Reasoning about the referent of a picture versus reasoning about the picture as the referent: An effect of visual realism

Research on picture perception and picture-based problem solving has generally considered the information that enables one to “see” and think about a picture’s subject matter. However, people often reason about a picture or representation as the referent itself. The question addressed here is whether pictorial features themselves help determine when one reasons about the referent of an image, as with an engrossing movie, and when one reasons about the image in its own right, as with abstract art. Two experiments tested the hypothesis that pictures with relatively high fidelity to their referents lead people to think about those referents, whereas pictures with relatively low fidelity lead people to think about the picture as a referent. Subjects determined whether marks on the bottom and top boards of an open hinge would meet if the hinge were closed. Accuracy and latency results indicated that subjects who saw realistic displays simulated the physical behavior of the hinge through analog imagery. In contrast, subjects who saw schematic displays tended to reason about static features of the display such as line lengths and angles. The results demonstrate that researchers must be cautious when generalizing from reasoning about diagrammatic materials to reasoning about the referents themselves.     

Composition and the cases

Some strange cases have gripped philosophers of mind. They have been deployed against materialism about human persons, functionalism about mentality, the possibility of artificial intelligence, and more. In this paper, I cry “foul”. It’s not hard to think that there’s something wrong with the cases. But what? My proposal: their proponents ignore questions about composition (questions about when some things make up another). And ignoring composition is a mistake. Indeed, materialists about human persons, functionalists about mentality, and believers in the possibility of artificial intelligence can plausibly deploy moderate theories of composition in defense of their views. And as it turns out, these strange cases are an interesting source of evidence for moderate theories of composition.     

论孝文化的现代价值

孝文化在中国古代社会的作用包括道德教育、稳定社会和民族凝聚的功能。中国孝文化中的精华成分体现其对人类文明的普遍价值,从而决定了孝文化所具有的现代意义。通过对孝文化的改造实现孝道伦理的价值转化,通过孝道文化的教育实现孝道伦理的弘扬。     

Dummett on Bringing About the Past

In ‘Bringing about the Past’ Michael Dummett attempted to defend the coherence of the idea of bringing about the past. I agree that bringing about the past is conceptually no more problematic than bringing about the future, but argue, against Dummett, that there is no need to restrict the scope of an agent’s knowledge in order to make sense of intentionally bringing about past events.     

Subtyping and social consensus: the role of the audience in the maintenance of stereotypic beliefs

Two studies investigated the effect of stereotypes held by a prospective audience on participants' reactions to a stereotype‐disconfirming member. In Study 1, participants formed an impression of a positive disconfirming gay in order to communicate it to an audience known to hold a negative versus positive stereotype about gays. As predicted, participants subtyped the deviant more in the former than in the latter case. Moreover, participants' stereotype at the end of the study mirrored the audience's assumed stereotypes about gays. In Study 2, participants learned about a stereotype allegedly held by an ingroup or an outgroup audience about Belgians and then received information about a Belgian who disconfirmed the stereotype. As predicted, the deviant was seen as less typical when he violated the stereotype held by an ingroup than by an outgroup audience. Also, participants' stereotype about Belgians was more similar to the one held by the ingroup audience. A mediational analysis confirmed that participants subtyped the disconfirming member in order to embrace the stereotype advocated by the ingroup audience. Results are discussed in light of recent models of stereotype change. Copyright © 2006 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

从个体印象管理到组织印象管理

组织印象管理（OIM）关注组织如何通过行为和信息的调控来影响受众的知觉问题,成为当前印象管理研究的新领域。组织印象管理与个体印象管理具有互动关系;个体印象管理研究为组织印象管理研究奠定了基础。未来组织印象管理研究的重点领域包括：研发组织印象管理的评价工具,了解组织印象管理的策略,认识组织印象管理策略使用的后效,并突出组织印象管理的在我国的实际应用研究     

Masturbation and the Media

This paper explores the important role the media play in informing young people about masturbation. A pilot study of focus groups with twenty-two young Australians aged between 14 and 16 explored what they know about sex and sexuality, and where they have found that knowledge. This paper reports on their knowledge about masturbation. Although researchers agree that masturbation can be a positive part of healthy sexual development, most young people reported that they received very little positive information about it from their parents or in formal sex education in school. These young people’s discussions around this topic were largely ambivalent, but also highly complex due to the varying levels and types of information that they receive. In this context the media play a vital role in providing information about masturbation through books and magazines for young women, and television comedies for young men.     

