Children's judgments of body size and distortion

Body size estimates of 69 children aged 5–13 years were obtained using a TV video methodology. Tasks included an adjustment procedure where children manipulated the width of their body image on a TV, and a discrete task, where they judged the accuracy of their TV image which was presented as either normal or distorted, that is, too wide or too thin. On the continuous task, judgments were more accurate on ascending trials where children had to increase the width of the image. On the discrete task, a signal detection analysis revealed older children were better in detecting size distortion in their images and that the differences were due to differences in the biological sensory system and not due to a bias to report that they were too fat or too thin. However, there were response bias differences between genders. Females were more likely to report size distortion with increasing age while males were less likely.     

Affective dimension in cognitive maps of Barcelona and São Paulo

This paper analyses the relationship between city and affection as revealed through an investigation into the feelings and emotions of a sample of inhabitants of Barcelona and São Paulo towards their cities. A study of affection in the context of a city has its origin in the assumption that it is possible to develop an ethical‐affective rationality in the creation of spaces of both public and private interest, a dimension that can serve to optimize the action of the inhabitants of a city. The theoretical/methodological approach adopted was essentially interdisciplinary, with a basis in social psychology, as can be seen in the data‐gathering instrument. In order to assess the city's affective dimension, individual interviews were carried out and a questionnaire was applied to individuals in groups. In the latter subjects were asked to make a drawing representing their city and to answer some questions regarding this pictorial representation. The sample consisted of 200 subjects, half of whom were from Barcelona and half from São Paulo. Most were in the age range 18–35, undergraduate or graduate students, with females and residents of the metropolitan areas of the two cities studied being in the majority. The qualitative data were classified according to their meaning and content, using the categories that had been established in the pilot study, namely contrasts, insecurity, pleasantness, and belonging. A statistical analysis was then performed on the resulting categories. After being categorized, catalogued, and qualified by metaphors, the responses gave the following images: city of contrast, city of attraction, city of destruction, city of surprises, city of movement, and pleasant city. These images show feelings and emotions about Barcelona and São Paulo that act as representations. This presents the need to revise the affective dimension in the meaning structure of cognitive maps as proposed by Lynch. As a result, the new category of affective maps is therefore proposed, as being the category that expresses affective meanings and serves as an indication of the level of esteem for the city, two aspects that act as reference points for the involvement and participation of a city's inhabitants.     

Canceling updating in the comprehension of counterfactuals embedded in narratives

Participants were given counterfactual sentences--for example, "If Mary had won the lottery she would have bought a Mercedes car"--or factual sentences--for example, "Because Mary won the lottery, she bought a Mercedes car"--embedded in short narratives. Reading times showed that readers were immediately sensitive to the special status of counterfactual information (Experiment 1). In addition, probe-recognition latencies demonstrated that old information was more accessible in counterfactual than in factual stories, and new information was equally accessible in both kinds of stories (Experiment 2). However, after reading additional clauses, new information became less accessible in counterfactual than in factual stories (Experiment 3). These results suggest that counterfactual events are momentarily represented but are later suppressed and the readers' attention goes back to previous events in the story.     

Can but don’t: olfactory discrimination between own and alien offspring in the domestic cat

Mammalian maternal care usually comes at a large energetic cost. To maximize their fitness, mothers should preferentially care for their own offspring. However, the majority of studies of mother–offspring recognition have focused on herd- or colony-living species and there is little information on maternal discrimination in more solitary-living species. Olfaction has been found to play a major role in mother–offspring recognition across various taxa. Therefore, our aim was to study this in a species evolved from a solitary-living ancestor, the domestic cat. We asked whether cat mothers distinguish between their own and alien offspring when providing maternal care, and whether cat mothers use olfactory cues in the offspring discrimination process. Results of Experiment 1 showed that cat mothers do not discriminate between own and alien young when retrieving them to the nest. They treated own and alien young similarly with respect to latency and order of retrieval. However, the results of Experiments 2 and 3, where we used an olfactory habituation-discrimination technique, showed that mothers were able to distinguish between the odours of their own and alien kittens. We discuss what ecological and/or behavioural factors might influence a mother’s decision when faced with discriminating between own and alien young, and why mothers might not discriminate between them when they are able to do so. Our findings support the view that maternal care alone should not be used as a measure of offspring recognition, and equal maternal care of own and alien young should not be immediately interpreted as an inability to discriminate between them.     

Rorschach Comprehensive System data for a sample of 506 adult nonpatients from Argentina

This study is composed of 506 nonpatient adults, ages 18 to 65, all from Argentina. The data were gathered by five examiners, who tested most of the participants at their work site. Inclusion and exclusion criteria are described and interrater reliability statistics at the response level are presented along with findings for the Rorschach Comprehensive System (CS; Exner, 1994).     

Physiological arousal of obese persons to food stimuli

Physiological arousal was measured in 20 obese and 20 normal-weight subjects during presentation of imagery tasks with food- and nonfood-related stimuli and during presentation and eating of food. No differential arousal, as measured by skin conductance, was obtained between the groups for any of the stimuli. Presentation and eating of the food did produce significant arousal in subjects.     

More or less: spontaneous quantity discrimination in the domestic cat

We examined spontaneous quantity discrimination in untrained domestic cats in three food choice experiments. In Experiment 1, we presented the cats with two different quantities of food in eight numerical combinations. Overall, the subjects chose the larger quantity more often than the smaller one, and significantly so when the ratio between the quantities was less than 0.5. In Experiment 2, we presented the cats with two pieces of food in four different size combinations. Again, subjects chose the larger piece above chance, although not in the combination where the largest item was presented. In Experiment 3, a subset of the cats was presented multiple times with two different quantities of food, which were hidden from view. In this case, the cats did not choose the larger quantity more often than the smaller one, suggesting that in the present experiments they mainly used visual cues when comparing quantities. We conclude that domestic cats are capable of spontaneously discriminating quantities when faced with different numbers or sizes of food items, and we suggest why they may not always be motivated to choose the larger quantity. In doing so, we highlight the advantages of testing spontaneous choice behavior, which is more likely to reflect animals’ everyday manner of responding than is the case when training them in order to test their absolute limits of performance which may not always coincide with their daily needs.     

Religiosity at the roadside: memorials,animitas, and shrines on a Chilean highway

ABSTRACT

Roadside memorials devoted to vehicle-related deaths are increasingly common across the globe. Scholars have generally emphasised their commemorative status—as sites where a private memory is publicly displayed—underestimating, however, their religious dimension. This article is based on research which involved the content analysis of photographs taken during multiple visits to the 94 roadside memorials existing in 2015 on Route 78, a major Chilean highway connecting Santiago (Chile’s capital city) and San Antonio (one of the country’s main sea ports). We argue that Chilean roadside memorials are not solely commemorative sites but primarily animitas that have a core (popular) religious component: they are privileged locations where salvific grace is dispensed, acting as mediators between the living and the divinity and connecting the sacred and profane worlds. Furthermore, we suggest that the tragic nature of the deaths they commemorate confers on them a miraculous efficacy which may transform the sites into shrines and the victims into folk saints.     

Are you my mummy? Long-term olfactory memory of mother’s body odour by offspring in the domestic cat

Animal Cognition - Longevity of odour memories, particularly those acquired during early development, has been documented in a wide range of taxa. Here, we report that kittens of the domestic cat...