Time estimation: does the reference memory mediate the effect of knowledge of results?

This study presents evidence for the role of knowledge of results (KR) in the estimation of medium time intervals (4-12 s durations). Experiment 1 tested the hypothesis that KR operates at the same stage of temporal processing as attention. The absence of an interaction of attention and KR is taken as evidence against this hypothesis. Experiments 2 and 3 further studied the effects of KR in a reproduction and a production task, respectively. The effects of KR were small in the reproduction and substantial in the production task. The results are interpreted in terms of a clock-based timing model and the findings taken together converge on the interpretation that KR affects the reference memory (RM), rather than the other components of the model.     

An impossibility theorem for verisimilitude

In this paper, we show that Arrow’s well-known impossibility theorem is instrumental in bringing the ongoing discussion about verisimilitude to a more general level of abstraction. After some preparatory technical steps, we show that Arrow’s requirements for voting procedures in social choice are also natural desiderata for a general verisimilitude definition that places content and likeness considerations on the same footing. Our main result states that no qualitative unifying procedure of a functional form can simultaneously satisfy the requirements of Unanimity, Independence of irrelevant alternatives and Non-dictatorship at the level of sentence variables. By giving a formal account of the incompatibility of the considerations of content and likeness, our impossibility result makes it possible to systematize the discussion about verisimilitude, and to understand it in more general terms.     

Duration estimation and the phonological loop: Articulatory suppression and irrelevant sounds

Clock-based theories of time estimation propose that clock pulses are accumulated in working memory. Although these theories do not constrain the form of the memory trace, evidence reported in the literature suggests that active manipulation of a verbal trace may be involved. Four experiments are reported in which participants reproduced or verbally estimated short durations (up to a few seconds) either in a single-task condition or in a condition with a phonological load. Experiments 1, 2 and 4 showed that both interval reproduction and verbal estimation were impaired under concurrent articulatory suppression in comparison to a timing only control condition. Neither irrelevant speech (Experiments 1-3) nor irrelevant tones and music (Experiment 3) impaired timing performance. These findings are taken to show that time estimation is mediated by phonological working memory and the involvement of an active articulatory rehearsal process.     

Minority Dissent in Organizations: Factors Influencing Willingness to Dissent1

Minority dissent disrupts stability but also stimulates individual creativity, the quality of group decision making, and organizational adaptiveness. It is argued that we know little about antecedents of minority dissent in organizations. To fill this void, managers (N= 108) were asked about their willingness to take up a minority position within their team or work unit. Results showed that willingness to dissent was predicted by the manager's extraversion, as well as by group factors, including possibility for communication, goal clarity, and past neglect of disagreements. Implications for theory and practice are discussed.     

‘The Zone of the Carcass and the Knacker'—On Adorno's Concern with the Suffering Body

Adorno's moral philosophy is famously problematic. One of the main reasons for this is that it revolves around the moral addendum: a physical impulse of solidarity with suffering beings that, he argues, cannot and should not be rationalized. I show that, since this moral addendum remains vague and since Adorno's radical negativity forces him to dismiss as uncritical all other approaches to morality, he deliberately places his thought in danger of relapsing into irrationality. Most commentators therefore disagree about the manner in which Adorno's references to the moral addendum can be translated into a moral theory. In this paper, I bring in some often overlooked material to form a more complete overview of the issues at hand and to adjudicate this contested area. I do this by briefly discussing Schopenhauer's moral observations on Mitleid and by focusing on Adorno's references to animal cruelty and corporeality. Although this interpretation stays close to Adorno's observations on the moral addendum, it forces us to accept that his moral philosophy is rather weak. I conclude, however, that this weakness reflects a disturbing aspect of reality and in that sense has critical value.     

