In this paper we investigate the locus of believability effects in syllogistic reasoning. We identify three points in the reasoning process at which such effects could occur: the initial interpretation of premises, the examination of alternative representations of them (in all of which any valid conclusion must be true), and the “filtering” of putative conclusions. The effect of beliefs at the first of these loci is well established. In this paper we report three experiments that examine whether beliefs have an (...) effect at the other two loci. In experiments 1 and 2 subjects drew their own conclusions from syllogisms that suggested believable or unbelievable ones. In the third experiment they evaluated conclusions that were presented to them. The data show that beliefs both affect the examination of alternative models and act as a filter on putative conclusions. We conclude by showing how some types of problem and some problem contents make the existence of alternative models more obvious than others. (shrink)

Two experiments were carried out to investigate the role of referential continuity in understanding discourse. In experiment 1, a group of university students listened to stories and descriptive passages presented in three different versions: the original passages, versions in which the sentences occured in a random order, and randomised versions in which referential continuity had been restored primarily by replacing pronouns and other terms with fuller and more appropriate noun phrases. The original stories were remembered better, and rated as more (...) comprehensible, than the random versions, but the restoration of referential continuity ameliorated the effects of randomisation. The descriptive passages had little referential continuity from one sentence to the next, and as expected the effects of randomisation on comprehensibility and memory were negligible. In experiment 2, a group of skilled comprehenders and a group of less skilled comprehenders were selected from a population of 7–8-year-old children. The difference between the groups was known to be largely their inferential ability in reading texts. Both groups read a series of short stories presented in the same three versions as used in the previous experiment. As predicted, the ameliorating effects on memory of restoring referential continuity in a randomised story were confined to the skilled group. The results are discussed in relation to the theories of story grammar, text microstructure, and mental models of discourse. (shrink)

This paper argues that emotional inferences about characters in a text are not as specific as previously assumed.

We recorded Event-Related Potentials to investigate differences in the use of gender information during the processing of reflexive pronouns. Pronouns either matched the gender provided by role nouns (such as “king” or “engineer”) or did not. We compared two types of gender information, definitional information, which is semantic in nature (a mother is female), or stereotypical (a nurse is likely to be female). When they followed definitional role-nouns, gender-mismatching pronouns elicited a P600 effect reflecting a failure in the agreement process. (...) When instead the gender violation occurred after stereotypical role-nouns the Event Related Potential response was biphasic, being positive in parietal electrodes and negative in anterior left electrodes. The use of a correlational approach showed that those participants with more “feminine” or “expressive” self sex-role descriptions showed a P600 response for stereotype violations, suggesting that they experienced the mismatch as an agreement violation; whereas less “expressive” participants showed an Nref effect, indicating more effort spent in linking the pronouns with the possible, although less likely, counter-stereotypical referent. (shrink)

The present research investigated the use of counter-stereotypical pictures as a strategy for overcoming spontaneous gender stereotypes when certain social role nouns and professional terms are read. Across two experiments, participants completed a judgment task in which they were presented with word pairs comprised of a role noun with a stereotypical gender bias (e.g., beautician) and a kinship term with definitional gender (e.g., brother). Their task was to quickly decide whether or not both terms could refer to one person. In (...) each experiment they completed two blocks of such judgment trials separated by a training session in which they were presented with pictures of people working in gender counter-stereotypical (Experiment 1) or gender stereotypical roles (Experiment 2). To ensure participants were focused on the pictures, they were also required to answer four questions on each one relating to the character’s leisure activities, earnings, job satisfaction, and personal life. Accuracy of judgments to stereotype incongruent pairings was found to improve significantly across blocks when participants were exposed to counter-stereotype images (9.87%) as opposed to stereotypical images (0.12%), while response times decreased significantly across blocks in both studies. It is concluded that exposure to counter-stereotypical pictures is a valuable strategy for overcoming spontaneous gender stereotype biases in the short term. (shrink)

