Cognitive Psychology Day 3 Evolution of Language Theory of mind and extreme male brains

Can animals talk? It always depends on what you call talking… Kepek/evoluciosvideok

There are two reasons

Arcok a Marson?

There are two reasons –We like to hear animals talk –Kepek/evolucios/tatogo majom

There are two reasons –We like to hear animals talk –Animals like to imitate us

Human language? Hockett’s principles –Arbtrariness (non-necessary connection between form and meaning) –Abstractness (ability to talk about events distant in time or space) –Duality (from a few meaningless signs an infinite number of configurations created) –Productivity (new linguistic elements can be formed)

Natural signs – natural language Closed ( signs) Holistic –sounds, smells, facial expressions Analogue (crying) Concrete inherited Open Lexikon Arbitrarily changeable Analytic Steven Pinker: nyelvtan= discrete combinatorial system hierarchy recursivity infinite? Digital Detached, distanced learned

Inherited signs? Vervet monkeys Playing them recorded signals –Different shouts : Eaglehide in bush Snake look under feet Leopard run up tree It takes learning to get them right Are they in-built measures of fear?

What makes possible sentences infinite? –Recursion –Diane said that Peter told her that Mary lied that she was at school that day. The mouse that the cat chased ate the cheese. The mouse that the cat chased that the dog barked ate the cheese.

What animals can’t do.. past future question Lie – cheat ?

The Vervets again Ability to cheat! –Want to get rid of bigger male? –Want to hide that you’ve found food? –Just give a leopard cry!

And now the macaques identifying module

Important aspects Nature-nurture –Species similar to us (apes) –Species adapted to us (dog, cat) Natural communicative signs - artificial –Animals communicating in their natural habitat –Arbitrary sign taught by human researchers

Careful! Der Kluge Hans – Clever Hans – effect (1907 Oskar Pfungst) ELIZA: A trap set by our intentional stance Argumentation valid for all sentient subjects (H.S. as well) (Rico, the Border Collie)

Two important questions Nature-nurture (Skinner vs Chomsky) –Species similar to us (apes) –Species adapted to us (dog, cat) Natural communicative signs - artificial –Animals communicating in their natural habitat –Arbitrary sign taught by human researchers

Irene Pepperberg Alex the African grey parrot Avian Lanuage teaching EXperiment..\BME_evolúcióskurzus\evoluc200607BME\nyel vevolúció\ALex\alextheparrot[1].mov Is it human language? Sentence structure : How many blue blocks? New words coined: „Bannery” All in all 200 words

Paul Bloom (Yale) „both a baby and a dog are exposed to language, but only the baby learns to talk (Science)” Children’s word learning – fast mapping –PERSPECTIVES BEHAVIOR: Can a Dog Learn a Word? Paul Bloom (11 June 2004) Science 304 (5677), [DOI: /science ])

The new chimpanzees Rico, the Border Collie (video) Juliane Kaminski, Leipzig Fast mapping and word learning –„fetch-the-bunny” One word? – can put it in a box as well or give it to someone –Novel item – novel word Paul Bloom: –„for psychologists, dogs may be the new chimpanzees.” –„If any child learned words the way Rico did, the parents would run screaming to the nearest neurologist

The new chimpanzees Questions: –Talent or learning? (nature or nurture) –Dogs are evolutionarily selected for attending to the communicative intentions of humans –Can Rico demonstrate understanding of a word other than by fetching an object?understanding –Could Rico be told not to fetch a specific object (akin to telling a human child "don't touch!")? –Can Rico learn a word for any object that is not small and fetchable? –Can the same results be produced with nonlinguistic sounds?

Important aspects Nature-nurture –Species similar to us (apes) –Species adapted to us (dog, cat) Natural communicative signs - artificial –Animals communicating in their natural habitat –Arbitrary sign taught by human researchers

Monkeys speaking Maybe they could use a simpler proto language? Ability not used? 3 methods –Natural speech –ASL- sign language –Lexigram signs

Spoken language ASL – American sign Language lexigrams

Gua (Kellogg & Kellogg, 1933) –Raised as a family member (9 months) –Intimate relationship

Emotional reactions feeding

In spite of all this, Gua –Never produced intelligible words –Only understood few Where is your nose?

