Ethical Design of Intelligent Assistive Technologies for Dementia: A Descriptive Review

The use of Intelligent Assistive Technology (IAT) in dementia care opens the prospects of reducing the global burden of dementia and enabling novel opportunities to improve the lives of dementia patients. However, with current adoption rates being reportedly low, the potential of IATs might remain under-expressed as long as the reasons for suboptimal adoption remain unaddressed. Among these, ethical and social considerations are critical. This article reviews the spectrum of IATs for dementia and investigates the prevalence of ethical considerations in the design of current IATs. Our screening shows that a significant portion of current IATs is designed in the absence of explicit ethical considerations. These results suggest that the lack of ethical consideration might be a codeterminant of current structural limitations in the translation of IATs from designing labs to bedside. Based on these data, we call for a coordinated effort to proactively incorporate ethical considerations early in the design and development of new products.     

Functions and Health at the Interface of Biology and Technology

Synthetic biology promises to eliminate the distinction between biology and engineering by delivering a philosophically interesting new kind of entity: a biological organism that is wholly designed and constructed by humans. The possibility of such organisms raises interesting questions in three domains: the analysis of (1) biological functions, (2) engineering functions, and (3) health and disease. This paper identifies and systematically answers these questions. This does not only establish how we should think about functions and health and disease in synthetic biological organisms, but it also reveals insights that are of broader relevance: (1) aetiological accounts of biological function need to omit or reinterpret reference to natural selection. This results in complete continuity between aetiological analyses of function in engineering and philosophy; (2) considering synthetic biology prompts interesting further questions about heritability, ancestry, and biological individuals; and (3) accounts of disease as biological dysfunction do not straightforwardly map onto our intuitive health and disease judgments regarding non-human animals. In response to the latter point I examine three possible avenues, and tentatively defend one on behalf of the ‘disease as dysfunction’ theorist.     

The Interface Between Rational Emotive Behavior Therapy (REBT) and Zen

While Rational Emotive Behaviour Therapy (REBT) highlights the norm of people's dogmatic, fanatical, and rigid religious beliefs, it has always favoured several aspects of Zen-Buddhism as a modus vivendi. Scientifically-based REBT and wisdom-oriented Zen have more in common than one might think at first sight. In this chapter, I, Albert Ellis and Maurits Kwee show how REBT and Zen have significant commonalities as well as differences. “What are these commonalities?”, and “What are the issues of mutual interest for REBT and Zen?” are the main questions that we deal with here. It is submitted that most of REBT theory and practice are in keeping with the spirit of Zen. We note that East and West may in some ways cross-fertilise each other in the interface between these two proposed ways of living. The narrative techniques of Zen by means of koans (e.g., analogies, metaphors, parables) and of REBT (its many cognitive, emotive, and behavioural methods derived from its phenomenological view of human neurosis) are somewhat complementary to each other. Zen practice, if stripped of its mystical and Utopian aspects, particularly by omitting the non-verifiable concepts of the ostensible “higher” (non-thinking) state of consciousness, can often even be merged with REBT. One main (cultural) difference is that Zen attempts to go beyond rationality/relativity by striving for a certain kind of self-realisation (the irrational experience of satari) through paradoxically abolishing the self. The end result of this is not that the Zen adept becomes a “better” human being, but often becomes more aware of the hassles of life and how to cope with them from day to day. Something like the REBT practitioner, who practices what she or he preaches, the Zen practitioner remains the ordinary (though unique) imperfect human being as she or he was before, sadder but a little wiser. REBT had better be integrated with the most useful of other therapies, including Zen, so that it becomes and remains effective with many (not all) people much (not all) of the time. Due to cultural differences, the practice of Zen is not always compatible with the practice of Zen. However, the practice of REBT does fit with (post)modern Zen as an open living system. This chapter is laced with two dozen classic and modern koans that are to be used readily in therapy by the reader.     

The Interface Between Cognitive Behavior Therapy and Religion: Comment on Andersson and Asmundson (2006)

En 50-årig kvinna med tvättvång behandlades med modellering, exponering in vivo och "självstyrd" responsprevention, Behandlingen skedde under två veckor på sjukhus, därefter i kvinnans hem. Mycket goda resultat nåddes. Den beskrivna behandlingen jämförs med tidigare appliceringar av liknande metoder.     

Nature's Purposes: Analyses of Function and Design in Biology

Book Information Nature's Purposes: Analyses of Function and Design in Biology. Edited by Allen Colin, Bekoff Mark and Lauder George. MIT Press. Cambridge. 1998. Pp. vi + 597. Paperback, US$31.50.     