K. C. Klauer, J. Musch, and B. Naumer (2000) presented a general multinomial model of belief bias effects in syllogistic reasoning. They claimed to map a particular mental model account of belief bias (J. V. Oakhill, P. N. Johnson-Laird, & A. Garnham, 1989) onto this model and to show empirically that it is incorrect. The authors argue that this mental model account does not map onto the multinomial model and that it can account for the data presented by Klauer (...) et al. (Experiments 1–4). The authors further argue that additional data Klauer et al. presented in support of a new model of their own (Experiments 5– 8) are explained by this mental model account. The mental model account is, therefore, refuted neither by Klauer et al.’s theoretical analysis nor by any of the results they presented. Furthermore, the account can accommodate more recent findings on belief bias in a more satisfactory way than can alternative models that have been proposed. (shrink)

This piece is an editorial for an eBook published by Frontiers. The papers originally appeared in a Frontiers special topic associated with two sections of Frontiers in Psychology (Cognition, and Language Sciences).

A reply to Klauer and Musch's reply to our commentary on their original article.

It has been shown that when participants are asked to make sensibility judgments on sentences that describe a transfer of an object toward or away from their body, they are faster to respond when the response requires a movement in the same direction as the transfer described in the sentence. This phenomenon is known as the action compatibility effect. This study investigates whether the ACE exists for volunteers with Alzheimer's disease, whether the ACE can facilitate language comprehension, and also whether (...) the ACE can still be produced if the order of the two events is inverted, that is, whether overt movement can prime comprehension of transfer sentences. In Study 1, participants with AD, younger, and older adults were tested on an adaptation of the ACE Paradigm. In Study 2, the same paradigm was modified to include an arm movement that participants had to perform prior to sentence exposure on screen. In Study 1, young, older adults, and individuals with AD were faster to respond when the direction of the response movement matched the directionality implied by the sentence. In Study 2, no traditional ACE was found; participants were faster when the direction of the movement immediately preceding the sentence matched the directionality of the sentence. It was found that compatibility effects generated a relative advantage, that transfer schemata are easier to process, and that an ACE-like effect can be the result of mutual priming between language and movement. Results suggested preservation in AD of the neural systems for action engaged during language comprehension, and conditions under which comprehension in AD can be facilitated in real life may be identified. (shrink)

Psycholinguistic investigations of the way readers and speakers perceive gender have shown several biases associated with how gender is linguistically realized in language. Although such variations across languages offer interesting grounds for legitimate cross linguistic comparisons, pertinent characteristics of grammatical systems – especially in terms of their gender asymmetries – have to be clearly identified. In this paper, we present a language index for researchers interested in the effect of grammatical gender on the mental representations of women and men. Our (...) index is based on five main language groups (i.e., grammatical gender languages, languages with a combination of grammatical gender and natural gender, natural gender languages, genderless languages with few traces of grammatical gender and genderless languages) and three sets of specific features (morphology, masculine-male generics and asymmetries). Our index goes beyond existing ones in that it provides specific dimensions relevant to those interested in psychological and sociological impacts of language on the way we perceive women and men. We also offer a critical discussion of any endeavor to classify languages according to grammatical gender. (shrink)

Existing evidence suggests that children from around the age of 8 years strategically alter their public image in accordance with known values and preferences of peers, through the self-descriptive information they convey. However, an important but neglected aspect of this 'self-presentation' is the medium through which such information is communicated: the voice itself. The present study explored peer audience effects on children's vocal productions. Fifty-six children were presented with vignettes where a fictional child, matched to the participant's age and sex, (...) is trying to make friends with a group of same-sex peers with stereotypically masculine or feminine interests. Participants were asked to impersonate the child in that situation and, as the child, to read out loud masculine, feminine and gender-neutral self-descriptive statements to these hypothetical audiences. They also had to decide which of those self-descriptive statements would be most helpful for making friends. In line with previous research, boys and girls preferentially selected masculine or feminine self-descriptive statements depending on the audience interests. Crucially, acoustic analyses of fundamental frequency and formant frequency spacing revealed that children also spontaneously altered their vocal productions: they feminized their voices when speaking to members of the ballet club, while they masculinized their voices when speaking to members of the rugby club. Both sexes also feminized their voices when uttering feminine sentences, compared to when uttering masculine and gender-neutral sentences. Implications for the hitherto neglected role of acoustic qualities of children's vocal behaviour in peer interactions are discussed. This article is part of the theme issue 'Voice modulation: from origin and mechanism to social impact '. (shrink)

