Preparing to move and deciding not to move

A commentary is given on Trevena and Miller (2010). The comparability of their experimental task and of the potential they recorded with those used and recorded by Libet, Gleason, Wright, and Pearl (1983a) is questioned. An interpretation is given for the similarity of event-related potentials recorded when subjects decided to move and when they decided not to move.     

The perils of learning to move while speaking: One-sided interference between speech and visuomotor adaptation

Psychonomic Bulletin & Review - Our understanding of the adaptive processes that shape sensorimotor behavior is largely derived from studying isolated movements. Studies of visuomotor...     

On learning how to live in this strange place

In “How do I live in this strange place?”, Samantha Vice contends that white South Africans ought to feel shame for their unjustly acquired privilege and their morally compromised selves, and recommends that they engage with humility and political silence in projects of personal transformation though private, critical self-examination. On one view, philosophy is in part concerned with practical inquiry into how one might lead a good life, and for many, at least, this necessitates some form of moral learning. Ideally, the philosophers concerned with this question could give practical, action-guiding advice on how one might undertake this moral learning, advice well-supported by evidence and with reasonably good prospects for success. I argue that philosophically “therapeutic” projects of the kind advocated by Vice necessarily involve forms of moral learning, and that a range of empirical research in cognitive, moral, and educational psychology thus bear on their methods and prospects. These considerations undermine the outlook of therapeutic projects that rely principally on solitary methods of critical reflection and introspection. I challenge philosophers to develop more practical, actionable, evidence-based counsel on how to engage in moral learning of the type that Vice and her critics recommend, and I articulate several candidate proposals inspired by research from the educational, learning sciences and debiasing literatures.     

Selecting people randomly

This article considers what justification can be found for selecting randomly and in what circumstances it applies, including that of selecting patients to be treated by a scarce medical procedure. The author demonstrates that balancing the merits of fairness, common good, equal rights, and equal chance as they apply in various situations frequently leads to the conclusion that random selection may not be the most appropriate mode of selection. Broome acknowledges that, in the end, we may be forced to conclude that the only merit of random selection is the political one of guarding against partiality and oppression.     

A green Augustine: On learning to love nature well

Augustine of Hippo has expressed a vision of beauty in nature that could, if better known, encourage traditional Christians and secular ecologists to affirm the ground they have in common. For Augustine the ideal would be to see nature as God sees it, feeling deeply both its beauty and its impermanence, loving nature without clinging to it. With such clear seeing would come love and the motivation for sustained and skillful action. This paper discusses Augustine's paradigm and what blocks us from seeing it, and then frames principles for an authentically Augustinian response.     

Cues to referent gender in randomly constructed names.

50 volunteers' assignments of gender to 32 randomly constructed names confirmed previous findings with respect to the structure of actual names (men's names are shorter, women's names tend to end in vowels, especially the schwa vowel) and with respect to the emotionality of sounds in actual names (men's names sound more Active, Nasty, and Unpleasant; women's names sound softer). Assignment of sex to random names was predictable (R>.8) on the basis of combinations of these variables.     

论魏了翁的易学思想

魏了翁继承朱熹,兼重象数义理,以辞、变、象、占为《易》之纲领,力图融会程、邵易学。他深研邵雍易学,提出“性善之义具于《易》”,并对河图洛书、先后天易学源流及有关分歧作了进一步考证,得出图书相通的结论。魏了翁重世教,学术以济世为旨。     

On learning complex procedural knowledge

Lewicki, Czyzewska, and Hoffman (1987) demonstrated learning without awareness in a visual search task. Rules determined target location on every seventh trial on the basis of target locations in the preceding six trials. Learning was demonstrated by negative transfer effects when the rules were changed. When questioned afterwards, the subjects could not describe the rules and denied awareness of them. This experiment was designed to replicate that of Lewicki et al. and to test several hypotheses about this apparent learning without awareness. Transfer conditions were included to determine whether rule learning was primarily perceptual or motor. The present assessment of awareness was based on an objective definition of awareness, rather than a subjective definition as in Lewicki et al.'s study. Their effect was replicated, and the transfer conditions revealed that learning relied on perceptual aspects of the task. The objective measure of awareness provided further evidence that subjects were unaware of the rules.     

