Hintikka has criticized psychologists for "hasty epistemologizing," which he takes to be an unwarranted transfer of ideas from psychology (a discipline dealing with questions of fact) into epistemology (a discipline dealing with questions of method and theory). Hamlyn argues, following Hintikka, that Gibson's theory of perception is an example of such an inappropriate transfer, especially insofar as Hamlyn feels Gibson does not answer several important questions. However, Gibson's theory does answer the relevant questions, albeit in a new and radical way, (...) which suggests that the alleged distinction between psychology and epistemology is suspect. In fact, contrary to Hintikka and Hamlyn's claims, Gibson's theory of perception appears to be a valuable source of epistemological as well as psychological ideas. (shrink)

It is proposed that the Darwinian theoretical approach and account of living systems has not yet been clearly given. A first approximation to this is attempted, focussing on behavior in evolving environments. A theoretical terminology is defined emphasizing the mutuality of organism and environment and the existence of biologically theoretical entities.

Conducting research in a prison setting is ethically challenging. Because history is full of unethical research conducted in prison settings, researchers are often afraid of doing research in this area. It is argued that too much emphasis has been put on the protection of prison inmates as a vulnerable population. Consequently, too little research is being conducted where the focus is on those factors which serve to make the prison population vulnerable. In this paper ethical questions, emerging when conducting a (...) study on literacy and mental health among Norwegian prison inmates, are presented and discussed. Relevant questions relate to topics which include ethical clearance of the research protocol, the consent procedure, clarification of roles and the publication of the results. The ethical questions are discussed in relation to the four principles of ‘respect for the client's rights and dignity’, ‘competence’, ‘responsibility’ and ‘integrity’ set out in the meta-code of ethics, formulated by the European Federation of Professional Psychologists Associations. The wider relationships between ethics in society, research ethics in general, and ethics when conducting research in a prison setting are also considered. (shrink)

In this combined examination of the history, theories, and practices in the teaching of English, the author presents compelling insight and practical solutions to the crisis in English education and the conflict among critical theories, radical pedagogy, classroom practice, epistemics, the pressure to vocationalize the curriculum, and the corporatization of institutes of learning.

In this combined examination of the history, theories, and practices in the teaching of English, the author presents compelling insight and practical solutions to the crisis in English education and the conflict among critical theories, radical pedagogy, classroom practice, epistemics, the pressure to vocationalize the curriculum, and the corporatization of institutes of learning.

Using fMRI, we investigated how right temporal lobe gliomas affecting the posterior superior temporal sulcus alter neural processing observed during speech perception and production tasks. Behavioural language testing showed that three pre-operative neurosurgical patients with grade 2, grade 3 or grade 4 tumours had the same pattern of mild language impairment in the domains of object naming and written word comprehension. When matching heard words for semantic relatedness (a speech perception task), these patients showed under-activation in the tumour infiltrated right (...) superior temporal lobe compared to 61 neurotypical participants and 16 patients with tumours that preserved the right postero-superior temporal lobe, with enhanced activation within the (tumour-free) contralateral left superior temporal lobe. In contrast, when correctly naming objects (a speech production task), the patients with right postero-superior temporal lobe tumours showed higher activation than both control groups in the same right postero-superior temporal lobe region that was under-activated during auditory semantic matching. The task dependent pattern of under-activation during the auditory speech task and over-activation during object naming was also observed in eight stroke patients with right hemisphere infarcts that affected the right postero-superior temporal lobe compared to eight stroke patients with right hemisphere infarcts that spared it. These task-specific and site-specific cross-pathology effects highlight the importance of the right temporal lobe for language processing and motivate further study of how right temporal lobe tumours affect language performance and neural reorganisation. These findings may have important implications for surgical management of these patients, as knowledge of the regions showing functional reorganisation may help to avoid their inadvertent damage during neurosurgery. (shrink)

