It has been well documented how language‐specific cues may be used for word segmentation. Here, we investigate what role a language‐independent phonological universal, the sonority sequencing principle (SSP), may also play. Participants were presented with an unsegmented speech stream with non‐English word onsets that juxtaposed adherence to the SSP with transitional probabilities. Participants favored using the SSP in assessing word‐hood, suggesting that the SSP represents a potentially powerful cue for word segmentation. To ensure the SSP influenced the segmentation process (i.e., (...) during learning), we presented two additional groups of participants with either (a) no exposure to the stimuli prior to testing or (b) the same stimuli with pauses marking word breaks. The SSP did not influence test performance in either case, suggesting that the SSP is important for word segmentation during the learning process itself. Moreover, the fact that SSP‐independent segmentation of the stimulus occurred (in the latter control condition) suggests that universals are best understood as biases rather than immutable constraints on learning. (shrink)

It has been well documented how language-specific cues may be used for word segmentation. Here, we investigate what role a language-independent phonological universal, the sonority sequencing principle (SSP), may also play. Participants were presented with an unsegmented speech stream with non-English word onsets that juxtaposed adherence to the SSP with transitional probabilities. Participants favored using the SSP in assessing word-hood, suggesting that the SSP represents a potentially powerful cue for word segmentation. To ensure the SSP influenced the segmentation process (i.e., (...) during learning), we presented two additional groups of participants with either (a) no exposure to the stimuli prior to testing or (b) the same stimuli with pauses marking word breaks. The SSP did not influence test performance in either case, suggesting that the SSP is important for word segmentation during the learning process itself. Moreover, the fact that SSP-independent segmentation of the stimulus occurred (in the latter control condition) suggests that universals are best understood as biases rather than immutable constraints on learning. (shrink)

The present study investigated the extent to which moral disengagement and the tendency to consider moral rules as socio-conventional rules are distinct dimensions of morality, and their association with three different forms of participation in bullying. These two types of moral cognitions have been theorized in different models of morality and are usually studied independently, even if research on moral shifts suggests some possible overlaps. A group of 276 Italian students from primary and middle school completed self-reports assessing moral disengagement, (...) socio-conventional perception of moral rules, and participation in bullying as bully, defender of the victim and passive bystander. Results from structural equation modeling analysis confirmed that moral disengagement and socio-conventional comprehension of aggressions are separate and moderately connected morality dimensions. Controlling for age, gender and SES, only moral disengagement was positively associated with perpetrating bullying. These results point to moral disengagement as the critical component of moral cognitions to be addressed in interventions. (shrink)

Decades of research have investigated the complex role of source credibility in attitude persuasion. Current theories of persuasion predict that when messages are thoughtfully scrutinized, argument strength will tend to have a greater effect on attitudes than source credibility. Source credibility can affect highly elaborated attitudes, however, when individuals evaluate material that elicits low attitude extremity. A recently proposed model called the guru effect predicts that source credibility can also cause attitudinal change by biasing the interpretation of pragmatically ambiguous material. (...) The present studies integrate models of explanatory pragmatics and persuasion in order to empirically assess these hypotheses. Experiment 1 found that text difficulty and attitude neutrality reflect independent persuasion variables. Experiment 2 found that higher source credibility causes more favorable attitudes toward messages eliciting low attitude extremity. Text difficulty was not found to have a significant effect on attitudes. These results confirm the predictions of prior social cognition research but no do not support the guru effect model. The implications of these studies for pragmatics and persuasion research as well as the value of interdisciplinary research between these fields are discussed. (shrink)

The authors of this book show that the failure of public health arises, not from a failure of contemporary medicine, but from a failure of the philosophical assumptions upon which it rests. They suggest an alternative approach to health care that derives from a ecological and holistic philosophy of nature.

Hastings Center Report, Volume 52, Issue 3, Page 9-17, May–June 2022.

A vision of a living code of ethics is proposed to counter the emphasis on negative phenomena in the study of organizational ethics. The living code results from the harmonious interaction of authentic leadership, five key organizational processes (attraction–selection–attrition, socialization, reward systems, decision-making and organizational learning), and an ethical organizational culture (characterized by heightened levels of ethical awareness and a positive climate regarding ethics). The living code is the cognitive, affective, and behavioral manifestation of an ethical organizational identity. We draw (...) on business ethics literature, positive organizational scholarship, and management literature to outline the elements of positive ethical organizations as those exemplary organizations consistently practicing the highest levels of organizational ethics. In a positive ethical organization, the right thing to do is the only thing to do. (shrink)

