Don’t interrupt me! Task interruption depletes the self’s limited resources

It is a common occurrence in daily life to be interrupted prior to completing a task. Such interruptions may have deleterious effects for limited self-resources, especially if they occur just prior to task completion. This hypothesis was tested in three experiments. In the first two, participants initially engaged in a card sorting task, and then subsequently performed a self-control task. In Experiment 3, participants first engaged in a word search task and then worked on an executive function task. In all instances, participants who were interrupted just prior to attaining their goal of completing the initial task, but not those who were stopped earlier in the task or who were allowed to finish, showed evidence of impairment on the subsequent measures. The findings suggest that the desire to pursue a goal increases as goal attainment draws nearer, and that the amount of self-control needed to stop working on a task is modified by situational variables such as goal distance.     

Don’t tell me I’m normal: inpatient psychotherapy of a severely abused patient at the Cassel Hospital

This paper is a case study of a patient with severe personality disorder undergoing treatment at the Cassel Hospital. It looks at a phase of her individual psychoanalytic psychotherapy and how that sits within an institutional model of treatment that can be understood as applied psychoanalysis, in which Tom Main’s concept of a ‘culture of enquiry’ aims to observe and bring together splitting and projective processes operating at all levels of the organisation. The patient, who had been sexually abused and then suffered a prolonged suicidal breakdown, exerted intense pressure on the institution through her experience of herself as both a victim of abuse and a participant in it. A working through is described, in which different parts of the patient that had been projected into different parts of the institution are brought together, and her primitive demand for a two-person world gives way to an acceptance of triangulation. Themes from her individual sessions are enacted in the milieu-based treatment, and conversely struggles in the patient community appear in her sessions. It is from drawing these parts of the patient together as a whole institution that the treatment derives its power and effectiveness.     

What You Don’t Know Won’t Hurt You,Unless You Don’t Know You’re Wrong

The purpose of this investigation was to determine the impact of students’ background knowledge and how they utilized “don’t know” affordances to comprehend and learn from text. In two studies, over 8,000 middle and high school students interacted with a content-area learning environment in which they answered a series of background knowledge questions before they completed a unit on the same topic. Students were given the opportunity to indicate they “did not know” the answers to the knowledge questions. Higher knowledge was related to higher understanding, and the use of the “don’t know” option further explained variability in students’ understanding of the sources beyond background knowledge. When responding to knowledge questions, students who selected incorrect options before the task understood less and were less likely to learn content when given the opportunity compared to students who indicated they did not know. Thus, low knowledge students were still able to comprehend and learn as long as they acknowledged they lacked background knowledge. One’s comprehension and learning can be facilitated or impaired, depending upon the veracity of their knowledge, and whether students choose to acknowledge their lack of background knowledge. Implications of this work are discussed in terms of learning and instruction.     

Don’t just repeat after me: Retrieval practice is better than imitation for foreign vocabulary learning

Second language (L2) instruction programs often ask learners to repeat aloud words spoken by a native speaker. However, recent research on retrieval practice has suggested that imitating native pronunciation might be less effective than drill instruction, wherein the learner is required to produce the L2 words from memory (and given feedback). We contrasted the effectiveness of imitation and retrieval practice drills on learning L2 spoken vocabulary. Learners viewed pictures of objects and heard their names; in the imitation condition, they heard and then repeated aloud each name, whereas in the retrieval practice condition, they tried to produce the name before hearing it. On a final test administered either immediately after training (Exp. 1) or after a 2-day delay (Exp. 2), retrieval practice produced better comprehension of the L2 words, better ability to produce the L2 words, and no loss of pronunciation quality.     

Seeds aren’t anchors

Exposure to a few task-relevant numerical facts (seed facts) often improves subsequent numerical estimates. We performed two experiments to investigate the mechanism that produces these seeding effects. In Experiment 1, participants estimated national populations; in Experiment 2, they estimated between-city distances. In both, items were selected so that the actual value of the seed facts (SA) was, on average, below participants' initial estimates for those items (S1) and above the initial estimates for the transfer items (T1). Given this configuration, the anchoring position predicts that the postseeding transfer estimates should be greater than the preseeding transfer estimates (T2 > T1), whereas the feedback/induction position predicts the opposite (T2 < T1). In both experiments, the latter pattern of results emerged, supporting the conclusion that seeds aren't anchors.     