Background Immense volumes of personal health information are required to realize the anticipated benefits of artificial intelligence in clinical medicine. To maintain public trust in medical research, consent policies must evolve to reflect contemporary patient preferences. Methods Patients were invited to complete a 27-item survey focusing on: broad versus specific consent; opt-in versus opt-out approaches; comfort level sharing with different recipients; attitudes towards commercialization; and options to track PHI use and study results. Results 222 participants were included in the analysis; (...) 83% were comfortable sharing PHI with researchers at their own hospital, although younger patients were more uncomfortable than older patients. While 56% of patients preferred broad consent, 38% preferred specific consent; 6% preferred not sharing at all. The majority of patients preferred to be asked for permission before entry into a contact pool. Again, this trend was more pronounced for younger patients. Approximately half of patients were uncomfortable sharing PHI with commercial enterprises. Most patients preferred to track PHI usage, with the highest proportion once again reported by the youngest patients. A majority of patients also wished to be notified regarding study results. Conclusions While most patients were willing to share their PHI with researchers within their own institution, many preferred a transparent and reciprocal consent process. These data also suggest a generational shift, wherein younger patients preferred more specific consent options. Modernizing consent policies to reflect increased autonomy is crucial in fostering sustained public engagement with medical research. (shrink)

Background Rapid ethical access to personal health information to support research is extremely important during pandemics, yet little is known regarding patient preferences for consent during such crises. This follow-up study sought to ascertain whether there were differences in consent preferences between pre-pandemic times compared to during Wave 1 of the COVID-19 global pandemic, and to better understand the reasons behind these preferences. Methods A total of 183 patients in the pandemic cohort completed the survey via email, and responses were (...) compared to the distinct pre-pandemic cohort ; all were patients of a large Canadian cancer center. The survey covered broad versus study-specific consent; opt-in versus opt-out contact approach; levels of comfort sharing with different recipients; perceptions of commercialization; and options to track use of information and be notified of results. Four focus groups were subsequently conducted to elucidate reasons motivating dominant preferences. Results Patients in the pandemic cohort were significantly more comfortable with sharing all information and biological samples, sharing information with the health care institution, sharing information with researchers at other hospitals, sharing PHI provincially, nationally and internationally compared to the pre-pandemic cohort. Discomfort with sharing information with commercial companies remained unchanged between the two cohorts. Significantly more pandemic cohort patients expressed a wish to track use of PHI, and to be notified of results. Thematic analysis uncovered that transparency was strongly desired on outside PHI use, particularly when commercialization was involved. Conclusions In pandemic times, patients were more comfortable sharing information with all parties, except with commercial entities, where levels of discomfort remained unchanged. Focus groups identified that the ability to track and receive results of studies using one’s PHI is an important way to reduce discomfort and increase trust. These findings meaningfully inform wider discussions on the use of personal health information for research during global crises. (shrink)

Here we identify approximately 40,000 healthy human volunteers who were intentionally exposed to infectious pathogens in clinical research studies dating from late World War II to the early 2000s. Microbial challenge experiments continue today under contemporary human subject research requirements. In fact, we estimated 4,000 additional volunteers who were experimentally infected between 2010 and the present day. We examine the risks and benefits of these experiments and present areas for improvement in protections of participants with respect to safety. These are (...) the absence of maximum limits to risk and the potential for institutional review boards to include questionable benefits to subjects and society when weighing the risks and benefits of research protocols. The lack of a duty of medical care by physician–investigators to research subjects is likewise of concern. The transparency of microbial challenge experiments and the safety concerns raised in this work may stimulate further dialogue on the risks to participants of human experimentation. (shrink)

This book provides practical and research-based chapters that offer greater clarity about the particular kinds of teacher reflection that matter and avoids talking about teacher reflection generically, which implies that all kinds of reflection are of equal value.

This chapter provides an introduction to higher-order metaphysics as well as to the contributions to this volume. We discuss five topics, corresponding to the five parts of this volume, and summarize the contributions to each part. First, we motivate the usefulness of higher-order quantification in metaphysics using a number of examples, and discuss the question of how such quantifiers should be interpreted. We provide a brief introduction to the most common forms of higher-order logics used in metaphysics, and indicate a (...) number of questions which can be raised in such systems using logical vocabulary alone. Using a further example, we return to applications of higher-order logics in metaphysics. We also mention key developments in the history of higher-order logic as it pertains to metaphysics. Finally, we mention certain arguments which have been raised against the use of higher-order logic, and some ways of responding to them. (shrink)

The use of visual mental imagery has been proposed to be a risk factor for the development of bipolar disorder, due to its potential to amplify affective states. This study examined the relation between visual imagery , intrusive verbal thought, and hypomania, as assessed by self-report questionnaires, in a sample of young adults . Regression analyses found that levels of intrusive visual imagery predicted levels of hypomania, but that neither trait use of visual imagery nor intrusive verbal thought did. These (...) results were consistent with the proposal that being a ‘visualiser’, as opposed to a ‘verbaliser’, is a risk factor for bipolar disorder, with the caveat that it is specifically intrusive experiences of imagery, rather than the tendency to utilize imagery per se, that acts as a risk factor. (shrink)

