The rights of humans and other animals

Human moral rights place justified limits on what people are free to do to one another. Animals also have moral rights, and arguments to support the use of animals in scientific research based on the benefits allegedly derived from animal model research are thus invalid. Animals do not belong in laboratories because placing them there, in the hope of benefits for others, violates their rights.     

On pink elephants,floating daggers,and other philosophical myths

Many philosophers and scientists rightly take hallucinations to be phenomena that challenge in a most pressing way our theories of perception and cognition, and epistemology in general. However, very few challenge the received views on the hallucinatory experience and even fewer critically delve into the subject with both breadth and depth. There are all kinds of problems concerning hallucinations—including conceptual, methodological, and empirical issues—that call for a multilevel analysis and an interdisciplinary approach which in turn provide the detail and scope that the subject demands. In this paper, I present and briefly discuss four interrelated problems: (1) definitions, (2) dependence on perception, (3) two views on hallucinations, and (4) methodology. Neglect or underestimation of these problems, among other things, continue to prevent a proper understanding of the concept and the corresponding experience, giving rise to misconceptions and even plain myths on the subject. Hallucinations do occur; but in order to productively investigate them (for whatever end), we first need to get clear on the concept and develop a suitable epistemological framework for their analysis.     

The evolution of personality variation in humans and other animals

A comprehensive evolutionary framework for understanding the maintenance of heritable behavioral variation in humans is yet to be developed. Some evolutionary psychologists have argued that heritable variation will not be found in important, fitness-relevant characteristics because of the winnowing effect of natural selection. This article propounds the opposite view. Heritable variation is ubiquitous in all species, and there are a number of frameworks for understanding its persistence. The author argues that each of the Big Five dimensions of human personality can be seen as the result of a trade-off between different fitness costs and benefits. As there is no unconditionally optimal value of these trade-offs, it is to be expected that genetic diversity will be retained in the population.     

Meaning in the lives of humans and other animals

This paper argues that contemporary philosophical literature on meaning in life has important implications for the debate about our obligations to non-human animals. If animal lives can be meaningful, then practices including factory farming and animal research might be morally worse than ethicists have thought. We argue for two theses about meaning in life: (1) that the best account of meaningful lives must take intentional action to be necessary for meaning—an individual’s life has meaning if and only if the individual acts intentionally in ways that contribute to finally valuable states of affairs; and (2) that this first thesis does not entail that only human lives are meaningful. Because non-human animals can be intentional agents of a certain sort, our account yields the verdict that many animals’ lives can be meaningful. We conclude by considering the moral implications of these theses for common practices involving animals.     

Perspectives on health effects of electric and magnetic fields

Some epidemiological studies have fostered concern about cancers caused by electric and magnetic fields associated with distribution and use of electric power. At present, there is no scientific consensus as to which factors, the electric field and/or magnetic field, are biologically important. Similarly, there is no clear indication whether higher field levels are of greater risk than lower level fields. The complex scientific issues attending health effects of power-frequency electric and magnetic fields would be most effectively resolved through interdisciplinary research involving investigators from biological, medical and engineering research communities. A critical need, at present, is a significant increase in federal funding for research on interaction mechanisms and animal studies, while maintaining efforts in epidemiology but with greater emphasis on confounding factors and known cancer-causing agents.     

Repeated magnitude estimations with a variable standard: Sequential effects and other properties

Twelve Ss made magnitude estimations of the loudness of each one of a sequence of pure tones according to the rule R(N) = R(N - 1) · [S(N)/S(N - 1)], where R(N) is the response on Trial N, R(N - 1) is the response on Trial N - 1, and S(N)/S(N - 1) is the judged ratio of the “loudness” of the pure tone presented on Trial N to that of the pure tone presented on Trial N - 1. It was found that these magnitude estimations were assimilated toward the immediately preceding stimuli as far as five trials back in the sequence of stimuli. In addition, ratio judgments were consistently asymmetric and the data displayed a form of “time order error.” In all cases, there are similar effects displayed in category judgment data. These and other data imply that at least some kinds of magnitude estimations may involve a judgment of the “difference” or “distance” between pairs of stimuli as a first step in the production of the response required by the judgment situation.     

The effects of social defeat and other stressors on the expression of circadian rhythms

Most biological functions display a 24 h rhythm that, in mammals, is under the control of an endogenous circadian oscillator located in the suprachiasmatic nuclei (SCN) of the hypothalamus. The circadian system provides an optimal temporal organization for physiological processes and behavior in relation to a cyclic environment imposed upon organisms by the regular alternation of day and night. In line with its function as a clock that serves to maintain a stable phase-relationship between endogenous rhythms and the light-dark cycle, the circadian oscillator appears to be well protected against unpredictable stressful stimuli. Available data do not provide convincing evidence that stress is capable of perturbing the central circadian oscillator in the SCN. However, the shape and amplitude of a rhythm is not determined exclusively by the SCN and certain stressors can strongly affect the output of the clock and the expression of the rhythms. In particular, social stress in rodents has been found to cause severe disruptions of the body temperature, heart rate and locomotor activity rhythms, especially in animals that are subject to uncontrollable stress associated with defeat and subordination. Such rhythm disturbances may be due to effects of stress on sub-oscillators that are known to exist in many tissues, which are normally under the control of the SCN, or due to other effects of stress that mask the output of the circadian system. These disturbances of peripheral rhythms represent an imbalance between normally precisely orchestrated physiological and behavioral processes that may have severe consequence for the health and well being of the organism.     

