You Can't Do Nothing

Unless we can think right down to the reaches of mankind's long past and into the future in which the earth is only one part of a known and explored solar system, and in which mankind's problems will become extraordinarily different, we shall not be what we want to be: anthropologists, whatever our area, whatever our specialty, whatever our subdivision.     

You Can't Not Choose: Embracing the Role of Choice in Ecological Restoration

From the moment of its inception, human choice about how to treat the environment is a key part of ecological restoration. Because many, if not most, restoration projects require continual management once established, human choice remains a vital component of restoration projects for their entire life. But ecological restorationists often downplay the role of choice in restoration, partly because we see the choice to restore as obvious and inherently good and partly because we feel the restoration of more natural conditions for a habitat will lessen the impact of human choice over time. Some critics feel the role of human choice in restoration degrades the value of restoration. However, another response to human choice in restoration is to embrace choice, even with the problems it brings, and use choice as a way to more fully engage humans with the environment. If such choices are approached carefully, with recognition of the potential for poor choices, then restorationists can arrive at restorations that are better for both the environment and us.     

Saccadic Compression of Rectangle and Kanizsa Figures: Now You See It,Now You Don't

Background

Observers misperceive the location of points within a scene as compressed towards the goal of a saccade. However, recent studies suggest that saccadic compression does not occur for discrete elements such as dots when they are perceived as unified objects like a rectangle.

Methodology/Principal Findings

We investigated the magnitude of horizontal vs. vertical compression for Kanizsa figure (a collection of discrete elements unified into single perceptual objects by illusory contours) and control rectangle figures. Participants were presented with Kanizsa and control figures and had to decide whether the horizontal or vertical length of stimulus was longer using the two-alternative force choice method. Our findings show that large but not small Kanizsa figures are perceived as compressed, that such compression is large in the horizontal dimension and small or nil in the vertical dimension. In contrast to recent findings, we found no saccadic compression for control rectangles.

Conclusions

Our data suggest that compression of Kanizsa figure has been overestimated in previous research due to methodological artifacts, and highlight the importance of studying perceptual phenomena by multiple methods.     

塔河,塔河!缺的是水吗?

2009年春,我们来到塔里木河下游的尾端。这条我国最大的内陆河在即将走完它最后里程的时候,完全失去了浩荡的气质,狭窄的河床蜿蜒在沙丘里,仅剩下几米宽,河床里有的仅是干透了的泥沙。听说下游300多公里的这段河道30多年前就断流了,