This article analyzes the results of a teaching innovation project developed during the academic year 2021-2022, whose main objective was to assess the need to in- clude a compulsory subject of mediation and collaborative conflict resolution in the degree in Social Work at UCM. To this end, an international working group has been formed in the form of an Ideas Lab that has developed a research combining quan- titative (questionnaire) and qualitative (Design Thinking) tools, whose results have allowed to (...) develop a proposal that has been submitted to the dean's office for consideration in the future modification of the degree. But undoubtedly, the most remarkable thing is that through the laboratory it has been possible to guaran-tee essential elements for the quality of the training of our university community: transversality, transdisciplinarity, internationalization and transfer of knowledge. (shrink)

The modern biomedical research laboratory is increasingly defined by dynamic social material conditions requiring researchers to traverse multiple shifting cognitive ecologies within day-to-day practice. Although the complexity of biomedical research is well known, the mechanisms by which the social and material organisation of this space is negotiated has yet to be fully considered. Integrating insights from Material Engagement Theory and Enactive Cognition with observations undertaken within a biomedical research laboratory, this paper develops an understanding of how (...) actors are able to respond to the dynamically changing world that is enacted with and around them. (shrink)

This article discusses the conditions under which dialogical learner-researchers can move out of the philosophical laboratory of a community of philosophical inquiry into the field of social activism, engaging in a critical and creative examination of society and seeking to change it. Based on Matthew Lipman’s proposal that communities of philosophical inquiry can serve as a model of social activism in the present, it presents the community of philosophical inquiry as a model for social activism in (...) the future. In other words, Lipman’s central ideas in his earlier and later thought—including meaning as a mode of action, relevance as a way of examining life and stimulating influence for change as a form of creating a democratic society—establish two parallel circle of influence: the present time, in the shape of the philosophical community of inquiry that allows activist skills to be honed, and a social space that extends into the future as a forum for applying principles and bettering society. Finally, this paper adduces several forms of social activism that may be anchored in philosophical awareness of real conditions and their contexts. Through them, the community of philosophical inquiry not only constitutes a place in which young people’s thought processes can be developed but also one in which they can aspire to become activists in various areas. (shrink)

The classic approach to science is dominated by the belief that science is a form of cognitive activity that focuses on constructing theories to describe and explain the phenomena and processes found in the world. Due to the fulfilment of the criteria of intersubjective communicability and controllability, theories are considered to be objective products of research activity that do not bear social responsibility for their applications. In this paper, the issue of social responsibility of science is addressed both (...) from the classic perspective and from the non-classic viewpoint represented by laboratory sciences, i.e. those sciences that are predominantly concerned with creating phenomena rather than discovering them. It is argued that whereas in the former case the problem of social responsibility of science does not provoke serious controversy, in the latter case such controversies do exist and, furthermore, they are justified. (shrink)

Increasing rates of obesity have fueled interest in the factors underlying food choice. While epidemiological studies report that disadvantaged social groups exhibit a higher incidence of obesity, causal evidence for an effect of social contexts on food choice remains scarce. To further our knowledge, we experimentally investigated the effect of disadvantageous social context on food choice in healthy, non-dieting participants. We used three established experimental methods to generate social contexts of different valence in controlled laboratory (...) settings: (i) receiving varying amounts of money in a Dictator Game (DG; n = 40), (ii) being included or excluded in a Cyberball Game (CBG; n = 35), and (iii) performing well, average, or poorly in a response time ranking task (RTR; n = 81). Following exposure to a particular social context, participants made pairwise choices between food items that involved a conflict between perceived taste and health attributes. In line with previous research, stronger dispositional self-control, greater cognitive control of eating behavior, and lower external eating (all assessed via questionnaires) were associated with healthier food choices. As expected, being treated unfairly in the DG, being excluded in the CBG, and performing poorly in the RTR led to negative emotions. However, we did not find an effect of the induced social context on food choice in any of the experiments, even when taking into account individual differences in participants' responses to the social context. Our results suggest that-at least in controlled laboratory environments-the influence of disadvantageous social contexts on food choice is limited. (shrink)

