What kind of attention modulates the Stroop effect?

An intersection of three literatures (skilled word recognition, spatial attention, and the Stroop effect) is addressed in a series of four experiments. The results, in conjunction with other observations, are taken to suggest that (1) thedefault value for spatial attention in visual word recognition is distributed across the word, (2) precuing a single letter position serves to narrow the focus of spatial attention, and (3) this reduces or prevents activation in the word recognition system. Consequently, the Stroop effect is reduced in magnitude or eliminated, depending on details of the context. Contrary to the widespread view that it reflects automatic processing, the Stroop effect is better conceptualized as reflecting the action of default settings in the word recognition and attentional systems. Some relations between consciousness, context, and control are noted.     

What is the Social Impact of ADHD in Girls? A Multi-Method Assessment

This study explores the social impact of ADHD, with and without opposition-defiant behaviour (ADHD+ODD (n= 22) and ADHD-only (n= 18)), in 9- to 12- year old girls compared to girls without ADHD (n= 40). Girls played a computer game involving simulated players, and mothers and teachers completed rating scales. In general, mothers and teachers saw girls with ADHD+ODD as more overtly and relationally aggressive and less prosocial than girls with ADHD-only, who were seen as more overtly and relationally aggressive and less prosocial than control girls. On the computer game, girls with ADHD+ODD were more overtly aggressive, more directly relationally aggressive, and showed less skilled behaviour than the other groups. Girls with ADHD-only showed less covert, indirect relational aggression and more socially awkward interactions than girls in the control group on the computer game. In all, the results indicate that girls with ADHD, with and without ODD behaviour, engage in socially detrimental behaviours.     

What variety of attention is automatically captured by peripheral cues?

Previous studies have shown that the voluntary allocation of attention to a location in space can influence accuracy in two ways. First, additional processing resources can be allocated to the attended location, leading to an improvement in perceptual quality for objects presented at that location. Second, decision processes can be restricted to information arising from the attended location, which improves accuracy without influencing the perceptual representation. The present study examined the operation of these two attentional mechanisms when nonpredictive peripheral cues were used to capture attention automatically. Experiment 1 showed that, like predictive cues, nonpredictive cues influence accuracy by summoning perceptual resources and also by influencing decision processes. However, both the cues and the targets in this experiment were defined by luminance increments, making it possible that the cuing effects were mediated by a task-controlled attentional set rather than being fully automatic. Experiments 2 and 3 examined this possibility by using luminance-defined cues and color-defined targets; evidence was again obtained for both perceptual-level and decision-level attention effects. The capture of attention by a nonpredictive peripheral cue thus appears to influence both perceptual resource allocation and postperceptual decision processes.     

What is the Problem of Non-Existence?

It is widely held that there is a problem of talking about or otherwise representing things that not exist. But what exactly is this problem? This paper presents a formulation of the problem in terms of the conflict between the fact that there are truths about non-existent things and the fact that truths must be answerable to reality, how things are. Given this, the problem of singular negative existential statements is no longer the central or most difficult aspect of the problem of non-existence, despite what some philosophers say.     

What is the point of helping?

Philosophical Studies - In some cases, a group of people can bring about a morally bad outcome despite each person’s individual act making no difference with respect to bringing that outcome...     

What is the Point of Sufficiency?

Telic sufficientarians hold that there is something special about a certain threshold level such that benefiting people below it, or raising them above it, makes an outcome better in at least one respect. The article investigates what fundamental value might ground that view. The aim is to demonstrate that sufficientarianism, at least on this telic version, is groundless and as such indefensible. The argument is advanced in three steps: first, it is shown that sufficientarianism cannot be grounded in a personal value. Neither, secondly, is it committed to the person‐affecting view, the view that says that nothing can be better (worse) if there is no one for whom it is better (worse). This, in itself, is of interest because some sufficientarians reject egalitarianism precisely for its alleged incompatibility with the person‐affecting view. Sufficientarians' disavowal of the person‐affecting view implies that their view, similarly to egalitarianism (and, perhaps less famously, prioritarianism), must be anchored in some impersonal value. But crucially, and this is the third step of the argument, there is no apparent value that can fit that role. We must conclude, then, that telic sufficientarianism is groundless.     

What is the Normativity of Meaning?

There has been much debate over whether to accept the claim that meaning is normative. One obstacle to making progress in that debate is that it is not always clear what the claim amounts to. In this paper, I try to resolve a dispute between those who advance the claim concerning how it should be understood. More specifically, I critically examine two competing conceptions of the normativity of meaning, rejecting one and defending the other. Though the paper aims to settle a dispute among proponents of the claim that meaning is normative, it should be of interest to those who challenge it. After all, before one takes aim, one’s target needs to be in clear view.     

What is the Meaning of Proofs?

Journal of Philosophical Logic - The origins of proof-theoretic semantics lie in the question of what constitutes the meaning of the logical connectives and its response: the rules of inference...     

What is the Philosophy of Information?

