Association and dissociation between detection and discrimination of objects of expertise: Evidence from visual search

Expertise in face recognition is characterized by high proficiency in distinguishing between individual faces. However, faces also enjoy an advantage at the early stage of basic-level detection, as demonstrated by efficient visual search for faces among nonface objects. In the present study, we asked (1) whether the face advantage in detection is a unique signature of face expertise, or whether it generalizes to other objects of expertise, and (2) whether expertise in face detection is intrinsically linked to expertise in face individuation. We compared how groups with varying degrees of object and face expertise (typical adults, developmental prosopagnosics [DP], and car experts) search for objects within and outside their domains of expertise (faces, cars, airplanes, and butterflies) among a variable set of object distractors. Across all three groups, search efficiency (indexed by reaction time slopes) was higher for faces and airplanes than for cars and butterflies. Notably, the search slope for car targets was considerably shallower in the car experts than in nonexperts. Although the mean face slope was slightly steeper among the DPs than in the other two groups, most of the DPs’ search slopes were well within the normative range. This pattern of results suggests that expertise in object detection is indeed associated with expertise at the subordinate level, that it is not specific to faces, and that the two types of expertise are distinct facilities. We discuss the potential role of experience in bridging between low-level discriminative features and high-level naturalistic categories.     

Autonomy and the Moral Symmetry Principle: Reply to Frowe and Tooley

Helen Frowe has recently objected to Michael Tooley’s famous Moral Symmetry Principle, which is meant to show that in themselves killing and letting die are morally equivalent. I argue that her objection is not compelling but a more compelling objection is available. Specifically, Tooley’s rebuttal of a proposed counter-example to his Moral Symmetry Principle has two problematic implications. First, it undercuts the very principle itself. If we reject the proposed counter-example, then any instance of the Moral Symmetry Principle will actually demonstrate the moral in-equivalence of killing and letting die. Second, it commits us to the view, which Tooley wishes to avoid, that we are just as obligated to refrain from doing wrong as we are to prevent others from doing the same. I conclude with a brief discussion of a more general concern regarding Tooley’s basic strategy. My focus here is quite narrow. My claims, if plausible, only show that the Moral Symmetry Principle is unsound and thus cannot serve as a basis for the view that killing and letting die are morally equivalent.     

Power,Situation, and Character: A Confucian-Inspired Response to Indirect Situationist Critiques

Indirect situationist critiques of virtue ethics grant that virtue exists and is possible to acquire, but contend that given the low probability of success in acquiring it, a person genuinely interested in behaving as morally as possible would do better to rely on situationist strategies - or, in other words, strategies of environmental or ecological engineering or control (Doris, 2002, 1998; see also Levy 2012). In this paper, I develop a partial answer to this critique drawn from work in early Confucian ethics and in contemporary philosophy and psychology. From early Confucian ethics, I lean on the concept of li, or ritual. Ritual represents both a set of situational manipulations that are especially effective at directly producing moral behavior and at indirectly cultivating virtue over time, and also a virtue that consists of facility with and expertise in these situational manipulations (Mower 2013; Slingerland, 2011; Sarkissian, 2010; and Hutton, 2006). Appealing to the particular example of social power, I then argue that one is justified in attempting to acquire virtue if one (a) knows that one will frequently encounter circumstances in which purely situationist strategies lose effectiveness, (b) if these circumstances also carry moral urgency: the risk of great harm or opportunity for great benefit to others is high, and (c) if utilizing the potent combination of situationist strategies and virtue envisioned by the early Confucians as ritual is possible.     

Acceptability,Feasibility, and Effectiveness of Internet-Based Cognitive-Behavioral Therapy for Obsessive-Compulsive Disorder in New York

Cognitive-behavioral therapy (CBT), consisting of exposure and response prevention (EX/RP), is both efficacious and preferred by patients with obsessive–compulsive disorder (OCD), yet few receive this treatment in practice. This study describes the implementation of an Internet-based CBT program (ICBT) developed in Sweden in individuals seeking OCD treatment in New York. After translating and adapting the Swedish ICBT for OCD, we conducted an open trial with 40 adults with OCD. Using the RE-AIM implementation science framework, we assessed the acceptability, feasibility, and effectiveness of ICBT. The Yale–Brown Obsessive Compulsive Scale (Y-BOCS) was the primary outcome measure. Of 40 enrolled, 28 participants completed the 10-week ICBT. In the intent-to-treat sample (N = 40), Y-BOCS scores decreased significantly over time (F = 28.12, df = 2, 49, p < . 001). Depressive severity (F = 5.87, df = 2, 48, p < . 001), and quality of life (F = 12.34, df = 2, 48, p < . 001) also improved. Sensitivity analyses among treatment completers (N = 28) confirmed the intent-to-treat results, with a large effect size for Y-BOCS change (Cohen’s d = 1.38). ICBT took less time to implement than face-to face EX/RP and participants were very to mostly satisfied with ICBT. On a par with results in Sweden, the adapted ICBT program reduced OCD and depressive symptoms and improved quality of life among individuals with moderate to severe OCD. Given its acceptability and feasibility, ICBT deserves further study as a way to increase access to CBT for OCD in the United States.     