For the Sake of the Final End

The question of the viability of theological eudaimonism as an interpretation of the moral life has generated increasing debate in recent years. This essay aims to advance the debate about theological eudaimonism (and eudaimonism more generally) by addressing a closely related but insufficiently discussed issue: the nature of human agency and its relationship to value. The most commonly raised objection to eudaimonism is that it is objectionably agent-oriented. I argue that worries about objectionable self-orientation often stem from importing foreign pictures of agency into the eudaimonist tradition. I make this case through an analysis of Nicholas Wolterstorff’s recent critique of eudaimonism. Wolterstorff presupposes a common contemporary conception of agency. Drawing on Thomas Aquinas and Elizabeth Anderson, I show that other conceptions of agency are available. Clarity about the nature of human agency and its relationship to value will bring greater clarity to the debate about eudaimonism and self-orientation.     

Moral objectivism across the lifespan

We report the results of two studies that examine folk metaethical judgments about the objectivity of morality. We found that participants attributed almost as much objectivity to ethical statements as they did to statements of physical fact and significantly more objectivity to ethical statements than to statements about preferences or tastes. In both studies, younger participants attributed less objectivity to ethical statements than older participants. Females were observed to attribute slightly less objectivity to ethical statements than males, and we found important interactions between attributions of objectivity and other factors, such as how strong participants’ moral opinions were and how much disagreement about the issue they perceived to exist within society. We believe our results have significant implications for debates about the nature of folk morality and about the nature of morality in general.     

Reversing the spiral toward futility

The most difficult task for the counselor is to find a way to reverse the spiral of the ′60's that has propelled black students toward futility. The committed counselor should communicate honesty and sincerity to the students, know the facts about the black experience, enlighten his administration about black students' needs, and have first-hand knowledge about students' feelings regarding their curriculum.     

On the nature of interactions between the past and the present.

We conceptualize the past and the present as dimensions of experience and ask whether past processing must affect decisions about the present and whether present processing must affect decisions about the past. The paradigm is speeded classification: Ss classified a stimulus's past spatial position and tried to ignore information about present position (Experiments 1-4), or classified present position, while attempting to ignore past position (Experiments 5-6). We found that in classifying the past, Ss were unable to ignore present position, unless it was processed apart from the retrieval cue. In classifying the present, subjects could ignore past position completely. We conclude that a processing asymmetry exists, reflecting perhaps a logical asymmetry in the information required to make past or present decisions.     

Some philosophical concerns about how the VIA classifies character traits and the VIA-IS measures them

ABSTRACT

Written from the perspective of a philosopher, this paper raises a number of potential concerns with how the VIA classifies and the VIA-IS measures character traits. With respect to the 24 character strengths, concerns are raised about missing strengths, the lack of vices, conflicting character strengths, the unclear connection between character strengths and virtues, and the misclassification of some character strengths under certain virtues. With respect to the 6 virtues, concerns are raised about conflicting virtues, the absence of practical wisdom, and factor analyses that do not find a 6 factor structure. With respect to the VIA-IS, concerns are raised about its neglect of motivation and about the underlying assumptions it makes about character traits. The paper ends by sketching a significantly improved classification which omits the 6 virtues and introduces additional strengths, vices, and a conflict resolution trait.     

How the visual system detects changes in the direction of moving targets

To determine how the visual system represents information about change in target direction, we studied the detection of such change under conditions of varying stimulus certainty. Target direction was either held constant over trials or was allowed to vary randomly. When target direction was constant the observer could be certain about that stimulus characteristic; randomizing the target direction rendered the observer uncertain. We measured response times (RTs) to changes in target direction following initial trajectories of varying time and distance. In different conditions, the observer was uncertain about either the direction of the initial trajectory, or the direction of change or both. With brief initial trajectories in random directions, uncertainty about initial direction elevated RTs by 50 ms or more. When the initial trajectories were at least 500 ms, this directional uncertainty ceased to affect RTs; then, only uncertainty about the direction of change affected RTs. We discuss the implications of these results for (i) schemes by which the visual system might code directional change; (ii) the visual integration time for directional information; and (iii) adaptational processes in motion perception.     

