The effect of concurrent movement on incidental versus intentional statistical learning was examined in two experiments. In Experiment 1, participants learned the statistical regularities embedded within familiarization stimuli implicitly, whereas in Experiment 2 they were made aware of the embedded regularities and were instructed explicitly to learn these regularities. Experiment 1 demonstrated that while the control group were able to learn the statistical regularities, the resistance-free cycling group and the exercise group did not demonstrate learning. This is in contrast with (...) the findings of Experiment 2, where all three groups demonstrated significant levels of learning. The results suggest that the movement demands, rather than the physiological stress, interfered with statistical learning. We suggest movement activates the striatum, which is not only responsible for motor control but also plays a role in incidental learning. (shrink)

Proponents of environmentalist views often urge the teaching of such views and the inculcation of ‘green’ values within the educational curriculum of schools as a key component of achieving their ends. It might seem that modern versions of political morality that refuse to take a stance on controversial questions—religious, ethical, philosophical—or eschew appeal to perfectionist doctrines, such as Rawlsian political liberalism, are beset by a particularly acute difficulty in this regard. To the extent that environmentalist views embody claims about ethical (...) matters such as how individuals should live their lives, they fall foul of this version of political morality. This article evaluates the resources available to political liberalism to respond to the challenge of bringing the teaching of green values and virtues within the national curriculum. It argues that environmental concerns differ in morally important ways from other ethical, philosophical, and religious views that are typically off-limits to political liberalism. Much that passes as green ideals are not simply a conception of the good life in the manner that religious views, for example, are. Rather, many environmental goods are crucial to the realisation of socioeconomic justice and therefore escape the requirement of state neutrality on endorsing the truth or importance of their role. A minimal political liberal education includes teaching about justice-based concerns as part of a compulsory national curriculum. (shrink)

Some religiously devout individuals believe divine command can override an obligation to obey the law where the two are in conflict. At the extreme, some individuals believe that acts of violence that seek to change or punish a political community, or to prevent others from violating what they take to be God’s law, are morally justified. In the face of this apparent clash between religious and political commitments it might seem that modern versions of political morality—such as John Rawls’s political (...) liberalism—that refuse to take a stance on controversial religious matters, or eschew appeal to perfectionist doctrines, are beset by a particularly acute version of this problem of religious disobedience. Whilst political liberalism follows this path so as to generate wide and stable support, it raises the question of how political liberals should respond to religiously motivated non-compliance with the norms of that liberal conception of justice. This article evaluates what resources are available to political liberalism to respond to this challenge. It examines whether anti-perfectionism can be sustained in the face of those whose religious beliefs are in conflict with the law. We argue that, under certain circumstances, political liberalism requires direct engagement with the religious views of the unreasonable, including offering religious arguments to show that their particular interpretation of their faith is mistaken. This view takes political liberalism away from its usual ambitions, but it is a position that is both anticipated by Rawls and consistent with his view. It does, however, require that political liberals give up the claim that the view is a wholly non-sectarian, purely political view, and accept that, under certain circumstances it is a partially comprehensive version of liberal theory. (shrink)

Societies concerned with preventing acts of violent extremism often target the ideas that are thought to motivate such acts. The state's use of educational institutions is one mechanism by which those ideas are subjected to challenge. Teaching liberal democratic values to students is one method. Here, David Stevens argues that this model is misguided. First, commitment to violent methods is not primarily driven by the attractiveness of radical ideas themselves, but by material facts and circumstances. Second, an education that (...) ignores the teaching of various socioeconomic values, such as a commitment to a certain degree of material equality and welfare provision, is inadequate as a conception of citizenship. These criticisms are related. Citizens are owed certain resources and commitments as citizens, and grounds for dissatisfaction and violence are reduced when citizens receive the holdings to which they are entitled, and when their fellow citizens recognize and endorse this. Consequently, it is the role of education to teach directively toward the adoption of such socioeconomic values and commitments. (shrink)

