What does it take to implicitly prime low-frequency category exemplars?

Prominent views of implicit priming agree that repetition of category exemplars should increase the probability of the exemplar coming to mind on a category production test. This prediction has been borne out in the data of numerous experiments that have used relatively high-frequency exemplars, but experiments that have used lower frequency exemplars have reported reduced or no priming on category production tests. Frameworks of memory disagree on why frequency would affect priming. The authors report 3 experiments, the first of which shows no priming of low-frequency exemplars under circumstances that yield priming of higher frequency instances. The second 2 experiments show that low-frequency instances can be primed, but the prior experience must bias the comprehension of the category label, not the exemplar.     

What would it take for electrophysiology to become clinically useful?

In this article we discuss the procedures that should be followed in order to develop diagnostic tests based on electrophysiologic parameters that would be useful to practicing psychiatrists in their efforts to diagnose mental disorders. To do this, we start by giving an overview of receiver operating characteristic (ROC) analysis, with which a candidate diagnostic test can be characterized mathematically. This methodology allows for an estimate of the overall discriminating power of the diagnostic test and thus can be used to compare the performance of one diagnostic test with that of another. However, ROC analysis cannot be used for optimizing a given diagnostic test (ie, determining the "best" cut-off) and, because it does not incorporate Bayes' theorem, it cannot be used to compare the performances of diagnostic tests when it is given to different risk groups for the target disorder. Both of these problems can be solved by using the concept of information theory. The equation for information gain automatically takes Bayes' theorem into consideration and also provides an intrinsic criterion for finding the cut-off that best discriminates between individuals who do and those who do not have the target disorder. Neither ROC analysis nor information theory are model dependent; however, if the equation for the frequency distribution of the electrophysiologic variable is known for the disease-positive and disease-negative populations, the calculations are greatly simplified. Therefore, the assumption is often made that both of these distributions (or transformations of the distributions) are Gaussian. However, studies have shown that the results of ROC analysis are quite robust to deviations from normality of the underlying distributions.     

What does it take for context to support action memory?

Previous research on the relation between context and action memory has given ambiguous results. Some experiments have found positive context effects, whereas other experiments have failed to demonstrate a context effect in action memory. Under nonmotor encoding conditions orderly action-locus pairings have been found to yield better recall than random pairings, this not being the case with motor encoding (Helstrup, 1989 a ). Three new experiments explored whether memory for loci could be linked with memory for action–using modified replications. The first experiment provided item-specific reasons for the action-locus connections, whereas the second experiment used a whole-list relational context task. Both experiments indicated that contexts can influence action memory also under enactment conditions, with strongest effect for whole-list contexts. The third experiment demonstrated how a positive context effect can be removed when the functional value of whole-list relational support cues is reduced.     

How long will it take? Power biases time predictions

People tend to underestimate the time it takes to accomplish tasks. This bias known as the planning fallacy derives from the tendency to focus attention too narrowly on the envisaged goal and to ignore additional information that could make predictions more accurate and less biased. Drawing on recent research showing that power induces attentional focus, four studies tested the hypothesis that power strengthens the tendency to underestimate future task completion time. Across a range of task domains, and using multiple operationalizations of power, including actual control over outcomes (Study 1), priming (Studies 2 and 3), and individual differences (Study 4), power consistently led to more optimistic and less accurate time predictions. Support was found for the role of attentional focus as an underlying mechanism for those effects. Differences in optimism, self-efficacy, and mood did not contribute to the greater bias in powerful individuals’ forecasts. We discuss the implications of these findings for institutional decision processes and occupational health.     

What does it take to have a positive impact on minority students' college retention?

This paper describes the Young Scholars Program (YSP), which seeks to expand the pool of African American and other underrepresented minority youth who aspire to attend college, and to help them meet entrance requirements and successfully obtain a college degree. Quarter-by-quarter data for the first two groups of YSP students entering The Ohio State University were promising. Their retention rates approximated university averages, while comparison groups showed lower levels of retention. It was concluded that the many facets of the Young Scholars Program, as well as the students' positive reputation among family members, peers, and teachers, produced strong motivation, ability, and determination to succeed.     

Reference in human and non-human primate communication: What does it take to refer?

