A Further Investigation of Sexually Symbolic Concepts Using the Semantic Differential Technique

Fifty students responded to a semantic differential questionnaire designed to test the meaning of sexually symbolic concepts. Two measures were used: first, the mean potency score, and, second, the mean score on the masculine-feminine (M - F) subscale. It was found that a number of discrepancies occurred between (a) mean potency and mean M - F scores; (b) mean potency score and predictions based on psychoanalytic theory; and (c) mean M - F scores and predictions based on psychoanalytic theory. The results were interpreted within a learning theory framework in accord with Staats' (1968) theoretical formulation.     

Semantic Differential Investigation of Sexually Symbolic Concepts Using a Psychiatric Population

Masculinity-femininity ratings via the Semantic Differential of 18 concepts were made by 25 male and 25 female psychiatric patients. The psychoanalytic view that certain concepts symbolize masculinity or femininity did not receive unqualified support in this investigation. Objects such as “ship,” “oven,” and “room,” which psychoanalysts regard as feminine were rated masculine. Similarly, “umbrella,” “necktie,” and “hat,” considered masculine by psychoanalysts were rated feminine.     

Converging Concepts of Evolutionary Epistemology and Cognitive Biology Within a Framework of the Extended Evolutionary Synthesis

Journal for General Philosophy of Science - Evolutionary epistemology (EE) has experienced a continuous rise over the last decades. Important new theoretical considerations and novel empirical...     

Converging Technologies: A Critical Analysis of Cognitive Enhancement for Public Policy Application

This paper investigates cognitive enhancement, specifically biological cognitive enhancement (BCE), as a converging technology, and its implications for public policy. With an increasing rate of technological advancements, the legal, social, and economic frameworks lag behind the scientific advancements that they support. This lag poses significant challenges for policymakers if it is not dealt with sufficiently within the right analytical context. Therefore, the driving question behind this paper is, “What contingencies inform the advancement of biological cognitive enhancement, and what would society look like under this set of assumptions?” The paper is divided into five components: (1) defining the current policy context for BCEs, (2) analyzing the current social and economic outcomes to BCEs, (3) investigating the context of cost-benefit arguments in relation to BCEs, (4) proposing an analytical model for evaluating contingencies for BCE development, and (5) evaluating a simulated policy, social, technological, and economic context given the contingencies. In order to manage the risk and uncertainty inherent in technological change, BCEs’ drivers must be scrutinized and evaluated.     

Women Out of Order and Injustice and the Care of Souls

The purpose of this article is to review two important recent publications in the field of pastoral theology: Injustice and the Care of Souls and Women Out of Order. The author argues that these volumes signal the maturation of a new paradigm that moves beyond theories of individual diagnosis and treatment and understands identity as a social construction shaped by oppression.     

How emotions colour our perception of time

Our sense of time is altered by our emotions to such an extent that time seems to fly when we are having fun and drags when we are bored. Recent studies using standardized emotional material provide a unique opportunity for understanding the neurocognitive mechanisms that underlie the effects of emotion on timing and time perception in the milliseconds-to-hours range. We outline how these new findings can be explained within the framework of internal-clock models and describe how emotional arousal and valence interact to produce both increases and decreases in attentional time sharing and clock speed. The study of time and emotion is at a crossroads, and we outline possible examples for future directions.     

临床胜任能力——以重症医学科医生面临的挑战为例

随着重症医学的发展,我国重症医学科医生临床胜任能力将面临着巨大挑战;他们不仅需要具备精湛的临床技术,同样重要的是还需要具备高超的合作、沟通能力,充沛的精力和体力,丰满的人文和哲学素养,以及终身的知识更新和实践能力提高.     

Taking Up Thagard’s Challenge: A Formal Model of Conceptual Revision

Journal of Philosophical Logic - Thagard (1992) presented a framework for conceptual change in science based on conceptual systems. Thagard challenged belief revision theorists, claiming that...     