The effect of task difficulty on inter-task transfer is a classic issue in motor learning. We examined the relation between self-efficacy and transfer of learning after practicing different versions of a stick balancing task. Practicing the same task or an easier version led to significant pre- to post-test transfer of learning, whereas practicing a more difficult version did not. Self-efficacy increased modestly from pre- to post-test with easy practice, but decreased significantly with difficult practice. In addition, self-efficacy immediately prior to (...) the post-test was significantly lower after difficult practice than easy or intermediate practice. Self-efficacy immediately prior to the post-test, performance at the end of practice, and pre-test performance explained 75% of the variance in post-test performance. The mediating role of self-efficacy on transfer of learning offers an alternative explanation for recent findings on the superiority of easy-to-difficult transfer and may help clarify inconsistencies in earlier research. (shrink)

This study examined the effect of a prior bout of exercise on implicit cognition. Specifically, we examined whether a prior bout of moderate intensity exercise affected performance on a statistical learning task in healthy adults. A total of 42 participants were allocated to one of three conditions—a control group, a group that exercised for 15 min prior to the statistical learning task, and a group that exercised for 30 min prior to the statistical learning task. The participants in the exercise (...) groups cycled at 60% of their respective V˙O2max. Each group demonstrated significant statistical learning, with similar levels of learning among the three groups. Contrary to previous research that has shown that a prior bout of exercise can affect performance on explicit cognitive tasks, the results of the current study suggest that the physiological stress induced by moderate-intensity exercise does not affect implicit cognition as measured by statistical learning. (shrink)

Cover -- Half Title -- Title Page -- Copyright Page -- Table of contents -- Contributors -- Introduction -- 1 From place to planet: The role of the language arts in reading environmental identities from the UK to New Zealand -- From here to there -- Cockney translation -- Environmental identities -- Environmental knowledge -- Conclusion: moving from place to planet -- Notes -- References -- 2 Connecting community through film in ITE English -- Introduction -- The place of English (...) in the contemporary policy context -- Place in English: doing things differently -- The film project -- The films -- 'Our Place': the Kingsville School -- 'This is Our Place': High Bridge -- 'This is My Place': Silver Hill -- Discussion -- The place of school -- The place of the subject -- The place of pupils -- Connecting community through film: the possibilities of place -- Note -- References -- 3 Muslim youth identities through devotional songs and poetry in South Yorkshire communities -- Introduction 1: creative language study as etiolation -- Introduction 2: faith-based complementary schooling and language heritage -- Introduction 3: Islamophobia and youth identity -- Poetry and 'song' in the Islamic world and among Muslim youth in the UK -- This study -- Conclusion -- Notes -- References -- 4 Creative spaces for developing independent writing with English teachers -- Why do we need to develop teachers as creative writers? -- The role and influence of the National Writing Project -- The writing identities of trainee teachers -- Writing in creative spaces -- Some conclusions: writing teachers in creative spaces -- Writing from the Georgian House -- Writing from Brandon Hill -- Notes -- References -- 5 Durham city as an educational resource in initial teacher education for English: Seeing the city with new eyes -- Context -- The activity -- Implications. (shrink)

This article questions whether it is legitimate to propagate national sentiment and foster ties of nationality through school curricula. Against certain arguments for the ethical significance of nationality I question whether those who share a national identity have special moral obligations to members of their national group that they do not have to other persons. I argue that such ties of sentiment are unnecessary for achieving principled liberal goals, and that education within a liberal democracy should focus directly upon certain (...) general moral principles, such as fairness, justice, and toleration. The recent Advisory Group on Citizenship's Education for Citizenship and the Teaching of Democracy in Schools (1998) similarly endorses, I argue, education focused upon general moral principles. (shrink)