The effects of differential negative reinforcement of other behavior and noncontingent escape on compliance

The present study evaluated the effects of noncontingent escape and differential negative reinforcement of other behavior in reducing problem behaviors and increasing compliance in 2 children with disabilities. Results showed that both methods reduced problem behavior and increased compliance for both children.     

The effects of parental illness and other ill family members on youth caregiving experiences

Informed by a model of family role redistribution derived from the family ecology framework, this study examined differences in two proposed psychological components of role redistribution (youth caregiving experiences and responsibilities) between youth of a parent with illness and their peers from ‘healthy’ families controlling for the effects of whether a parent is ill or some other family member, illness type and demographics. Based on self-report questionnaire data, four groups of Australian children were derived from a community sample of 2474 youth (‘healthy’ family, n = 1768; parental illness, n = 336; other family member illness (OFMI), n = 254; both parental and OFMI, n = 116). The presence of any family member with a serious illness is associated with an intensification of youth caregiving experiences relative to peers from healthy families. This risk is elevated if the ill family member is a parent, if more illnesses are present and by certain youth and family demographics, and especially by higher caregiving responsibilities. The presence of a family member, particularly a parent, with a serious medical condition has pervasive increased effects on youth caregiving compared to healthy families, and these effects are not fully accounted for by illness type, demographics or caregiving responsibilities.     

The properties of retention intervals and their affect on retaining prospective memories

Five experiments were conducted to explore how the character of the retention interval affected event-based prospective memory. According to the canons of retrospective memory, prospective performance should have been worse with increasing delays between intention formation and the time it was appropriate to complete an action. That result did not occur. Rather, prospective memory was better with increasing retention intervals in Experiments 1A, 1B, and 3. In manipulating the nature of the retention interval, the authors found that there were independent contributions of retention interval length and the number of intervening activities, with more activities leading to better prospective memory (Experiments 2 and 3). The identical retention intervals did not improve retrospective memory in Experiment 4. Theoretical explanations for these dissociations between prospective and retrospective memory are considered.     

The epistemic effects of close entanglements between research fields and activist movements

Synthese - There are a number of research fields that exhibit a special connection to some particular activist movement. Typically in these cases, we observe a remarkable degree of personnel...     

意向保持间隔对时间性前瞻记忆的影响

通过两个实验来探讨意向保持间隔对时间性前瞻记忆的影响。实验一仅通过嵌入前瞻目标的背景任务来操纵保持间隔,实验二通过在背景任务之前加入不同时长的填充任务来改变意向保持间隔。结果发现,(1)背景任务中的保持间隔越长,前瞻记忆成绩越差;(2)背景任务中的保持间隔和填充任务的时长对前瞻记忆的影响存在交互作用。成绩最好的为15min-2min组,最差的为15min-15min组。结果表明,背景任务和填充任务阶段对于个体保持前瞻意向可能有不同的功能。     

焦虑中的安全行为及其影响

安全行为是个体用于预防或者减轻恐惧后果的行为, 它被认为是焦虑障碍维持的重要机制之一, 也会对焦虑的暴露治疗产生干扰。安全行为与焦虑水平、焦虑相关的认知偏差存在联系, 错误归因假说、注意资源偏离假说和行为信息假说对这种联系做出了解释。此外, 安全行为的使用会削弱焦虑暴露治疗的效果、提高暴露的接受性。未来研究应对安全行为做出更清晰的界定和准确的测量, 进一步改进研究设计, 借鉴第三代行为治疗的理论解释安全行为与焦虑的关系; 同时还需要考察安全行为的双重作用, 开发聚焦于安全行为的治疗方案并评估其效果。     

The moral status of animals and their use in research: a philosophical review.

In this article I offer a philosophical review of (1) leading theories of the moral status of animals, (2) pivotal theoretical issues on which more progress needs to be made, and (3) applications to the setting of animal research. Such an examination demonstrates, I believe, that the practical implications of leading theories converge far more than might be expected. In addition, I hope this review helps to clarify particularly troubling issues that remain so they can be treated adequately.     

Task difficulty and inertial properties of hand-held tools: An assessment of their concurrent effects on precision aiming

Aiming hand-held tools at targets in space entails adjustments in the dynamical organization of aiming patterns according to the required precision. We asked whether and how these adjustments are modified by the tool’s mass distribution. Twelve participants performed reciprocal aiming movements with a 50-cm long wooden probe. Kinematic patterns of probe movements were used as a window into the behavioral dynamic underlying performance of a reciprocal aiming task. We crossed three levels of task difficulty (IDs 2.8, 4.5 and 6.1) with two types of probe varying in their mass distribution (proximal vs distal loading). Movement duration was affected by task difficulty and probe loading (shorter for larger targets and proximal probe loading). Progressive deviations from a sinusoidal movement pattern were observed as task difficulty increased. Such deviations were more pronounced with proximal probe loading. Results point to a higher degree of non-linearity in aiming dynamics when the probe was loaded proximally, which might reflect employment of additional perceptual-motor processes to control the position of its less stable tip at the vicinity of the targets. More generally, the effects of probe loading on aiming pattern and dynamics suggest that perceptual-motor processes responding to task level constraints are sensitive to, and not independent from, biomechanical, end-effector constraints.