"It is well to remind ourselves, from time to time, that "Ethics" is but another word for "righteousness," that for which many men and women of every generation have hungered and thirsted, and without which life becomes meaningless. Certain forms of personal righteousness have become to a majority of the community almost automatic. But we all know that each generation has its own test, the contemporaneous and current standard by which alone it can adequately judge of its own moral achievements. (...) To attain individual morality in an age demanding social morality, to pride one's self on the results of personal effort when the time demands social adjustment, is utterly to fail to apprehend the situation. This book is a study of various types and groups who are being impelled by the newer conception of Democracy to an acceptance of social obligations involving in each instance a new line of conduct."--. (shrink)

In _Vibrant Matter_ the political theorist Jane Bennett, renowned for her work on nature, ethics, and affect, shifts her focus from the human experience of things to things themselves. Bennett argues that political theory needs to do a better job of recognizing the active participation of nonhuman forces in events. Toward that end, she theorizes a “vital materiality” that runs through and across bodies, both human and nonhuman. Bennett explores how political analyses of public events might change were we (...) to acknowledge that agency always emerges as the_ _effect of ad hoc configurations of human and nonhuman forces. She suggests that recognizing that agency is distributed this way, and is not solely the province of humans, might spur the cultivation of a more responsible, ecologically sound politics: a politics less devoted to blaming and condemning individuals than to discerning the web of forces affecting situations and events. Bennett examines the political and theoretical implications of vital materialism through extended discussions of commonplace things and physical phenomena including stem cells, fish oils, electricity, metal, and trash. She reflects on the vital power of material formations such as landfills, which generate lively streams of chemicals, and omega-3 fatty acids, which can transform brain chemistry and mood. Along the way, she engages with the concepts and claims of Spinoza, Nietzsche, Thoreau, Darwin, Adorno, and Deleuze, disclosing a long history of thinking about vibrant matter in Western philosophy, including attempts by Kant, Bergson, and the embryologist Hans Driesch to name the “vital force” inherent in material forms. Bennett concludes by sketching the contours of a “green materialist” ecophilosophy. (shrink)

"It is well to remind ourselves, from time to time, that "Ethics" is but another word for "righteousness," that for which many men and women of every generation have hungered and thirsted, and without which life becomes meaningless. Certain forms of personal righteousness have become to a majority of the community almost automatic. But we all know that each generation has its own test, the contemporaneous and current standard by which alone it can adequately judge of its own moral achievements. (...) To attain individual morality in an age demanding social morality, to pride one's self on the results of personal effort when the time demands social adjustment, is utterly to fail to apprehend the situation. This book is a study of various types and groups who are being impelled by the newer conception of Democracy to an acceptance of social obligations involving in each instance a new line of conduct."--. (shrink)

A paradigm for peace discovered in the cosmopolitan neighborhoods of poor urban immigrants.

This is part of a complete set of Jane Austen's novels collating the editions published during the author's lifetime and previously unpublished manuscripts. The books are illustrated with 19th century plates and incorporate revisions by experts in the light of subsequent research.