This article questions whether it is legitimate to propagate national sentiment and foster ties of nationality through school curricula. Against certain arguments for the ethical significance of nationality I question whether those who share a national identity have special moral obligations to members of their national group that they do not have to other persons. I argue that such ties of sentiment are unnecessary for achieving principled liberal goals, and that education within a liberal democracy should focus directly upon certain (...) general moral principles, such as fairness, justice, and toleration. The recent Advisory Group on Citizenship's Education for Citizenship and the Teaching of Democracy in Schools (1998) similarly endorses, I argue, education focused upon general moral principles. (shrink)

Sleep and mental health are important aspects of human health that work concurrently. However, sleep and mental health disorders are often overlooked and undiagnosed in sport due to the negative stigma associated with them. Evidence suggests that athletes are disproportionately affected by mental health issues and sleep problems. Internal and external pressures contribute to psychological distress. Variable competition times, travel and stress are detrimental to sleep quality. Retirement from sport can deteriorate sleep and psychological wellbeing, particularly for those who retired (...) involuntarily and identify strongly with their athletic role. When untreated, these issues can manifest into a range of clinical disorders. This is concerning, not only for compromised athletic performance, but for general health and wellbeing beyond sport. Previous research has focussed on sleep and health independently among currently competing, or former, athletes. To date, no research has comprehensively assessed and compared sleep complaints and mental health issues between these two cohorts. Moreover, research has failed to obtain data across a variety of different competition levels, sports, and genders, leaving the current scope of the literature narrow. Comorbid conditions, ex-college athletes, and mental health has been the focus of existing literature post-retirement. Future research would benefit from employing both quantitative and qualitative methodologies to comprehensively assess the prevalence and severity of sleep and mental health disorders across current and retired athletes. Research outcomes would inform education strategies, safeguarding athletes from these issues by reducing negative stigmas associated with help-seeking in sport and ultimately increase self-guided treatment. (shrink)

In this paper we take issue with two central claims that John Tomasi makes in Free Market Fairness. The first claim is that Rawls’s difference principle can better be realized by free market institutions than it can be by state interventionist regimes such as property-owning democracy or liberal socialism. We argue that Tomasi’s narrow interpretation of the difference principle, which focuses largely on wealth and income, leaves other goods worryingly unsatisfied. The second claim is that a wide set of economic (...) liberties ought to be protected because they realize responsible ‘self-authorship.’ We argue that this claim also fails because, crucially, whether economic liberties serve individuals in pursuing their ambitions will depend on the nature of those ambitions and how the use of those liberties by others would affect their pursuit of them. If an expansion of liberty is good for us in some ways, but bad in others, we need to assess whether, all things considered, we would be better off with or without such expanded economic rights. We argue that the expansion Tomasi proposes is likely to fail this test. (shrink)

This paper explores public sentiment towards strike action among healthcare workers, as a result of their perceived inadequate pay. By analysing survey data collected in England between 2022 and 2023, the study focuses on NHS nurses and junior doctors, due to their critical role in delivering essential public services. Results indicate higher public support for strikes by nurses and junior doctors compared to other professions such as postal workers, teachers, rail workers, airport workers, civil servants and university lecturers. However, variation (...) in support for strikes by healthcare workers is observed across societal segments. Significant disparities in support are linked to individual political affiliations, left–right ideological positions and trust in the NHS. In short, nonconservative voters, individuals leaning towards left‐wing politics and those with greater trust in the NHS demonstrate higher likelihoods of supporting strikes by health workers. These findings carry implications for future strike decisions and highlight specific target groups for enhanced communication efforts to garner increased public support. (shrink)

This essay considers biotrophic cyst and root‐knot nematodes in relation to their biology, host–parasite interactions and molecular genetics. These nematodes have to face the biological consequences of the physical constraints imposed by the soil environment in which they live while their hosts inhabit both above and below ground environments. The two groups of nematodes appear to have adopted radically different solutions to these problems with the result that one group is a host specialist and reproduces sexually while the other has (...) an enormous host range and reproduces by mitotic parthenogenesis. We consider what is known about the modes of parasitism used by these nematodes and how it relates to their host range, including the surprising finding that parasitism genes in both nematode groups have been recruited from bacteria. The nuclear and mitochondrial genomes of these two nematode groups are very different and we consider how these findings relate to the biology of the organisms. BioEssays 30:249–259, 2008. © 2008 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. (shrink)

It is very much connected to the social psychology of experience. This book is written for advanced undergraduate, masters and doctoral students in social psychology.