The concept of functional reference has been used to isolate potentially referential vocal signals in animal communication. However, its relatedness to the phenomenon of reference in human language has recently been brought into question. While some researchers have suggested abandoning the concept of functional reference altogether, others advocate a revision of its definition to include contextual cues that play a role in signal production and perception. Empirical and theoretical work on functional reference has also put much emphasis on how the receiver understands the referential signal. However, reference, as defined in the linguistic literature, is an action of the producer, and therefore, any definition describing reference in non-human animals must also focus on the producer. To successfully determine whether a signal is used to refer, we suggest an approach from the field of pragmatics, taking a closer look at specific situations of signal production, specifically at the factors that influence the production of a signal by an individual. We define the concept of signaller’s reference to identify intentional acts of reference produced by a signaller independently of the communicative modality, and illustrate it with a case study of the hoo vocalizations produced by wild chimpanzees during travel. This novel framework introduces an intentional approach to referentiality. It may therefore permit a closer comparison of human and non-human animal referential behaviour and underlying cognitive processes, allowing us to identify what may have emerged solely in the human lineage.     

What is it to Depsychologize Psychology?

In this essay, I distinguish two ways of depsychologizing psychology: ‘anti‐psychologism’ and ‘non‐psychologism’. Both positions are responses to the Fregean sharp distinction between the logical and the psychological. But where anti‐psychologism, which I find in John McDowell, attempts to overcome the sharp distinction by arguing that psychological states and their expressions are apt to be articulated into judgments, Stanley Cavell's non‐psychologism, a powerful and neglected alternative, wants to overcome the sharp distinction by abandoning judgment as the paradigm expression of thought and communication.     

What is it to be healthy?

According to Christopher Boorse's Bio-Statistical Theory (BST), 'health' is statistically normal function in a reference class, and 'health' and 'disease' are empirical, objective and value-free concepts. I demonstrate that the success of the BST depends on its choice of reference classes; different reference classes result in different accounts of health. I argue that nothing in nature empirically or objectively dictates the use of reference classes Boorse proposes. Reference classes in the BST, and the concept of health, are therefore not value-free. Nor is there a reason to favour the BST over accounts of health that use different reference classes.     

What is it to lose hope?

This paper addresses the phenomenology of hopelessness. I distinguish two broad kinds of predicament that are easily confused: ‘loss of hopes’ and ‘loss of hope’. I argue that not all hope can be characterised as an intentional state of the form ‘I hope that p’. It is possible to lose all hopes of that kind and yet retain another kind of hope. The hope that remains is not an intentional state or a non-intentional bodily feeling. Rather, it is a ‘pre-intentional’ orientation or ‘existential feeling’, by which I mean something in the context of which certain kinds of intentional state, including intentional hope, are intelligible. I go on to discuss severe depression, lack of aspiration, demoralisation and loss of trust in the world, in order to distinguish some qualitatively different forms that loss of hope can take.     

What can it mean to know?

This paper offers a critique of the prevailing epistemological assumptions which undergird modern Pastoral Care and Counseling education. By drawing upon emerging insights in Transpersonal Psychology and Consciousness disciplines, along with the ontological perspectives of Martin Heidegger and John Macquarrie, the attempt is made to reclaim the modes of knowing of William James and Anton Boison. This paper includes practical and concrete examples of how one supervisor is attempting to put a new paradigm into practice.     

Defending victims: What does it take to intervene in bullying and how is it rewarded by peers?

Defending is considered important in reducing bullying and victimization in schools. Yet, the prevalence of defending is quite low and there is little insight into aspects that explain why students intervene in bullying situations. The current study used a longitudinal design to simultaneously examine the antecedents and status outcomes of defending behavior. It was expected that affective and social-cognitive factors explain involvement in defending. Moreover, it was proposed that defending would be rewarded with popularity among peers, but only for defenders who were not victimized themselves. Unconflated multilevel path models were used and data came from students in grades 4–6 of Finnish elementary schools (N = 4209 students from 210 classrooms and 38 schools; M_age 11.25; 50% boys). Affective empathy and students' self-efficacy beliefs were predictive of defending behavior over time, whereas cognitive empathy was not. Additionally, defenders increased their popularity among their peers. No substantial differences between victims and non-victims were found. This pattern of results suggests that, irrespective of victim status, specific children are more likely to defend in bullying situations and are rewarded with increased popularity.     

