Justification as faultlessness

According to deontological approaches to justification, we can analyze justification in deontic terms. In this paper, I try to advance the discussion of deontological approaches by applying recent insights in the semantics of deontic modals. Specifically, I use the distinction between weak necessity modals (should, ought to) and strong necessity modals (must, have to) to make progress on a question that has received surprisingly little discussion in the literature, namely: ‘What’s the best version of a deontological approach?’ The two most obvious hypotheses are the Permissive View, according to which justified expresses permission, and the Obligatory View, according to which justified expresses some species of obligation. I raise difficulties for both of these hypotheses. In light of these difficulties, I propose a new position, according to which justified expresses a property I call faultlessness, defined as the dual of weak necessity modals. According to this view, an agent is justified in \(\phi\)-ing iff it’s not the case that she should [/ought] not \(\phi\). I argue that this ‘Faultlessness View’ gives us precisely what’s needed to avoid the problems facing the Permissive and Obligatory Views.     

Forewarned is forearmed: Conserving self-control strength to resist social influence

Recent research has shown that resisting persuasion involves active self-regulation. Resisting an influence attempt consumes self-regulatory resources, and in a state of self-regulatory resource depletion, people become more susceptible to (unwanted) influence attempts. However, the present studies show that a forewarning of an impending influence attempt prompts depleted individuals to conserve what is left of their regulatory resources and thus promotes self-regulatory efficiency. As a result, when these individuals are subsequently confronted with a persuasive request, they comply less (Experiments 1 and 3), and generate more counterarguments (Experiment 2) than their depleted counterparts who were not forewarned and thus did not conserve their resources, and they are as able as non-depleted participants to resist persuasion.     

Individual differences in online spoken word recognition: Implications for SLI

Thirty years of research has uncovered the broad principles that characterize spoken word processing across listeners. However, there have been few systematic investigations of individual differences. Such an investigation could help refine models of word recognition by indicating which processing parameters are likely to vary, and could also have important implications for work on language impairment. The present study begins to fill this gap by relating individual differences in overall language ability to variation in online word recognition processes. Using the visual world paradigm, we evaluated online spoken word recognition in adolescents who varied in both basic language abilities and non-verbal cognitive abilities. Eye movements to target, cohort and rhyme objects were monitored during spoken word recognition, as an index of lexical activation. Adolescents with poor language skills showed fewer looks to the target and more fixations to the cohort and rhyme competitors. These results were compared to a number of variants of the TRACE model (McClelland & Elman, 1986) that were constructed to test a range of theoretical approaches to language impairment: impairments at sensory and phonological levels; vocabulary size, and generalized slowing. None of the existing approaches were strongly supported, and variation in lexical decay offered the best fit. Thus, basic word recognition processes like lexical decay may offer a new way to characterize processing differences in language impairment.     

The Bearable Lightness of Being

How are philosophical questions about what kinds of things there are to be understood and how are they to be answered? This paper defends broadly Fregean answers to these questions. Ontological categories—such as object, property, and relation—are explained in terms of a prior logical categorization of expressions, as singular terms, predicates of varying degree and level, etc. Questions about what kinds of object, property, etc., there are are, on this approach, reduce to questions about truth and logical form: for example, the question whether there are numbers is the question whether there are true atomic statements in which expressions function as singular terms which, if they have reference at all, stand for numbers, and the question whether there are properties of a given type is a question about whether there are meaningful predicates of an appropriate degree and level. This approach is defended against the objection that it must be wrong because makes what there depend on us or our language. Some problems confronting the Fregean approach—including Frege’s notorious paradox of the concept horse—are addressed. It is argued that the approach results in a modest and sober deflationary understanding of ontological commitments.     

Social and Personal Factors as Predictors of Earthquake Preparation: The Role of Support Provision,Network Discussion,Negative Affect,Age, and Education1

Panel data collected in 1991 as part of the University of Southern California Longitudinal Study of Generations (LSOG) were used to predict reported preparation activities prior to and in response to the 1994 Northridge, California, earthquake. In late 1994 and early 1995, 163 panelists (representing 107 multigenerational families) were interviewed by phone about their earthquake experiences. The best 1991 predictor of pre‐quake preparation was the extent of instrumental support respondents provided to network members. Earthquake preparation activities undertaken after the quake were associated with the amount and cost of damage experienced during the quake, 1991 neuroticism scores, age (inversely), and having preparedness encouraged by multiple network sources. The results highlight the importance of social roles (e.g., support provision) and discussion by informal network sources in the adoption of public health and safety messages.     

Visual versus kinesthetic mental imagery: Efficacy for the retention and transfer of a closed motor skill in young children

The main purposes of this study were (a) to compare the effects of mental imagery combined with physical practise and specific physical practise on the retention and transfer of a closed motor skill in young children; (b) to determine the mental imagery (visual vs. kinesthetic), which is the most efficient for retention and transfer of a closed motor skill; and (c) to verify the relationship between movement image vividness and motor performance. As for the secondary purpose, it was to compare the effects of gender on motor learning. Participants (n = 96) were selected from 3 primary schools. These participants were divided into 6 groups and submitted to different experimental conditions. The experimental task required the participants to throw, with the nondominant hand (left hand), a ball toward a target composed of 3 concentric circles. The results demonstrated that performance obtained by the mental imagery (visual or kinesthetic) combined with physical practise group was, during the retention phase, equivalent to that produced by the specific physical practise group but significantly superior during the transfer of closed motor skill. These results showed the potential benefits of mental imagery as a retention strategy intended for motor skills and performance enhancement. Such results could be explained by the similarity of 3 principal functional evidences shared by mental and physical practise: behavioural, central, and peripheral (as suggested by Holmes & Collins, 2001). (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2008 APA, all rights reserved).     

Two Spirit: Counseling Native American Gay,Lesbian, and Bisexual People

The cultural world of the Two Spirit, the traditional role of Native individuals believed to possess both male and female spirit, is explored in both “old ways” and current‐day experiences. Cultural beliefs and meanings around sexual identity are discussed from a Native perspective with recommendations for counseling Two Spirit clients. El mundo cultural del Doble‐espíritu, el rol tradicional de indígenas que se creía que poseían espíritus masculinos y femeninos, se explora en formas tradicionales y experiencias actuales. Creencias culturales y significados acerca de la identidad sexual se analizan desde una perspectiva indígena con recomendaciones para el asesoramiento de clientes Doble‐espíritu.     

Causal-based property generalization

A central question in cognitive research concerns how new properties are generalized to categories. This article introduces a model of how generalizations involve a process of causal inference in which people estimate the likely presence of the new property in individual category exemplars and then the prevalence of the property among all category members. Evidence in favor of this causal-based generalization (CBG) view included effects of an existing feature's base rate (Experiment 1), the direction of the causal relations (Experiments 2 and 4), the number of those relations (Experiment 3), and the distribution of features among category members (Experiments 4 and 5). The results provided no support for an alternative view that generalizations are promoted by the centrality of the to-be-generalized feature. However, there was evidence that a minority of participants based their judgments on simpler associative reasoning processes.