Midstream modulation is a form of public engagement with science which benefits from strategic application of science and technology studies (STS) insights accumulated over nearly 20 years. These have been developed from STS researchers’ involvement in practical engagement processes and research with scientists, science funders, policy and other public stakeholders. The strategic aim of this specific method, to develop what is termed second-order reflexivity amongst scientist-technologists, builds upon and advances earlier more general STS work. However this method is focused and (...) structured so as to help generate such reflexivity—over the ‘upstream’ questions which have been identified in other STS research as important public issues for scientific research, development and innovation—amongst practising scientists-technologists in their specialist contexts (public or private, in principle). This is a different focus from virtually all such previous work, and offers novel opportunities for those key broader issues to be opened up. The further development of these promising results depends on some important conditions such as identifying and engaging research funders and other stakeholders like affected publics in similar exercises. Implementing these conditions could connect the productive impacts of midstream modulation with wider public engagement work, including with ‘uninvited’ public engagement with science. It would also generate broader institutional and political changes in the larger networks of institutional actors which constitute contemporary technoscientific innovation and governance processes. All of these various broader dimensions, far beyond the laboratory alone, need to be appropriately open, committed to democratic needs, and reflexive, for the aims of midstream modulation to be achieved, whilst allowing specialists to work as specialists. (shrink)

Federated Australia was seen for a long time as a significant social ‘laboratory’. The Commonwealth itself was seen as an ‘experiment’. This widespread metaphor relied on a particular pattern of perception: the country was ‘new’ (it was not), and the country was allegedly isolated (it was not, at least not completely). Many believed that its social environment could be controlled, like that of a scientific laboratory. A laboratory is designed to shut all disturbances out – (...) the value of the data and experiments depends on it. This article outlines this metaphor in the context of Australian history during the 20th century, its rhetorical power and what made it discursively possible. (shrink)

People’s decisions and actions are informed, influenced, and constrained by socially constructed social arrangements. Usually, these social arrangements are pre-determined, and people joining institutions or organizations may have, at least initially, little control or influence over them. Occasionally, however, but increasingly commonly in the transition to the “Digital Society,” people have an opportunity to self-determine their social arrangements “from scratch.” The issues then are: how do people gain experience in such founding processes, experiment safely with alternative (...) class='Hi'>social arrangements, and gain expertise so that they can participate meaningfully, for example in consultation events. In this research paper, we address these issues by presenting a framework for “computer-supported social arrangements” tools which would enable people to specify, learn, apply, evaluate, and innovate social arrangements. This would contribute to empowering people and communities with the necessary experience, experimentation, and expertise for effective and sustainable self-determination of their own social arrangements. (shrink)

Ethicists and others who study and teach the social implications of science and technology are faced with a formidable challenge when they seek to address “emerging technologies.” The topic is incredibly important, but difficult to grasp because not only are the precise issues often unclear, what the technology will ultimately look like can be difficult to discern. This paper argues that one particularly useful way to overcome these difficulties is to engage with their natural science and engineering colleagues in (...) laboratories. Through discussions and interactions with these colleagues ethicists can simultaneously achieve three important objectives. First they can get a great deal of assistance in their research into the social implications of future technologies by talking with people that are actively creating those futures. Second their presence in the lab and the discussions that result can be a very powerful method for educating not only students, but faculty about the ramifications of their work. And third, because the education is directly linked to the students’ everyday work it is likely that it will not just be a theoretical exercise, but have direct impact on their practice. (shrink)

In this paper, we propose a methodology of analysis for new videographies based on an analytical grid. We base our epistemological starting point on various critical cultural study authors, a semiotic analysis, and a critical discourse analysis. We apply the grid to a case study composed of a series of videos titledIdentibuzz: Hybrid identities, which was created within UBIQA, a Basque social innovation laboratory. In order to fully grasp the results of the analysis, we briefly outline some data (...) referring to transnational migrations in Spain as well as the representation of immigrants in Spanish mainstream media. We then compare the representations of immigrants in the videos to that in mainstream media to analyze the dissection between new videographies and more traditional video genres. (shrink)

