The varieties of impartiality,or, would an egalitarian endorse the veil?

Philosophical Studies - Social contract theorists often take the ideal contract to be the agreement or bargain individuals would make in some privileged choice situation (i.e., an ‘original...     

Correction to: The varieties of impartiality,or, would an egalitarian endorse the veil?

Philosophical Studies - The citations of Figures 1, 2, 3 and 4 were placed after the figures in the original publication of the article. However, they should be placed prior the placement...     

What is chosen first,the hand used for reaching or the target that is reached?

Models of information processing generally assume that stimuli are processed before actions are selected, at least in typical laboratory experiments where stimuli are presented and responses follow. In everyday life, however, there are generally fewer constraints on the ordering of decisions pertaining to stimuli and actions. This raises the question of which sorts of decisions normally precede which others. To address this question, we asked participants to aim for either of two targets with either hand on the basis of whichever combination seemed easiest. We analyzed the choices made in this free condition with choices made when the hand was specified or when the target was specified. We found that a model assuming similar selection processes in the hand-specified condition and the free condition provided the best account for the data. The data accord with the hypothesis that hand was generally chosen first in the free-choice condition.     

Must the bearer of a right have the concept of that to which he has a right?

Stevens critiques what he calls the "conceptual possession requirement" as defined by Michael Tooley in his article, "Abortion and infanticide," Philosophy and Public Affairs 1972 Fall; 2(1): 37-65. Tooley argued that a being has a right to something only if it has the concept of that thing. He claimed that fetuses and infants do not have a serious right to life because they have no concept of a continuing self, and that therefore abortion and infanticide are morally permissible. Stevens contends that the conceptual possession requirement is not valid, offers a counterexample to Tooley's argument, and defends his reasoning against what he presumes might be Tooley's counterarguments.     

Privileged, Typical, or not even that? – Our Place in the World According to the Copernican and the Cosmological Principles

Summary  If we are to constrain our place in the world, two principles are often appealed to in science. According to the Copernican Principle, we do not occupy a privileged position within the Universe. The Cosmological Principle, on the other hand, says that our observations would roughly be the same, if we were located at any other place in the Universe. In our paper we analyze these principles from a logical and philosophical point of view. We show how they are related, how they can be supported and what use is made of them. Our main results are: 1. There is a logical gap between both principles insofar as the Cosmological Principle is significantly stronger than the Copernican Principle. 2. A step that is often taken for establishing the Cosmological Principle on the base of the Copernican Principle and observations is not incontestable as it stands, but can be supplemented with a different argument. 3. The Cosmological Principle might be crucial for cosmology to the extent it is not supported by empirical evidence.     

To be at the tail of the lions or the head of the foxes?

Agents seeking an opportunity for profit often have to compete with others who pursue the same opportunity. When having to choose between a number of opportunities differing in their value and if individuals differ in their chances of outperforming others, the choice can be cognitively and emotionally demanding. We explore choice between opportunities using stylized Lions–Foxes games. In such a game, each of three players, with different odds of beating others, has to choose one of two contests that offer different rewards. After game theoretically analyzing the games, which we have experimentally employed, we report four experiments that vary in choice elicitation (repeated play or strategy method), in players' matching (random strangers or partners) and in rewards. Regarding contest choices, we found the choice of the higher value (and seemingly more prestigious) contest to be positively related to winning odds, contrary to what four out of the five (mixed, partially mixed, or pure) equilibria predict. Participants started out rather optimistic, with a large majority choosing the higher value option, but with experience, they approached the only viable of two pure strategy equilibria. Still, mixing continued via reacting to past play and outcome, apparently balancing dissatisfaction from choosing either contest.     

To imitate or not to imitate? How the brain can do it, that is the question!

In this paper the authors discuss the most prominent views addressing the issue of how we imitate actions. It is argued that the existing theories lay along a continuum, with the direct mapping approach at one end (Butterworth, 1990; Gray, Neisser, Shapiro, & Kouns, 1991) the Active Intermodal Matching approach (Melzoff & Moore, 1997) in the middle, and the goal-directed theory (Bekkering, Wohlsh?ger, & Gattis, 2000) and the dual route theory (Rumiati & Tessari, 2002) at the opposite end. Interestingly the latter views can account for behaviors that cannot be explained by invoking the direct mapping or the Active Intermodal Matching approach.     

Doc, what would you do if you were me? On self-other discrepancies in medical decision making

Doctors often make decisions for their patients and predict their patients' preferences and decisions to customize advice to their particular situation. We investigated how doctors make decisions about medical treatments for their patients and themselves and how they predict their patients' decisions. We also studied whether these decisions and predictions coincide with the decisions that the patients make for themselves. We document 3 important findings. First, doctors made more conservative decisions for their patients than for themselves (i.e., they more often selected a safer medical treatment). Second, doctors did so even if they accurately predicted that their patients would want a riskier treatment than the one they selected. Doctors, therefore, showed substantial self-other discrepancies in medical decision making and did not make decisions that accurately reflected their patients' preferences. Finally, patients were not aware of these discrepancies and thought that the decisions their doctors made for themselves would be similar to the decisions they made for their patients. We explain these results in light of 2 current theories of self-other discrepancies in judgment and decision making: the risk-as-feelings hypothesis and the cognitive hypothesis. Our results have important implications for research on expert decision making and for medical practice, and shed some light on the process underlying self-other discrepancies in decision making.     

Persuasion in school-aged children: How does it change if the persuadee is the mother or the peer?

