Recent research has provided compelling evidence that children experience the negative counterfactual emotion of regret, by manipulating the presence of a counterfactual action that would have led to participants receiving a better outcome. However, it remains unclear if children similarly experience regret’s positive counterpart, relief. The current study examined children’s negative and positive counterfactual emotions in a novel gain-or-loss context. Four- to 9-year-old children (N = 136) were presented with two opaque boxes concealing information that would lead to a gain (...) or loss of stickers, respectively. Half of the children chose between two keys that matched each box, whereas the other half were compelled to select one box because only one of the two keys matched. After seeing inside the alternative, non-chosen box, children were significantly more likely to report a change in emotion when they could have opened that box than when they could not have. The effects were similar for children who lost stickers and won stickers, and neither effect varied with age. These findings suggest that children may become capable of experiencing regret and relief around the same time, although their expression of these counterfactual emotions may vary with actual and counterfactual gains and losses. (shrink)

Growing literature has linked attention bias variability to the experience and treatment of posttraumatic stress disorder. Unlike assessments of attention bias in only one direction, A...

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)

It is clear that the concept of scientific misconduct continues to evolve. As always it is the goal of Science and Engineering Ethics to move the discussion forward, to encourage and facilitate discussion of the ethical issues and problems that practicing scientists and engineers encounter in the course of pursuing their professions. This collection of articles and commentaries provides a variety of perspectives that we expect will facilitate communication among and within the groups who must participate in this evolution.

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)

This paper outlines a heterodox and largely unexplored conception of objecthood according to which the notion of an individual object is a determinable. §1 outlines the view. §2 argues that the view is incompatible with a natural analysis of kind membership and, as a consequence, undermines the Quinean distinction between ontology and ideology. The view is then used to alleviate one source of Quinean hostility towards non-trivial restrictions on de re possibility in §3, and to elucidate Fine’s neo-Aristoteltian, non-modal conception (...) of essence in §4. §5 concludes. (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)

What is absolutely unrestricted quantification? We distinguish two theoretical roles and identify two conceptions of absolute generality: maximally strong generality and maximally inclusive generality. We also distinguish two corresponding kinds of absolute domain. A maximally strong domain contains every potential counterexample to a generalisation. A maximally inclusive domain is such that no domain extends it. We argue that both conceptions of absolute generality are legitimate and investigate the relations between them. Although these conceptions coincide in standard settings, we show how (...) they diverge under more complex assumptions about the structure of meaningful predication, such as cumulative type theory. We conclude by arguing that maximally strong generality is the more theoretically valuable conception. (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)

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)

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)

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.

This paper explores the impact of quantification into predicate position on the metaphysics of properties, arguing that two familiar debates about properties are fundamentally altered by recasting them in a second-order setting. Two theories of properties are outlined, differing over whether the existence of properties is expressed using first-order or second-order quantifiers. It is argued that the second-order theory: provides good reason to regard debate about the locations of properties as contentless; resolves debate about whether properties are particulars or universals (...) in favour of universals. (shrink)

Del Giudice's examination of sex differences in reproductive strategy within an attachment context is well taken. Sex has been studied as behavior within romantic relationships, but attachment styles should also be reflected in strategic behavior within relationships that are sexual. This seems particularly true within adolescence, and sex differences may be better reflected as differences in correlation patterns of process variables than as main effects models.

Unger has recently argued that if you are the only thinking and experiencing subject in your chair, then you are not a material object. This leads Unger to endorse a version of Substance Dualism according to which we are immaterial souls. This paper argues that this is an overreaction. We argue that the specifically Dualist elements of Unger’s view play no role in his response to the problem; only the view’s structure is required, and that is available to Unger’s opponents. (...) We outline one such non-Dualist view, suggest how to resolve the dispute, respond to some objections, and argue that ours is but one of many views that survive Unger’s challenge. All these views are incompatible with microphysicalism. So Unger’s discussion does contain an insight: if you are the only conscious subject in your chair, then microphsyicalism is false. Unger’s mistake was to infer Substance Dualism from this; for microphysicalism is not the only alternative to Dualism. (shrink)