The existence of social learning has been confirmed in diverse taxa, from apes to guppies. In order to advance our understanding of the consequences of social transmission and evolution of behavior, however, we require statistical tools that can distinguish among diverse social learning strategies. In this paper, we advance two main ideas. First, social learning is diverse, in the sense that individuals can take advantage of different kinds of information and combine them in different ways. Examining (...) learning strategies for different information conditions illuminates the more detailed design of social learning. We construct and analyze an evolutionary model of diverse social learning heuristics, in order to generate predictions and illustrate the impact of design differences on an organism’s fitness. Second, in order to eventually escape the laboratory and apply social learning models to natural behavior, we require statistical methods that do not depend upon tight experimental control. Therefore we examine strategic social learning in an experimental setting.. (shrink)

The conduct of most of social science occurs outside the laboratory. Such studies in field science explore phenomena that cannot for practical, technical, or ethical reasons be explored under controlled conditions. These phenomena cannot be fully isolated from their environment or investigated by manipulation or intervention. Yet measurement, including rigorous or clinical measurement, does provide analysts with a sound basis for discerning what occurs under field conditions, and why. In Science Outside the Laboratory, Marcel Boumans explores the (...) state of measurement theory, its reliability, and the role expert judgment plays in field investigations from the perspective of the philosophy of science. Its discussion of the problems of passive observation, the calculus of observation, the two-model problem, and model-based consensus uses illustrations drawn primarily from economics. Rich in research and discussion, the volume clarifies the extent to which measurement provides valid information about objects and events in field sciences, but also has implications for measurement in the laboratory. Scholars in the fields of philosophy of science, social science, and economics will find Science Outside the Laboratory a compelling and informative read. (shrink)

The ArgumentThere can be no doubt about the moral and epistemological significance of what Shapin calls the “physical place” of the scientific laboratory. The physical place is defined by the locales, barriers, ports of entry, and lines of sight that bound the laboratory and separate it from other urban and architectural environments. Shapin's discussion of the emergence of the scientific laboratory in seventeenth-century England provides a convincing demonstration that credible knowledge is situated at an intersection between physical (...) locales and social distinctions. In this paper I take up Shapin's theme of the “siting of knowledge production,” but I give it a different treatment – one based on ethnomethodological studies of work. Without denying all that can be witnessed in the spectacle of the scientist at the bench and of the architectural habitat of the bench, I argue that the “place” of scientific work is defined by locally organizedtopical contextures. The paper describes two examples of such spatial orders – “opticism” and “digitality” – associated with distinct complexes of equipment and practice. These topical spaces might initially be viewed as “ideal” or “symbolic” spaces, but I argue that they are no less material than the “physical setting” of the laboratory; indeed, they are the physical setting. (shrink)

A review with commentary on Mark A. Bedau and Emily C. Parke (eds): The Ethics of Protocells: Moral and Social Implications of Creating Life in the Laboratory (Basic Bioethics series) MIT Press, Cambridge,MA, 2009, 365 pp, ISBN 978-0-262-01262-1, ISBN 978-0-262-51269-5.

For centuries the question of the origin of life had focused on the question of the spontaneous generation of life, at least primitive forms of life, from inanimate matter, an idea that had been promoted most prominently by Aristotle. The widespread belief in spontaneous generation, which had been adopted by the Church, too, was finally abandoned at the beginning of the twentieth century, when the question of the origin of life became related to that of the artificial generation of life (...) in the laboratory. This paper examines the role of social authorities, researchers’ basic beliefs, crucial experiments, and scientific advance in the controversies about spontaneous generation from the seventeenth to the nineteenth centuries and analyzes the subsequent debates about the synthesis of artificial life in the changing scientific contexts of the nineteenth and early-twentieth centuries. It shows that despite the importance of social authorities, basic beliefs, and crucial experiments scientific advances, especially those in microbiology, were the single most important factor in the stepwise abandoning of the doctrine of spontaneous generation. Research on the origin of life and the artificial synthesis of life became scientifically addressed only when it got rid of the idea of constant smooth transitions between inanimate matter and life and explored possible chemical and physical mechanisms of the specificity of basic molecules and processes of life. (shrink)

