A Preliminary Study of the Empowerment Effects of Strength-Based LEGO<Superscript>®</Superscript> SERIOUS PLAY<Superscript>®</Superscript> on Two Taiwanese Adult Survivors by Earlier Domestic Violence

The objective of this study was to construct empowerment model through strength-based LEGO^® SERIOUS PLAY^® (LSP) workshop and to explore the effects and change connotations of this workshop. Two adult participants who had experienced domestic violence in childhood were invited to a 6-h strength-based LSP workshop. The research instruments included The Experiences in Close Relationships-Revised, Positive and Negative Affect Schedule, and Critical Positivity Ratio Self-Test Scale. They were employed on pretest, posttest, and follow-up test. Subsequently, group interview was conducted to explore the effectiveness of the strength-based LSP workshop. According to the research results, two participants exhibited a consistently increasing trend on their Critical Positivity Ratio Self-Test Scale. They demonstrated positive changing trend on the posttest involving attachment-related avoidance scale, and their scores on the attachment-related anxiety scale also presented an increasing trend. Furthermore, the textual information collected from the LegoViews revealed that the strength-based LSP workshop could ingrain inner strengths, develop strengths in a relationship, and reconstruct life experience.     

La Liberté Dans la Perception Chez Husserl et Fichte<Superscript>1</Superscript>

In spite of their opposite methods, Fichte's deductive process and Husserl's reduction cope with the same challenge: they aim to explain how the sensible world is dependent on reflixivity. As perception is generally linked with natural existence, and pure passivity, the deepest significance of transcendental thought in those philosophies consists in equalizing phenomenon and reflexion. In the heart of bodily life, some spiritual theme has to be found. Fichte defines action as the quantification of freedom, and freedom is effectively achieved in the sensible world. Human perception reveals freedom altogether in corporal movements as in the surrounding world (Umwelt). The Fichtean theory of acknowledgment assumes this goal. In the same way, Husserl's reduction explains how significance proceeds from the body (Leib). The Husserlian analysis of kinesthesis and the radical experience of the hand touching the other hand both introduce to the status of pre-reflection. However the complete resolution of the question is given by Fichte: Intelligibility may exist in the sensible world as the metaphysical concept of phenomenon (Erscheinung) in the last Fichtean philosophy expresses the idea of the Absolute pervading the sensible.

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La Liberté Dans la Perception Chez Husserl et Fichte¹

     

What Things <Emphasis Type="Italic">Still</Emphasis> Don’t Do

This paper praises and criticizes Peter-Paul Verbeek’s What Things Do (2006). The four things that Verbeek does well are: (1) remind us of the importance of technological things; (2) bring Karl Jaspers into the conversation on technology; (3) explain how technology “co-shapes” experience by reading Bruno Latour’s actor-network theory in light of Don Ihde’s post-phenomenology; (4) develop a material aesthetics of design. The three things that Verbeek does not do well are: (1) analyze the material conditions in which things are produced; (2) criticize the social-political design and use context of things; and (3) appreciate how liberal moral-political theory contributes to our evaluation of technology.     

How is the Other Approached and Conceptualized in Terms of Schutz's Constitutive Phenomenology of the Natural Attitude?<Superscript>1</Superscript>

The problem of the other was one of the central problems for the founder of phenomenology, Edmund Husserl. He investigated the other as the alter ego intensively in the Fifth Cartesian Meditation, in which he introduced the conceptions of “analogical apperception' and “pairing' as fundamental forms of “passive synthesis.' Although it is no doubt Husserl who investigated the other most seriously and intensively, there is anaporiain his theory of the other. If the other is an object of ego's intentional consciousness, the other turns out to be no more than a modification of the ego. In the face of such anaporia, some phenomenologists embarked upon inquiry into the other. This paper focuses primarily on Alfred Schutz's discussion of the “other' in general and about the “stranger' in particular.     

Estimation and interpretation of 1/f<Superscript>α</Superscript> noise in human cognition

Recent analyses of serial correlations in cognitive tasks have provided preliminary evidence of the presence of a particular form of long-range serial dependence known as 1/fnoise. It has been argued that long-range dependence has been largely ignored in mainstream cognitive psychology even though it accounts for a substantial proportion of variability in behavior (see, e.g., Gilden, 1997, 2001). In this article, we discuss the defining characteristics of long-range dependence and argue that claims about its presence need to be evaluated by testing against the alternative hypothesis of short-range dependence. For the data from three experiments, we accomplish such tests with autoregressive fractionally integrated moving-average time series modeling. We find that long-range serial dependence in these experiments can be explained by any of several mechanisms, including mixtures of a small number of short-range processes.     

Modeling Unicorns and Dead Cats: Applying Bressan’s ML<Superscript><Emphasis Type="Italic">ν</Emphasis></Superscript> to the Necessary Properties of Non-existent Objects

Should objects count as necessarily having certain properties, despite their not having those properties when they do not exist? For example, should a cat that passes out of existence, and so no longer is a cat, nonetheless count as necessarily being a cat? In this essay I examine different ways of adapting Aldo Bressan’s ML ^ν so that it can accommodate an affirmative answer to these questions. Anil Gupta, in The Logic of Common Nouns, creates a number of languages that have a kinship with Bressan’s ML ^ν , three of which are also tailored to affirmatively answering these questions. After comparing their languages, I argue that metaphysicians and philosophers of language should prefer ML ^ν to Gupta’s languages in most applications because it can accommodate essential properties, like being a cat, while being more uniform and less cumbersome.     