Business school faculty have begun to increase ethics instruction, but very little has been done to assess the effectiveness of this instruction. Curricula-wide studies present conflicting results of the effect of ethics integration into the business curricula. Several studies suggest that courses like business ethics and business and society might have an effect on the ethical awareness or ethical reasoning of business students. A belief of many individuals interested in business ethics is that students must be exposed to ethical awareness (...) and ethical reasoning in business ethics and business and society-type courses and this should be supplemented by discussions of these topics in various business courses such as Accounting, Finance, Marketing, and others.This study reports the results of integrating a unit of business ethics into eleven accounting classes at two universities. An approach for measuring the effect of ethics integration into accounting and other business courses is suggested, and an assessment is made of the impact of ethics integration on students in accounting classes. Results indicate that the principles on which students rely when making moral decisions were affected by ethics integration. After ethics integration, students relied more heavily on the disclosure rule, the golden rule, and the professional ethic. (shrink)

There are two broad approaches to theorizing about ontological categories. Quineans use first-order quantifiers to generalize over entities of each category, whereas type theorists use quantification on variables of different semantic types to generalize over different categories. Does anything of import turn on the difference between these approaches? If so, are there good reasons to go type-theoretic? I argue for positive answers to both questions concerning the category of propositions. I also discuss two prominent arguments for a Quinean conception of (...) propositions, concerning their role in natural language semantics and apparent quantification over propositions within natural language. It will emerge that even if these arguments are sound, there need be no deep question about Quinean propositions’ true nature, contrary to much recent work on the metaphysics of propositions. (shrink)

This study examines the conflation of terms such as “knowledge” and “understanding” in peer-reviewed literature, and tests the hypothesis that little current research clearly distinguishes between importantly distinct epistemic states. Two sets of data are presented from papers published in the journal Public Understanding of Science. In the first set, the digital text analysis tool, Voyant, is used to analyze all papers published in 2014 for the use of epistemic success terms. In the second set of data, all papers published (...) in Public Understanding of Science from 2010–2015 are systematically analyzed to identify instances in which epistemic states are empirically measured. The results indicate that epistemic success terms are inconsistently defined, and that measurement of understanding, in particular, is rarely achieved in public understanding of science studies. We suggest that more diligent attention to measuring understanding, as opposed to mere knowledge, will increase efficacy of scientific outreach and communication efforts. (shrink)

Children with developmental language disorder (DLD) served as a test case for determining the role of extant vocabulary knowledge, endogenous attention, and phonological working memory abilities in cross-situational word learning. First-graders (Mage = 7 years; 3 months), 44 with typical development (TD) and 28 with DLD, completed a cross-situational word-learning task comprised six cycles, followed by retention tests and independent assessments of attention, memory, and vocabulary. Children with DLD scored lower than those with TD on all measures of learning and (...) retention, a performance gap that emerged in the first cycle of the cross-situational protocol and that we attribute to weaknesses in initial encoding. Over cycles, children with DLD learned words at a similar rate as their TD peers but they were less flexible in their strategy use, demonstrating a propose-but-verify approach but never a statistical aggregation approach. Also, they drew upon different mechanisms to support their learning. Attention played a greater role for the children with DLD, whereas extant vocabulary size played a greater role for the children with TD. Children navigate the problem space of cross-situational learning via varied routes. This conclusion is offered as motivation for theorists to capture all learners, not just the most typical ones. (shrink)

Cognitive Science, Volume 46, Issue 2, February 2022.

Some views articulate reality's hierarchical structure using relations from the fundamental to representations of reality. Other views instead use relations from the fundamental to constituents of non-representational reality. This paper argues against the first kind of view.

This paper uses the resources of higher-order logic to articulate a Fregean conception of predicate reference, and of word-world relations more generally, that is immune to the concept horse problem. The paper then addresses a prominent style of expressibility problem for views of broadly this kind, versions of which are due to Linnebo, Hale, and Wright.

This paper outlines a novel solution to the problem of the many and a conception of ordinary objects that implies it. The solution is that many collections of particles can simultaneously constitute a single object. The proposed conception of ordinary objects maintains that they are fundamentally subjects of change: the changes an object is able to survive explain its constitution.

This paper reports on a survey that investigated the moral decision processes of accountants. A formal belief revision model is adapted and hypotheses based on theorizations from the cognitive-developmental school are tested. The moral decision processes of accountants are hypothesized to be influenced by professional expectations, organizational expectations and internalized expectations. Subjects provided specific demographic data and were asked to access the appropriateness of fourteen principles for making moral decisions in business. Subjects were also asked to indicate which of the (...) fourteen approaches would be most appropriate for resolving each of five ethical situations that are representative of common ethical dilemmas in accounting.Subjects'' responses to the appropriateness of the fourteen principles are reduced to two dimensions using factor analysis. The factors are consistent and representative of important underlying dimensions of the stages of moral development. Demographic variables are correlated with the extracted factors using analysis of variance. (shrink)