Individual bacterial cells can communicate via quorum sensing, cooperate to harvest nutrients from their environment, form multicellular biofilms, compete over resources and even kill one another. When the environment that bacteria inhabit is an animal host, these social behaviours mediate virulence. Over the last decade, much attention has focussed on the ecology, evolution and pathology of bacterial cooperation, and the possibility that it could be exploited or destabilised to treat infections. But how far can we really extrapolate from theoretical (...) predictions and laboratory experiments to make inferences about ‘cooperative’ behaviours in hosts and reservoirs? To determine the likely importance and evolution of cooperation ‘in the wild’, several questions must be addressed. A recent paper that reports the dynamics of bacterial cooperation and virulence in a field experiment provides an excellent nucleus for bringing together key empirical and theoretical results which help us to frame – if not completely to answer – these questions. (shrink)

During the early twentieth century, the Bermuda Biological Station for Research functioned as a multipurpose scientific site. Jointly founded by New York University, Harvard University, and the Bermuda Natural History Society, the BBSR created opportunities for a mostly US-based set of practitioners to study animal biology in the field. I argue that mixed gender field stations like the BBSR supported professional advancement in science, while also operating as important places for women and men to experiment with the social and (...) cultural work of identity formation, courtship and marriage, and social critique. Between 1903 and 1930, the BBSR functioned as a laboratory of domesticity, a temporary scientific household in British Bermuda where women and men interacted with established colonial ideologies about science, sex difference, and racial hierarchy in their public and private accounts of doing biology and socializing in the field. Viewing field stations as generative of multiple forms of labor offers a corrective to narratives within the history of biology, in which scientific practices are considered to be the principal forms of output produced by practitioners in the field. Understanding how women and men at the BBSR engaged with the politics of gender and race from the periphery of U.S. networks of biology suggests that we might view field stations as shaping not only academic science but also domestic life and fields as disparate as fiction and the law. (shrink)

UK science policy now includes ‘upstream public engagement’ as an element in the responsible development of nanotechnology. This paper explores different understandings of the term upstream engagement before discussing in more detail a laboratory-based collaboration between social science and nanoscience aimed at exploring the social dimensions of nanotechnology. The paper concludes that concern with defining what counts as ‘upstream’ can obscure more critical questions about how to make public, and therefore accountable, deliberations about the interrelated social (...) and technical aspects of nanoscience. (shrink)

This article develops the concept of community lore, initially devised by the social learning theorists Jean Lave and Etienne Wenger (1991). In extending this promising but hitherto neglected aspect of their work, this article sheds light on how and why community lore sustains and propels teaching and learning in the contemporary esoteric society Sodalitas Rosae Crucis (SRC). Ethnographic findings illuminate how the situated, informal community lore becomes a pervasive learning device that underwrites individual and collective learning, as it emerges (...) in small talk, gossip, and cautionary tales, told and shared among members. Furthermore, a dynamic of tradition and innovation is at play within the community lore, as it sustains tradition while also providing a breeding ground for new ideas and practices that lead to innovation. Within the constructive tension between tradition and innovation, I delineate how community lore works as an educational resource, with explanatory value for situated learning, especially within esoteric communities of practice. (shrink)

Social constructivists maintain that we invent the properties of the world rather than discover them. Is reality constructed by our own activity? Or, more provocatively, are scientific facts--is everything --constructed? Social Constructivism and the Philosophy of Science is a clear assessment of this critical and increasingly important debate. Andre Kukla presents a comprehensive discussion of the philosophical issues involved and analyzes the strengths and weaknesses of a range of constructivist arguments, illustrating the divide between the sociology and the (...) philosophy of science through examples as varied as laboratory science, time, and criminality. He argues that current philosophical objections to constructivism are drastically inconclusive, while offering and developing new objections. Throughout, Kukla distinguishes between the social causes of scientific beliefs and the view that all ascertainable facts are constructed. (shrink)