ABSTRACT:The ubiquity of family dominated firms in economies worldwide suggests that inquiry into the nature of the ethical frames of these types of firms is increasingly important. In the context of a social exchange approach and the norm of reciprocity, this manuscript addresses social cohesion in a dominant family firm coalition. It is argued that the factors underlying this cohesion, direct versus indirect reciprocity, shape unique attributes of family firms such as intentions for transgenerational sustainability, the pursuit of non-economic goals, (...) and strong interpersonal ties. Exchange structures, represented by direct and indirect reciprocity, lead family and non-family firms toward development of distinctive ethical frames of reference. (shrink)

Distributional models of semantics learn word meanings from contextual co‐occurrence patterns across a large sample of natural language. Early models, such as LSA and HAL (Landauer & Dumais, 1997; Lund & Burgess, 1996), counted co‐occurrence events; later models, such as BEAGLE (Jones & Mewhort, 2007), replaced counting co‐occurrences with vector accumulation. All of these models learned from positive information only: Words that occur together within a context become related to each other. A recent class of distributional models, referred to (...) as neural embedding models, are based on a prediction process embedded in the functioning of a neural network: Such models predict words that should surround a target word in a given context (e.g., word2vec; Mikolov, Sutskever, Chen, Corrado, & Dean, 2013). An error signal derived from the prediction is used to update each word's representation via backpropagation. However, another key difference in predictive models is their use of negative information in addition to positive information to develop a semantic representation. The models use negative examples to predict words that should not surround a word in a given context. As before, an error signal derived from the prediction prompts an update of the word's representation, a procedure referred to as negative sampling. Standard uses of word2vec recommend a greater or equal ratio of negative to positive sampling. The use of negative information in developing a representation of semantic information is often thought to be intimately associated with word2vec's prediction process. We assess the role of negative information in developing a semantic representation and show that its power does not reflect the use of a prediction mechanism. Finally, we show how negative information can be efficiently integrated into classic count‐based semantic models using parameter‐free analytical transformations. (shrink)

Anger, indignation, guilt, rumination, victim compensation, and perpetrator punishment are considered primary responses associated with justice sensitivity. However, injustice and high JS may predispose to further responses. We had N = 293 adults rate their JS, 17 potential responses toward 12 unjust scenarios from the victim’s, observer’s, beneficiary’s, and perpetrator’s perspectives, and several control variables. Unjust situations generally elicited many affective, cognitive, and behavioral responses. JS generally predisposed to strong affective responses toward injustice, including sadness, pity, disappointment, and helplessness. It (...) impaired trivialization, victim-blaming, or justification, which may otherwise help cope with injustice. It predisposed to conflict solutions and victim compensation. Particularly victim and beneficiary JS had stronger effects in unjust situations from the corresponding perspective. These findings add to a better understanding of the main and interaction effects of unjust situations from different perspectives and the JS facets, differences between the JS facets, as well as the links between JS and behavior and well-being. (shrink)

This volume explores the use of higher-order logics in metaphysics. Seventeen original essays trace the development of higher-order metaphysics, discuss different ways in which higher-order languages and logics may be used, and consider their application to various central topics of metaphysics.

Because the evolution of speech production is beyond our expertise (and perhaps beyond everyone's expertise) we restrict our comments to areas in which data actually exist. We provide articulatory evidence consistent with the claims made about syllable structure in adult speech and infant babbling, but we also voice some disagreement about speech errors and the typing data.

The moving frame of a tracking or crane shot, or of a camera tilt or pan, can affect the way we engage with a film narrative. In this paper, I argue that certain uses of the moving frame in narrative fiction film prescribe us to imagine ourselves moving through the world of the film. The existence of such an imaginative prescription ultimately threatens the necessity of the cinematic narrator. In light of the standard indeterminacy of our means of access to (...) fictions, the prescription to imagine moving is not accompanied by a prescription to imagine a narrator providing us with a moving view. (shrink)