The present study was designed to verify how school-aged children’s persuasive tactics changed if the persuadee was the mother or the peer. One hundred and forty-nine children at two grade levels (4th and 5th) were enrolled in the study. Persuasive strategies were investigated using pictures representing two common situations in which each child had to convince his/her playmate and his/her mother to obtain a toy. As predicted, with mothers children engaged more frequently in strategies aimed at encouraging cognitive reappraisal of the situation and offering guarantees. Conversely, with the peers, children adopted a greater variety of persuasive strategies, engaging in lower-order tactics. Implications and limitations of the study were discussed.     

Does the Modality Effect Exist? and if So, Which Modality Effect?

The modality effect is a central issue in multimedia learning [see Mayer (Cambridge University Press, 2005a), for a review]. Sweller’s Cognitive Load Theory (CLT), for example, presumes that an illustrated text is better understood when presented visually rather than orally. The predictive power of CLT lies in how it links in to Baddeley’s (1986) model of working memory and Penney’s (Mem Cognit 17:398–442, 1989) Separate-Streams Hypothesis. Ginns’s (Learn Instr 4:313–331, 2005) recent meta-analysis also supports the modality effect (d = 0.72, based on 43 independent effects). This article replicates the meta-analysis of the modality effect based on 86 independent effects (with within-study subgroups as the unit of analysis and with mean of the outcomes as the dependent measure), with results showing a reduction of the overall effect size by almost half (d = 0.38), and even more when Duval and Tweedie’s Trim and Fill method is used to correct publication bias (d = 0.20). This article also widens the scope of the analysis of moderator variables (e.g. Pace of presentation, Type of visualization, Research group) as well as their potentially confounded effects. Finally, it is argued that, for theoretical reasons, the so-called modality effect cannot be based on Penney’s or Baddeley’s theories and must be explained in a different way.     

What is the answer? And come to that, what are the questions?

In recent years, the topic of car-following has become of increased importance in traffic engineering and safety research. Models of this phenomenon, which describe the interaction between (typically) adjacent vehicles in the same lane, now form the cornerstone for many important areas of research including (a) simulation modelling, where the car-following model (amongst others) controls the motion of the vehicles in the network, and (b) the functional definition of advanced vehicle control and safety systems (AVCSS), which are being introduced as a driver safety aid in an effort to mimic driver behaviour but remove human error. Despite the importance of this area however, no overview of the models availability and validity exists. It is the intent of this paper therefore to briefly assess the range of options available in the choice of car-following model, and assess just how far work has proceeded in our understanding of what, at times, would appear to be a simple process.     

The leopard cannot change his spots, or can he? Culture and the development of lay theories of change

Chinese and Canadian children were compared to examine cultural and developmental differences in lay theories of change: implicit beliefs about how the world develops and changes over time. Chinese and Canadian children (ages 7, 9, and 11 years) made predictions about future performance, relationships, happiness, and parental incomes based on a series of scenarios. Overall, the Chinese children predicted greater change than did the Canadian children, indicating that they believed more in change than did the Canadians. Moreover, cultural differences increased significantly with age: In comparison with their Canadian counterparts, Chinese children made no more change predictions at age 7, made slightly more change predictions at age 9, and made significantly more change predictions at age 11. This was true for questions starting with an extremely positive or negative state and those starting with a neutral state. Reasons for cultural and developmental differences were discussed.     

What, if anything, is the medial temporal lobe, and how can the amygdala be part of it if there is no such thing?

Should the medial temporal lobe (MTL) of primates--which includes allocortical structures such as the hippocampus, neocortical structures such as the parahippocampal cortex, and nuclear structures such as the basolateral amygdala--be considered a single "thing"? According to the prevailing view, here termed the reification theory, the answer is yes. According to this theory, the MTL functions as an amalgamated entity that provides the neuronal mechanisms for declarative memory; the greater the damage to the MTL or any of its components, the greater the deleterious effects on declarative memory. A countervailing view, here called the balkanization theory, holds that the various components of the MTL process and store different kinds of information. According to this theory, damage to each part of the MTL causes a unique set of behavioral deficits-some involving memory, others involving perception, and yet others involving response selection. The empirical neuropsychological evidence favors the balkanization theory, as do some new concepts in theoretical neuroanatomy.     

Growth or Decline in the Church of England during the Decade of Evangelism: Did the Churchmanship of the Bishop Matter?

The Decade of Evangelism occupied the attention of the Church of England throughout the 1990s. The present study employs the statistics routinely published by the Church of England in order to assess two matters: the extent to which these statistics suggest that the 43 individual dioceses finished the decade in a stronger or weaker position than they had entered it and the extent to which, according to these statistics, the performance of dioceses led by bishops shaped in the Evangelical tradition differed from the performance of dioceses led by bishops shaped in the Catholic tradition. The data demonstrated that the majority of dioceses were performing less effectively at the end of the decade than at the beginning, in terms of a range of membership statistics, and that the rate of decline varied considerably from one diocese to another. The only exception to the trend was provided by the diocese of London, which experienced some growth. The data also demonstrated that little depended on the churchmanship of the diocesan bishop in shaping diocesan outcomes on the performance indicators employed in the study.     

Friend or foe? Evidence that anxious people are better at distinguishing targets from non‐targets

Armed conflict necessitates the ability to quickly distinguish friend from foe. Failure to make accurate shooting decisions may result in harm either to oneself or to innocent others. The factors that predict such rapid decision making, however, remain unclear. Based on social defense theory, we contend that people high on attachment anxiety possess characteristics that are particularly advantageous in this domain such that anxiously attached individuals will show greater vigilance and accuracy in a realistic shooting paradigm in which they must quickly distinguish between militants (people holding a gun) and innocents (people holding an item with the same color and shape as a gun—Coca‐Cola bottle, black wallet, and black mobile phone). Using signal detection theory algorithms, we calculated sensitivity in performing the behavioral shooting task [D_(prime)]. Results indicate that as expected, anxious people demonstrated significantly better shooting accuracy. Implication for contemporary violent conflict is discussed.