Relational dimensions of ethical decision making are a potentially interesting focus to enrich our understanding of decision-making processes. This study examines decision preferences and reactions to decisions in a situation of possible harm. Two ethical value orientations, just value orientation and relational value orientation , are introduced. Participants chose relational cooperation, instrumental cooperation, or independence in dealing with an uncertain situation of possible harm. JVO contributes to a decision of relational cooperation. Only RVO was related to expected mutual benefit and (...) relational connection. Overall, this study supports our central thesis that a relational dimension of ethical decisions provides interesting insights into behavioral ethics in organizations and could expand the scope of ethical decision research. (shrink)

A long-standing debate in social theory concerns the relative merits of structural approaches versus those that highlight the social actor. This article examines how various feminist approaches to gender inequality have incorporated assumptions about structure and agency, and suggests that existing perspectives could be improved by linking gender as a structural property of social organization and as a property of actors. Suggestions for an alternative conception of gender that acknowledges both dimensions of social life are discussed.

Drawing on a landscape analysis of existing data-sharing initiatives, in-depth interviews with expert stakeholders, and public deliberations with community advisory panels across the U.S., we describe features of the evolving medical information commons. We identify participant-centricity and trustworthiness as the most important features of an MIC and discuss the implications for those seeking to create a sustainable, useful, and widely available collection of linked resources for research and other purposes.

Medication reconciliation for pediatric oncology patientparticipants enrolled in clinical trials often reveals the use of chemical complementary medicine alongside protocol therapeutic agents. Considering the blurry delineation between clinical ethics and research ethics, this paper demonstrates how complementary medicine-related protocol violations introduce ethical questions of who should be included and excluded from clinical trials and offers recommendations on how to manage physician-patient-family interactions around these challenging issues.

While many authors have theorized about the ability of the humanities to enhance business ethics education, scant empirical work exists to support this speculation. We therefore conduct a study to measure the impact of a live theatre performance on ethical reasoning. We asked students to analyze an ethically-laden historical disaster scenario both before and after attending a performance featuring related narrative themes. Our hypothesis is that attending a live performance would cause students to take a more ethical view of an (...) industrial disaster case study. Results show support for the notion that live theatre may impact individuals’ ethical decision-making as applied to a representative business case. Specifically, we found a significant difference in what parties students hold responsible, what actions students think should have been taken, and how cultural norms affect students’ perceptions of ethical obligations. We therefore suggest that live theatre may be a novel pedagogical tool in business ethics education. (shrink)

Cognitive Science, Volume 46, Issue 1, January 2022.

Aristophanes’ Frogs was first performed at the Lenaea festival of 405 in competition with Plato's Cleophon and Phrynichus’ Muses. This paper argues that Frogs contains a series of agonistic jokes against Phrynichus, most of which have gone unnoticed because he shares his name with a tragic poet and a politician; Aristophanes plays with the ambiguity of the name Phrynichus to mock his Lenaean rival by comparing him unfavourably with his namesakes. Aristophanes ultimately claims that his comedy is superior to that (...) of Phrynichus because he is more successful than his rival in appropriating and redeploying other comedians’ material. (shrink)

Analogical reasoning relies on subprocesses of long-term memory and problem-solving. Stress, with its accompanying hormones dehydroepiandrosterone and cortisol, has been shown to impair memo...

In recent analytic metaphysics, the view that ‘ordinary inanimate objects such as sticks and stones, tables and chairs, simply do not exist’ has been defended by some noteworthy writers. Thomasson opposes such revisionary ontology in favour of an ontology that is conservative with respect to common sense. The book is written in a straightforward, methodical and down-to-earth style. It is also relatively non-specialized, enabling the author and her readers to approach problems that are often dealt with in isolation in a (...) more unified way.Thomasson's arguments are mainly counter-attacks on six ‘eliminativist’ arguments against ordinary objects. A causal redundancy argument espoused by Trenton Merricks holds that to suppose that there are ordinary objects is to suppose that these objects have distinctive causal powers. However, the casual efficacy of a baseball, for example, is exhausted by that of some suitably arranged …. (shrink)

White matter tracts are known to be susceptible to injury following concussion. The objective of this study was to determine whether contact play in sport could alter white matter metabolite levels in female varsity athletes independent of changes induced by long-term exercise. Metabolite levels were measured by single voxel proton magnetic resonance spectroscopy in the prefrontal white matter at the beginning and end of season in contact and non-contact varsity athletes. Sedentary women were scanned once, at a time equivalent to (...) the Off-Season time point. Metabolite levels in non-contact athletes did not change over a season of play, or differ from age matched sedentary women except that non-contact athletes had a slightly lower myo-inositol level. The contact athletes had lower levels of myo-inositol and glutamate, and higher levels of glutamine compared to both sedentary women and non-contact athletes. Lower levels of myo-inositol in non-contact athletes compared to sedentary women indicates long-term exercise may alter glial cell profiles in these athletes. The metabolite differences observed between contact and non-contact athletes suggest that non-contact athletes should not be used as controls in studies of concussion in high-impact sports because repetitive impacts from physical contact can alter white matter metabolite level profiles. It is imperative to use athletes engaged in the same contact sport as controls to ensure a matched metabolite profile at baseline. (shrink)