Mirrored-self misidentification is the delusional belief that one's own reflection in the mirror is a stranger. In two experiments, we tested the ability of hypnotic suggestion to model this condition. In Experiment 1, we compared two suggestions based on either the delusion's surface features (seeing a stranger in the mirror) or underlying processes (impaired face processing). Fifty-two high hypnotisable participants received one of these suggestions either with hypnosis or without in a wake control. In Experiment 2, we examined the extent (...) to which social cues and role-playing could account for participants' behaviour by comparing the responses of 14 hypnotised participants to the suggestion for impaired face processing (reals) with those of 14 nonhypnotised participants instructed to fake their responses (simulators). Overall, results from both experiments confirm that we can use hypnotic suggestion to produce a compelling analogue of mirrored-self misidentification that cannot simply be attributed to social cues or role-playing. (shrink)

Recent advancements in therapeutic and diagnostic medicine, along with the creation of large biobanks and methods for monitoring health technologies, have improved the prospects for preventing, treating, and curing illness. These same advancements, however, give rise to a plethora of ethical questions concerning good decision-making and best action. These ethical questions engage policymakers, practitioners, scientists, and researchers from a variety of fields in different ways. Collaborations between professionals in the medical and health sciences and the social sciences and humanities (...) often take an asymmetrical form, as when social scientists use ethnographic approaches to study the moral issues and practices of physicians. The ethics laboratory described in this article is a cross-sectoral and inter-disciplinary forum for collaborative investigation on important moral topics. It offers an experimental way of unpacking implied assumptions, underlying values, and comparable notions from different professional healthcare fields. The aim of this article is to present the ethics laboratory’s methodology. The article offers a model and a hermeneutical framework that rests on a dialogical approach to ethical questions. The model and the framework derive from a Danish research project, _Personalized Medicine in the Welfare State_. This article uses personalized medicine as a point of reference, though it offers an argument for the applicability of the model more broadly. (shrink)

In her influential article published in 2016, Alexandra Walsham, Professor of Modern History at the University of Cambridge, coined the metaphor that ‘Archives are the factories and laboratories of the historian’. Traditionally viewed as neutral storehouses of official records passively awaiting historians’ scrutiny, conceptions of archives have expanded in recent decades. Archives are now understood as complex social and cultural entities that actively participate in shaping understandings of the past. This paper examines shifting perspectives on the nature and functions (...) of archives through a critical analysis of key debates. Specifically, this paper adopts a hermeneutic lens to critically engage Walsham’s metaphor and move beyond its potential limitations through situated analysis and interpretation. This paper explores how archives are actively implicated in knowledge construction through their contents, organisational frameworks, and interactions with historians. Recognising archives as fragmented, culturally contingent remnants that mediate engagement with the past, the paper calls for collaborative, reflective approaches between archivists and historians. The paper also acknowledges historians’ subjective interpretive roles while advocating consultation of archivists’ contextual expertise. Ultimately, it advances methodological discussions on writing history through a nuanced appreciation of archives as dynamic mediators within historical research, not transparent conduits neutrally supplying facts. (shrink)

This article introduces _the Ethics Laboratory_ as an inter-sectorial and cross-disciplinary dialogical forum which can be viewed as an educational tool for moral learning. _The Ethics Laboratory_ represents a platform for the informal, collaborative investigation, in strict confidentiality, of ethical questions that have social consequences and/or legal concerns and bridges boundaries between research communities, institutions and patients. Its methodological structure proposes an experimental, open-ended way of unpacking implied assumptions, underlying values, comparable notions and observations from different professional fields. In (...) connection with a large social science project on precision medicine, we conducted four Ethics Laboratories followed by eight interviews with a selected number of participants. Through these interviews we learnt how this exploratory dialogical forum heighten moral awareness on issues that are shared among stakeholders who work to implement precision medicine in Denmark. Though the framework was developed specifically to foster ethical reflection within precision medicine, its dialogical structure lends itself to other professional areas and can easily be adopted and carried out. (shrink)