Viki (Hayes, 1951) Family member Reinforceent learning After 7! years –Badly articulated 4 words: mama, papa, up, cup –Only family members understand him –Understands few words

60’s teaching chimps Complete fiasco Is the problem physiological? –Lack of fine motor coordination –Movement of tongue –Control of breathing –Voluntary control of emitting sounds

Different physiology Larynx higher -> smaller pharynx and nasal cavity

Spoken language ASL – American sign language lexigramok Three stars Washoe (chimpanzee) Nim Chimpsky (chimpanzee) Koko (gorilla)

Washoe (Gardner & Gardner, 1960’s) Captured in Africa Started to learn at 11 months – teaching during 51 months Brouht up as a deaf child (games, social activities) idea –Chimps use gestures as a natural sign in their communication –They do not use signs ► ASL, American Sign Language

What did Washoe learn? Lexicon production: signs Understood more More syntactic categories (N, V, Adj, Pro) Could create new signs (?) Duck = water + bird Grammar overgeneralization Combining signs –Washoe sorry –Baby down –Go in –Hug hurry –Out open please hurry

Nim Chimpsky & Herbert Terrace

Nim Chimpsky (Terrace, Petitto, Sanders & Bever, 1979) What does his name remind you of? Washoe’s family ASL: stricter design

What has Nim Chimpsky learned? 125 signs, BUT stricter criteria would ca 25 –(strict criteiria meaning double-blind studies with signers) A maximum of two combinations→if there is az more, it is usually repetition –banana me eat banana eat The length of sentences does not grow over time No relationship between the complexitiy of sentences and their length (rather, he learned that the more he signs, the sooner he gets what he wants…) No spontaneous signs

Nim Chimpsky His utterances –90%: reaction, relates to a „here and now aspect” (eat, play, drink) –40%: straight repetition Interrupts the signing of teacher Does not add new information to the situation ► „You can teach that to a dove with operant conditioning” (Herbert Terrace)

Koko and dr Penny Patterson

..\BME_evolúcióskurz us\evoluc200607BME \nyelvevolúció\koko\k oko_first3signs_56[1]. mov..\BME_evolúcióskurz us\evoluc200607BME \nyelvevolúció\koko\k oko_sign_history_56[ 1].mov..\BME_evolúcióskurz us\evoluc200607BME \nyelvevolúció\koko\m eet_koko_psa_56[1]. mov

Francine Patterson 33 year-old gorilla, learned the language in infancy (ASL) Longest ongoing research: worked together for 33 years Only research involving a gorilla Supposedly knows a 1000 signs and understands written English. Chatted on America Online Can communicate toothache

But let’s see that chat…

Spoken language ASL – lexigrams

David and Ann Premack

Savage Rumbaugh

One of the fiascos Mercury- Since he did not learn language at all, he was transferred to do other experiments

Bad news – good news Matata and her son Kanzi –After 2,5 years of training Matata still wasn’t very good at lexigrams – they gave up and sent her to a Primate Center –They kept Kanzi – luckily!

Kanzi (Greenfield & Savage-Rumbaugh, 1990) A real star (played together with Paul McCartney-vel + Peter Gabriel) bonobo: supposed to be more intelligent, social, communicative Has NEVER been taught, only her mother

Kanzi and Alia Compared them with a comprehension test, with toys Kanzi has never seen before, only videos and pictures Kanzi, make the dog bite the snake Kanzi, tickle Rose with the bunny 500 novel sentences Both Alia and kanzi were 70% correct Kanzi video:

Conclusion about ape studies ape Here and now No syntax explicit teaching Does not refuse badly formed sentences Rarely forms questions Not using symbols spontaneuosly MLU same Banana me me me eat. child timeline syntax No explicit teaching – spontaneous signs with deaf children) Refuses badly formed sentences Frequent questions Referential use of symbols MLU grows and so does complexity I am going to eat all the bananas.