Psychoanalysis and the Education of the Child by Gerald H. J. Pearson

A conceptualization is presented which encourages a renewed exploration of the way in which psychiatric patients discuss their medications in the group therapy setting. It is suggested that process-oriented group therapiststend to harbor subtle prejudices which may inhibit examination of this material. If we listen to medication-related discourse more carefully, we find that patients disclose important information about hopes and fears about treatment, self-efficacy, attitudes about control and authority, and other sensitive or disowned parts of experience. The process of interactions about medicines often reveals interpersonal difficulties, particularly around intimacy. Suggestions for intervening more effectively with this type of material are presented. The importance of medication attributions in revealing curative fantasies is discussed.     

Psychotherapy in France: the legacy and the future

This paper looks at the present situation of psychotherapy in France. In studying the historical background to the introduction of psychoanalysis in France since the 1920s, an assumption is made about the similar changes in paradigms brought about by the emergence of a new field, whether this be psychoanalysis or psychotherapy.     

Potentiation, overshadowing, and blocking of spatial learning based on the shape of the environment

Rats were trained in Experiment 1 to find a submerged platform in 1 corner of either a rectangular or a kite-shaped pool. When the walls creating this corner were a different color than the opposite walls, then learning about the shape of the pool was potentiated in the kite but not in the rectangle. Experiments 2-4 revealed that learning about the rectangle can be overshadowed and blocked when information about the wall color indicates the location of the platform. The results mimic findings that have been obtained with Pavlovian conditioning, and they challenge the claim that learning about the shape of the environment takes places in a dedicated geometric module.     

On the philosophy of psi

In Naming and Necessity, Kripke argues that intuitions about what is possible play a limited, but important, role in challenging philosophical theses, counting as evidence against them only if they cannot be reconstrued as intuitions about something else, compatible with the thesis in question. But he doesn't provide clear guidelines for determining when such intuitions have been successfully reconstrued, leading some to question their status as evidence for modal claims. In this paper I focus on some worries, articulated by Michael Della Rocca, about whether modal intuitions can be evidence for claims about essential properties, and argue that there is a way of viewing the role of modal intuition in philosophical argument that can preserve their evidential force.     

Close to the Truth

Philosophia - We often think or say that someone was wrong about something but almost right about it or close to the truth. This can mean more than one thing. Here, I propose an analysis of the...     

Ribot, Binet, and the emergence from the anthropological shadow

In the drive to establish a naturalistic psychology in France, anthropological assumptions about a hierarchy of physically determined racial groups with inherent psychological characteristics and about the nearly insurmountable retardation of primitive cultures permeated the work of the founder of French empirical psychology, Théodule Ribot. Assumptions about the correlation of brain mass and head size with intelligence affected Alfred Binet. The rise of sociology and challenges to existing theories of inheritance led Ribot to surrender fitfully some hereditarian assumptions. Binet's experimental caution and contemporary critiques of anthropometry tempered, but did not fully extinguish, his enthusiasm for psychophysical correlations.     

Speaking freely: on free will and the epistemology of testimony

Peter Graham has recently given a dilemma purportedly showing the compatibility of libertarianism about free will and the anti-skeptical epistemology of testimony. In the first part of this paper I criticize his dilemma: the first horn either involves a false premise or makes the dilemma invalid. The second horn relies without argument on an implausible assumption about testimonial knowledge, and even if granted, nothing on this horn shows libertarianism does not entail skepticism about testimonial justification. I then argue for the incompatibility of (i) a view entailed by Open Theism, viz., that there are no true counterfactuals of freedom, (ii) a popular form of process reliabilism about justification and knowledge, and (iii) a weak anti-skepticism about testimonial justification and knowledge. I conclude that there is a costly tension between certain views about testimony and about free will.