Computational and information-theoretic research in philosophy has become increasingly fertile and pervasive, giving rise to a wealth of interesting results. In consequence, a new and vitally important field has emerged, the philosophy of information (PI). This essay is the first attempt to analyse the nature of PI systematically. PI is defined as the philosophical field concerned with the critical investigation of the conceptual nature and basic principles of information, including its dynamics, utilisation, and sciences, and the elaboration and application of information-theoretic and computational methodologies to philosophical problems. I argue that PI is a mature discipline for three reasons: it represents an autonomous field of research; it provides an innovative approach to both traditional and new philosophical topics; and it can stand beside other branches of philosophy, offering a systematic treatment of the conceptual foundations of the world of information and the information society.     

Neuronal representations of cognitive state: reward or attention?

The effects of spatial or featural attention on the activity of neurons have been studied in many experiments that have used a variety of neurophysiological approaches. Other experiments have examined how expectations about reward are represented in neuronal activity in various brain regions. Although attention and reward are distinct concepts, I argue here that many neurophysiological experiments on attention and reward do not permit a clean dissociation between the two. This problem arises in part because reward contingencies are the only parameter manipulated in any of these experiments. I describe how attention and reward expectations have been confounded, giving rise to uncertainty about how signals related to attention and reward are distributed in the brain.     

What is person-environment congruence? Supplementary versus complementary models of fit

This paper proposes that there are two types of person-environment congruence: supplementary and complementary. Supplementary congruence is the match between an individual and a group of people who comprise an environment, such as a fraternal organization. Variables such as individual satisfaction, performance, and tenure are used as indices of fit. Supplementary congruence is the rationale behind vocational counseling decisions. Complementary congruence is the match between an individual's talents and the corresponding needs of the environment. The strengths of the individual complement the needs of the environment. The success of complementary congruence is judged by organizational level variables, and is the rationale behind personnel selection decisions. Theoretical, practical, and methodological issues associated with both types of congruence are discussed.     

What is the shape of developmental change?

Developmental trajectories provide the empirical foundation for theories about change processes during development. However, the ability to distinguish among alternative trajectories depends on how frequently observations are sampled. This study used real behavioral data, with real patterns of variability, to examine the effects of sampling at different intervals on characterization of the underlying trajectory. Data were derived from a set of 32 infant motor skills indexed daily during the first 18 months. Larger sampling intervals (2-31 days) were simulated by systematically removing observations from the daily data and interpolating over the gaps. Infrequent sampling caused decreasing sensitivity to fluctuations in the daily data: Variable trajectories erroneously appeared as step functions, and estimates of onset ages were increasingly off target. Sensitivity to variation decreased as an inverse power function of sampling interval, resulting in severe degradation of the trajectory with intervals longer than 7 days. These findings suggest that sampling rates typically used by developmental researchers may be inadequate to accurately depict patterns of variability and the shape of developmental change. Inadequate sampling regimes therefore may seriously compromise theories of development.     

What is the Thematic Structure of Science?

The paper justifies the concept of “thematic structure” or “order of knowledge” over the traditional “classification of sciences” due to the uncertainty of many classification criteria. The thematic structure of science has, of course, various levels and various dimensions. Arguments against any forms of separating the humanities from sciences in the traditional sense of the term are presented and discussed. Equally unacceptable are attempts at sharp separation of technical disciplines and humanities. The thematic structure of humanities is not created by some material aspects but rather through the interest — or problem-oriented aspects. In addition to the natural sciences and the humanities there exists an important sphere of sciences on artefacts or, using the term by H. Simon, the sciences of the artificial. For the contemporary research activities is typical what could be denoted as “interdisciplinary or multidisciplinary complex.” The paper traces a set of epistemological criteria for the justification of the relative independence of a scientific discipline. This revised version was published online in August 2006 with corrections to the Cover Date.     

What is the outcome of applying principlism?

The four principles approach to bioethics, an approach most associated with the work of Tom Beauchamp and James Childress, is supposed to provide a framework for reasoning through moral issues in medicine. One might wonder, if one were to guide one’s thinking by the method suggested by principlism, will one identify and perform the objectively morally right action? Will one’s decision making be justified, and consequently, will the action that flows from that decision itself be justified? In this paper, I show that principlism can, and has been, characterized in these two different ways. I also argue that when it is understood according to the first characterization, the view cannot be put into practice. However, when it is understood as an account of justification, there is reason to think that it is indeed action-guiding. Given the problems that confront the first version of the view, perhaps it is best to understand principlism, and biomedical ethical theories generally, not as action-guiding theories of right action, but rather, as procedures by which one’s decisions and actions in medicine can achieve a reasonable degree of moral justification.     

What is the canonical theory of assimilation?

Throughout the past century, assimilation has been the hegemonic theory of ethnic group relations in sociology, and Robert E. Park is generally considered to be the key figure associated with the articulation of assimilation's canonical formulation. Based on a careful reading of Park's main essays on assimilation, this article argues that those who associate his position with the melting pot (with its assumption of the eradication of ethnic traits and ties), the race-relations cycle, or a straight-line process of incorporation misconstrue his views. This article is in part corrective and in part revisionist insofar as it is intended to indicate aspects of Park's theory that have particular relevance to current sociological efforts to understand the implications of assimilation in multiethnic liberal democracies.