Hauser, Chomsky, Fitch

„Human language is an embarrassment for evolutionary theory” David Premack

When A. when did language evolve in the history of mankind? –evidence: Human fossils (speech organs and brain tissue) – 2 million years tools – 100 thousand years Art – thousand years B. What is the point?

How did language evolve? 1.EvolutionistsThe meteors of Chomsky Two questions Continuous or discontinuous? Adaptation or exaptation?

Step-by-step evolution –Different linguistic levels? Bickerton –A evolutionary stable strategy of grammar

Bickerton elmélete –0. Australopithecus –apes today (categorize) –1. Erectus – protolanguage, without syntax –2. Archaic homo sapiens – symbolic language with syntax –3. developed language – languages diverging, different language families (Luigi Cavalli-Sforza)

ESS – Evolutionary stable strategies Think of all the things you might want to talk about What if you invented a different sound for each? Solution –categorization –combination

Syntax evolution: the problem

Syntax evolution: the answer Number of word learnings per individual – x axis Event rate matrix – frequencies at which these events occur. A, 4 events 4 objects B, 6 events, 6 objects C, 10 events, 10 objects

Saltatoric appearance Noam Chomsky: language could not have evolved by natural selection –Too complex –All the interim forms bring no advantage Exaptation?

Evolution theories

How did language evolve? Early linguistic theories Ecolocigal models –hunt Social explanation –Building social relations Sexual selection

How did language evolve? Early linguistic theories Ecolocigal models –hunt Social explanation –Building social relations Sexual selection

Egypt – an interesting experiment Pharaoh Psammeticos (7th century B.C.) –Given two babies to a shepherd to raise them without saying a word to them – the most ancient language would be the one they start to speak –Once they happened to say the word „bheccos” –It means bread in phrueg, a language now extinct Kaiser Franz II. Germo-Roman emperor (10th A.C.) –same experiment –no result Jacob IV Scottish king (XVth A.C.) –The child started to speak something like Hebrew.

Similarity in onomatopaeia Afrikaans: miaau! Albanian: mjau! Arabic (Algeria): miau miau! Bengali: meu-meu! Catalan: meu, meu! Croatian: mijau! Danish: mjav! Dutch: miauw! English: meow! Esperanto: miaŭ! Estonian: näu! Finnish: miau! kurnau! French: miaou! German: miau! Greek: niaou! Hebrew: miyau! Hindi: myaau! myaauu! Hungarian: miau! Icelandic: mjá! Indonesian: ngeong! Italian: miao! Japanese: nyaa! Korean: (n)ya-ong! Mandarin Chinese: miao miao! Norwegian: mjau! Polish: miau! Portuguese: miau! Russian: myau! Slovene: mijau! Spanish: miau! Swedish: mjau! Thai: meow meow! (with high tone) Turkish: miyauv! miyauv! Ukrainian: myau! Vietnamese: meo-meo!

Otto Jespersen – the reason of the ban in 1886 Interlingua – International Auxiliary language Bow-wow theory –Imitating animals - onomatopeia Pooh-pooh theory –Emotion-laden signs (pain, happiness) Ding-dong theory –A sort of verbalizing non-verbal communivation Yo-he-ho theory –Vocalization while working, singing La-la theory –Love, art, poetry, music

How did language evolve? Early linguistic theories Ecolocigal models –hunt Social explanation –Building social relations Sexual selection

A difference in vocabulary? Hunter-gatherers: – words –Half of them is verb, connected to survival Modern language: –50-60 housand words –10-15% verbs Language had a larger role in this?

What do you need to know to survive? Places of plants and migration of animals Today’s hunter-gatherer’s – little evidence, more gestures (max. 1-2 words) Talk: basicly gossip – life of people, affairs

Tools and DIY Constructional ability

You need –Model of the outside world –Manipulation abilities Both language and toolmaking are –sequential –hierarchical Two possibilities –Making tools presupposes abilities that bootsrap language –Making tools needs teaching and cooperation presupposing language

DIY in hunter-gatherers Rarely do they say instructions –Mostly direct observation Cathleen Gibson –Division of labour –Social effect –Gibson, K. R. and Ingold, T. eds. Tools, Language and Cognition in Human Evolution. Cambridge University Press, Cambridge, 1993.