Electroencephalography (EEG) is a non-invasive method to identify markers of treatment response in major depressive disorder (MDD). In this review, existing literature was assessed to determine how EEG markers change with different modalities of MDD treatments, and to synthesize the breadth of EEG markers used in conjunction with MDD treatments. PubMed and EMBASE were searched from 2000 to 2021 for studies reporting resting EEG (rEEG) and transcranial magnetic stimulation combined with EEG (TMS-EEG) measures in patients undergoing MDD treatments. The search (...) yielded 966 articles, 204 underwent full-text screening, and 51 studies were included for a narrative synthesis of findings along with confidence in the evidence. In rEEG studies, non-linear quantitative algorithms such as theta cordance and theta current density show higher predictive value than traditional linear metrics. Although less abundant, TMS-EEG measures show promise for predictive markers of brain stimulation treatment response. Future focus on TMS-EEG measures may prove fruitful, given its ability to target cortical regions of interest related to MDD. (shrink)

We submit this brief in support of the Nonhuman Rights Project’s efforts to secure habeas corpus relief for the elephant named Happy. We reject arbitrary distinctions that deny adequate protections to other animals who share with protected humans relevantly similar vulnerabilities to harms and relevantly similar interests in avoiding such harms. We strongly urge this Court, in keeping with the best philosophical standards of rational judgment and ethical standards of justice, to recognize that, as a nonhuman person, Happy should be (...) released from her current confinement and transferred to an appropriate elephant sanctuary, pursuant to habeas corpus. (shrink)

Moral psychology studies the features of cognition, judgement, perception and emotion that make human beings capable of moral action. Perspectives from feminist and race theory immensely enrich moral psychology. Writers who take these perspectives ask questions about mind, feeling, and action in contexts of social difference and unequal power and opportunity. These essays by a distinguished international cast of philosophers explore moral psychology as it connects to social life, scientific studies, and literature.

BackgroundRandom acts of kindness can improve wellbeing. However, less is known about the impacts of giving and receiving acts of kindness with strangers on wellbeing and loneliness. Therefore, this study’s objectives were to evaluate a participatory public mental health project involving sending and receiving a card with goodwill messages, to understand how such acts of kindness influence wellbeing and loneliness, and to investigate the potential mechanisms underlying the project’s impacts.Materials and MethodsThis study was an analysis of anonymized service evaluation data (...) collected in the ‘Kindness by Post’ project in 2020. It used a mixed-methods single-group design and data from 289 participants. Changes in wellbeing, loneliness, sense of belonging and hope from baseline to follow-up were analyzed using linear or multinomial logistic regression. Regression models also examined the associations between changes in wellbeing and baseline loneliness or participation level. Free text responses about experiences and suggestions for the project were analyzed using thematic analysis.ResultsParticipants had a small, but statistically significant improvement, in wellbeing equating to 0.21 standard deviations after taking part in the project, as well as improvements in loneliness, sense of belonging and hope. How lonely a participant was at baseline and whether participants both sent and received a kindness card were not associated with improvements in wellbeing. In the qualitative analysis, a desire to help others emerged as the main motivator to take part in the card exchange. Participants reported enhanced personal fulfillment, leading to improvements in wellbeing. Receiving a card could make people feel special and cherished, which was reported to establish a sense of connection with others, with potential benefits for reducing loneliness.ConclusionThis study provided preliminary evidence that the KBP project might improve wellbeing, loneliness, sense of belonging and hope. Sending a kindness card in this project played a predominant role in wellbeing enhancement, and receiving a kindness card could reduce loneliness. This study suggests that the KBP project can be replicated in more contexts in the future, and might improve wellbeing and loneliness in large communities. (shrink)

BackgroundPast research shows that physicians experience high ill-being but also high well-being.ObjectiveTo shed light on how medical faculty’s experiences of their job demands and job resources might differentially affect their ill-being and their well-being with special attention to the role that the work-life interface plays in these processes.MethodsQualitative thematic analysis was used to analyze interviews from 30 medical faculty at a top research hospital in Canada.FindingsMedical faculty’s experiences of work-life conflict were severe. Faculty’s job demands had coalescing effects on their (...) stress, work-life conflict, and exhaustion. Although supportive job resources helped to mitigate the negative effects of job demands, stimulating job resources contributed to greater work-life conflict, stress, and exhaustion. Thus, for these medical faculty job resources play a dual-role for work-life conflict. Moreover, although faculty experienced high emotional exhaustion, they did not experience the other components of burnout. Some faculty engaged in cognitive reappraisal strategies to mitigate their experiences of work-life conflict and its harmful consequences.ConclusionThis study suggests that the precise nature and effects of job demands and job resources may be more complex than current research suggests. Hospital leadership should work to lessen unnecessary job demands, increase supportive job resources, recognize all aspects of job performance, and, given faculty’s high levels of work engagement, encourage a climate that fosters work-life balance. (shrink)