Contribution of Motion Information to Maternal Face Discrimination in Infancy

The contribution of motion and feature invariant information in infants' discrimination of maternal versus female stranger faces was assessed. Using an infant controlled habituation–dishabituation procedure, 4‐ and 8‐month‐old infants (N = 62) were tested for their ability to discriminate between their mother and a female stranger in 4 different conditions varying whether motion or feature information about the faces was available. The faces were presented in a still or dynamic video image with either a positive or a negative contrast. In each condition, infants habituated to a stranger's face and then viewed, in 3 pairs of alternating novelty test trials, either a new stranger or their mother's face. Results show that motion information contributes to the 8‐month‐old infants', but not the 4‐month‐old infants' discrimination of maternal faces. These results are interpreted in relation to recent findings and models in the adult literature suggesting that there is an enhanced contribution of dynamic information in face recognition when the face is familiar. Our data confirm that from the outset, there is a complex interplay of feature and motion information in the discrimination of the mother's face when the viewing condition is not optimal.     

The philosophical bogeyman: misunderstanding the relation of theory and method

When my article ‘The relation of theory and method: causal relatedness, historical contingency and beyond’appeared in The Sociological Review August 1988, it was followed by two critical responses in the same issue by Platt and Bulmer. In my opinion both of these responses seriously misrepresent and profoundly misunderstand my arguments. In what follows I identify the more salient of these errors and attempt to rectify them.     

Decision analysis and strategic policy formulation

The role of decision analysis in the context of business policy is explored with the aid of a case study of a reorganization situation. This case study provides insights about the implementation of decision analysis in the policy field and also indicates guidelines for managers to follow in adapting the decision analysis approach to the resolution of the policy formulation problem.     

The measurement of merchant power: A case history

The use of economic models to decide on the choice of channels of distribution is often abandoned due to the difficulty of isolating where the effective power to control customer's loyalties resides. This paper describes an actual case where it was possible to develop an instrument to measure changing power relationships between merchants to assist in the strategic overhaul of a firm's distribution system.     

Competitive strategies in retailing

A strategy formulation procedure for retailers is described. The changing retail environment has brought problems for some traditional forms of retailing, and indeed failure for some stores, but it has also brought opportunities, particularly for the store management that has been prepared to consider different ways of selling.     

Health Risks of PCB Spills from Electrical Equipment

The Southern California Edison Company (SCE) has instituted a series of control strategies designed to minimize human exposure to polychlorinated biphenyls (PCBs) in electrical equipment used on its system. This paper describes a method of analyzing PCB risks using conservative estimates of human intake of PCBs originating from accidental spills from electrical equipment. The PCB releases from the Edison system were determined. The fate of these releases in soil, air, and water was analyzed to determine how much material reaches human receptors. The air and water pathways were determined to be the most likely candidates for the exposure and risk considerations. PCB intake via ingestion of soil at the spill site was neglected as an exposure pathway. Equipment spills without controls resulted in at the most 2 ng/day human intake of PCBs via the water exposure pathway. This was determined to be negligible in comparison with intake rates used in conjunction with the setting of food tolerance levels based on fish being the main dietary pathway of human exposure. The inhalation exposure of the hundred or so persons in the immediate vicinity of a spill was determined to equal the PCB intakes of the fish-eating subpopulation analyzed by the Food and Drug Administration for 2 ppm tolerance standard in the case of no controls or cleanup. Current cleanup procedures assure that even the persons in the immediate area are well below the intake of the subjects in the fish contamination analysis. All exposures were well below a "virtual safe dose" level estimated in the fish tolerance study.     

The market for foster care: an empirical study of the impact of foster care subsidies

When parents are suspected of child abuse or neglect, their children may be placed with foster families. We estimate the relationship between the monthly subsidies paid to foster families and the quantity of foster care services provided. The empirical model uses variation in subsidies and foster care populations within 37 states and the years 1987–1995. One innovation in our approach is that we exploit the idea that states do not appear to set market clearing rates, as evidenced by a foster home shortage during this time period. In this case of excess demand, variation in the monthly subsidy traces out the supply curve. Our results show that states with high demand may be able to use economic incentives to recruit foster families.