How did language evolve? Early linguistic theories Ecolocigal models –hunt Social explanation –Building social relations Sexual selection

Robin Dunbar grooming: –Hygenic function - originally –Social and emotional bonds –Endogene opiates

A

Grooming time for hominids

Group size ~ grooming –Reduces agression –Gets social support Max: 70 (20-25% of time) Group size ~ brain size –Cogitive restraint humans: 147,8 (150) (42% of time!)

Average size of human tribes

The magic number of 150 The average size of hunter-gatherer groups Basic military unit hutterites – one colony Gore-Tex fabric Ltd. 150 parking places

And the solution is… Language – a more efficient way of grooming? –Can groom various persons at a time –The hands are free to manipulate Trading social information Indirect experience – learn novel situation Group identity - dialects It was thousand years ago we reached this 70 person limit

Talking

How did language evolve? Early linguistic theories Ecolocigal models –hunt Social explanation –Building social relations Sexual selection

Geoffrey Miller Univ of New Mexico

Altruism of speaker – are we giving away information language=nothing more than a sexual ornament, a way of wooing

Name great writers in History Fitness indicator: Intelligence correlates with vocabulary 80% 60% genetically determined Cyrano effect Seherzade effect

However Women are better at verbal intelligence, aren’t they? –Contradictory findings Fluency tests Verbal intelligence test Vocabulary tests – only until the age of 3-5 The aphasia myth The autism myth – that is actually true…

Climbing the hierarchy Robbins Burling –In egalitarian societies the chieftain is going to be the person communicating best –Although – Baron-Cohen! First onomatopeic sounds First comprehension evolves – then production (look who’s talking now!)

Constructing conversations

Filling in the gaps Communication is rather fragmentary –What do you want to eat? –Well, have you got money on you? –I don’t have that much time.

Scripts – Schank and Abelson Scripts are groups of causal chains that represent knowledge about frequently experienced events (e.g. going to a restaurant). In other words, a script is a stereotyped sequence of actions that defines a well-known situation and has associated with it: a number of roles for the actors (different points of view on the situation, e.g. customer vs waiter vs cook), different tracks (e.g. restaurant, fast-food), different scenes (e.g. enter, order, eat, pay); each scene has a MAINCON, i.e. a main conceptualization, which must have happened if the scene is instantiated, as well as props, entry conditions, results, branches and loops

Bartlett and Freud Freud – repression – later defense mechanisms – interpretation of dreams –Many cognitive scientists argue that current ideas are completely different –Not because of threatening emotional content but overwhelmed cognitive systems Mistakes in remembrance –Omission –Rationalization –Elaboration –Condensation –Distorsion (- falsification) –Reversals (– reaction formation)

False Memories Deese, 1959; Roediger & McDermott, 1995  DRM Hill, valley, climb, summit, top, molehill, peak, plain, glacier, goat, bike, climber, range, steep –MOUNTAIN (critical word/lure) Presentation of strong associates results in high probability of falsely remembering the critical word

Why do we falsely remember? Implicit Activation Response (IAR) hypothesis –When people encode words, they (implicitly) think of associates to those words; critical words then seem familiar at test and are falsely recognized If we know about false memories, can we prevent them from happening?

Gallo, Roberts, & Seamon, 1997 Can we avoid false memories if we know that they might occur? –Roediger & McDermott (1995) excluded one participant who failed to have false memories because she reported that “the lists seemed designed to make her think of a nonpresented word” –Informal demonstrations with knowledgeable participants still show false memories

Loftus, G. Law and psychology –Witnesses see the crime commited in suboptimal conditions (dark, far away) –Witnesses are exposed to posterior suggestive information Show-up and line-up procedures –Line-up still problematic Physical bias – how to select the fillers Physical bias – odball effects Lack of double blind policeman Unconscious transference - familiarity

Problems with perceptual encoding at the time –Distance as a factor is systematically undervalued Judges overestimate the importance of self-confidence

Conclusion We’re filling in gaps constantly not only in language, but in other domains as well.

