current administrative and legislative procedures in plant science are of particular interest. Specifically, we discuss similarities and differences in the regulation of medicine and plant science, and we examine the tendency towards dichotomizing risk — focusing on social/ethical risks in medicine and biological risks in plant science. The context of this article is the Synpraxia research project, an inter-disciplinary program combining expertise in sciences and the humanities.     

Are asymmetrical power relations a hidden obstacle to successful rehabilitation of violent men? An explorative study on the methodology to investigate shame

The study starts from Retzinger (1995), Retzinger and Scheff (2000) and Scheff and Retzinger's (2000, 2001) micro-sociological perspective on social bonds, with the general aim of constructing a model consisting of operationalized indicators that opens for a simplified ability to analyze the relationship between power relations and emotions in private and institutionalized meetings. Scheff & Retzinger have provided a comprehensive guide to how the state of the social bond can be decoded by the direct access to non-verbal data. But since this type of data is both difficult to obtain, difficult to analyze and time consuming, therapists need simplified methods that can provide insight into the state of social bonds. We also need a method that takes into account the issue of power relations — both power relations in society and power relations between the client and the therapist. The treatment of men with violence problems provides an example of how our model can be applied to therapeutic activity. The examination shows that it is possible to construct a model with operationalized indicators that facilitate visualization of the relationship between power and the quality of social bonds.     

Perceived rotary motion from changes in a straight line

The problem dealth with was how perception of a three-dimensional space is related to the corresponding two-dimensional retinal image. The stimulation used was a straight line changing length and direction. For this stimulation a geometrical model was developed. The basic decoding principle in this model is that the changes in the two-dimensional figure will be perceived as three-dimensional motions of an object with constant shape and size. This principle was approximately verified for the majority of the data. The main deviation from the model was that there was generally less perceived depth than predicted. Also a second decoding principle was generally verified: rotary, but not translator motion is perceived from this kind of stimulation. A third unexpected decoding principle was found in the data: the line is perceived in a frontal-parallel direction when it has its maximal extention.     

Exploring consumer adoption of a high involvement eco‐innovation using value‐belief‐norm theory

Environmental problems are increasingly becoming everyday issues of international organizations, national governments, and individual consumers. In consumer behavior research considerable effort has been focused on understanding environmentally significant behaviors. One such research stream uses the value‐belief‐norm theory (VBN) to explain and predict a number of relatively low involvement proenvironmental consumer behaviors such as household energy use. However, many consumer behaviors with significant impact on the environment are categorized as high involvement behaviors where VBN theory has not yet been employed. The aim of this paper is to arrive at a better understanding of consumer adoption of a high involvement eco‐innovation using VBN theory. As an example of a high involvement eco‐innovation the alternative fuel vehicle (AFV) which runs on fossil oil‐alternative fuels such as electricity and biofuels is used. A representative sample of adopters and non‐adopters of these vehicles in Sweden were surveyed. Differences between adopters and non‐adopters on sociodemographic and VBN factors were analyzed and the explanatory ability of the different factors on adoption was analyzed using logistic regression. The results showed that early adopters had a higher level of education and were much more likely to live in multi‐person households compared to non‐adopters. In terms of attitudinal factors, adopters exhibited higher levels of proenvironmental values, beliefs, and personal norms (PNs). Furthermore the results established that VBN factors were successful in explaining the early adoption of a high involvement eco‐innovation such as the AFV. The implications for consumer research, public policymakers, and for marketers of eco‐innovations are discussed. Copyright © 2011 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Liquid-specific stimulus properties can be used for haptic perception of the amount of liquid in a vessel put in motion

We investigated whether people can use haptic liquid-specific information made available by shaking the vessel containing the liquid. In experiment 1 we studied to what extent people can discriminate between liquid and solid substances and determine the amount of substance in the shaken vessel, as well as the effects of exploratory procedures on these abilities. Exploratory procedures including horizontal shaking of the vessel produced accurate identification of the content and more precise judgments for a liquid than for a solid, but vertical lifting produced an overestimation of the amount of liquid. In experiment 2 we demonstrated that people can discriminate between the amount of liquid and the amount of solid in the same vessel. Three theories of what liquid-specific stimulus properties are picked up by shaking the vessel are preliminarily examined.     

Perceived angle of oscillatory motion

The general background of these experiments was the fact, known from e.g. trapezoidal window experiments, that rotary motion under certain conditions is perceived as oscillation. The aim was to identify the variables that determine the perceived angle of this oscillatory motion. Different shapes and different methods of generating the stimulation were used. No effect was obtained when varying the degree of trapezoidality of trapezoids, the location of the axis of rotation, the size of the stimulus pattern and the speed of the change. Both the occurrence and the perceived angle of oscillation was effected, however, by the width-height ratio of the stimulation, a decreasing ratio giving increasing occurrence of oscillation and decreasing perceived angle.     

MEASUREMENT OF EYE MOVEMENTS DURING A MICHOTTE LAUNCHING EVENT

The verbal responses and the eye movements of subjects viewing a Michotte launching event were recorded. The subjects were divided into two main groups: those reporting launching on every exposure and those giving no launching response at all. These two groups were compared with regard to several eye movement variables. They did not differ on the first exposure but did so on repeated exposures, indicating that what a subject perceives on the first exposure influences his eye movements on the following exposures.