ABSTRACT This essay presents an alternative to interpretations of laboratories as institutions for controlled investigation of nature that are either placeless or “set apart.” It historicizes the claim by showing how the meaning of “laboratory” has both changed and diversified over the last two centuries. Originally a laboratory could be a site of organic growth or material manufacture, but it can now be a specialized domain for technological development, educational training, or quality testing. The essay then introduces some (...) contingencies of geography and gender by showing how boundaries between laboratories and other spaces—especially domestic kitchens—could be permeable or nonexistent; importantly, some spaces served as experimental laboratories without ever being designated as such. A key corollary, however, is that there were limits to this permeability: not all social spaces could be turned consensually into laboratories, and laboratory users could be intolerant of certain imported technical cultures. (shrink)

American university globalization has increasingly targeted and been courted by authoritarian states. While the reasons for these partnerships are manifold—including the ease of top-down large-scale monetary investment, “knowledge economy” development strategies, social engineering programs, and other corporate and imperial entanglements—an overwhelming discourse has emerged around higher education initiatives in places like the Arabian Peninsula, China, Singapore, and Central Asia that juxtaposes liberalism with the illiberal, authoritarian contexts it is supposedly encountering within the framework of neoliberal globalization. Through a discussion (...) of American branch campuses in Qatar and the UAE, this article traces a more complex web of actors whose interests may include neoliberal and imperial inclinations but are not reducible to them. By focusing on the discursive framings of these branch campus initiatives, we show how the notion of “liberal education” operates as a global discourse of power through American branch campuses in the Arabian Peninsula and, by extension, other nondemocratic states around the world. Specifically, we argue that the very concept of “authoritarianism” is discursively produced in and through these university projects, and simultaneously builds an idealized narrative about the national self in the United States that erases existing and emerging inequalities—indeed, authoritarianisms—within the home spaces of American academia. (shrink)

Vocal imitation in songbirds exhibits interesting parallels to infant speech development and is currently the model system of choice for exploring the behavioural, molecular and electrophysiological substrates of vocal learning. Among songbirds, the Zebra Finch is currently used as the ‘flying mouse’ of birdsong research. Only males sing and they develop their song primarily during a short sensitive period in early life. They learn their speciesspecific song patterns by memorizing and imitating the songs of conspecifics, mainly adults. Since Immelmann's pioneering (...) work, thousands of zebra finches have been raised in strictly controlled auditory environments to examine how their experience affected their songs. In this article, I review the different experimental procedures that have been used in the laboratory to study the social influences on song learning in the Zebra Finch. Poor song learning was observed using passive playback of taped songs, whereas self-eliciting exposure using operant tutoring techniques induced significant learning, but with a high interindividual variability. The success of the training paradigm is often measured by the quality of imitation of the songs to which the young bird is exposed. Using empirical evidence from the field and the laboratory, I will also discuss this issue, by summarizing possible advantages and disadvantages of producing a perfect imitation. So far, the best method to get a close copy of a song model in the Zebra Finch is to place a single young bird with an adult male. This situation, which is rather unnatural, does not meet the criteria for precise control necessary in experimental conditions. Optimizing the methods used to train a zebra finch to learn a song, in order to be able to predict the imitation success, will improve our understanding of the dynamics of vocal production learning. It would also consolidate this species as a research model of relevance to human speech development and disorders. Keywords: Zebra Finch; birdsong; learning; development; memory; social influences. (shrink)

Highlights • Historic site-based laboratory work should be an essential part of the preparation of pre-service teachers. • Integrating historic sites into teacher education programs does not require significant outside funding or massive program overhauls. • Provides models for integrating history laboratory work into existing teacher education program structures.

Vocal imitation in songbirds exhibits interesting parallels to infant speech development and is currently the model system of choice for exploring the behavioural, molecular and electrophysiological substrates of vocal learning. Among songbirds, the Zebra Finch ( Taeniopygia guttata ) is currently used as the `flying mouse' of birdsong research. Only males sing and they develop their song primarily during a short sensitive period in early life. They learn their speciesspecific song patterns by memorizing and imitating the songs of conspecifics, mainly (...) adults. Since Immelmann's pioneering work, thousands of zebra finches have been raised in strictly controlled auditory environments to examine how their experience affected their songs. In this article, I review the different experimental procedures that have been used in the laboratory to study the social influences on song learning in the Zebra Finch. Poor song learning was observed using passive playback of taped songs, whereas self-eliciting exposure using operant tutoring techniques induced significant learning, but with a high interindividual variability. The success of the training paradigm is often measured by the quality of imitation of the songs to which the young bird is exposed. Using empirical evidence from the field and the laboratory, I will also discuss this issue, by summarizing possible advantages and disadvantages of producing a perfect imitation. So far, the best method to get a close copy of a song model in the Zebra Finch is to place a single young bird with an adult male. This situation, which is rather unnatural, does not meet the criteria for precise control necessary in experimental conditions. Optimizing the methods used to train a zebra finch to learn a song, in order to be able to predict the imitation success, will improve our understanding of the dynamics of vocal production learning. It would also consolidate this species as a research model of relevance to human speech development and disorders. Keywords: Zebra Finch; birdsong; learning; development; memory; social influences. (shrink)