Mental health And its evolutionary accounts

Mental disorder - definition Normal and abnormal –Deviant –Maladaptive –Personal distress

Cultural variations Main disorders everyhere – but with minor differences Culture bound disorders Koro – an obsessive fear that one’s penis will withdraw into one’s abdomen, seen only in Malaya and other regions of southern Asia. Windigo –intense craving for human flesh and fear that one will turn into a cannibal, seen only among Algonquin Indian cultures Anorexia nervosa – an eating disorder characterized by intentional self-starvation, until recently seen only in affluent Western cultures

Olympe de Gauges She was diagnosed in 1973 with an illness called „revolutionary hysteria” –Abnormal sexuality – excessive menstruational flow –Narcissism (predilection of daily baths) –Lack of moral sense (refusal to remarry) Mental illness as a category seems to change –Geographically –With time

Today

Evolutionary models Why are there illnesses if we are so nearly perfected by evolution?

Evolution of mental illnesses

Some assumptions Homo sapiens evolved years ago – there have been no change in brain capacity relative to body size –So: what we experience psychologically and emotionally was almost certainly experienced throughout evolution

Implicit cognition and therapy Psychopathologies: –lack of intentional control –Irrational –Affectional in nature Freud, TAT –More contamination –fakeable

Cognitive models of anxiety Maladaptive fear schema –More attentive to threatening cues –Interpretation of ambiguous situations –Automaticity of fear schemas Explicit: not going to be fatally attacked by daddylonglegs Implicitly: avoidance

Anxiety disorders Watson versus genetics

General Anxiety Disorder

Phobic disorder A persistent and irrational fear of an object or situation that presents no realistic danger

Arachnophobia

Arachnophobia and IAT There is no natural implicit opposing category to spiders –Snakes? –Household items? –Blood-injection? Mixed results Go-NoGo task

Go-noGo task Has to answer quickly – otherwise it is not automatic – 1400 ms window

Spider fear –Participants had to approach a frightening- looking spider –They had to report anxiety level –on the basis of the distance they were groupes into high-fear group and low-fear group

Evolutionary explanation It is not against all harmful animals (big cat phobia is rare) The fear seems to be directed –Difficult to perceive –Not physically, but chemically dangerous (venomous) –Yet – the bigger, the more frightening (logical with some spiders, but the opposite with snakes) Not without foundations – Indian statistics –925 by tigers –20,000 deaths caused by snakes

Snakes are dangerous – a misconception –Mind you- this would undermine the simple evolutionary theory –Snakes in fact are not less afraid of humans, than humans are of them –Cobra’s hoods –Elevated stance (3/4th!) –Ability to pit –Playing dead –Most venomous bites are not deadly –The more poisinous, the less deaths it provokes (based on mice though) –20% of deaths is a result of trying to kill a snake Co-evolution – they evolved to accomodate human phobia and try not to evoke it and being beaten to death? What would be the point of evolving it? Source Brian Bush’s article The guy also says that there are no really venomous snakes in Australia, whereas other sources list 5 out of the 10 most dangerous to be there (Including the tiger snake, death adder and the taipan)

Depression

Impairs motivation, cognition and behaviour Psysical and emotional energy is lessened Motivation to achieve set goals Concentration is limited Personal inadequacy Nothing seems interesting Slowed physical movements No heed to appearance

Depression Unipolar and bipolar

Biological basis

Behaviourial basis

Implicit and ecplicit views –Negative schemas activated –Dual process theory of depression? –Behaviorial Activation system Positive appetitive incentive Specific to depression –Behaviorial Inhibition System Avoidance behaviour Associated with anxiety disorders – particularly social anxiety Seems to be more general in psychiatric diseases neuroticity Depressive inhibition – it is detached from environmental cues – has a life of its own