Mediating Access to Headsprout<Superscript>®</Superscript> Early Reading for Children with Autism Spectrum Disorders

Many children with autism spectrum disorder (ASD) require instructional programs that simultaneously address academic content, interfering behavior, and potential gaps in prerequisite skills for a given curriculum. This study examined the impact of an intervention package consisting of contingent reinforcement and match-to-sample training on the independent progression of 3 children with ASD through Headsprout^® Early Reading (HER), a behavior analytic online reading program. A multiple probe across participants design was used to examine the effects of the intervention package on participants’ correct interactions per minute and total episodes completed. Transfer of training to oral reading of companion print books was also assessed. All participants demonstrated an increase in correct interactions per minute. Two participants learned to independently complete a HER episode each day and could orally read companion print books. The results suggest individualized behavior analytic programs can support the use of HER as a computer-based reading program for some children with ASD.     

Endogenous Ketamine-Like Compounds and the NDE: If So, So What?

This commentary on Karl Jansen's ketamine model for the near-death experience expands upon and raises additional questions about several issues and hypotheses: self-experimentation as a source of data; ketamine's similarities to and differences from classical hallucinogens; the need for quantification of unusual subjective states; clinical research and toxicological implications of this model; drugs as gateways to religious states; and evolutionary versus religious significance of naturally occurring compounds released in the near-death state. I suggest future research that could help explicate several of these areas.Formerly Associate Professor of Psychiatry at the University of New Mexico School of Medicine     

A Field-Tested Task Analysis for Creating Single-Subject Graphs Using Microsoft<Superscript>®</Superscript> Office Excel

Creating single-subject (SS) graphs is challenging for many researchers and practitioners because it is a complex task with many steps. Although several authors have introduced guidelines for creating SS graphs, many users continue to experience frustration. The purpose of this article is to minimize these frustrations by providing a field-tested task analysis for creating SS graphs using Microsoft^® Office Excel. Results from the field test are presented and the task analysis, which includes steps for creating a variety of SS graphs, is provided. The article includes various illustrations, a list of prerequisite skills, tips, and troubleshooting items.     

Client Suicide: What Now?

The loss of a client to suicide is a painful personal and professional experience for mental health providers. Whether trainee or experienced professional, the affected clinician often reports feeling overwhelmed and unprepared for the experience of client suicide, together with significant emotional distress and diminished work performance. In this article, we present a brief overview of the literature on the impact of client suicide and ideas for coping with the psychological and professional issues that typically arise. We also provide suggestions for managing the associated practical and administrative tasks, as well as resources for obtaining professional support and guidance in the wake of this tragic event.     

What <Emphasis Type="Italic">is</Emphasis> wrong with intelligent design?

While a great deal of abuse has been directed at intelligent design theory (ID), its starting point is a fact about biological organisms that cries out for explanation, namely “specified complexity” (SC). Advocates of ID deploy three kind of argument from specified complexity to the existence of a designer: an eliminative argument, an inductive argument, and an inference to the best explanation. Only the first of these merits the abuse directed at it; the other two arguments are worthy of respect. If they fail, it is only because we have a better explanation of SC, namely Darwin’s theory of evolution by natural selection.     

What is <Emphasis Type="Italic">the</Emphasis> Logic of Inference?

The topic of this paper is the question whether there is a logic which could be justly called the logic of inference. It may seem that at least since Prawitz, Dummett and others demonstrated the proof-theoretical prominency of intuitionistic logic, the forthcoming answer is that it is this logic that is the obvious choice for the accolade. Though there is little doubt that this choice is correct (provided that inference is construed as inherently single-conclusion and complying with the Gentzenian structural rules), I do not think that the usual justification of it is satisfactory. Therefore, I will first try to clarify what exactly is meant by the question, and then sketch a conceptual framework in which it can be reasonably handled. I will introduce the concept of ‘inferentially native’ logical operators (those which explicate inferential properties) and I will show that the axiomatization of these operators leads to the axiomatic system of intuitionistic logic. Finally, I will discuss what modifications of this answer enter the picture when more general notions of inference are considered. Presented by Hannes Leitgeb     

Don’t Ever Do That! Long-term Duties in <Emphasis Type="Italic">PD</Emphasis><Subscript><Emphasis Type="Italic">e</Emphasis></Subscript><Emphasis Type="Italic">L</Emphasis>

This paper studies long-term norms concerning actions. In Meyer’s Propositional Deontic Logic (PD _e L), only immediate duties can be expressed, however, often one has duties of longer durations such as: “Never do that”, or “Do this someday”. In this paper, we will investigate how to amend PD _e L so that such long-term duties can be expressed. This leads to the interesting and suprising consequence that the long-term prohibition and obligation are not interdefinable in our semantics, while there is a duality between these two notions. As a consequence, we have provided a new analysis of the long-term obligation by introducing a new atomic proposition I (indebtedness) to represent the condition that an agent has some unfulfilled obligation. Presented by Jacek Malinowski