This paper articulates and defends a novel hybrid account of well-being. We will call our view a Robust Hybrid. We call it robust because it grants a broad and not subservient role to both objective and subjective values. In this paper we assume, we think plausibly but without argument, that there is a significant objective component to well-being. Here we clarify what it takes for an account of well-being to have a subjective component. Roughly, we argue, it must allow that (...) favoring attitudes that are not warranted by the lights of objective values can ground benefits. Given this understanding, we show that there is an important and unrecognized expansion in the resources available to fully objectivist views: namely that such views can help themselves to the value of warranted love of objective goods. Such a move by the objectivist can help them respond to concerns that, on their view, a person’s well-being can be too alien to them. We next argue that, nonetheless, such objectivist views are still unconvincing due to their lack of a subjective component. This motivates a move from fully objective accounts to hybrid accounts. We show that many prominent hybrid theories in the literature are inadequate because they implausibly minimize the subjective component. This motivates a move to a robust hybrid view that has an expanded subjectivist component. We conclude with some remarks about the interrelation between the subjective and objective components in the hybrid account that we favor and a role for resonance in a theory of well-being other than serving as a hard constraint on any benefit. (shrink)

A normative framework for modeling causal and counterfactual reasoning has been proposed by Spirtes, Glymour, and Scheines. The framework takes as fundamental that reasoning from observation and intervention differ. Intervention includes actual manipulation as well as counterfactual manipulation of a model via thought. To represent intervention, Pearl employed the do operator that simplifies the structure of a causal model by disconnecting an intervened-on variable from its normal causes. Construing the do operator as a psychological function affords predictions about how people (...) reason when asked counterfactual questions about causal relations that we refer to as undoing, a family of effects that derive from the claim that intervened-on variables become independent of their normal causes. Six studies support the prediction for causal arguments but not consistently for parallel conditional ones. Two of the studies show that effects are treated as diagnostic when their values are observed but nondiagnostic when they are intervened on. These results cannot be explained by theories that do not distinguish interventions from other sorts of events. (shrink)

[Open access] In this book symposium the author takes up questions from phenomenology, hermeneutics, ethical theory, and intellectual history raised by a group of scholarly interlocutors from a range of backgrounds. In the course of engaging with these issues, he discusses, inter alia, McDowell’s realism, Jonathon Lear’s work on the end of a world, Michael Oakeshott’s view of selfhood, Heidegger’s conception of Jemeinigkeit, Uexküll’s notion of Umwelt, and Gadamer’s hermeneutic conception of truth.

International law informs, and is informed by, concerns for global justice. Yet the two fields that engage most with prescribing the normative structure of the world order – international law and the philosophy of global justice – have tended to work on parallel tracks. Many international lawyers, with their commitment to formal sources, regard considerations of substantive (and not merely procedural) justice as ultra vires for much of their work. Philosophers of global justice, in turn, tend to explore the moral (...) commitments of international actors without grappling with the international legal doctrine or institutions. In recent years, however, both disciplines have begun to engage with one another more. This discussion among international lawyers and philosophers addresses the promises of and challenges to interdisciplinary approaches to global justice. The contributors consider the added value of philosophical inquiry to issues facing international law practitioners or scholars, the salience of of international law for political philosophy, and the methodological distinctions between the two fields. The contributors also identify promising lines and examples of interdisciplinary scholarship. (shrink)

Do our lives have meaning? Should we create more people? Is death bad? Should we commit suicide? Would it be better to be immortal? Should we be optimistic or pessimistic? Since Life, Death, and Meaning: Key Philosophical Readings on the Big Questions first appeared, David Benatar's distinctive anthology designed to introduce students to the key existential questions of philosophy has won a devoted following among users in a variety of upper-level and even introductory courses.

