Originally published in 1973 the editors of this book collected together those studies which had been considered at the time to yield the best evidence in support of Freudian theory, and found on close examination that they failed to provide any such proof. Each paper is printed in full and is followed by a critical discussion which raises questions of statistical treatment, sufficiency of controls and alternative interpretations. The particular usefulness of this format is that it allows readers to form (...) their own opinions while providing helpful suggestions and guidelines on how to approach experimental studies with a critical mind. (shrink)

Computational simulations have provided evidence that the use of linguistic cues as group markers plays an important role in the development of linguistic diversity shortcite. Other simulations, however, have contradicted these findings. Similar disagreements exist in sociolinguistics. This paper describes an experimental study in which participants played an anonymous economic game using an instant-messenger-style program and an artificial ‘alien language’. The competitiveness of the game and the frequency with which players interacted were manipulated. Given frequent enough interaction with (...) team-mates, players were able to use linguistic cues to identify themselves. In the most competitive condition, this led to divergence in the language, which did not occur in other conditions. This suggests that both frequency of interaction and a pressure to use language to mark identity play a significant role in encouraging linguistic divergence over short periods, but that neither is suffi cient on its own. (shrink)

This experimental study sets out to determine whether people detect click sounds in American English. Recent research has documented the use of non-phonemic clicks in a variety of languages to fulfill a range of functions such as sequence management or signaling searches and different types of attitudinal stance. While these clicks are acoustically salient and have been reported to occur with a frequency of up to 14 per minute in British English, they have not been widely investigated until (...) relatively recently. For this experiment, we designed video stimuli consisting of A and B pairs of approximately 10 seconds of speech, one with a click and the other with the click edited out. We gave 118 participants a questionnaire and asked if they could detect a difference between the pairs of videos. The results indicate that the majority of participants, between 79% and 86%, do not detect click sounds. (shrink)

Synaesthesia is a condition in which one type of stimulation evokes the sensation of another, as when the hearing of a sound produces photisms, i.e. mental percepts of colours. R is a 20 year old colour blind subject who, in addition to the relatively common grapheme-colour synaesthesia, presents a rarely reported cross modal perception in which a variety of visual stimuli elicit aura-like percepts of colour. In R, photisms seem to be closely related to the affective valence of stimuli and (...) typically bring out a consistent pattern of emotional responses. The present case study suggests that colours might be an intrinsic category of the human brain. We developed an empirical methodology that allowed us to study the subject's otherwise inaccessible phenomenological experience. First, we found that R shows a Stroop effect elicited by photisms despite the fact that he does not show a regular Stroop with real colours. Secondly, by manipulating the colour context we confirmed that colours can alter R's emotional evaluation of the stimuli. Furthermore, we demonstrated that R's auras may actually lead to a partially inverted emotional spectrum where certain stimuli bring out emotional reactions opposite to the normal ones. These findings can only be accounted for by considering R's subjective colour experience or qualia. Therefore the present paper defends the view that qualia are a useful scientific concept that can be approached and studied by experimental methods. (shrink)

Since the 1940s, microbiologists, biochemists and population geneticists have experimented with the genetic mechanisms of microorganisms in order to investigate evolutionary processes. These evolutionary studies of bacteria and other microorganisms gained some recognition from the standard-bearers of the modern synthesis of evolutionary biology, especially Theodosius Dobzhansky and Ledyard Stebbins. A further period of post-synthesis bacterial evolutionary research occurred between the 1950s and 1980s. These experimental analyses focused on the evolution of population and genetic structure, the adaptive gain of new (...) functions, and the evolutionary consequences of competition dynamics. This large body of research aimed to make evolutionary theory testable and predictive, by giving it mechanistic underpinnings. Although evolutionary microbiologists promoted bacterial experiments as methodologically advantageous and a source of general insight into evolution, they also acknowledged the biological differences of bacteria. My historical overview concludes with reflections on what bacterial evolutionary research achieved in this period, and its implications for the still-developing modern synthesis. (shrink)

Synaesthesia is a condition in which one type of stimulation evokes the sensation of another, as when the hearing of a sound produces photisms, i.e. mental percepts of colours. R is a 20 year old colour blind subject who, in addition to the relatively common grapheme-colour synaesthesia, presents a rarely reported cross modal perception in which a variety of visual stimuli elicit aura-like percepts of colour. In R, photisms seem to be closely related to the affective valence of stimuli and (...) typically bring out a consistent pattern of emotional responses. The present case study suggests that colours might be an intrinsic category of the human brain. We developed an empirical methodology that allowed us to study the subject's otherwise inaccessible phenomenological experience. First, we found that R shows a Stroop effect (delayed response due to interference) elicited by photisms despite the fact that he does not show a regular Stroop with real colours. Secondly, by manipulating the colour context we confirmed that colours can alter R's emotional evaluation of the stimuli. Furthermore, we demonstrated that R's auras may actually lead to a partially inverted emotional spectrum where certain stimuli bring out emotional reactions opposite to the normal ones. These findings can only be accounted for by considering R's subjective colour experience or qualia. Therefore the present paper defends the view that qualia are a useful scientific concept that can be approached and studied by experimental methods. (shrink)

