Publication Type: Individual Poster
Abstract: Background and Aims: Visual habituation and dishabituation responses are assumed to reflect information processing abilities in infancy. Following the comparator model based on Sokolov (1963), two factors - speed of processing and discriminatory memory - contribute to individual differences in infant cognition and to the continuity in cognitive functioning from infancy to later ages. Thus, individual differences in habituation performance are assumed to reflect differences in speed of processing (i.e. encoding the habituation stimulus and forming a mental representation), whereas differences in dishabituation responses indicate discriminatory memory abilities (i.e. detecting the mismatch between mental representation and test stimulus). While the comparator model has been empirically supported by visual recognition studies presenting one stimulus for habituation, its validity is less clear with respect to categorization studies in which different habituation stimuli of the same kind are presented. The aim of the present study was to compare habituation responses across these two tasks, testing the same infants.
Methods: Two visual habituation tasks involving abstract geometric stimuli were developed: In a single-stimulus task, infants were habituated to one black-and-white star-shaped pattern presented repeatedly before a new stimulus of the same kind was presented at test. In a categorization task, infants were habituated to different exemplars from a category of similar shaped and colored objects (e.g. angular red-and-orange) and tested with an object from a category differing in color and shape (e.g. round blue-and-green). In a modified infant-control design, N = 41 five-months-olds and N = 36 seven-months-olds were tested with both types of task (order of tasks counterbalanced).
Key Results: Infants showed great variance in total looking times as well as in strength of habituation and dishabituation responses. Total looking times were significantly correlated between both tasks (5 months: r=.42, p<.01; 7 months: r=.60, p<.01). About two thirds of all infants (66.2%) showed a consistent habituation response (yes, no) in both tasks. For the single-stimulus-task, strength of habituation and dishabituation were positively related (5 months: r=.24, p=.07; 7 months: r=.43, p<.01). Corresponding relations were not found for the categorization task, however.
Conclusions: The positive relations between looking behavior in both tasks indicate some intra-individual consistency in information processing over different types of visual fixation tasks. Relations between habituation and dishabituation responses were found only for the visual recognition but not for the categorization task, suggesting that the processing of categorical stimuli might differ from the processing of a single repeated stimulus. Implications of these findings with respect to comparator theory will be discussed.

Publication Type: Conference Paper/Unpublished Manuscript
Abstract: This study was an effort to understand how the personality trait of sensation seeking, the cultural dimension of individualism and collectivism (I-C), and message stimulus affect the risk perceptions of college students with regards to gonorrhea infection. The above was accomplished using a 2 (HSS vs. LSS) X 2 (physical threat vs. social threat) X 2 (individualism vs. collectivism at the cultural level) X 2 (within-subject pretest vs. post-test) mixed repeated measures design conducted in four countries – Malaysia, Singapore, U.S. and England. Of the 911 college students who participated in the prescreening phase of the study, a total of 700 students completed the experiment. The results showed that the collectivistic participants had greater increase in posttest scores for perceived severity, perceived response efficacy, perceived self-efficacy, and knowledge about gonorrhea than individualistic participants. LSS expressed greater condom self-control than HSS. Participants exposed to the physical appeal message seemed to be able to recall the information better than participants exposed to the social appeal message. Participants from individualistic societies expressed greater perceived susceptibility, perceived severity, perceived response efficacy, perceived self-efficacy, condom interpersonal impact and condom self-control than participants from collectivistic societies. In addition, participants from individualistic societies seemed to be able to recall the information better than participants from collectivistic societies.

Publication Type: Conference Paper/Unpublished Manuscript
Abstract: During the summer of 1858 the Thames began to stink in an extraordinary way. The stink catalyzed a strong public and legislative response that resulted in the transformation of London's municipal institutions. Prior to 'The Great Stink', London had no municipal body with effective executive authority over the entirety of the metropolis. 'The Great Stink' changed that, and resulted in a newly empowered Metropolitan Board of Works which was to play a dominant role in London public works and governance for the remainder of the 19th century. Leading social scientific theories of institutions and institutional change, however, do a poor job of accounting for the empirical details of institutional change during 'The Great Stink' episode. Institutional change during this period was driven by symbolic and moral considerations that the leading institutionalisms systematically ignore. The paper argues for hermeneutics as a key methodology and symbolic and moral factors as key zones of inquiry into institutions and processes of institutional change.

Publication Type: Conference Paper/Unpublished Manuscript
Review Method: Peer Reviewed
Abstract: Discussion of the economic meltdown and various aspects of the stimulus package with an emphasis on the tax provisions

Publication Type: Conference Paper/Unpublished Manuscript
Review Method: Peer Reviewed
Abstract: The use of a mockwitness paradigm has been accepted as a valid way to evaluate lineup fairness. However, little research has evaluated the robustness of the results obtained from mockwitness evaluations across variations in the context and stimuli used in the procedure. The present research provides evidence for variations in the fairness estimates derived from mockwitness evaluations based upon the explained purpose of the procedure and the population from which the lineup fillers are selected. In addition, the results suggest that connotative information inferred from the fillers may influence mockwitness choices more than the perceptual suspect-filler similarity under some conditions.