Segregation in the classroom: What does it take to be accepted as a friend?

Research on students’ social relationships shows their preference to associate with similar peers. This study focused on the similarity in selection criteria used by students to form groups and similarity of characteristics of existing groups in schools. It compared these criteria to those of isolated students. The sample consisted of 124 students aged 14–15. The results revealed that the assessment of peers’ social skills was a relevant selection criterion, and that global self-esteem, well-being, and, physical activity were important variables in describing groups. The selection criteria and group characteristics of isolated students did not match those of the groups. The isolated students have more outspoken views on criteria and characteristics compared to the groups’ points of view.     

If chaplaincy understands health care reform,will it hurt the profession less?

The author summarizes the work of three authorities who present diverse views concerning health care reform. He suggests that these viewpoints will help chaplaincy more clearly understand clinical and administrative situations and promote creative adjustment to reform efforts.     

What is it like to be Oscar?

Oscar is going to be the first artificial person — at any rate, he is going to be the first artificial person to be built in Tucson's Philosophy Department. Oscar's creator, John Pollock, maintains that once Oscar is complete he will experience qualia, will be self-conscious, will have desires, fears, intentions, and a full range of mental states (Pollock 1989, pp. ix–x). In this paper I focus on what seems to me to be the most problematical of these claims, viz., that Oscar will experience qualia. I argue that we have not been given sufficient reasons to believe this bold claim. I doubt that Oscar will enjoy qualitative conscious phenomena and I maintain that it will be like nothing to be Oscar.     

What Does it Mean to call God Good?

Contemporary expositions of God's goodness commonly err either (1) by subjecting God to moral laws, which is to question His sovereignty, or (2) by failing to establish that God will always act in accordance with moral principles, which removes the theist's ability to appeal to God's goodness in response to problems of evil. Current attempts at intermediate positions which avoid these two problems fall short. In this paper, I aim to construct a better intermediate position and account of God's goodness. I do this by claiming that God's ability to create is best explained in terms of God's self-love. Since God, as the greatest possible being, must be able to create, He must love Himself. I argue that this in turn entails that God loves all things, since by loving Himself, God loves the pre-existent ideas of everything that will come to exist, and by extension the things themselves. This, I argue, allows us to have confidence that God will act in accordance with moral principles, but without subjecting Him to moral laws.     

What is it Like to be a Phenomenologist?

In a recent paper, 'On the Persistence of Phenomenology' (in T. Metzinger (ed.), Conscious Experience , Paderborn, 1995), Diana Raffman presents a new argument for qualia, an argument that provides new focus for the qualia debate. We think Raffman's work relocates the debate to a better neighbourhood, a neighbourhood in which what tempts us to think that there must be qualia or phenomenal information is highlighted. Raffman, we argue, locates the core thought shared by many of the friends of qualia, namely, that our conceptual resources are inadequate for capturing the richness of experience. Experience is ineffably determinate. Moreover, Raffman's argument in support of this thought seems especially embarrassing to scientific-minded materialists, since the argument relies largely on well established empirical facts. We show, however, that Raffman's argument fails. So, if we are correct that her argument highlights what is tempting about qualia, then we have also shown that it is not tempting.     

How many IRT parameters does it take to model psychopathology items?

The authors compared the fit of the 2- and 3-parameter logistic models (2PLM; 3PLM) on 15 unidimensional factor scales derived from the Minnesota Multiphasic Personality Inventory--Adolescent item pool. Log-likelihood chi-square deviance tests indicated that a 3PLM provided an improved fit. However, residual statistics indicated that the difference in fit between the 2 models was negligible. An unexpected finding was that from 10% to 30% of the items had substantial lower asymptote parameters (c > or = .10) when the scales were scored in the pathology or nonpathology directions. The authors argue that the large lower asymptote parameters are attributable to item-content ambiguity possibly caused by item-level multidimensionality. These findings suggest that the direction of scoring can critically affect an item response theory analysis.