Consumers are prone to cognitive biases in decision-making due to the impact of time restrictions, specific environment, and project inducements in the process of experience. Compared with traditional marketing scenarios, it is easy to bias decision makers due to the existence of anchor information. Research on anchoring effect focuses on psychology, economics, law, and medicine instead of the price judgment of consumers. This article uses experimental research to explore the existence and influencing factors of anchoring effect when consumers judge (...) and estimate the price of a product in experiencing scenes. In this article, the hypothesis is that anchoring effect exists and is influenced by factors including anchor value, gender, emotion, personality, knowledge and skill, time pressure, early warning indication, cognitive need, and self-confidence level under external and internal anchor conditions. Subjects judged and estimated different prices after product experience through the design of different decision-making scenarios of external and internal anchors, and finally, the anchoring index and the mean skew index were used to calculate the anchoring effect. The experimental results showed that consumers were affected by anchoring effect when making price judgment in experiencing scenes. In addition to the factors of time pressure and self-confidence level, gender, personality, knowledge, and skill all had a significant influence on anchoring effect under external anchor conditions. Finally, this article provides advice for enterprise marketing planners including setting reasonable anchor values, highlighting the design of experiencing scenes, and developing differentiation strategies. (shrink)

We report an experimental test of the influence of ambiguity on behaviour in a coordination game. We study the behaviour of subjects in the presence of ambiguity and attempt to determine whether they prefer to choose an ambiguity-safe option. We find that this strategy, which is not played in either Nash equilibrium or iterated dominance equilibrium, is indeed chosen quite frequently. This provides evidence that ambiguity-aversion influences behaviour in games. While the behaviour of the Row Player is consistent (...) with randomising between her strategies, the Column Player shows a marked preference for avoiding ambiguity and choosing his ambiguity-safe strategy. (shrink)

Studies of group selection have been done with both natural and manipulated populations using plants, insects and birds. Group selection occurred in all studies and often the strength of group selection was equal to that of individual selection. Laboratory selection experiments resulted in the opposite response to individual selection than that predicted. Selection with plants for high leaf area resulted in plants with smaller leaf area and selection for high emigration rate in beetles produced lines with lower rates. The selected (...) traits included interactions among individuals. Theoretical studies have shown that genetically based interactions among individuals can interfere with individual selection. Evolution can be partitioned into selection and the response to selection. A response to selection requires genetic variation. Properties of group genetic structure for the natural populations are discussed. The experimental populations had controlled group structure and demonstrate that populations can respond to group selection under some genetic structures. (shrink)

In this paper, we present two experimental studies on reference of complex demonstratives. The results of our experiments challenge the dominant view in philosophy of language, according to which demonstrative reference is determined by the speaker's intentions. The first experiment shows that in a context where there are two candidates for the referent—one determined by the speaker’s intention, the other by some “external” factors—people prefer to identify the referent of a demonstrative with the latter object. The external factors for (...) which this prediction has been confirmed include the speaker’s demonstration and the descriptive content of a demonstrative. The second experiment shows that while this preference can be explained in terms of the speakers’ having different sorts of referential intentions, the relevant kind of intentions are fully opaque to the subjects. At the end of our paper, we point to some alternative accounts of demonstrative reference, including a pluralistic and hybrid approach, which can accommodate our experimental results. (shrink)

There is an ongoing debate on the ontology of relations, which features four main competing approaches: directionalism, positionalism, anti-positionalism, and primitivism. This paper focuses on a particular version of positionalism, namely role positionalism, and proposes the results of an experimental philosophy research concerning aspects of it. We tested the intuitions of ordinary subjects regarding the inter-relational generality of the roles typically assumed for spatial and kinematic relations, namely source, destination, theme, location. According to a 2014 paper by Orilia, this (...) generality is rather wide, as it encompasses relations of temporal order, causation, quantitative order, transaction, possession, and parthood. Our findings do not support this proposal, except for parthood, and, in a limited way, for temporal order. We also tested the intuitions of ordinary subjects regarding the contrast between the pro-converses option, according to which non-symmetric relations split into distinct converse relations, and the anti-converses option, according to which non-symmetric relations have no distinct converses. Although traditionally positionalism is associated to the latter option, in recent works by Orilia role positionalism is associated to the former option for at least some relations, while remaining anchored to the latter option for other relations. Our findings support this mixed line to some extent, but not quite in the way suggested by Orilia in such works. (shrink)

School bullying among young adolescents is a globally pervasive problem, but is less common when bystanders are motivated to defend victims. Thus, the focus of this experimental study is on motivation to defend victims of bullying.Methods: A total of 388 students from two Turkish public schools participated in a vignette experiment. Students were randomized to one of two vignettes. Self-report measures of motivation to defend, trait anxiety, depression, and identification with the victim or bully were used.Results: Participants reported (...) more autonomous motivation in the cyberbullying condition, while those who witnessed direct bullying reported higher anxiety and depression.Results also revealed that this type of condition was associated with anxiety and depression, while anxiety was associated with autonomous motivation to defend. Finally, participants in the direct bullying condition were more likely to identify with the bully.Conclusion: Findings advance our understanding of when and why adolescents are motivated to help victims of bullying because they give a richer picture of what they assess when deciding whether or not they should intervene. (shrink)