环境伦理学

一、导论面对“环境危机”,环境哲学家们有一种相当普遍的共识,即应该从伦理学的角度来考察环境问题。他们一致认为,环境问题是重要的,但它在过去没有得到足够的重视。同样,他们也一致认为,在我们处理环境问题时,伦理学应起到更大的作用。然而,也有不一致的地方,即环境伦理学是由什么组成的,怎样才能实现它,在什么程度上实现它是理想的。本文考察当个环境伦理学的关键问题。价值观和对环境及为环境所采取的行动深深地被我们对环境的观察与理解影响着。因此,本文一开始叙述了在过去的一个世纪里,在环境问题上,科学对环境问题的…     

Children's Memory for Locations Visited: Importance of Movement and Choice

In 2 experiments, the effect of active or passive mobility and active or passive choice experiences on children's memory for locations visited while retrieving puzzle pieces hidden in a large room were examined. In the first experiment, fifty-two 6- and 7-year-old children were randomly assigned to 1 of 4 training conditions: active choice-active movement, active choice-passive movement, passive choice-active movement, and passive choice-passive movement. After 3 training trials, all children were tested in the active choice-active movement condition. A 2 (movement) x 2 (choice) factorial multivariate analysis of variance revealed a significant main effect for movement. Children who had moved actively to find the puzzle pieces in the training trials had (a) a greater percentage correct, (b) more correct visits between errors, and (c) a later visit of first error than children who had been passively pushed in a wheelchair. Making active choices in training did not significantly affect performance. A second experiment used identical procedures but tested 32 children with mobility dif-difficulties who regularly used a wheelchair because of either cerebral palsy or spina bifida. Children from this group who moved actively during training to retrieve the puzzle pieces also performed better on testing. Implications of the results for children with disabilities and for developmental theory are discussed.     

Comparing Locomotion With Lever-press Travel In An Operant Simulation Of Foraging

An operant model of foraging was studied. Rats searched for food by pressing on the left lever, the patch, which provided one, two, or eight reinforcers before extinction (i.e., zero reinforcers). Obtaining each reinforcer lowered the probability of receiving another reinforcer, simulating patch depletion. Rats traveled to another patch by pressing the right lever, which restored reinforcer availability to the left lever. Travel requirement changed by varying the probability of reset for presses on the right lever; in one condition, additional locomotion was required. That is, rats ran 260 cm from the left to the right lever, made one response on the right lever, and ran back to a fresh patch on the left lever. Another condition added three hurdles to the 260-cm path. The lever-pressing and simple locomotion conditions generated equivalent travel times. Adding the hurdles produced longer times in patches than did the lever-pressing and simple locomotion requirements. The results contradict some models of optimal foraging but are in keeping with McNair's (1982) optimal giving-up time model and add to the growing body of evidence that different environments may produce different foraging strategies.     

Toward a theory of verbal behavior

This paper is a reply to an accompanying set of six commentaries by Sidman; Hayes and Barnes; Schusterman, Kastak, and Reichmuth; Tonneau and Sokolowski; Lowenkron; and Moerk. Those commentaries were prompted by our article “On the Origins of Naming and Other Symbolic Behavior” (1996), which was, in turn, followed by 26 commentaries and a reply. In the course of the present reply, we further develop the naming account to embrace more complex verbal relations such as same, different, more, and less. We also examine what we see as the lack of conceptual coherence in equivalence theories, including relational frame theory, and the disparities between these accounts and the findings from empirical research.     

Achieving Coordination in Prehension: Joint Freezing and Postural Contributions

The focus of the present study was on the intersegmental relationships that emerge when both task and oganismic constraints are imposed upon the coordination system. Seven right-handed subjects were required to reach and grasp a cup (hand transport phase) and place it on a designated target (cup transport phase), using either their preferred or nonpreferred hand. The kinematics of the movement were examined as a function of task (grasping a full cup versus grasping an empty one) and organismic (preferred or nonpreferred hand) constraints. During the hand transport phase, a task constraint effect was revealed through an increase in the low-velocity phase for the full cup condition. This constraint coexisted with a decrease in angular motion of the shoulder and elbow joints, indicating subjects reduced the number of variables to be independently controlled in the final homing-in stage of the movement. Accompanying this decrease in angular change was an increase in the displacement of the trunk. During the cup transport phase, the trunk was shown to contribute significantly more to the movement in the full cup condition and for the left hand movements, thereby increasing the stability of the movement system. These findings are in agreement with Bernstein's (1967) notion of fixating parts of the body as an initial solution to a movement problem, and they lend support to the concept of a proximodistal organization of coordination.     

Using the HOME inventory with infants in Costa Rica

It has been established through several decades of research that children's home environments significantly influence their development. Many researchers have also been interested in expanding research beyond indirect measures of the home environment, such as socioeconomic status, to help understand the nature of specific environmental mechanisms which influence early behavior and cognitive development. The Home Observation for Measurement of the Environment (HOME) Inventory was developed to meet these needs. Specifically, HOME measures the quality of stimulation in a child's early family environment. Almost all studies of the approach's reliability and validity have been conducted with US samples. HOME is, however, being used in other countries. The authors report their findings from a study of whether the psychometric properties of HOME based upon US samples parallel those found in Costa Rica, and whether HOME discriminates between Costa Rican environments with different associations to child health and development. Focus centers upon the infant/toddler version of the HOME Inventory. HOME data for 183 healthy Costa Rican infants were compared to the original HOME standardization sample from Little Rock, Arkansas. The study found the HOME Inventory to be helpful in identifying children at risk for delayed development in this Latin American sample. Lower HOME scores related to a shorter duration of breastfeeding and differentiated children with iron deficiency anemia in infancy, a condition associated with long-lasting developmental disadvantage.