Student Behavior and Epistemological Framing: Examples from Collaborative Active-Learning Activities in Physics

The concept of framing from anthropology and sociolinguistics is useful for understanding student reasoning. For example, a student may frame a learning activity as an opportunity for sensemaking or as an assignment to fill out a worksheet. The student's framing affects what she notices, what knowledge she accesses, and how she thinks to act. We find evidence of framing in easily observed features of students' collaborative behavior. We apply this observational methodology to explore dynamics among behavior, framing, and the conceptual substance of student reasoning in the context of collaborative active-learning activities in an introductory university physics course. We find evidence that certain student behaviors indicate and support a relatively sophisticated epistemological framing of these activities, one in which students discuss the substance of the ideas at hand.     

Gamification: The Intersection between Behavior Analysis and Game Design Technologies

Deterding et al. (Proceedings of the 15th International Academic MindTrek Conference: Envisioning Future Media Environments, USA 15: 9–15, 2011) report a recent rise in popularity of video game inspired software designed to address issues in a variety of areas, including health, energy conservation, education, and business. These applications have been based on the concept of gamification, which involves a process by which nongame activities are designed to be more like a game. We provide examples of how gamification has been used to increase health-related behavior, energy consumption, academic performance, and other socially-significant behavior. We argue that behavior analytic research and practice stands to benefit from incorporating successful elements of game design. Lastly, we provide suggestions for behavior analysts regarding applied and basic research related to gamification.     

The Continuity Strategy,Human Behavior,and Behavior Analysis

The Psychological Record - In behavior analysis, continuity refers to the assumption of a similarity of behavioral principles or processes between nonhumans and humans, which is often considered to...     

The Lunchroom Behavior Game: A Single-Case Design Conceptual Replication

Inappropriate behaviors often occur in non-classroom settings, such as lunchrooms, due to the increased volume of students with fewer supervising adults. As such, there is a need for effective and efficient behavior management interventions that can be implemented in these environments. To address frequent disruptions in an urban elementary lunchroom, McCurdy et al. (J Sch Psychol 47:39–54, 2009) developed a team-based interdependent group contingency called the Lunchroom Behavior Game (LBG) and observed decreased disruptions, while staff and students found the intervention highly acceptable. Given this success, we replicated the LBG in an elementary school in a mid-sized Southeastern city. LBG implementation was staggered across three lunch periods using a multiple-baseline design across subjects. The rate of disruptive behaviors decreased in all lunches following LBG implementation and remained at lower levels during maintenance observations; however, implementation fidelity and student acceptability were low. Specific implementation issues encountered and recommendations for future research are discussed.

     

Culture,context, and cognition: The Semantic Procedural Interface model of the self

Several studies have found evidence that social information processing is strongly influenced by the person either primarily defining his or her self as an autonomous entity (independent self-construal) or as related to other people (interdependent self-construal). In this chapter, we describe the psychological mechanisms by which independent and interdependent self-construals affect individual experience. We propose the Semantic Procedural Interface (SPI) model of the self, which distinguishes two such mechanisms. In addition to differences in the semantic content areas from which independent and interdependent self-construals arise (semantic application mechanism), there are also different procedural modes of thinking (procedural application mechanism) associated with them. Independent self-definitions coincide with the tendency to process stimuli unaffected by the context in which they appear. Relating the self to the social contexts within interdependent self-construals facilitates context-bounded thinking (i.e., processing stimuli by paying attention to their relation to the given context). The results of several experiments attesting to the value of the differentiation between both application mechanisms are presented. We discuss how far differences in information processing between members of different cultural groups can be traced back to the mechanisms described in the SPI model.     

God, Determinism, and Action: Perspectives from Physics

Recent articles by Michael Heller, Carl Helrich, Peter Hodgson, Jeffrey Koperski, and Nicholas Saunders present a challenge to much current thinking on God, divine action, and cosmology. In the process, they also reveal underlying assumptions and current problems, especially in the debate over physics and divine action. In particular, three issues come up that need to be addressed further. First, what is the status of determinism, and what can physics contribute? Second, what kind of divine action are we talking about? Third, what is the relationship between God and time, and how does this affect claims about the personhood of God? While these essays present necessary critiques and interesting, positive proposals, they also reveal unresolved tensions that need to be addressed.     

Rational Emotive Behavior Therapy: The Past,Present, and Future

The intent of this article is to describe the significant contributions Albert Ellis made to rational emotive education and to a preventative approach to psychotherapy, which represents a major shift from many other counseling theories. The author notes that REBT as a preventative mental health approach was very important to Albert Ellis because he believed that it would extend the influence of REBT, but unfortunately he and other REBT practitioners have not put enough systematic emphasis on training teachers to implement rational concepts into the curriculum. Given the number of children and adolescents needing mental health services, this is an area that should be emphasized and would extend Al’s legacy. The article also addresses Dr. Ellis’ contributions in the area of parenting, where once again he was a pioneer in teaching parents how to deal with their irrational beliefs that interfere with effective parenting. The author concludes with a discussion about “where we go from here,” focusing on training at the university level, developing a standardized REE program that includes a train the trainer component, becoming more of a presence in the field of health care, and putting more emphasis on the therapeutic relationship which may attract more people to the theory.