<Emphasis Type="Italic">My Way</Emphasis> and Life’s Highway: Replies to Steward,Smilansky, and Perry

I seek to reply to the thoughtful and challenging papers by Helen Steward, Saul Smilansky, and John Perry. Steward argues that agency itself requires access to alternative possibilities; I attempt to motivate my denial of this view. I believe that her view here is no more plausible than the view (which she rejects) that it is unfair to hold someone morally responsible, unless he has genuine access to alternative possibilities. Smilansky contends that compatibilism is morally shallow, and that we can see this from the “ultimate perspective.” In reply, I explore the nature of “zooming” arguments, and I contend that even from a somewhat more detached perspective, important features that distinguish us from mere animals can be discerned (even in a causally deterministic universe). Finally, I seek to address Perry’s defense of classical compatibilism. My main objection to his form of compatbilism is that agents must be construed as having a certain kind of “baggage”—even on his own account.

Lonelier, lazier, and teased: the stigmatizing effect of body size

The authors conducted 2 studies to examine the stigmatization of the female and male body using photographic stimuli of real people. In the first study, 75 female and 55 male undergraduates rated a series of 50 photographs of women ranging in body mass index (BMI) on 3 items: gets teased, lonely, and lazy. Both male and female observers rated bodies on either side of BMI 19-20 kg/m2 higher for the gets teased and lonely items. For the lazy item, there was a clear pattern of greater stigmatization with increasing BMI. In the second study, 40 male and 40 female observers rated a series of photographs of the male body that varied in BMI and waist-to-chest ratio on the same items. Results showed that men and women judged overweight and more tubular men to be lazier, lonelier, and teased. These findings suggest that body size is an important characteristic to consider when examining body stigmatization among men and women. These results also show support for the beautiful-is-good bias.     

Sex differences in left-handedness: a meta-analysis of 144 studies

Human handedness, a marker for language lateralization in the brain, continues to attract great research interest. A widely reported but not universal finding is a greater male tendency toward left-handedness. Here the authors present a meta-analysis of k = 144 studies, totaling N = 1,787,629 participants, the results of which demonstrate that the sex difference is both significant and robust. The overall best estimate for the male to female odds ratio was 1.23 (95% confidence interval = 1.19, 1.27). The widespread observation of this sex difference is consistent with it being related to innate characteristics of sexual differentiation, and its observed magnitude places an important constraint on current theories of handedness. In addition, the size of the sex difference was significantly moderated by the way in which handedness was assessed (by writing hand or by other means), the location of testing, and the year of publication of the study, implicating additional influences on its development.     

Structural priming: a critical review

Repetition is a central phenomenon of behavior, and researchers have made extensive use of it to illuminate psychological functioning. In the language sciences, a ubiquitous form of such repetition is structural priming, a tendency to repeat or better process a current sentence because of its structural similarity to a previously experienced ("prime") sentence (J. K. Bock, 1986). The recent explosion of research in structural priming has made it the dominant means of investigating the processes involved in the production (and increasingly, comprehension) of complex expressions such as sentences. This review considers its implications for the representation of syntax and the mechanisms of production and comprehension and their relationship. It then addresses the potential functions of structural priming, before turning to its implications for first language acquisition, bilingualism, and aphasia. The authors close with theoretical and empirical recommendations for future investigations.     

Autonomous construction of ecologically and socially relevant semantics

This article presents a synthetic modeling approach to the problem of grounded construction of concepts. In many computational models of grounded language acquisition and evolution, meanings are created in the process of discrimination between a chosen object and other objects present on the scene of communication. We argue that categories constructed for the purpose of identification rather than discrimination are more suitable for the detached language use (talking about things not present here and now). We describe a semantics based on so-called identification criteria constructed by extracting cross-situational similarities among instances of a category, and present several computational models. In the model of individual category construction, the instances are grouped to categories by common motor programs (affordances), while in the model of social learning, focused on the influence of naming on category formation, entities are considered members of the same category, if they are labeled with the same word by an external teacher. By these two mechanisms, the learner can construct interactionally grounded representation of objects, properties, relations, changes, complex situations and events. We also report and analyze simulation results of an experiment focused on the dynamics of meanings in iterated intergenerational transmission.     

Variation in the serotonin transporter gene modulates selective attention to threat

The 5-HTTLPR is an insertion/deletion polymorphism in the promoter region of the serotonin transporter gene. Prior research has revealed associations between the short-allele variant of this polymorphism, enhanced self-reported negative emotionality, and hypersensitivity of fear relevant neural circuits. In a sample of 50 healthy women we examined the role of 5-HTTLPR for cognitive-affective processing of phylogenetical fear-relevant stimuli (spiders) in a dot probe task. In contrast to homozygote long-allele carriers (ll), participants carrying at least 1 short allele (ss and sl) selectively shifted attention toward pictures of spiders, when these were presented for a duration of 2,000 ms. These results argue for an involvement of 5-HTTLPR in cognitive processing of threatening stimuli and thus, underpin its general role for individual differences in negative affect.     

Confounds in pictorial sets: The role of complexity and familiarity in basic-level picture processing

Complexity is conventionally defined as the level of detail or intricacy contained within a picture. The study of complexity has received relatively little attention-in part, because of the absence of an acceptable metric. Traditionally, normative ratings of complexity have been based on human judgments. However, this study demonstrates that published norms for visual complexity are biased. Familiarity and learning influence the subjective complexity scores for nonsense shapes, with a significant training x familiarity interaction [F(1,52) = 17.53, p < .05]. Several image-processing techniques were explored as alternative measures of picture and image complexity. A perimeter detection measure correlates strongly with human judgments of the complexity of line drawings of real-world objects and nonsense shapes and captures some of the processes important in judgments of subjective complexity, while removing the bias due to familiarity effects.     

Psychopathologie und Behandlung der Borderline-Persönlichkeitsstörung

Zusammenfassung Das Wissen über Psychopathologie, Ätiopathogenese und Behandlungsmöglichkeiten der Borderline-Persönlichkeitsstörung (BPS) hat sich in den letzten Jahren deutlich verbessert. Heute sehen die meisten Wissenschaftler eine generalisierte Störung der Affektregulation im Zentrum der BPS, deren Ursachen in Wechselwirkungen zwischen genetischen Faktoren, traumatischen biographischen Erfahrungen und dysfunktionalen Verhaltensmustern liegen. Störungsspezifische Therapieverfahren, insbesondere die Dialektisch Behaviorale Therapie (DBT) nach Linehan, flankiert von psychopharmakologischer Behandlung, zeigen gute Behandlungsergebnisse sowohl im stationären als auch im ambulanten Bereich. In jüngster Zeit wurden viel versprechende Konzepte zur Behandlung schwerer komorbider Störungen [Alkohol und Drogenabhängigkeit, Posttraumatische Belastungsstörung (PTBS)] entwickelt.     

Perceptions of Police Use of Deadly Force

Recent police shootings of unarmed suspects have brought to bear harsh criticism of law enforcement use of deadly force. Two studies sought to investigate perceptions of police misuse of deadly force. Study 1 showed that as number of officers decreased and number of shots increased, perceptions of misuse of force were augmented. Number of shots per officer significantly predicted perceptions of misuse of force. Study 2 investigated the effects of social dominance orientation, blind patriotism, and right-wing authoritarianism. Results showed a significant interaction between number of officers, number of shots fired, and social dominance orientation. This personality variable was an especially strong predictor of misuse of force in situations involving the largest number of shots fired per officer.