Needs (Murray, 1938) and state-variables (Skinner, 1938).

Skinner's concept of drive as a state-variable and his powerful rationale for introducing it agree closely with Murray's treatment of need. Operant behaviorists' usual deprecation of motivation in favor of stimulus control arises partly from features of parameters, insufficiently explored in some regions, of Skinner box research. For human adults on rich reinforcement schedules, response selection is chiefly controlled by the regnant motive. Skinner's life-long interest in inner events and translating psychodynamic concepts into behaviorese was obscured by his metalanguage philosophy of science (behaviorism).     

(Neuro)predictions,Dangerousness, and Retributivism

Through the criminal justice system so-called dangerous offenders are, besides the offence that they are being convicted of and sentenced to, also punished for acts that they have not done but that they are believe to be likely to commit in the future. The aim of this paper is to critically discuss whether some adherents of retributivism give a plausible rationale for punishing offenders more harshly if they, all else being equal, by means of predictions are believed to be more dangerous than other offenders. While consequentialism has no problem, at least in principle, with this use of predictions most retributivists have been opponents of punishing offenders on the basis of predictions. How can an offender deserve to be punished for something that he has not done? But some retributivists like Anthony Duff and Stephen Morse have argued in favor of punishing offenders who are considered to be dangerous in the future more harshly than non-dangerous offenders. After having reconstructed their arguments in detail, it will be argued that both Duff’s and Morse’s attempts to give a retributivistic justification have several shortcomings.     

Anxiety,Learning, and Instruction (Book)

When witnesses at a trial offer testimony that is vivid, it may be more persuasive than the same testimony offered in a pallid manner. In this paper we elucidate three categories of variables (inferential, attentional/memorial, and affective) that are likely to mediate the effects of the vividness of testimony on jury judgments. These variables are then used to explain discrepant findings among mock juror experiments investigating vividness effects. Finally, we discuss the implications of vividness effects for the legal system.     

Further clarification on the Hom, Mitchell, Lee, and Griffeth (2012) model: Reply to Bergman, Payne, and Boswell (2012) and Maertz (2012)

In this article, we reply to Bergman, Payne, and Boswell (2012) and Maertz (2012), who commented on our reconceptualization of the employee turnover criterion and proximal withdrawal states (Hom, Mitchell, Lee, & Griffeth, 2012). We agree with some points (e.g., anticipated destinations) but take issue with others (e.g., turnover intentions as the criterion). Nonetheless, our aim is to clarify our integrative formulation about mindsets for organizational participation and withdrawal. In our view, the current process of "article-commentaries-reply" advances our collective understanding of staying and leaving, which is of longstanding interest to scholars in industrial and organizational psychology, organizational behavior, and human resource management. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2012 APA, all rights reserved).     

Nature, culture, and explanations for erotic plasticity: reply to Andersen, Cyranowski, and Aarestad (2000) and Hyde and Durik (2000)

R. F. Baumeister's (2000) article on erotic plasticity was criticized by B. L. Andersen, J. M. Cyranowski, and S. Aarestad (2000) for not being biological enough and by J. S. Hyde and A. M. Durik (2000) for being too biological. Both critiques were based on drawing a polarized caricature of R. F. Baumeister's actual view, although the two caricatures are opposites. Actually, neither commentary questioned the gender difference R. F. Baumeister documented; rather, the dispute is about how to explain it, which is indeed a challenge remaining for further work. Although both commentaries provided valuable suggestions about how to approach an explanation, neither approach can provide a coherent account until various theoretical problems are resolved and seemingly contrary empirical findings are addressed.     

'Geraniums (red) and Delphiniums (blue)': Trauma,Ethics, and Medical Communications

More official complaints about medical treatment in the UK relate to poor communications than to wrong diagnoses. This article, in considering the importance of communications training for clinicians, is structured into three sections. From use of a story that introduces the idea of miscommunication and trauma in the first section, the article moves, in the second, to a theorisation of trauma as a concept, addressing issues of intersubjectivity, the relationship between embodied and psychological being, and ethics. From this, the third section engages directly with medical communications training, exemplifying a particular literary-studies approach to matters of communication.     

