Importance Ratings and Weighting: Old Concerns and New Perspectives

This article describes key concepts, reviews empirical findings, and discusses important issues related to the use of subjective importance ratings and importance weighting. The review of empirical findings focuses on weighting achieved via the multiplicative model and on 3 areas in which weighting is commonly used: quality of life, self-esteem, and job satisfaction. An important distinction is made between issues regarding importance ratings and those related to importance weights. Directions for future research are suggested throughout the article.     

The Body-Machine Interface: A New Perspective on an Old Theme

ABSTRACT

Body-machine interfaces establish a way to interact with a variety of devices, allowing their users to extend the limits of their performance. Recent advances in this field, ranging from computer interfaces to bionic limbs, have had important consequences for people with movement disorders. The authors provide an overview of the basic concepts underlying the body-machine interface with special emphasis on their use for rehabilitation and for operating assistive devices. They outline the steps involved in building such an interface and highlight the critical role of body-machine interfaces in addressing theoretical issues in motor control as well as their utility in movement rehabilitation.     

Communication Modality and Biased Processing: A Study on the Occasion of the German 2002 Election TV Debate

Participants were presented with a segment of the 2002 Schroeder-Stoiber TV debate, in which the two candidates running for the post of German Chancellor argued for clearly different positions. Prior to presentation of the segment in either audiovisual, audio, or written modality, participants' politician preference was measured. Position agreement and valence of thoughts about the candidates' specific statements were found to be affected by politician preference in all three modalities. However, as shown by a modality by preference interaction, the effect of politician preference on position agreement was stronger in audio and audiovisual modalities than in the written modality. Similar interactions were found regarding the valence of thoughts broadly related to the issue discussed as well as regarding the valence of thoughts related to the two candidates themselves. Taken together with further path analyses, these findings are interpreted as showing biased processing across modalities, with the broadcast modalities intensifying this bias due to the heightened salience of nonverbal politician-related cues.     

New Perspectives on Analytic Pragmatism

Analytic pragmatism is a framework of analysis elaborated by Robert Brandom, whose goal is to explain the relations between meaning and use according to a systematic and general method of inquiry. In April 2009, a workshop was organized to discuss the recent developments of this new theoretical approach. Brandom delivered three lectures, where he explored some aspects of analytic pragmatism and addressed the motivating themes of this enterprise, while the contribution from the other speakers ranged over specific aspects of the theory. This special issue is the outcome of that workshop. In this introduction we briefly outline the context of the debate and present the contribution to this issue selected from a much wider range of papers, using the reviewing process of Philosophia.     

Perspectives on Positive Academic Ethics: an Introduction

Journal of Academic Ethics -     

Separation, Sickness, and Depression: A New Perspective on an Old Animal Model

ABSTRACT— Studies of prolonged separation from the attachment figure that were conducted with infant monkeys during the middle of the 20th century identified a passive behavioral response, termed "despair," that appeared to model human depressive illness. Studies in guinea pigs, which exhibit filial attachment that resembles attachment in monkeys, have described a similar passive response to briefer periods of maternal separation. Recent evidence indicates that elements of the immune system mediate the passive behavioral response of guinea pigs. These findings accord well with current ideas that immune responses contribute to depressive illness, suggest new hypotheses about how maternal separation might promote depression, and give us a rodent model in which such hypotheses might be tested.     

Word and Person Effects on Decoding Accuracy: A New Look at an Old Question

The purpose of this study was to extend the literature on decoding by bringing together two lines of research, namely person and word factors that affect decoding, using a crossed random-effects model. The sample was comprised of 196 English-speaking grade 1 students. A researcher-developed pseudoword list was used as the primary outcome measure. Because grapheme-phoneme correspondence (GPC) knowledge was treated as person and word specific, we are able to conclude that it is neither necessary nor sufficient for a student to know all GPCs in a word before accurately decoding the word. And controlling for word-specific GPC knowledge, students with lower phonemic awareness and slower rapid naming skill have lower predicted probabilities of correct decoding than counterparts with superior skills. By assessing a person-by-word interaction, we found that students with lower phonemic awareness have more difficulty applying knowledge of complex vowel graphemes compared to complex consonant graphemes when decoding unfamiliar words. Implications of the methodology and results are discussed in light of future research.     

