Flanked objects are difficult to identify using peripheral vision due to visual crowding, which limits conscious access to target identity. Nonetheless, certain types of visual information have been shown to survive crowding. Such resilience to crowding provides valuable information about the underlying neural mechanism of crowding. Here we ask whether illusory contour formation survives crowding of the inducers. We manipulated the presence of illusory contours through the (mis)alignment of the four inducers of a Kanizsa square. In the inducer-aligned condition, the observers judged the perceived shape (thin vs. fat) of the illusory Kanizsa square, manipulated by small rotations of the inducers. In the inducer-misaligned condition, three of the four inducers (all except the upper-left) were rotated 90°. The observers judged the orientation of the upper-left inducer. Crowding of the inducers worsened observers' performance significantly only in the inducer-misaligned condition. Our findings suggest that information for illusory contour formation survives crowding of the inducers. Crowding happens at a stage where the low-level featural information is integrated for inducer orientation discrimination, but not at a stage where the same information is used for illusory contour formation.

Background: Structured professional judgement (SPJ) method has been considered as a useful approach to violent risk assessment. However, an unstructured clinical model of violence risk assessment, the Priority Follow-up (PFU) system is employed in Hong Kong. The Historical/Clinical/ Risk Management -20 (HCR-20) is the SPJ instrument that had been most researched but has not been previously validated in a Chinese population. Study design and methods: HCR-20 was completed for 110 discharged general adult or forensic psychiatric patients with a PFU status and also for the same number of demographically matched controls. Violence was determined from case notes at 6-and 12-month after the HCR-20 rating. Results: HCR-20 was rated with acceptable interrater reliability. The predictive validity of the structured final risk judgement was significant, yielding moderate to large effect sizes, for all of the violent outcomes at 6 and 12 months. When compared with the PFU system, the final risk judgement yields no significant differences.

It is not atypical for young offenders to use aggression to handle problems. This exploratory study examined the contribution of social problem-solving deficit, criminal attitude, and attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) symptoms to aggression among incarcerated young offenders in Hong Kong. Correlational and regression analyses were conducted to identify factors that help to predict aggression. To control for the influence of ADHD symptoms, hierarchical regression analysis was conducted to reexamine the contribution of the identified factors. The results showed that negative problem orientation (NPO) and contemptuous attitudes toward the law, court, and police (LCP) helped to predict aggression at the current moment and 3 months later. After controlling for ADHD symptoms, only LCP but not NPO remained a significant predictor of both current and near-future aggression. This finding suggests that the contribution of criminal attitude to aggression tends to be independent of the effects of ADHD and social problem-solving deficit. We conclude by discussing the theoretical and practical implications of conceptualizing aggression and improving psychological services for young offenders.