Humans possess great capacity for behavioral and cultural change, but our ability to manage change is still limited. This article has two major objectives: first, to sketch a basic science of intentional change centered on evolution; second, to provide examples of intentional behavioral and cultural change from the applied behavioral sciences, which are largely unknown to the basic sciences community.All species have evolved mechanisms of phenotypic plasticity that enable them to respond adaptively to their environments. Some mechanisms of phenotypic plasticity (...) count as evolutionary processes in their own right. The human capacity for symbolic thought provides an inheritance system having the same kind of combinatorial diversity as does genetic recombination and antibody formation. Taking these propositions seriously allows an integration of major traditions within the basic behavioral sciences, such as behaviorism, social constructivism, social psychology, cognitive psychology, and evolutionary psychology, which are often isolated and even conceptualized as opposed to one another.The applied behavioral sciences include well-validated examples of successfully managing behavioral and cultural change at scales ranging from individuals to small groups to large populations. However, these examples are largely unknown beyond their disciplinary boundaries, for lack of a unifying theoretical framework. Viewed from an evolutionary perspective, they are examples of managing evolved mechanisms of phenotypic plasticity, including open-ended processes of variation and selection.Once the many branches of the basic and applied behavioral sciences become conceptually unified, we are closer to a science of intentional change than one might think. (shrink)

The conventional paradigm for developing new treatments for disease mainly involves either the discovery of new drug targets, or finding new, improved drugs for old targets. However, an ion channel found only in invertebrates offers the potential of a completely new paradigm in which an established drug target can be re‐engineered to serve as a new candidate therapeutic agent. The L‐glutamate‐gated chloride channels (GluCls) of invertebrates are absent from vertebrate genomes, offering the opportunity to introduce this exogenous, inhibitory, L‐glutamate receptor (...) into vertebrate neuronal circuits either as a tool with which to study neural networks, or a candidate therapy. Epileptic seizures can involve L‐glutamate‐induced hyper‐excitation and toxicity. Variant GluCls, with their inhibitory responses to L‐glutamate, when engineered into human neurons, might counter the excitotoxic effects of excess L‐glutamate. In reviewing recent studies on model organisms, it appears that this approach might offer a new paradigm for the development of candidate therapeutics for epilepsy. (shrink)

This collection of twenty-one essays brings together some of the finest recent contributions to philosophy of religion. Most of the selection appeared during the past decade and have not been reprinted previously. The author include many distinguished contemporary philosophers of religion, some sympathetic to religion, others sharply critical.

From young children, with their guileless, searching questions, to the recently bereaved, trying to make sense of tragic loss, humans wrestle with our relationship to God--and with God's essence, motivations, and power--throughout our lives: Why does God permit catastrophe and senseless tragedy, again and again? Is God's power limited in any way? Can He change the past? Does He know the future? Why does God require prayer? Why does He not provide stronger evidence of His presence? Whom does God consign (...) to hell, and why? Does God change? Suffer? What can we make of the conflicting diversity within world religions, of the many gods of different religious traditions? Such questions engage, confront, and perplex us on a daily basis. In this rich, concise volume, leading philosophers who have long pondered God's nature and ways take on these core problems and present their findings in a manner likely to engage believer and non-believer, general reader and specialist alike. (shrink)

Radical Philosophy of Law represents a cross section of contemporary critiques of the legal establishment—its theoretical foundations and its institutions and processes. Recognizing that proposals for alternatives to mainstream legal theory and practice do not belong to any single discipline, Caudill and Gold select essays by scholars in philosophy, sociology, criminology, and political theory, in addition to law professors and practitioners. Recognizing, as well, that no single perspective dominates radical legal theory, the essays exemplify the approaches associated with Marxian and (...) neo-Marxian analyses, American Critical Legal Studies and Critical Race Theory, radical feminism, semiotics, liberal theology, and psychoanalytic theory and criticism. (shrink)