Like previous educational technologies, artificial intelligence in education threatens to disrupt the status quo, with proponents highlighting the potential for efficiency and democratization, and skeptics warning of industrialization and alienation. However, unlike frequently discussed applications of AI in autonomous vehicles, military and cybersecurity concerns, and healthcare, AI’s impacts on education policy and practice have not yet captured the public’s attention. This paper, therefore, evaluates the status of AIEd, with special attention to intelligent tutoring systems and anthropomorphized artificial educational agents. I (...) discuss AIEd’s purported capacities, including the abilities to simulate teachers, provide robust student differentiation, and even foster socio-emotional engagement. Next, to situate developmental pathways for AIEd going forward, I contrast sociotechnical possibilities and risks through two idealized futures. Finally, I consider a recent proposal to use peer review as a gatekeeping strategy to prevent harmful research. This proposal serves as a jumping off point for recommendations to AIEd stakeholders towards improving their engagement with socially responsible research and implementation of AI in educational systems. (shrink)

In the past decade there has been a lot of attention to the quality of the evidence in experimental psychology and in other social and medical sciences. Some have described the current climate as a ‘crisis of confidence’. We focus on a specific question: how can we increase the quality of the data in psychology and cognitive neuroscience laboratories. Again, the challenges of the field are related to many different issues, but we believe that increasing the quality of the (...) data collection process and the quality of the data per se will be a significant step in the right direction. We suggest that the adoption of quality control systems which parallel the methods used in industrial laboratories might be a way to improve the quality of data. We recommend that administrators incentivize the use of quality systems in academic laboratories. (shrink)

We apply the author's computational approach to groups to our empirical work studying and modelling riots. We suggest that assigning roles in particular gives insight, and measuring the frequency of bystander behaviour provides a method to understand the dynamic nature of intergroup conflict, allowing social identity to be incorporated into models of riots.

This paper investigates how reports concerning a given country’s prospects affect investment decisions in two stylized, artificial organizational settings. We designed a role-game laboratory experiment, where subjects were asked to make investment decisions for two types of fictitious companies from the same country. We found that when available reports included positive country prospects, subjects strategized more on investments regardless of the characteristics of their organization. When reports included negative prospects, however, certain organizational peculiarities influenced the subjects’ interpretations, with decision-makers (...) opting for more prudent plans when managing a more traditional company. Cognitive maps of decision makers showed that subjects considered investment strategies as a means to fulfil a company’s role expectations regarding appropriate decisions. Notwithstanding all caveats due to the artificial and simplified nature of our experimental setting, our findings indicate the need for more research on the effect of reports and prospect analysis on strategic decisions of companies, especially when business prospects are uncertain. (shrink)

ArgumentThe psychoanalytic setting counts today as one of the familiar therapeutic rituals of the Western world. Taking up some of the insights of the anthropology of science will allow us to account for both the social and the material arrangements from which Freud's invention emerged at the end of the nineteenth century out of the clinical laboratories and private consulting rooms of practitioners of hypnosis. The peculiar way of neglecting or forgetting the object world and the institution of the (...) psychoanalyst as a “transference object” will be traced back to multiple reconfigurations in the history of hypnotism in France and in Germany. In this process, different practitioners tried to achieve a synthesis of clinical work and experimental psychology, with the aim of objectifying knowledge about human subjectivity. While Freud retained the claim of psychoanalysis performing an experimental situation, he set apart his own setting from the objectifying practices which were characteristic of this experimental psychology located in the clinic and the private consulting room.It is not easy to over-estimate the importance of the part played by hypnotism in the history of the origin of psychoanalysis. From a theoretical as well as from a therapeutic point of view, psycho-analysis has at its command a legacy which it has inherited from hypnotism.Sigmund Freud, A Short Account of Psycho-Analysis. (shrink)

