The roles of stimulus repetition and hemispheric activation in visual half-field asymmetries

Hardyck, Tzeng, and Wang (1978, Brain and Language, 5, 56–71) hypothesized that ample repetition of a small number of stimuli is required in order to obtain VHF differences in tachistoscopic tasks. Four experiments, with varied levels of repetition, were conducted to test this hypothesis. Three experiments utilized the general task of object-picture naming and one utilized a word-naming task. Naming latencies constituted the dependent measure. The results demonstrate that for the object-naming paradigm repetition is required for RVF superiority to emerge. Repetition was found to be unnecessary for RVF superiority in the word-naming paradigm, with repetition actually reducing RVF superiority. Experiment I suggested the possibility that RVF superiority developed for the second half of the trials as a function of practice or hemispheric activation, regardless of repetition level. Subsequent experiments, better designed to assess this possibility, clearly refuted it. It was concluded that the effect of repetition depends on the processing requirements of the task. We propose that, for tasks which can be processed efficiently by one hemisphere, the effect of repetition will be to reduce VHF asymmetries; but tasks requiring substantial processing by both hemispheres will show shifts to RVF superiority as a function of repetition.     

Temporal reliability of aphasic performance on the token test.

Test-retest reliability for the Token Test was established for a sample of 30 aphasic subjects tested on 3 days within an 8-day period. Fifteen subjects were tested within 3 months of onset of disorder. Results indicated that subject performance was highly reliable on test-retest, regardless of time since onset; that subjects did not learn the tasks through test readministration; and that the test sections were homogeneous yet sampling at discrete levels.     

Green Keynesianism: Bringing the Entrepreneurial State Back in(to Question)?

Since the global financial crisis of 2007/8, proliferating calls for a Keynesian Green New Deal have cast the publicly (and environmentally) minded state as a necessary driver of technological innovation and social transformation, while, vice versa, innovation has moved to political centre-stage. The history and genesis of this particular Green Keynesian paradigm illustrate that some of its most high-profile proponents selectively and problematically frame twentieth-century Keynesianism and the ‘public good’. It is important to examine critically the calls for an ‘entrepreneurial state’ in which Green Keynesian ideas are mobilized in support of an agenda for continued and accelerated development of commercially focused, privately developed green technologies. The entrepreneurial state represents a neoliberal re-appropriation of Green Keynesianism, where dominant financial actors (in Silicon Valley, as opposed to on Wall Street) are tapped as the visionaries who can and should set our collective innovation agenda. Although there is a need for large-scale, coordinated techno-social efforts to address climate change, supporting ‘green’ innovation cannot simply be framed as maximizing ‘innovation’ while taking the ‘state’ for granted. Instead, it must entail a careful assessment of the specific trajectories of innovation being enabled and the underlying socio-natures that they maintain and promote. Science and technology studies (STS)-informed analysis allows, and compels, asking how socio-technological innovation and their constitutive power relations are crucially interrelated, making the reshaping of the state—still the primary institution and system of social relations of collective governance—a core but neglected political, technological and ecological project of our time, with a key role for STS.     

Perceiving red decreases motor performance over time: A pilot study

IntroductionColors may influence motor performance.ObjectiveThe present study aimed to compare the effects of perception of red and green environments on physical (performance and heart rate) and psychological (perceived effort, anxiety and enjoyment) parameters during cycling trials.MethodTen cyclists achieved two identical series of three randomized 7-minute trials on home trainers, during which they were continuously exposed to red, green, and gray environments. Covered distance and heart rate were recorded during each trial, after which participants answered items intended to assess perceived effort, anxiety, and enjoyment experienced during the trial.ResultsResults showed that covered distance (ps ≤ .02) and heart rate (ps ≤ .03) were lower in the red environment than in the gray and green environments. Enjoyment was higher in the green environment than in the red environment (p = .006). The colored environments did not influence perceived effort and anxiety (ps > .05).ConclusionThis study is the first to show that perceiving red is detrimental for motor performance over an extended period of time.     

A Challenge to Brink's Metaphysical Egoism

Those who subscribe to aprudential conception of practical reason do not believe that there is a conflict between other-regarding and self-regarding norms as the former are held to be founded on the latter. Moral conduct, they maintain, is always rationally justifiable. The reasons we should fulfil the demands of other-regarding norms are the same as those we have for fulfilling self-regarding norms. David Brink has put forth an interesting and novel account of this approach to practical reason which he calls‘metaphysical egoism’. Metaphysical egoism requires that we modify our pre-theoretical understandings of self-interest on metaphysical grounds. I critically assess Brink’s argument and claim that metaphysical egoism does not adequately function as a motive or guide for action. It is susceptible to many of the same problems which strategic egoism faces. This revised version was published online in July 2006 with corrections to the Cover Date.     

论中国入世后的道德应对

中国入世给道德嬗变提供了现实基础和动力,本从分析经济全球化两种道德话语入手,提出中国入世后的道德建设主要应着力于继续高举爱国主义伟大旗帜,建立起经济活动中的“诚信”机制和寻求“绿色壁垒”的伦理跨跃。     

Choosing between fixed time and variable time shock

Two experiments are reported dealing with choice of fixed or variable time shock schedules with and without signals. Response independent shock was presented on either a fixed-time or a variable-time schedule and subjects could change from one condition to the other for short periods after which the initial condition was automatically reinstated. In the first experiment shocks for both schedules were either unsignalled (6 subjects) or signalled (3 subjects) and all subjects changed from a schedule of variable-time shock to a fixed-time one. Subjects that were given the opportunity to change in the reverse direction did not do so. Opposite findings were obtained in the second experiment (7 subjects) comparing unsignalled fixed-time shock with signalled variable-time shock. Six of the seven subjects changed from the fixed-time schedule to the signalled variable-time one but not the reverse. The data were considered consistent with an analysis of choice based on the reinforcing value of discriminable shock-free periods.     

绿色锻炼的心理效益:身体锻炼与自然环境的融合

绿色锻炼是指在自然绿色环境中进行身体锻炼。已有研究主要采用前后测实验设计,比较不同绿色环境、身体锻炼和个体特征条件下绿色锻炼心理效益的差异,结果显示绿色锻炼、模拟绿色环境均有助于个体获得更多的心理效益。心理进化模型和注意恢复理论认为人对自然环境的选择偏好是产生绿色锻炼心理效益的原因,但尚未有研究证实。我国的相关研究较少,绿色锻炼内在机制、环境污染与绿色锻炼,以及人工模拟绿色环境将是今后研究的热点。     

Early and deep: two independent paradigms?

Did Winnicott replace or transform Freud's metapsychology? The author's aim is to explore more deeply the views developed in a previous paper based solely on Winnicott. Here the author draws on other studies to respond to two questions recently posed by Fulgencio concerning the meaning of the term metapsychology and the existence of a new topography in Winnicott's work. For many authors, Winnicott does not reject Freudian metapsychology and says nothing new in this field; in the field of paediatric anthropology, however, he focuses on dependence, and in the field of the living embodiment of the drives on being and self as different from ego. But Green notes the existence of a third topography, that of self/object, and also examines the vicissitudes of being by isolating the concept in Winnicott's work. For the author, however, being seems in continuity with his whole anthropological and ontological perspective; and when Winnicott introduces environmental factors of which the infant is unaware, he also introduces a heuristic distinction between early and deep: there is thus neither a rejection nor a reformulatation of the metapsychological theorization, but rather a coexistence of two paradigms.