Now you see me,now you don’t: Adapting practice through target exclusion negatively impacts motor learning

How to optimize practice through scheduling of different task components or skills is a question that has received a lot of attention in motor learning research. Consistently, schedules with high variability in the order that skills are practiced elicit better learning outcomes than schedules with low variability. Another idea is that learners should seek to reduce the uncertainty of practice outcomes, by avoiding well-learned, low error components in acquisition. To test this idea, we used a target exclusion method to prevent learners from returning to task components with low error and studied how individuals given choice over practice choose to allocate time to components of varying difficulty. In a multi-target adaptation paradigm, we compared exclusion with no exclusion methods in random-schedule, self-control and yoked, matched-schedule groups (6 groups total). To manipulate uncertainty, we excluded targets from practice once participants attained a criterion error score (mean < 5^o) from the last 5 trials to the same target. Contrary to our predictions, groups that practiced without target exclusion were more accurate in retention compared to exclusion groups; irrespective of practice schedule. Self-control groups adopted uncertainty-based practice, spending more time at difficult targets and less time at easier targets. However, there were no group differences in error, based on schedule-type (random, self-control and yoked). In conclusion, target exclusion was not an effective method for learning and did not support the efficacy of uncertainty-based practice for learning novel skills. There were benefits from keeping easier/low error skills in practice for later retention. These benefits did not appear to be related to the increased switching between skills, but could be related to increased task engagement and more optimal challenge associated with practice on a range of target difficulties, rather than the most difficult.     

Don’t Blame the Idealizations

Idealizing conditions are scapegoats for scientific hypotheses, too often blamed for falsehood better attributed to less obvious sources. But while the tendency to blame idealizations is common among both philosophers of science and scientists themselves, the blame is misplaced. Attention to the nature of idealizing conditions, the content of idealized hypotheses, and scientists’ attitudes toward those hypotheses shows that idealizing conditions are blameless when hypotheses misrepresent. These conditions help to determine the content of idealized hypotheses, and they do so in a way that prevents those hypotheses from being false by virtue of their constituent idealizations.     

What Fitness Can’t Be

Recently advocates of the propensity interpretation of fitness have turned critics. To accommodate examples from the population genetics literature they conclude that fitness is better defined broadly as a family of propensities rather than the propensity to contribute descendants to some future generation. We argue that the propensity theorists have misunderstood the deeper ramifications of the examples they cite. These examples demonstrate why there are factors outside of propensities that determine fitness. We go on to argue for the more general thesis that no account of fitness can satisfy the desiderata that have motivated the propensity account.     

Don’t say that!

According to pragma-dialectical methodology, a party in an argumentative discussion can be assumed to manoeuvre strategically between dialectical and rhetorical objectives. One confrontational form of strategic manoeuvring occurs when a critic charges an arguer with advancing a standpoint that has socially harmful consequences. In special situations this form of manoeuvring can be dialectically sound, for example when the standpoint is advanced in a way that damages the dialectical process. The boundary between fallacious and dialectically sound applications of this form of manoeuvring is examined by looking for the manoeuvring’s soundness conditions.     

Who’s more angry? Comparing driver anger and aggression within work and personal driving contexts

Anger and driver aggression increase crash risk. However, how these manifest according to the purpose of the journey (work vs personal) and the unique relationships between sources of anger and aggressive expressions of that anger is under-researched. The current study examined the relationships between different types of anger and aggression, recent crashes and infringements between drivers who drive mainly for work with those who drive mainly for personal reasons.Participants (N = 630) completed an online questionnaire reporting their driving anger tendencies across situations of travel delays, danger and hostility from others, frequency of aggressive driving (using the vehicle, verbal or physical) and crash and infringements in the previous year. Drivers were classified as work or personal drivers based on the percentage of the time they drove for each reason. Relationships between anger sources and aggression types were examined using Structural Equation Modelling, comparing models between the two groups. The relationships between aggression and safety outcomes were explored using Mann-Whitney U tests.The relationships between anger and aggression were similar across work and personal drivers. However, some group differences in the situations that contributed to anger and aggression were identified. Aggression was more frequent for drivers who drove mainly for work and had received a traffic violation, compared to those who had not received a traffic violation.These findings can inform the development of targeted interventions to manage the triggers of anger and aggression. Interventions are likely to impact work and personal drivers; thus, could target employers and road transport authorities.     

What you don’t know can’t hurt you: realism and the unconceived

Two of the most potent challenges faced by scientific realism are the underdetermination of theories by data, and the pessimistic induction based on theories previously held to be true, but subsequently acknowledged as false. Recently, Stanford (2006, Exceeding our grasp: Science, history, and the problem of unconceived alternatives. Oxford: Oxford University Press) has formulated what he calls the problem of unconceived alternatives: a version of the underdetermination thesis combined with a historical argument of the same form as the pessimistic induction. In this paper, I contend that while Stanford does present a novel antirealist argument, a successful response to the pessimistic induction would likewise defuse the problem of unconceived alternatives, and that a more selective and sophisticated realism than that which he allows is arguably immune to both concerns.