Panning for the gold in health research: Incorporating studies’ methodological quality in meta-analysis

Background: Systematic reviews now routinely assess methodological quality to gauge the validity of the included studies and of the synthesis as a whole. Although trends from higher quality studies should be clearer, it is uncertain how often meta-analyses incorporate methodological quality in models of study results either as predictors, or, more interestingly, in interactions with theoretical moderators.

Objective and methods: We survey 200 meta-analyses in three health promotion domains to examine when and how meta-analyses incorporate methodological quality.

Results: Although methodological quality assessments commonly appear in contemporary meta-analyses (usually as scales), they are rarely incorporated in analyses, and still more rarely analysed in interaction with theoretical determinants of the success of health promotions. The few meta-analyses (2.5%) that did include such an interaction analysis showed that moderator results remained significant in higher quality studies or were present only among higher quality studies. We describe how to model quality interactively with theoretically derived moderators and discuss strengths and weaknesses of this approach and in relation to current meta-analytic practice.

Conclusions: In large literatures exhibiting heterogeneous effects, meta-analyses can incorporate methodological quality and generate conclusions that enable greater confidence not only about the substantive phenomenon but also about the role that methodological quality itself plays.     

Consumer perceptions of bundles and time‐limited promotion deals: Do contracts matter?

Marketers use various types of deals to positively influence consumers' product evaluations. Across two experiments, we manipulated print advertisements to examine whether the commonly used deal content of both bundling and time‐limited promotions affect consumers' perceived confusion, risk and value. In study 1, the influence of this content was tested in the context of a 2‐year telecommunications (telco) contract. Here, consumers associated a three‐item bundle with greater perceived value than a single item, but perceived value was reduced and risk heightened when it was only available for a limited time. We speculate that this is because of the long‐term nature of the contract. Study 2 removed the contract restriction, examining the bundling of a video game console and game(s), again with a time‐limited promotion. However, in this context, we failed to locate any interaction effects. It appears that consumers further appraise the drawbacks of a long‐term telco contract when accompanied by a time‐limited promotion and may perceive the switching costs for study 1 three‐item telco bundle to be particularly risky. Our studies represent the first empirical investigation of the effect on consumers' perceptions of offering a bundle in conjunction with a time‐limited promotion. Testing these effects in contract and no contract conditions adds to the contribution of our studies by delineating a boundary condition. From a managerial perspective, our findings are thought‐provoking in respect to information integration, or how consumers process different deal content together. Copyright © 2015 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Specific phonological impairments in dyslexia revealed by eyetracking

Phonological deficits in dyslexia are typically assessed using metalinguistic tasks vulnerable to extraneous factors such as attention and memory. The present work takes the novel approach of measuring phonology using eyetracking. Eye movements of dyslexic children were monitored during an auditory word recognition task in which target items in a display (e.g., candle) were accompanied by distractors sharing a cohort (candy) or rhyme (sandal). Like controls, dyslexics showed slower recognition times when a cohort distractor was present than in a baseline condition with only phonologically unrelated distractors. However, unlike controls, dyslexic children did not show slowed recognition of targets with a rhyme distractor, suggesting they had not encoded rhyme relationships. This was further explored in an overt phonological awareness test of cohort and rhyme. Surprisingly, dyslexics showed normal rhyme performance but poorer judgment of initial sounds on these overt tests. The results implicate impaired knowledge of rhyme information in dyslexia; however they also indicate that testing methodology plays a critical role in how such problems are identified.     

Associative activation of stimulus representations restores lost salience: implications for perceptual learning

In 3 experiments, rats received preexposure to presentations of a compound flavor BX. The effective salience of B was then tested by assessing its ability to interfere with the aversion controlled by another flavor or the tendency to drink a saline solution after the induction of a salt need. It was found that the effective salience of B was maintained when during preexposure, presentations of BX alternated with presentations of X alone. This was true both when BX was presented as a simultaneous compound (Experiment 1) and as a serial compound (X-->B; Experiments 2 and 3); salience was not maintained when the serial compound took the form B-->X (Experiments 2 and 3a). It was argued that the salience of B declines during preexposure but is restored when presentations of X are able to activate the representation of B by way of the associative X-B link.