(Re)assembling Natures,Cultures, and (Nano)technologies in Public Engagement

Abstract

Practices of ordering are powerful means of giving structure to people's lives and providing a sense of control. The analysis of three episodes from discussion groups on nanotechnology in Austria shows that citizens evaluate new technologies with regard to how they intersect with, support, or disturb existing orders. The concept of discursive assemblages serves as a lens for recognising the non-fixed character of the discursive process, while still allowing the analyst to identify how specific elements, such as conceptions of nature, culture, and technology, are (re)assembled at particular moments. Each of the three episodes represents a specific way of creating and negotiating assemblages: the first case demonstrates how discussants collectively discuss a nature–technology hybrid (nano-bamboo socks) against the backdrop of a highly valued ideal of keeping ‘the natural’ and ‘the technological’ separate; the second episode exemplifies a clash of two assemblages as participants argued for or against the application of nanotechnology in food products; and the third example illustrates the process of collective experimentation with different assemblages to make sense of a highly futuristic nanochip for brain enhancement. Together the episodes demonstrate that participants in public engagement settings do not address nanotechnology as a simple question of choice between acceptance and rejection but rather engage in processes of care regarding how a society might develop when technological innovations such as nanotechnology threaten to blur existing boundaries and orders, such as the distinction between nature and culture.     

Filling-in models of completion: rejoinder to Kellman, Garrigan, Shipley, and Keane (2007) and Albert (2007)

There has been a growing interest in understanding the computations involved in the processes underlying visual segmentation and interpolation in conditions of occlusion. P. J. Kellman, P. Garrigan, T. F. Shipley, and B. P. Keane and M. K. Albert defended the view that identical contour interpolation mechanisms underlie modal and amodal completion. In the current rejoinder, the author provides further psychophysical evidence against this view and argues that no physiological data support the claim that modal and amodal contours are represented identically at any stage of processing. The author also shows that the illusory glass surfaces that Kellman et al. and Albert upheld as evidence against his arguments about luminance constraints in completion are explained by theoretical principles that he has previously articulated, and variants of these illusions receive no explanation within either of the models Kellman et al. and Albert propose. The author shows that the principles needed to explain these percepts embody fundamental asymmetries in the way that relative depth shapes segmentation and interpolation processes and that models of completion that lack these constraints--such as P. J. Kellman, P. Garrigan, and T. F. Shipley's and M. K. Albert's --cannot account for a host of documented completion phenomena.     

Correction to Schlaghecken, Birak, and Maylor (2011)

Reports an error in "Age-related deficits in low-level inhibitory motor control" by Friederike Schlaghecken, Kulbir S. Birak and Elizabeth A. Maylor (Psychology and Aging, 2011[Dec], Vol 26[4], 905-918). The authors discovered that the method proposed for individually extracting priming effects from time course analysis may lead to some spurious effects. In view of possible spurious effects from their application of time course analysis, the authors adopted an alternative strategy that retains their attempt to take an individual approach to identifying NCEs in older participants who may vary more than young participants in terms of the prime-target SOA at which NCEs initially appear. This reanalysis is presented in the erratum. (The following abstract of the original article appeared in record 2011-10375-001.) Inhibitory control functions in old age were investigated with the "masked prime" paradigm in which participants executed speeded manual choice responses to simple visual targets. These were preceded-either immediately or at some earlier time-by a backward-masked prime. Young adults produced positive compatibility effects (PCEs)-faster and more accurate responses for matching than for nonmatching prime-target pairs-when prime and target immediately followed each other, and the reverse effect (negative compatibility effect, NCE) for targets that followed the prime after a short interval. Older adults produced similar PCEs to young adults, indicating intact low-level motor activation, but failed to produce normal NCEs even with longer delays (Experiment 1), increased opportunity for prime processing (Experiment 2), and prolonged learning (Experiment 3). However, a fine-grained analysis of each individual's time course of masked priming effects revealed NCEs in the majority of older adults, of the same magnitude as those of young adults. These were significantly delayed (even more than expected on the basis of general slowing), indicating a disproportionate impairment of low-level inhibitory motor control in old age. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2012 APA, all rights reserved).