With aims to both increase organ supply and better reflect individual donation preferences, many nations worldwide have shifted from ‘opt‐in’ to ‘opt‐out’ systems for post‐mortem organ donation (PMOD). In such countries, while a prospective donor's willingness to donate their organs/tissues for PMOD was previously ascertained—at least partially—by their having recorded positive donation preferences on an official register prior to death, this willingness is now presumed or inferred—at least partially—from their not having recorded an objection to PMOD—on an official organ donation (...) register. Using evidence regarding the presence and prevalence of selective donation preferences, and via exploration of how appeals to donation preferences are used to both motivate and legitimate shifts to opt‐out frameworks, this paper draws attention to a set of previously unexplored problems for opt‐out organ donation arising in contexts where: (a) individuals demonstrate selective post‐mortem organ/tissue donation preferences, (b) legislation provides prospective donors with the opportunity to selectively permit/refuse the donation of certain organs/tissues in line with these preferences. While selective preferences pose few problems for opt‐in systems where a selective occasion is built into the process of signing the donor register, this is not the case for opt‐out systems. The loss of this selective occasion can cause significant problems where appeals to preferences motivate/legitimate shifts to opt‐out but evidence regarding variable preferences does not feed into determinations regarding organ/tissue exclusions. The nature of these problems depends on how the authorization aspect of ‘opt‐out’ systems is framed (e.g. as presumed consent, deemed consent or, given the role of familial consent in many jurisdictions as consent in name only). (shrink)

The Aesthetics of Design offers the first full treatment of design in the field of philosophical aesthetics, challenging the discipline to broaden its scope to include the quotidian objects and experiences of our everyday lives and concerns ...

A longstanding problem in the teacher workforce, internationally and in the UK, is the continuing and substantial numbers of qualified teachers who leave the profession within five years. This paper uses data collected from a survey to the last five years of teacher education graduates of UCL Institute of Education (IOE) in London, to explore what originally motivated them to teach, and the reasons why they have left or may consider leaving in the future. We discovered that despite claiming to (...) be aware of the challenges of workload before entering teaching, workload was the most frequently cited reason for having left, or for leaving in the future. The data spoke to the reality of teaching being worse than expected, and the nature (rather than the quantity) of the workload, linked to notions of performativity and accountability, being a crucial factor. This paper draws on a substantial new source of data and explores reasons for leaving in the context of reported initial motivation of individuals who have left teaching, individuals who are planning to leave and individuals who are planning to stay in teaching. (shrink)

The tales they shared with Addams in the wake of the Devil Baby were more personal and revealing than any they had previously told her: stories of abusive mates ...

In _influx & efflux_ Jane Bennett pursues a question that was bracketed in her book _Vibrant Matter_: how to think about human agency in a world teeming with powerful nonhuman influences? “Influx _& _efflux”—a phrase borrowed from Whitman's "Song of Myself"—refers to everyday movements whereby outside influences enter bodies, infuse and confuse their organization, and then exit, themselves having been transformed into something new. How to describe the human efforts involved in that process? What kinds of “I” and “we” (...) can live well and act effectively in a world of so many other lively materialities? Drawing upon Whitman, Thoreau, Caillois, Whitehead, and other poetic writers, Bennett links a nonanthropocentric model of self to a radically egalitarian pluralism and also to a syntax and style of writing appropriate to the entangled world in which we live. The book tries to enact the uncanny process by which we “write up” influences that pervade, enable, and disrupt us. (shrink)

There has been much discussion about whether traditional epistemology's doxastic attitudes are reducible to degrees of belief. In this paper I argue that what I call the Straightforward Reduction - the reduction of all three of believing p, disbelieving p, and suspending judgment about p, not-p to precise degrees of belief for p and not-p that ought to obey the standard axioms of the probability calculus - cannot succeed. By focusing on suspension of judgment (agnosticism) rather than belief, we can (...) see why the Straightforward Reduction is bound to fail. I argue that, in general, suspending about p is not just a matter of having some specified standard credence for p, and in the end I suggest some ways to extend the arguments that will put pressure on other credence-theoretic accounts of belief and suspension of judgment as well. (shrink)