‘My Senses Couldn’t Always Deceive Me’

Philosophia - Gilbert Ryle and a number of other philosophers have argued that Descartes’ claim his senses could always deceive him is false. Ryle’s argument is the well-known...     

Don’t Know,Don’t Kill: Moral Ignorance,Culpability, and Caution

This paper takes on several distinct but related tasks. First, I present and discuss what I will call the “Ignorance Thesis,” which states that whenever an agent acts from ignorance, whether factual or moral, she is culpable for the act only if she is culpable for the ignorance from which she acts. Second, I offer a counterexample to the Ignorance Thesis, an example that applies most directly to the part I call the “Moral Ignorance Thesis.” Third, I argue for a principle—Don’t Know, Don’t Kill—that supports the view that the purported counterexample actually is a counterexample. Finally, I suggest that my arguments in this direction can supply a novel sort of argument against many instances of killing and eating certain sorts of animals.

How Many there Are Isn’t

Philosophia - A world where there exists exactly n concrete things is a count-determinate world. The orthodox assumption is that count-determinacy is necessary; if to be is to be the value of a...     

Don’t look! don’t touch! inhibitory control of eye and hand movements

Inhibitory control of eye and hand movements was compared in the stop-signal task. Subjects moved their eyes to the right or left or pressed keys on the right or left in response to visual stimuli. The stimuli were either central (angle brackets pointing left or right) or peripheral (plus signs turning into Xs left or right of fixation), and the task was either pro (respond on the same side as the stimulus) or anti (respond on the opposite side). Occasionally, a stop signal was presented, which instructed subjects to inhibit their responses to the go stimulus. Stop-signal reaction times (SSRTs) were faster overall for eye movements than for hand movements, and they were affected differently by stimulus conditions (central vs. peripheral) and task (pro vs. anti), suggesting that the eyes and hands are inhibited by different processes operating under similar principles (i.e., a race between stop and go processes).     

What ontological arguments don’t show

International Journal for Philosophy of Religion - Daniel Dombrowski contends that: (1) a number of versions of the ontological argument [OA] are sound; (2) the deity whose existence is most well...     

Why doesn’t feedback correct Vierordt’s law?

Vierordt [(1868). Der zeitsinn nach versuchen. Tübingen: Laupp] observed that participants over-reproduce short durations and under-reproduce long durations within a test range of sample durations (Vierordt’s law). Similar phenomena have been reported for sensory and other processing (e.g. [Helson (1964 Helson, H. (1964). Adaptation-level theory. New York, NY: Harper &; Row. [Google Scholar]). Adaptation-level theory. New York: Harper &; Row; Stevens, and Greenbaum (1966). Regression effect in psychophysical judgment. Perception &; Psychophysics, 1, 439–446]. Performance feedback (knowledge of results) does not correct this performance distortion although it does correct other errors. In Experiment 1, I tested the hypothesis that a random presentation order of the standard durations makes feedback on one trial inappropriate for the next trial preventing correction of the Vierordt effect. In Experiment 2, participants performed two consecutive reproductions after each standard duration. Having the opportunity to immediately utilize the feedback from the first reproduction did not eliminate the Vierordt effect, although participants did attempt to correct the error on the first reproduction. In Experiment 3, the Vierordt effect was reduced in a blocked presentation design. Feedback produced more veridical performance. I conclude that the resistance of the Vierordt effect to correction by feedback may result, in part, from feedback on a given trial being misapplied to correcting performance on the next trial. Ironically, the Vierordt effect, which produced the differing directions and magnitudes of performance errors reported by the feedback, may be what prevents feedback from correcting for the Vierordt effect.     

Wittgenstein: “I can’t believe…or rather can’t believe it yet”

This paper presents a characterization of the ontological dependence relation between an existent and its sustaining cause, which allows to straightforwardly deduce that the being of any dependent existent is grounded on an independent one. Furthermore, an argument is given to the conclusion that there is a unique independent existent, which is therefore the ultimate ground of being.     

Why Nature Doesn’t Turn Off Neurosis

This paper develops an integration of psychoanalytic and wisdom tradition concepts to answer the question as to why nature does not turn off neurosis, The proposed answer is that nature wants a person to exploit the neurosis for two gains, one being the increase in adaptive capacity resulting from releasing it and the second involving the difficulty in the release itself, the latter related to gains proffered by the world’s wisdom traditions. These see a movement from the psyche’s creation by passive, unconscious means of finite promise rooted in parental love to creation by active, consciously chosen means of unlimited promise involving a direct relationship with nature and the Cosmos.