Practicing the Order of Widows: A New Call for an Old Vocation

This essay argues for a renewed institution of an ancient Christianpractice, the Order of Widows. Drawing on the Roman Catholictradition's recent writings on the elderly, particularly the1998 document from the Pontifical Council for the Laity entitled"The Dignity of Older People and their Mission in the Churchand in the World," I argue that we find within the Roman Catholictradition advocacy for a renewed understanding of the vocationof the elderly within the Church. Building on this, I then tracein the broadest of outlines some elements of what a renewalof the Order of Widows might look like. In doing so, it becomesclear how this new ecclesial practice addresses health issuesof older women (devaluation, marginalization, loss of voice,impoverishment, debilitation, loneliness, isolation, and euthanasia).More importantly, such a practice moves beyond principles todemonstrate a concrete alternative. As such it would providea powerful witness to the very culture the Church seeks to transform.     

Idea Generation in Computer-Based Groups: A New Ending to an Old Story

Previous research on brainstorming and related idea-generating techniques has generally found interacting groups to produce fewer ideas than equivalent numbers of individuals working alone whose ideas are later pooled (i.e., nominal groups). In this paper we report four experiments. The first three contrast groups of various sizes using a computer-based idea generation system to equivalently sized nominal groups. The results of these experiments were consistent; large groups using a computer-based idea generation system outperformed equivalent nominal groups in idea-generating tasks. A fourth experiment is then reported which tests the primary hypothesis as to why groups using the computer-based idea generation system outperformed nominal groups. This study concluded that the elimination of production blocking in the computer-based groups (a problem common in groups that communicate verbally where only one member of the group can speak at a time) accounts for a significant portion of the enhanced productivity for the computer-based groups.     

The Debate on Structured Debate: Toward a Unified Theory

Although structured debate has been studied extensively over the past 20 years, little theoretical understanding of the phenomenon exists. By examining the literature, this paper builds a theoretical framework for understanding structured debate by raising and exploring several key, but previously implicit theoretical issues. The paper also argues that process modeling of structured debate in group settings can afford theoretical understanding, and offers several such models and coding schemes. The implications of structured debate in real-world settings are also considered.     

Correction to: Introduction: New Perspectives on Philosophical Thought Experiments

Topoi - The e-mail address of the second author was incorrectly published in the original article. The author’s correct e-mail address is given in this correction.     

Perspectives on consumer decision making: an integrated approach

In the consumer behaviour literature several perspectives on consumer decision making have been considered, including the ‘value perspective’, the ‘information processing perspective’, the ‘emotional perspective’ and ‘cue utilisation theory’. In this paper, a framework which integrates several perspectives on consumer decision making and hypothesises possible links between several basic constructs is developed. The framework is tested by the use of two experimental designs. The results of this study support the complexity of consumer decision making with the following findings. First, consumers do not use their cognitive and affective skills independently, rather they affect each other. Secondly, the cognitive, evaluative constructs of quality and attitude had significant direct effects on buying intention in both experiments, whereas the affective construct of emotion had no significant effects on buying intention in both experiments. Thirdly, in both experiments price affected perceived quality, which in turn affected attitude, which in turn affected buying intention. At the same time, price had no direct effect on buying intention. Copyright © 2005 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

哀伤研究：新的视角与理论整合

哀伤（bereavement）研究长期以来都依循“悲伤过程假设（griefworkhypothesis）”,但20世纪80年代后其强调“与逝者分离”的基本假设受到挑战,界定的模糊也使得实证研究工作难以进行。当代研究者从依恋理论、创伤研究、认知应对研究、情感的社会功能等视角多方面对哀伤领域进行深入探索并出现了一些整合性的理论模型,文中对有代表性的“依恋与哀伤双程模型”作了介绍,并对“悲伤过程假设”进行了重新检视     

New Evolutionary Perspectives on Altruism: Multilevel-Selection and Costly-Signaling Theories

Social psychological theories tend to be primarily concerned with the immediate causes of altruism, whereas evolutionary explanations focus more on the origins and ultimate functions of altruistic behavior. Recent developments in the evolutionary psychology of altruism promise an even richer understanding of this important category of social behaviors. Specifically, new perspectives offered by multilevel-selection theory and costly-signaling theory may help to shed light on some of the more problematic issues in the study of altruism.