The work of Julian Herman Lewis helps to expose the underlying racial organization of laboratory normality in early twentieth-century medicine. In the 1920s and 1930s, Lewis launched a critique of prevailing racial theory, as he established an academic career in pathology at the University of Chicago. As one of the small number of black research physicians at the time, Lewis met barriers to his work that eventually derailed his career. Although his research fell short of its goals, his work (...) continues to provide a key insight into medical laboratory standards as they became institutionalized in Lewis’s field of clinical pathology. By avoiding attributions of race and following prevailing practices of racial exclusion, medical laboratories quietly reasserted social norms in the formation of laboratory normality. An examination of Lewis’s critiques and his research sharpens questions about the development of the concept of “normal” in the human sciences and a related tendency in twentieth-century medicine to conflate difference with pathology. (shrink)

Scientists’ sense of social responsibility is particularly relevant for emerging technologies. Since a regulatory vacuum can sometimes occur in the early stages of these technologies, individual scientists’ social responsibility might be one of the most significant checks on the risks and negative consequences of this scientific research. In this article, we analyze data from a 2011 mail survey of leading U.S. nanoscientists to explore their perceptions the regarding social and ethical responsibilities for their nanotechnology research. Our analyses (...) show that leading U.S. nanoscientists express a moderate level of social responsibility about their research. Yet, they have a strong sense of ethical obligation to protect laboratory workers from unhealthy exposure to nanomaterials. We also find that there are significant differences in scientists’ sense of social and ethical responsibility depending on their demographic characteristics, job affiliation, attention to media content, risk perceptions and benefit perceptions. We conclude with some implications for future research. (shrink)

Laboratory ethnographies have provided valuable insights in the workings of contemporary science and technology and about facts in the making. Nearly all these ethnographic studies have been conducted at nonprofit research institutes. In this article, the authors argue that it is time for science and technology studies (STS) ethnography to direct its gaze toward for-profit knowledge production sites. The authors do so, based on a long-standing recognition that nonprofit academic laboratories do not have a monopoly on knowledge construction. First, (...) they historicize STS’ focus on public knowledge production, distinguishing between two roles for STS. Second, they argue that relationships between industry and society have changed, resulting in increasing corporate transparency. Third, they argue that this change enables STS ethnography to enter corporations and corporate laboratories. The authors conclude by proposing a research agenda for the social study of corporate science. (shrink)

What does it mean to practice socially responsible science on controversial issues? In a fresh turn focussing on the neuroscientists’ responsibility in producing knowledge about politically charged subjects, Chalfin et al. (Am J Bioethics 8(1):1–2, 2008) caution neuroscientists to be careful about how they present their findings lest their results be used to support unfounded biases, social stereotypes and prejudices. Weisberg et al. (J Cogn Neurosci 20(3):470–477, 2008) discuss the allure of neuroscience explanations and demonstrate how laypersons easily accept (...) dubious claims as long as (even non-relevant) neuroscientific descriptions are provided. Fine (2010) exposes the use of scientific evidence in propagating outdated gender myths by popular writers and discusses the infiltration of these prejudices into popular belief, folk culture and lifestyle. This paper discusses ways in which the ‘neuroscience of gender difference’ itself inadvertently contributes to normalising socially constructed theories about sex difference in cognitive performance. This unpremeditated effect has evident implications on the structuring of society because gender relations cut across social, political and economic boundaries. We present a theoretical reflection of factors that could interact with the scientists’ attempted objective evaluation of the subject, the methods and some principle problems, and we engage a science studies approach as our methodological tool. Our object of critique is drawn from the research on spatial abilities that articulate the dissention pertaining to sex differences in intellectual capacity. (shrink)