What do you mean “This isn’t the question”?

This is a contribution to the symposium on Tim Scanlon’s Being Realistic about Reasons (2014). We have two aims here: First, we ask for more details about Scanlon’s meta-metaphysical view (about his notion of a domain, his criterion of existence, his ambition to remain ontologically thin, and on the role of pragmatic considerations in Scanlon’s picture), showing problems with salient clarifications. And second, we raise independent objections to the view – to its explanatory productivity, its distinctness, and the argumentative support it enjoys.     

What do you mean I wasn’t cheating? Testing the concept of cheating through a case of failed doping

Using a case of intended but failed doping, the author seeks to answer the question of if an agent cheated when they intended to but failed in the case of doping due to inert, counterfeit drugs. The examination looks at the case using the concept of cheating and concludes by dividing the results of cheating into primary and secondary effects.     

What explains the relationship between spatial and mathematical skills? A review of evidence from brain and behavior

Psychonomic Bulletin & Review - There is an emerging consensus that spatial thinking plays a fundamental role in how people conceive, express, and perform mathematics. However, the underlying...     

What is the size of the relationship between global mental toughness and youth experiences?

Youth experiences are a core requirement for components of positive youth development and may be associated with an athlete’s mental toughness. The purposes of this study were to examine the relationship between mental toughness and youth experiences. Two hundred and ninety nine athletes (M_age 19.48 years, SD 1.30) completed the Sport Mental Toughness Questionnaire and Youth Experiences Survey. We then conducted a standard multiple regression on the data. R for regression was significantly different from zero, F(6, 292) = 8.106, p = .0001, with R² at .14. Altogether, 14% (13% adjusted) of the variance in mental toughness was accounted for by youth experiences. These results reveal that initiative experiences have the strongest relationship with mental toughness; however, youth experiences may not be as important as previous studies suggest.     

What do you learn about someone over time? The relationship between length of acquaintance and consensus and self-other agreement in judgments of personality

Theory and research examining length of acquaintance and consensus among personality judgments have predominantly examined each dimension of personality separately. In L. J. Cronbach's (1955) terminology, this trait-centered approach combines consensus on elevation, differential elevation, and differential accuracy in personality judgments. The current article extends D. A. Kenny's (1991, 1994) weighted average model (WAM)--a theoretical model of the factors that influence agreement among personality judgments--to separate out two of Cronbach's components of consensus: stereotype accuracy and differential accuracy. Consistent with the predictions based on the WAM, as length of acquaintance increased, self-other agreement and consensus differential accuracy increased, stereotype accuracy decreased, and trait-level or raw profile correlations generally remained unchanged. Discussion focuses on the conditions under which a relationship between length of acquaintance and consensus and self-other agreement among personality evaluations emerges and how impressions change over time.     

What is the relationship between Aphantasia,Synaesthesia and Autism?

For people with aphantasia, visual imagery is absent or markedly impaired. Here, we investigated the relationship between aphantasia and two other neurodevelopmental conditions also linked to imagery differences: synaesthesia, and autism. In Experiment 1a and 1b, we asked whether aphantasia and synaesthesia can co-occur, an important question given that synaesthesia is linked to strong imagery. Taking grapheme-colour synaesthesia as a test case, we found that synaesthesia can be objectively diagnosed in aphantasics, suggesting visual imagery is not necessary for synaesthesia to occur. However, aphantasia influenced the type of synaesthesia experienced (favouring ‘associator’ over ‘projector’ synaesthesia - a distinction tied to the phenomenology of the synaesthetic experience). In Experiment 2, we asked whether aphantasics have traits associated with autism, an important question given that autism – like aphantasia – is linked to weak imagery. We found that aphantasics reported more autistic traits than controls, with weaknesses in imagination and social skills.     

What is the relationship between synaesthesia and visuo-spatial number forms?

This study compares the tendency for numerals to elicit spontaneous perceptions of colour or taste (synaesthesia) with the tendency to visualise numbers as occupying particular visuo-spatial configurations (number forms). The prevalence of number forms was found to be significantly higher in synaesthetes experiencing colour compared both to synaesthetes experiencing taste and to control participants lacking any synaesthetic experience. This suggests that the presence of synaesthetic colour sensations enhances the tendency to explicitly represent numbers in a visuo-spatial format although the two symptoms may nevertheless be logically independent (i.e. it is possible to have number forms without colour, and coloured numbers without forms). Number forms are equally common in men and women, unlike previous reports of synaesthesia that have suggested a strong female bias. Individuals who possess a number form are also likely to possess visuo-spatial forms for other ordinal sequences (e.g. days, months, letters) which suggests that it is the ordinal nature of numbers rather than numerical quantity that gives rise to this particular mode of representation. Finally, we also describe some consequences of number forms for performance in a number comparison task.     

What is the role of narcissism in the relationship between impulsivity and driving anger expression?

The contributing factors of aggressive driving have been studying in the last decades. Both impulsivity and narcissism are associated with aggressive driver behaviors. Although the role of these two factors were examined in the same studies, the combined role of these two factors hasn’t been studied yet. To understand the combined effect of them, in the present study, the moderated mediation model for examining the relationships of narcissism, impulsivity, and aggressive driver behavior was developed and tested. Three hundred and four participants completed an online survey battery comprised of Demographic Information Form, Five-Factor Narcissism Inventory-Short Form, Barrat Impulsiveness Scale- Short Form, and Driving Anger Expression Inventory. The moderated mediation analyses were conducted using PROCESS macro developed by Hayes and Preacher (2013). The results revealed that only the relationship between vulnerable narcissism and the use of vehicle to express anger is mediated by attentional impulsiveness. Also, this relationship is moderated by grandiose narcissism. In detail, grandiose narcissism moderates the direct effect of vulnerable narcissism on attentional impulsivity and also the direct effect of attentional impulsivity on the use of vehicle to express anger. Theoretical and practical implications of these findings and recommendations for future studies are discussed.     