Questionnaires (explicit): –BDI –CSQ (Cognitive Style Questionnaire) –General distress Scale IAT (Implicit) –Self (own name, personal data taken) –Positive adjectives

3 week follow-up

Evolution The general description of depression is difficult, because probably there is no such unitary illness Various evolutionary theories exist, but generally each explains a segment or type of depression, not the disorder in general

SADS – seasonal affective disorder Low on behaviourial activation system to conserve resources –Cold weather –Vastly reduced vegetation –Scarcer prey –Zombies – winter hybernation –Sufferers respond easily to exposure to artificial or natural light –All animals seem to become less active with cold – including deers –Optimal temperature coincides with plant vegetation –BUT what about the Eskimo?

Bowins:The Amplification effect –Human intelligence has amplified emotional states as a by-product – it made us the most emotional species –Cognitive activating appraisals (basis of emotion) are more pronounced Intensive because conscious associations –(loose your job – scenarios of hunger and necessity) Extension over time –The representation of past and future give rise to the amplification of negative scenarios

Psychopathy

Explicit-implicit debate Similarity to the rationality – emotionality debate The difference is only about exactly where you store those memories –„go with your guts”

Damasio’s self Feeling of emotions depends on the activation of the somatosensory cortices and the insula in particular Descarts: Je pense donc je suis. –Memory storage in the body via OMPFC „the somatic marker” hypothesis

The Iowa gambling task Preliminary galvanic skin response OFC lesion impairs task

Preliminary galvanic skin response OFC lesion impairs task

Delusions Capgrass delusion –Significant others have been replaced by impostors, robots or aliens Contrast – prosopagnosia Contrast – Fregoli syndrome

Social implicit cognition

Social cognition Attitudes : consist of three components ABC –Affect - physiological –Behaviorial – verbal or action (! differing) –Cognition – cognitive evaluation (how do you know if not verbally?) La Piére”s Chinese couple in the USA –Explicit attitudes cannot predict actual behaviour Emotion is overexploited –Why sex in advertisements? Why not candy?

New implicit methods IAT – Implicit Association Test LIB (Linguistic Intergroup Bias) Affective priming The visual-probe test Go-NoGo tasks Extrinsic affective Simon Task Emotional Stroop

Applied implicit cognition Social cognition: –The IAT (Greenwald, McGee and Schwartz, 1998) –Implicit Association test –Applied to attitudes, stereotypes, self-esteem “the introspectively unidentified (or inaccurately identified) trace of past experience that mediates R” where R refers to the category of responses that are assumed to be influenced by that construct

The implicit association test BUTTON ABUTTON B Women (names or faces) Men (names or faces)

The implicit association test BUTTON ABUTTON B Positive traits (wonderful, glorious) Negative traits (horrible)

The implicit association test BUTTON ABUTTON B Women (names or faces) Men (names or faces) Positive traits (wonderful, glorious) Negative traits (horrible)

Validity Less fakeable – unless done various times Does not always correlate with reported measures – which one is true?

Disadvantages Sometimes arbitrary categories have to be chosen, no natural contrasts exist –Spiders –Cocaine Unipolar versions – there is simply one category and a control condition

The implicit association test BUTTON ABUTTON B Spider names (black widow, tarantula) Positive words (wonderful, glorious) Negative words (horrible)

The implicit association test BUTTON ABUTTON B Spider names (black widow, tarantula) Positive words (wonderful, glorious) Negative words (horrible)

The implicit association test BUTTON ABUTTON B Cat names (Siamese, Persian) Positive words (wonderful, glorious) Negative words (horrible)

The implicit association test BUTTON ABUTTON B Cat names (Siamese, Persian) Positive words (wonderful, glorious) Negative words (horrible)

Basic idea

Race and prejudice The willing and able problem –Self report measures are transparent to most people –Remember the Chinese couple travelling through America.

