“All I remember is the black eye”: A distinctive facial feature harms eyewitness identification

Many crimes occur in which a perpetrator has a distinctive facial feature, such as a tattoo or black eye, but few eyewitness identification (ID) studies have involved such a feature. We conducted an experiment to determine how eyewitness ID performance is impacted by a distinctive facial feature, and how police could deal with this issue. Participants (N = 4,218) studied a target face with or without a black eye, and later viewed a simultaneous photo lineup either containing the target or not. For those who saw a target with a black eye, this feature was either replicated among all lineup members or was removed. The black eye harmed empirical discriminability regardless of replication or removal, which did not differ. However, participants responded more conservatively when the black eye was removed, compared to replication. Lastly, immediate confidence was consistently indicative of accuracy.     

Delayed gratification in New Caledonian crows and young children: influence of reward type and visibility

Animal Cognition - Self-control underlies cognitive abilities such as decision making and future planning. Delay of gratification is a measure of self-control and involves obtaining a more valuable...     

Mahatma Gandhi and Character Education in Non‐Violence: Its Relevance in Religious Studies Today

This essay presents educational principles of Mahatma Gandhi, specifically principles of character education, as a model for strengthening non‐violence in students. Its major concern is to show that Gandhi's ideal of non‐violent character education is important for university teaching in disciplines including religious studies, and that Gandhi offers methods for fostering non‐violent character, namely the teaching of world religions, service learning, and setting an example. The effectiveness of Gandhi's views, moreover, finds some support in contemporary teaching practices, including my own experiences in the classroom.     

Science Communication,Cultural Cognition,and the Pull of Epistemic Paternalism

There is a correlation between positions taken on some scientific questions and political leaning. One way to explain this correlation is the cultural cognition hypothesis (CCH): people's political leanings are causing them to process evidence to maintain fixed answers to the questions, rather than to seek the truth. Another way is the different background belief hypothesis (DBBH): people of different political leanings have different background beliefs which rationalize different positions on these scientific questions. In this article, I argue for two things. I argue that two attempts by proponents of the CCH to discredit the DBBH fail. And I argue that this matters, because while the CCH makes epistemic paternalistic interventions seem called for (as some philosophers have argued compellingly), the DBBH does not. The DBBH makes it much easier to stay closer to an ideal of deliberative democracy.     

Reasons-sensitivity and degrees of free will

Some actions are free and others are not. But free will also comes in degrees. This paper offers a novel account of degrees of free will, taking as its starting point the idea that an action is free to the extent to which the agent was sensitive, in acting, to reasons for or against performing that action. Though lip service is often paid to the idea that reasons-sensitivity comes in degrees, however, the details turn out to be harder to pin down than one might initially have thought. I criticise three recent accounts of degrees of reasons-sensitivity, arguing that none of them succeed in capturing our intuitions about degrees of free will in particular cases. I then defend an alternative approach, which combines a causal account of sensitivity with my own preferred metaphysics of degrees of causal contribution. As well as avoiding the problems faced by its rivals, I’ll argue that this account provides a novel response to the situationist threat to free will, arising out of empirical studies purporting to show that ‘situational factors’ play a larger role in producing actions than we typically assume.     

Characteristics of Danish Centenarians’ Religious Beliefs: A Nationwide Population-Based Study

Journal of Religion and Health - Research has shown that in groups of increasing age, religiousness becomes more prevalent. However, centenarians have only to a very limited extent been included in...     

The developmental trajectories of spatial skills in middle childhood

The multidimensional structure of spatial ability remains a debated issue. However, the developmental trajectories of spatial skills have yet to be investigated as a source of evidence within this debate. We tested the intrinsic versus extrinsic and static versus dynamic dimensions of the Uttal et al. (2013, Psychol. Bull., 139, 352) typology in relation to spatial development. Participants (N = 184) aged 6–11 completed spatial tasks chosen to measure these spatial dimensions. The results indicated that the developmental trajectories of intrinsic versus extrinsic skills differed significantly. Intrinsic skills improved more between 6 and 8 years, and 7 and 8 years, than extrinsic skills. Extrinsic skills increased more between 8 and 10 years than intrinsic skills. The trajectories of static versus dynamic skills did not differ significantly. The findings support the intrinsic versus extrinsic, but not the static versus dynamic dimension, of the Uttal et al. (2013, Psychol. Bull., 139, 352) typology.