What is the relationship between phonological short-term memory and speech processing?

Traditionally, models of speech comprehension and production do not depend on concepts and processes from the phonological short-term memory (pSTM) literature. Likewise, in working memory research, pSTM is considered to be a language-independent system that facilitates language acquisition rather than speech processing per se. We discuss couplings between pSTM, speech perception and speech production, and we propose that pSTM arises from the cycling of information between two phonological buffers, one involved in speech perception and one in speech production. We discuss the specific role of these processes in speech processing, and argue that models of speech perception and production, and our understanding of their neural bases, will benefit from incorporating them.     

Does frontal brain activity mediate the effect of depression prevention in adolescents? A pilot study

We investigated whether (a) depression prevention was associated with depressive symptoms and medial-frontal alpha asymmetry in adolescents; (b) alpha asymmetry mediated the association between participation in a prevention program and depressive symptoms; and (c) gender affects these associations. In our randomised control group study, we compared a universal prevention program (n = 40 adolescents, 14 females) with a non-intervention control condition (n = 39 adolescents, 20 females) in German secondary school students (mean age: 13.53 years, SD = 0.53). We collected data at baseline, post-intervention, 6-month, and 12-month follow-up using the Self-Rating Questionnaire for Depressive Disorders (SBB-DES) and resting medial-frontal alpha activity on F3 and F4. We found that girls benefitted from participating in the prevention program in regards to their depressive symptoms at 12-month follow-up but not alpha asymmetry. In boys, participation in the prevention program was associated with their alpha asymmetry at 6-month follow-up but not their depressive symptoms. Alpha asymmetry did not mediate the effects of the prevention program on depressive symptoms in either gender. Although participation in the prevention program was associated with both depressive symptoms and alpha asymmetry, those associations seem independent from each other. Possible explanations for this result pattern are discussed.     

Overcoming Arlie Hochschild's concepts of the ‘real’ and ‘false’ self by drawing on Pierre Bourdieu's concept of habitus

This article theoretically discusses Arlie Hochschild's (1983, 1998) concept of the ‘real’ and ‘false’ self (1983: 194) and how this holds together her model about how it is we manage our emotions. Hochschild draws on ideas about surface acting, deep acting and authenticity to support her theory of emotion management. In this discussion I argue that these ideas undermine the clarity of the theoretical model Hochschild tries to develop to explain emotion management. The first aim here is to demonstrate that this concept of the real and false self acts as an unnecessary conceptual linchpin making Hochschild's ideas about emotion management opaque. The second aim in this article is to theoretically engage with Pierre Bourdieu's (1984, 1990) concept of habitus as a way of overcoming Hochschild's idea of the real and false self.     

Did you witness demonic possession? A response time analysis of the relationship between event plausibility and autobiographical beliefs

This study tested the hypothesis that the search for information pertinent to answering the question “Did eventx happen to you?” is preceded by a preliminary plausibility assessment, the outcome of which affects the amount of effort invested in the search. Undergraduate students were asked to assess the plausibility of six events and subsequently to rate their belief that each event had happened to them before the age of 6. Unknown to them, response times (RTs) for answering the belief questions were also recorded. RTs for making belief judgments were more highly correlated with plausibility than with belief, and were significantly associated with plausibility even when belief ratings were controlled. As predicted, RTs were very short when the event was deemed highly implausible and increased sharply if the event was deemed at least somewhat plausible; significant but less pronounced increases in RTs followed as plausibility increased further.     

Exploring the relationship between students’ values and the values of postsecondary institutions

Little is known of how institutional and individual value systems are related among university undergraduates. With three different measures and samples of college students, perceptions of university mission and values (i.e., institutional values, creating pro-social climates, and developing a life-long commitment to values) loaded independently of their personal values systems, and often negatively with social desirability. Perceptions of institutional values were generally independent of personal value systems, using either a rank-order (Sample 1, n = 199) or rating scale method (Sample 2, n = 107), or by focusing on moral behavior structures (Sample 3, n = 208). Together, these results indicate that higher education assessment may reflect institutional values that are independent of student personal value systems.Portions of this paper were presented at the 2004 Institute for College Student Values, Tallahassee, FL     

What do category-specific semantic deficits tell us about the representation of lexical concepts?

A reassessment of category-specific semantic deficits in light of their contribution to a theory of the representation of lexical concepts is proposed. Two theories are examined: one, held by the majority of researchers in the field, claims that concepts are represented by sets of features; another, in contrast, claims that concepts are atomic representations. An analysis of category-specific semantic deficits in terms of inferential relations (of the meaning-postulates type) between atomic concepts is elaborated. It is argued that this theory can better account for the pattern of performance exhibited by patients with semantic deficits.     

Placebo and the helsinki declaration — What to do?

The Helsinki Declaration is the ‘gold standard’ — a directive, not a law, on how to conduct controlled studies in humans in conformity with ethical principles. In spite of many discussions about their unsuitability some articles have remained unchanged in the most recent (sixth) revision of the Declaration. The demand to use “the best treatment” excludes use of placebo in the control group and presents an obstacle to the scientific evaluation of a number of drugs and treatments in general. The use of placebo is justified whenever its use does not cause irreversible damage or considerable suffering to the well informed patient. It must be, is, and will be used in the controlled clinical trials of treatments of a great number of diseases especially those which have a tendency to spontaneous improvement, even healing, or have a pronounced psychological component An earlier version of this paper was presented at an international conference, “Placebo: Its Action and Place in Health Research Today,” held in Warsaw, Poland on 12–13 April, 2003.