The development of arithmetic principle knowledge: How do we know what learners know?

This paper reviews research on learners’ knowledge of three arithmetic principles: Commutativity, Relation to Operands, and Inversion. Studies of arithmetic principle knowledge vary along several dimensions, including the age of the participants, the context in which the arithmetic is presented, and most importantly, the type of knowledge assessment (e.g., application of procedures, evaluation of examples). The vast majority of studies utilize single-faceted knowledge assessments, which can lead to incomplete or misleading views of learners’ knowledge. Both context and type of knowledge assessment can influence conclusions about learners’ arithmetic principle knowledge. However, relatively few studies directly address the possible effects of context or type of knowledge assessment on their results. To move the field forward, research that utilizes multifaceted knowledge assessments is needed.     

How can we know what we need to know? Reflections on clinical judgment formation

What distinguishes a psychoanalyst from any other psychologically minded, empathic human being? This seemingly simple question goes to the heart of our profession, the way we see ourselves as competent clinicians. To understand a patient's material beyond ordinary empathy--that is, to come to a clinical judgment--we need to step out of the dyadic, countertransference situation and reflect what we've experienced in reference to our clinical theories. An analytic vignette shows how a theoretical background can be used to understand and interpret to a patient in a way that is deeply meaningful.     

How do we know that we are unique?

This paper aims to examine the notion of uniqueness as one aspect of the self that is taken for granted in psychotherapy. This paper attempts to address the question 'how do we know that we are unique individuals?' and in so doing, points out some difficulties. One plausible, but not problem-free answer is the notion of privileged access. Some of the problems will be briefly outlined.     

When we like what we know – A parametric fMRI analysis of beauty and familiarity

This paper presents a neuroscientific study of aesthetic judgments on written texts. In an fMRI experiment participants read a number of proverbs without explicitly evaluating them. In a post-scan rating they rated each item for familiarity and beauty. These individual ratings were correlated with the functional data to investigate the neural correlates of implicit aesthetic judgments. We identified clusters in which BOLD activity was correlated with individual post-scan beauty ratings. This indicates that some spontaneous aesthetic evaluation takes place during reading, even if not required by the task. Positive correlations were found in the ventral striatum and in medial prefrontal cortex, likely reflecting the rewarding nature of sentences that are aesthetically pleasing. On the contrary, negative correlations were observed in the classic left frontotemporal reading network. Midline structures and bilateral temporo-parietal regions correlated positively with familiarity, suggesting a shift from the task-network towards the default network with increasing familiarity.     

How do we know what we are doing? Time, intention and awareness of action

Time is a fundamental dimension of consciousness. Many studies of the "sense of agency" have investigated whether we attribute actions to ourselves based on a conscious experience of intention occurring prior to action, or based on a reconstruction after the action itself has occurred. Here, we ask the same question about a lower level aspect of action experience, namely awareness of the detailed spatial form of a simple movement. Subjects reached for a target, which unpredictably jumped to the side on some trials. Participants (1) expressed their expectancy of a target shift during the upcoming movement, (2) pointed at the target as quickly and accurately as possible before returning to the start posiment to the target shift if required and (3) reproduced the spatial path of the movement they had just made, as accurately as possible, to give an indication of their awareness of the pointing movement. We analysed the spatial disparity between the initial and the reproduced movements on those with a target shift. A negative disparity value, or undershoot, suggests that motor awareness merely reflects a sluggish record of coordinated motor performance, while a positive value, or overshoot, suggests that participants' intention to point to the shifting target contributes more to their awareness of action than their actual pointing movement. Undershoot and overshoot thus measure the reconstructive (motoric) and the preconstuctive (intentional) aspects of action awareness, respectively. We found that trials on which subjects strongly expected a target shift showed greater overshoot and less undershoot than trials with lower expectancy. Conscious expectancy therefore strongly influences the experience of the detailed motor parameters of our actions. Further, a delay inserted either between the expectancy judgement and the pointing movement, or between the pointing movement and the reproduction of the movement, had no effect on visuomotor adjustment but strongly influenced action awareness. Delays during either interval boosted undershoots, suggesting increased reliance on a time-limited sensory memory for action. The experience of action is thus strongly influenced by prior thoughts and expectations, but only over a short time period. Thus, awareness of our actions is a dynamic and relatively flexible mixture of what we intend to do, and what our motor system actually does.     

Evaluating evidence of psychological adaptation: how do we know one when we see one?

Evolutionary psychologists argue that human nature contains many discrete psychological adaptations. Each adaptation is theorized to have been functional in humans' ancestral past, and empirical evidence that an attribute is an adaptation can come from showing it possesses complexity, efficiency, universality, and other features of special design. In this article, we present a tutorial review of the evidentiary forms that evolutionary psychologists commonly use to document the existence of human adaptations. We also present a heuristic framework for integrating and evaluating cross-disciplinary evidence of adaptation. Pregnancy sickness, incest avoidance, men's desires for multiple sex partners, and an easily learned fear of snakes are evaluated as possible human adaptations using this framework. We conclude that future research and teaching in evolutionary psychology would benefit from more fully utilizing cross-disciplinary frameworks to evaluate evidence of human adaptation.     

Why we don’t deserve credit for everything we know

A view of knowledge—what I call the Deserving Credit View of Knowledge(DCVK)—found in much of the recent epistemological literature, particularly among so-called virtue epistemologists, centres around the thesis that knowledge is something for which a subject deserves credit. Indeed, this is said to be the central difference between those true beliefs that qualify as knowledge and those that are true merely by luck—the former, unlike the latter, are achievements of the subject and are thereby creditable to her. Moreover, it is often further noted that deserving credit is what explains the additional value that knowledge has over merely lucky true belief. In this paper, I argue that the general conception of knowledge found in the DCVK is fundamentally incorrect. In particular, I show that deserving credit cannot be what distinguishes knowledge from merely lucky true belief since knowledge is not something for which a subject always deserves credit.     