Black names White names desirable Jamal Sue-Ellen undesirable wonderful disgusting

Explicit measures Semantic differential –7 point –Beautiful – ugly –Pleasant – unpleasant –good – bad –Honest – dishonest –Nice - awful Feeling thermometer

Explicit and implicit measures –sometimes correlate (Dovidio et al, 1997) –Sometimes they don’t (Greenwald et al. 1998) Actual behaviour (interaction with black experimenter) –correlates slightly more significantly with implicit measures (0.39) than explicit ones (0.33) but in this study the two measures (implicit and explicit) correlate

Learning attitudes Olson & Fazio (2001) empathic cruel

Attitudes IAT task – positive vs negative love death

The BeanFest Game Faizio, Eiser and Shook –Imgaine you’re on a new planet and have to live off beans. You have an energy of 100 initially, which decreases if you eat bad beans or do not eat at all, and increases if you eat. Your goal is to survive on the planet. –With time on every trial you lose -1 –You gain +10 with good beans –You lose -10 with bad beans

Learning attitudes Luupites and Niffites –They were told different stories about Luupites and Niffites –There were names to the different categories Positive and negative nouns Gregg, A. P., Banaji, M. R., & Seibt, B. (2006). Easier made than undone: the asymmetric malleability of automatic preferences. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 90, 1–20.

LIB The Linguistic intergroup bias –the tendency to describe stereotypic events in more abstract terms than counterstereotypic events. Distancing from the self?

Abstract - concrete Descriptive action verbs (hit) –refer to objective descriptions of observable behaviors that have a clear beginning and end interpretive action verbs (hurt) –describe a general class of behaviors and have positive or negative connotations

Abstract - concrete state verbs (hate) –refer to enduring states without a clear beginning or ending adjectives (is violent) –describe highly abstract personal dispositions

Jim Jones hit the guy. Jim Jones hurts the guy. Jim Jones hates the guy. Jim Jones is violent.

Jim Jones hit the guy. Jim Jones hurts the guy. Jim Jones hates the guy. Jim Jones is violent.

She hit the guy.She is violent.

Priming

Homophobia Homophobic individuals –are threatened or sickened by their own personal attraction to gay individuals –somewhat odd and likely false to suggest that the phobic individual harbors a secret attraction to the phobic object (e.g., a snake in the case of snake phobia Freud, S. (1936). The problem of anxiety. New York: W.W. Norton & Company.

Adams et al. –Homophobic men (versus non-homophobic men) became physiologically aroused (i.e., had increased penile tumescence) when presented with short video clips of gay men involved in sexual activity –(only half of them!) Shields & Harriman, 1984 –homophobic men exhibit physiological signs of fear and anxiety while viewing pictures of gay men –similar to that exhibited by spider phobics when viewing spider stimuli

Defensie and non-defensive homophobia types –high homophobia in the context of high levels of self-deception should take a defensive form –low levels of self-deception should take a non- defensive form –Individual differences in self-deception correlate positively with unrealistic self- portrayals in self-report

phobic participants (i.e., spider, snake, and bloodinjection phobias) choose to view phobic objects for a shorter time than non-phobic individuals Participants had to rate the pleasentness of pictures of heterosexual or homosexual pairs in romantic contexts – actually the measure taken was viewing time

Questionnaires Self deception –Balanced Inventory of Desirable Responding I always know why I like things; Homophobia –Index of Homophobia I would feel uncomfortable if I learned that my neighbor was homosexual I would feel comfortable working closely with a male Homosexual It would disturb me to Wnd out that my doctor was homosexual

Vocal categoization task: gay or neutral adjectives Positive or negative – press button on a response box So it all boils down to self-deception? Homophobia can be cured with self- consciousness theories and teaching psychology? (the current method is either backlash or teaching sociology) (The tasks are simultaneous)

Racism Subliminal prime Blank screen or white face Had to scale liking of black or wite (old and new faces)

Affective priming 200 ms prime presentationTarget appears evaluative categorization lexical decision pronounciation 100 ms ISI

So today… We learned that not all knowledge is conscious (still have to study anyway…) Implicit learning is probably multiple phenomena Uncnscious parts of attitudes are reflected in behaviour, even more than conscious attitudes