Firms and industries increasingly subscribe to voluntary codes of conduct. These self-regulatory governance systems can be effective in establishing a more sustainable and inclusive global economy. However, these codes can also be largely symbolic, reactive measures to quell public criticism. Cross-sector alliances (between for-profit and nonprofit actors) present a learning platform for infusing participants with greater incentives to be socially responsible. They can provide multinationals new capabilities that allow them to more closely ally social responsibility with economic performance. This paper (...) examines learning facilitators in cross-sector alliances that enrich corporate understanding of stakeholder concerns. It suggests that these organizational learning experiments can translate into globally responsible practices and processes that improve the content and effectiveness of voluntary corporate codes. (shrink)

Is it possible for postmodernism to offer viable, coherent accounts of ethics? Or are our social and intellectual worlds too fragmented for any broad consensus about the moral life? These issues have emerged as some of the most contentious in literary and philosophical studies. In Renegotiating Ethics in Literature, Philosophy, and Theory a distinguished international gathering of philosophers and literary scholars address the reconceptualisations involved in this 'turn towards ethics'. An important feature of this has been a renewed interest in (...) the literary text as a focus for the exploration of ethical issues. Exponents of this trend include Charles Taylor, Bernard Williams, Iris Murdoch, Cora Diamond, Richard Rorty and Martha Nussbaum, the latter a contributor and a key figure in this volume. This book assesses the significance of this development for ethical and literary theory and attempts to articulate an alternative postmodern account of ethics which does not rely on earlier appeals to universal truths. (shrink)

It is a commonplace that the modern world cannot be experienced as enchanted--that the very concept of enchantment belongs to past ages of superstition. Jane Bennett challenges that view. She seeks to rehabilitate enchantment, showing not only how it is still possible to experience genuine wonder, but how such experience is crucial to motivating ethical behavior. A creative blend of political theory, philosophy, and literary studies, this book is a powerful and innovative contribution to an emerging interdisciplinary conversation about (...) the deep connections between ethics, aesthetics, and politics. As Bennett describes it, enchantment is a sense of openness to the unusual, the captivating, and the disturbing in everyday life. She guides us through a wide and often surprising range of sources of enchantment, showing that we can still find enchantment in nature, for example, but also in such unexpected places as modern technology, advertising, and even bureaucracy. She then explains how everyday moments of enchantment can be cultivated to build an ethics of generosity, stimulating the emotional energy and honing the perceptual refinement necessary to follow moral codes. Throughout, Bennett draws on thinkers and writers as diverse as Kant, Schiller, Thoreau, Kafka, Marx, Weber, Adorno, and Deleuze. With its range and daring, The Enchantment of Modern Life is a provocative challenge to the centuries-old ''narrative of disenchantment,'' one that presents a new ''alter-tale'' that discloses our profound attachment to the human and nonhuman world. (shrink)

This paper seeks to highlight the benefits of prioritizing moderate African communitarian principles as partly demonstrated in the HIV prevention strategies implemented in Uganda in the late 1980s. Pertinent lessons could be drawn so as to achieve the HIV prevention targets envisioned in the post-2015 development era. Communitarianism emphasizes the importance of communities as part of healthy human existence. Its core ethical values include the virtues of generosity, compassion, and solidarity. Persuasion through communication, consensus through dialogue, and the awareness and (...) commitment to responsibilities towards other members of the community, are chief practices relied upon to achieve appropriate social behaviour. All these elements signify individual rootedness in communities and contribute to the healthy existence of its members. Communitarianism is usually classified as either authoritarian/radical or responsive/moderate, depending on the primacy given to either community interests or the individual will and rights. Moderate communitarianism recognizes the individual's capacity for moral reasoning, virtue and free choice. The ensuing form of society is deemed more ethical as it relies on education in the virtues, moral persuasion and informal social controls, without stifling individual identity, agency, and capacity for self-determination. If moderate African communitarianism, in particular, can to a certain extent be associated with the significant aspects of Uganda's HIV prevention strategies in the stated period, then its present-day relevance for HIV prevention and other public health interventions may be emphasized accordingly. This applies especially in view of the ongoing efforts to achieve a balance between individual and collective interests in bioethics. (shrink)