Haptic object matching by blind and sighted adults and children

The present study describes a tactual object matching task based on the study of Lederman and Klatzky (1987) for the dimensions Exact shape, Weight, Volume and Texture. Participants were congenitally blind children and their sighted classmates, congenitally blind adults and sighted adults. To study a possible effect of familiarity the task was performed four times. Based on Millar's CAPIN (Convergent Active Processes in Interrelated Networks) model of spatial processing (Millar, 1994) it was thought that this manipulation would add redundant information to the experiment from which the children and blind participants could benefit. The results showed that accuracy was affected more by age than visual status, especially for the dimension Exact Shape. With regard to response times, children were in most cases faster than adults, especially the sighted adults. Familiarization had a significant effect on response times for all dimensions. Extra exercise only increased accuracy for the dimension Texture. These results were generally in line with the CAPIN model.     

Behavioral training and predisposed coping strategies interact to influence resilience in male Long-Evans rats: implications for depression

Effective coping strategies and adaptive behavioral training build resilience against stress-induced pathology. Both predisposed and acquired coping strategies were investigated in rats to determine their impact on stress responsiveness and emotional resilience. Male Long-Evans rats were assigned to one of the three coping groups: passive, active, or variable copers. Rats were then randomly assigned to either an effort-based reward (EBR) contingent training group or a non-contingent training group. Following EBR training, rats were tested in appetitive and stressful challenge tasks. Physiological responses included changes in fecal corticosterone and dehydroepiandrosterone (DHEA) metabolites as well as neuropeptide Y (NPY)-immunoreactivity in the hippocampus and amygdala. Regardless of a rat's predisposed coping strategy, EBR rats persisted longer than non-contingent rats in the appetitive problem-solving task. Furthermore, training and coping styles interacted to yield the seemingly most adaptive DHEA/corticosterone ratios in the EBR-trained variable copers. Regardless of training group, variable copers exhibited increased NPY-immunoreactivity in the CA1 region.     

The Prefigurative Politics of Tahrir Square–An Alternative Perspective on the 2011 Revolutions

Only one year after the global wave of protest movements and revolts—starting with the ‘Arab Spring’, then, subsequently, the Indignados movement and Occupy- our appreciation of such movements turned sour. The aim of this contribution is to question the predominantly sceptical and defeatist discourse on these movements. One element central to many defeatist discourses on the 2011 movements, is the way in which a lack of demonstrable ‘outcomes’ or ‘successes’ is retrospectively ascribed to them. Therefore, an alternative approach should be formulated, which would allow us to recognise the significant or valuable aspects of these movements and their practices, without downplaying them as ‘unsuccessful’ or ‘failures’ altogether. Pierre Rosanvallon’s concept of ‘counter-democracy’ and Hardt and Negri’s perspective of a ‘Multitude’ will be evaluated as alternative approaches to current political movements. Although they are meritorious, both perspectives do not go far enough and need further articulation. The notion of ‘prefiguration’, originally derived from contemporary anarchist discourse, could be beneficial to this endeavour. After defining and deepening this concept from an anarchist perspective, it will be applied to one particular context: the occupation of Tahrir Square in Cairo, during the 2011 revolution in Egypt. As will be concluded, in its application this concept of ‘prefiguration’ could teach us more about the recent wave of protest movements in general, and could help us to formulate a different approach to such movements.     

The effects of mothers' past infant-holding preferences on their adult children's face processing lateralisation

Face processing development is negatively affected when infants have not been exposed to faces for some time because of congenital cataract blocking all vision (Le Grand, Mondloch, Maurer, & Brent, 2001). It is not clear, however, whether more subtle differences in face exposure may also have an influence. The present study looked at the effect of the mother's preferred side of holding an infant, on her adult child's face processing lateralisation. Adults with a mother who had a left-arm preference for holding infants were compared with adults with a mother who had a right-arm holding preference. All participants were right-handed and had been exclusively bottle-fed during infancy. The participants were presented with two chimeric faces tests, one involving emotion and the other one gender. The left-arm held individuals showed a normal left-bias on the chimeric face tests, whereas the right-arm held individuals a significantly decreased left-bias. The results might suggest that reduced exposure to high quality emotional information on faces in infancy results in diminished right-hemisphere lateralisation for face processing.