The paradox of happiness: Why are we not doing what we know makes us happy?

Achieving and maintaining happiness can be difficult, especially when people are not engaging in the activities they know facilitate it. ‘Flow’ activities require clear rules, challenge, a high investment of energy, and have been shown to promote long-term happiness better than low investment, passive activities. Do people know this? In two studies, we found that, despite recognizing that flow activities are more likely to facilitate happiness, people nevertheless participated in passive leisure significantly more often in a typical week. Participants rated passive activities as being significantly more enjoyable, requiring less effort, and being less daunting to get started than flow activities. Participants’ engagement in flow activities was significantly predicted by how enjoyable the activities were perceived to be, whereas how daunting those activities were rated predicted non-engagement. Passive activity engagement was only significantly predicted by enjoyment. Suggestions for enabling people to rise above the barriers to flow activities are offered.     

What do we know about psycholinguistic effects?

Identifying clear and unequivocal psycholinguistic effects for lexical retrieval tasks has been the aim of a significant proportion of recent research activity. Debates have erupted concerning the existence or otherwise of particular effects on particular lexical tasks. Here, it is suggested that the reason for these debates is that researchers exercise choice in what variables they consider in their analysis. It is further illustrated that methods that have been employed for comparing the size of these effects between tasks can only lead to inconclusive results. It is suggested that psycholinguistic data may be better analysed using structural equation modelling methodologies. An example of such an approach is presented.     

What do we know about psycholinguistic effects?

Identifying clear and unequivocal psycholinguistic effects for lexical retrieval tasks has been the aim of a significant proportion of recent research activity. Debates have erupted concerning the existence or otherwise of particular effects on particular lexical tasks. Here, it is suggested that the reason for these debates is that researchers exercise choice in what variables they consider in their analysis. It is further illustrated that methods that have been employed for comparing the size of these effects between tasks can only lead to inconclusive results. It is suggested that psycholinguistic data may be better analysed using structural equation modelling methodologies. An example of such an approach is presented.     

Prepubertal social gender transitions: What we know; what we can learn—A view from a gender affirmative lens

ABSTRACT

?Background: This article provides a review and commentary on social transition of gender-expansive prepubertal youth, analyzing risks, and benefits based on a synthesis of research and clinical observation, highlighting controversies, and setting forth recommendations, including the importance of continued clinical research.

Methods: This article involved: (1) a review and critique of the WPATH Standards of Care 7th edition guidelines on social transition; (2) a review and synthesis of empirical research on social transition in prepubertal children; (3) a discussion of clinical practice observations; (4) a discussion of continuing controversies and complexities involving early social transition; (5) a discussion of risks and benefits of social transition; and (6) conclusions and recommendations based upon the above.

Results: Results suggest that at this point research is limited and that some of the earliest research on young gender-expansive youth is methodologically questionable and has not been replicated. Newer research suggests that socially transitioned prepubertal children are often well adjusted, a finding consistent with clinical practice observations. Analysis of both emerging research and clinical reports reveal evidence of a stable transgender identity surfacing in early childhood.

Discussion: The authors make recommendations to support social transitions in prepubertal gender-expansive children, when appropriate, as a facilitator of gender health, defined as a child's opportunity to live in the gender that feels most authentic, acknowledging that there are limitations to our knowledge, and ongoing research is essential.     

Familiarity and attention: Does what we know affect what we notice?

Previous work on the object and word superiority effects has demonstrated that activation from stored representations can facilitate identification of items in a visual display. We predicted that activation of this sort might exogenously attract visual attention toward items that have stored representations. To test this prediction, we presented a familiar (word) and an unfamiliar (nonword) item simultaneously at unpredictable locations, and after varying delays, moved one of the stimuli. In accord with our prediction, at the shortest intervals subjects were more efficient at discriminating motion of the familiar item. Control data demonstrated that this advantage was due to a competitive interaction and not to the familiarity of the items per se.     

What do we really know about witness preparation?

Witnesses often meet with an attorney or witness preparation specialist before trial to review, discuss, and sometimes modify the substance and delivery of their anticipated testimony. This process is commonly referred to as witness preparation. During witness preparation, witnesses are taught to use effective testimony delivery skills (e.g., verbal and nonverbal communication skills) so that they will be perceived as being credible and persuasive in the courtroom. Although social scientists know much about communication skills, credibility, and persuasion, few published studies have attempted to determine whether or not these factors can be modified through witness preparation training. The present article reviews the psychological literature pertaining to witness preparation and makes recommendations for needed witness preparation research.     

Forming and updating vaccination beliefs: does the continued effect of misinformation depend on what we think we know?

Cognitive Processing - People may cling to false facts even in the face of updated and correct information. The present study confronted misconceptions about the measles, mumps and rubella vaccine...     

What do we know about what we cannot remember? Accessing the semantic attributes of words that cannot be recalled

Two experiments examined access to the semantic attributes of words that participants failed to retrieve. The results indicated access to all 3 dimensions of the semantic differential--evaluation, potency, and activity, as revealed by attribute judgments and by the nature of the commission errors made. There was no evidence for superior access to the emotional-evaluative dimension, inconsistent with what may be expected from the claimed primacy of emotion. In comparison with complete recall, partial recall exhibited a slower rate of forgetting and a stronger tendency to elicit know rather than remember responses. The results were discussed in terms of the processes that lead to partial recall and in terms of the possibility that the affective primacy hypothesis does not apply to memory retrieval.