This study investigates: the changes in three major health-related factors—physical activity, non-physical-activity health behavior, and depressive symptoms, and how changes in physical activity were associated with changes in one’s depressive symptoms among young adults, middle-aged adults, and older adults while controlling non-physical-activity health behavior and sociodemographic characteristics among young, middle-aged, and older adults before and after the COVID-19 outbreak lockdown in the United States. A total of 695 participants completed an online questionnaire via MTurk, and participants were asked to recall (...) their physical activity, depressive symptoms, and non-physical-activity health behavior status in January and May of 2020. The IPAQ-SF was used to evaluate individuals’ physical activity, while the CES-D-10 was used to assess depressive symptoms. Covariates included non-physical-activity health behavior and sociodemographic factors. A Bayesian significance testing of changes was used to examine significant changes in physical activity, non-physical-activity behavior, and depressive symptoms in each age group while Bayesian regression analysis was employed to examine how the changes in physical activity were associated with respondents’ depressive symptoms while controlling for individual NHB and sociodemographic characteristics. The results showed that the participants tended to maintain their physical activity levels after the lockdown despite significant increases in sitting time among young and older adults. Decreases in moderate physical activity frequency were associated with a higher level of depressive symptoms. Although young and middle-aged cohorts experienced fewer differences in depressive symptoms compared to their counterparts in the older group, we found no significant heterogeneity effects in the relationships of interest across all age groups. Considering different influences of physical activity on depressive symptoms depending on different levels of activity and ages, more randomized clinical trials with program-based intervention studies should be conducted with different physical activity programs for different age populations. (shrink)

BackgroundBeing pregnant is a vulnerable period for women with a history of eating disorders. A central issue in eating disorders is searching control of one’s body and food preferences. Pregnancy implies being increasingly out of control of this. Treatment and targeted prevention start with the patient’s experience. Little is known about how women with a history of eating disorder experience being pregnant.MethodWe interviewed 24 women with a history of eating disorder at the time of pregnancy, recruited from five public pregnancy (...) controls at local family health centers in Norway. Interviews were analyzed by means of ideal type analysis, with a particular focus on how the participants experienced pregnancy and perceived triggers in possible experiences of relapse or worsening during pregnancy. All participants completed the Eating Disorder Examination Questionnaire and were diagnosed by using the Eating Disorder Examination.ResultsOn becoming pregnant, 23 of the 24 participants experienced worsening or relapse of their disorder. This occurred both at first time and after several pregnancies, and either interviewed early or late in pregnancy. Ideal type analyses indicated seven different personal features associated with worsening or relapse: the “chaotic” “rigid” “perfect” “worried” “shameful” “motherhood fearing” and “the mother with lost identity” Perceived triggers of worsening or relapse were: “loss of control” “unpredictability” “competition” “change of appearance” “shame and nausea” and “loss of identity.”ConclusionPregnancy is a vulnerable period for women with a history of eating disorders. A great variation in personal psychological dynamics seems to interact with perceived triggers in worsening or relapse of eating disorder. Our findings have important implications in understanding mechanisms of relapse in pregnancy, preventing relapse and help tailoring adequate intervention. (shrink)

Recent debates within the autism advocacy community have raised difficult questions about who can credibly act as a representative of a particular population and what responsibilities that...

The technology of undersea communications, from stranded-wire telegraph cables in the 1850s to fiber-optic cables at the end of the twentieth century, and its social, political, and economic impact. By the end of the twentieth century, fiber-optic technology had made possible a worldwide communications system of breathtaking speed and capacity. This amazing network is the latest evolution of communications technologies that began with undersea telegraph cables in the 1850s and continued with coaxial telephone cables a hundred years later. Communications under (...) the Seas traces the development of these technologies and assesses their social, economic, and political effects. If we cannot predict the ultimate consequences of today's wired world--its impact on economic markets, free expression, and war and peace--or the outcome of the conflict between wired and wireless technology, we can examine how similar issues have been dealt with in the past. The expert contributors to this volume do just that, discussing technical developments in undersea cables, management of the cables by private and public interests, and the impact on military and political activities. Chapters cover such topics as the daring group of nineteenth-century entrepreneurs who wove a network of copper wires around the world ; the opening of the telegraphic network to general public use; the government- and industry-forced merger of wireless and cable companies in Britain; and the impact of the cable network on diplomacy during the two world wars. (shrink)