论以社会适应为导向的大学生合作学习

本文在广泛研究国内外相关文献的基础上,从合作学习的内涵、理论基础和基本要素等方面入手,论述了大学生合作学习对培养其社会适应能力的重要意义,论证了大学生的合作学习是培养其社会适应能力的有效途径之一。     

On leveraged learning in lexical acquisition and its relationship to acceleration

Children at about age 18 months experience acceleration in word learning. This vocabulary explosion is a robust phenomenon, although the exact shape and timing vary from child to child. One class of explanations, which we term collectively as leveraged learning , posits that knowledge of some words helps with the learning of others. In this framework, the child initially knows no words and so learning is slow. As more words are acquired, new words become easier and thus it is the acquisition of early words that fuels the explosion in learning. In this paper we examine the role of leveraged learning in the vocabulary spurt by proposing a simple model of leveraged learning. Our results show that leverage can change both the shape and timing of the acceleration, but that it cannot create acceleration if it did not exist in the corresponding model without leveraging. This model is then applied to the Zipfian distribution of word frequencies, which confirm that leveraging does not create acceleration, but that the relationship between frequency and the difficulty of learning a word may be complex.     

The simple constitutivist move

A common feature of all versions of constitutivism is the “simple constitutivist move” to the effect that engagement in any enterprise requires respecting the constitutive standards of the enterprise on pain of failing to engage in it. The move is both trivial and powerful in addressing skeptical challenges. I argue that this move only helps transmitting the robust authority of standards that are externally grounded, even when applied to functional items or constitutive aims. This is not a problem for modest versions of constitutivism, but more ambitious constitutivists seems to require supplementation to ground robust or authoritative normativity. Unfortunately, the usual appeal to inescapability is at best a defensive move. Ambitious constitutivism needs to look elsewhere in its search for a positive explanation of the source of robust normativity. The simple constitutivist move, even when combined with inescapability, is indeed too simple.     

Van Fraassen's metaphysical move

Various aspects of van Fraassen's constructive empiricism are discussed. His concept of observability is said to have opened few unresolvable dilemmas. It is because of the confusion between observable/non‐observable and testable/metaphysical distinctions. Finally, the constructive empiricist is said to have failed in his attempt at reducing the metaphysical component of science.     

论学习活动的本质

本文将传统的学习理论关于学习概念的定义分为三种基本类型,即结果论、过程论和活动论,指出传统学习理论的混乱基本上是出于没有对学习活动进行全面而系统的分析,并从学习活动的层次性、多侧面性、心理机制、对环境的适应性等方面对学习活动进行了系统的分析。认为学习活动可以分为五种不同的层次,具有五个不同的侧面,拥有两种作用不同的心理机制,最终得出学习活动的本质定义是：学习是一种多层次、多侧面的、适应性的心理活动,它使个体获得经验,并导致个体的已有的心理结构发生适应性的变化。     

On the form of learning curves

In a wide variety of learning experiments, cumulated measures of performance turn out to be a power function of practice time or number trials, typically with an exponent between 1 and 2. The effects of various conditions on the course of learning can frequently be described in terms of the two constants of the function.     

Cortical movement preparation before and after a conscious decision to move

The idea that our conscious decisions determine our actions has been challenged by a report suggesting that the brain starts to prepare for a movement before the person concerned has consciously decided to move (Libet, Gleason, Wright, & Pearl, 1983). Libet et al. claimed that their results show that our actions are not consciously initiated. The current article describes two experiments in which we attempted to replicate Libet et al.'s comparison of participants' movement-related brain activity with the reported times of their decisions to move and also the reported times of their decisions of which hand to move. We also looked at the distribution of participants' reports over time to evaluate an alternative explanation of Libet et al.'s (1983) results. Although the Readiness Potential was usually present before all of the decisions to move, consistent with the findings of Keller and Heckhausen (1990) and Libet et al. (1983), we found that many reported decision times were before the onset of the Lateralized Readiness Potential, which measures hand-specific movement preparation. The latter finding is consistent with the conclusion that the LRP always started after the conscious decision to move. We conclude that even though activity related to movement anticipation may be present before a conscious decision to move, the cortical preparation necessary for the movement to happen immediately may not start until after the conscious decision to move.     

再论退溪易学

文章辨析了退溪与朱熹在对待《周易》“经传关系”问题上的差异,特别强调:退溪并不尊崇朱子 易为卜筮而作的观点,他坚定的实行经传合观,也与朱子在经传分合上犹疑不定的态度大相径庭。朱子 易为卜筮而作的观点,在当时或以后并未得到很多人的认同。