Genetic Disorders of Intellectual Disability: Expanding our Concepts of Phenotypes and of Family Outcomes

Over the past two decades, great strides have been made in our understandings of how genetic conditions influence behavior and how such so-called “behavioral phenotypes” influence parent and family stress and coping. In this paper, we call for expansions in two directions. First, as a field we need to go beyond behavior in our concepts of phenotypes, to also include the many medical, physical, and other “non-behavioral” phenotypes that influence children’s everyday lives. Second, in examining how etiology-related phenotypes affect others, we need to go beyond the outcome of parental stress. In this regard, we focus on parental health, well-being, and various life choices, as well as how parenting children with specific genetic disorders can often lead to positive perceptions and outcomes. We end by discussing remaining research issues and how these two expansions relate to clinical practice.     

Seeing changes: How familiarity alters our perception of change

The impact of object familiarity on change blindness was examined. Familiarity was operationalized by manipulating the orientation (upright vs. inverted) of letters: Upright letters formed familiar stimuli whereas inverted letters produced unfamiliar stimuli. Across four experiments, orientation was shown to affect the ability to detect change. In Experiment 1, the orientation effect was independent of the number of distractors (set size), suggesting that orientation and set size affect separate processes. In Experiment 1b, it was shown that the orientation effect did not depend on the alternation of a particular letter pair. In Experiment 2 an interaction between set size and stimulus quality suggests that set size has its effects early in processing, whereas additivity between stimulus quality and orientation suggests that orientation has an effect on later processing. Experiment 3 replicates and extends the findings from Experiments 1 and 2. A stage model of change blindness is proposed and extended by drawing on constructs from Rensink (2000b, 2002, 2005).     

Hindsight bias: How knowledge and heuristics affect our reconstruction of the past

Once people know the outcome of an event, they tend to overestimate what could have been anticipated in foresight. Although typically considered to be a robust phenomenon, this hindsight bias is subject to moderating circumstances. In their meta-analysis, Christensen-Szalanski and Willham (1991) observed that the more experience people have with the task under consideration, the smaller is the resulting hindsight bias. This observation is one benchmark against which the explanatory power of process models of hindsight bias can be measured. Therefore, we used it to put the recently proposed RAFT model (Hoffrage, Hertwig, & Gigerenzer, 2000) to another test. Our findings were consistent with the "expertise effect." Specifically, we observed--using computer simulations of the RAFT model--that the more comprehensive people's knowledge is in foresight, the smaller is their hindsight bias. In addition, we made two counterintuitive observations: First, the relation between foresight knowledge and hindsight bias appears to be independent of how knowledge is processed. Second, even if foresight knowledge is false, it can reduce hindsight bias. We conclude with a discussion of the functional value of hindsight bias.     

Taking Care of Business: Self-Help and Sleep Medicine in American Corporate Culture

This article argues that corporate management in the United States has expanded its scope beyond office walls and encompasses many aspects of workers' daily lives. One new element of corporate training is the micromanagement of sleep; self-help books, newspaper reports, magazine articles, and consulting firms currently advise workers and supervisors on optimizing productivity by cultivating certain sleep habits. Although consultants and self-help books make specific recommendations about sleep, most medical research is inconclusive about sleep's benefits for human performance. Using the ideas of Michel Foucault and Gilles Deleuze as a philosophical backdrop, this article examines the complex and often contradictory links between self-help, medicine, and corporate governance.     

Medical Technologies Past and Present: How History Helps to Understand the Digital Era

Journal of Medical Humanities - This article explores the relationship between medicine’s history and its digital present through the lens of the physician-patient relationship. Today the...     

How Doxastic Justification Helps Us Solve the Puzzle of Misleading Higher‐Order Evidence

Certain plausible evidential requirements and coherence requirements on rationality seem to yield dilemmas of rationality (in a specific, objectionable sense) when put together with the possibility of misleading higher‐order evidence. Epistemologists have often taken such dilemmas to be evidence that we're working with some false principle. In what follows I show how one can jointly endorse an evidential requirement, a coherence requirement, and the possibility of misleading higher‐order evidence without running afoul of dilemmas of rationality. The trick lies in observing the difference between attitudes it is rational to hold (= propositional justification) and rationally holding those attitudes (= doxastic justification).