Is Divorce Promise-Breaking?

Wedding vows seem to be promises. So they go: “I promise to love, honour, and cherish ....” But this poses a problem. Divorce is not widely seen as a serious moral wrong, but breaking a promise is. I first consider, and defend against preliminary objections, a ‘hard-line’ response: divorce is indeed prima facie impermissible promise-breaking. I next consider the ‘hardship’ response—the hardship of failed marriages overrides the prima facie duty to keep promises. However, this would release promisors in far too many cases. I resolve the triad by considering the content of the vows. Vows concerning love are not promises at all. We cannot promise to do acts the performance of which is outside our control, and love involves states of mind outside our control. Vows concerning spousal roles are complicated by diverse social understandings of marriage and the centrality of emotion to the roles.     

自我面孔识别的神经机制：基于fMRI研究的ALE元分析

自我面孔识别反映了个体通过自我与他人的区分识别出自我面孔的过程。本文采用ALE元分析的方法, 对自我面孔识别的fMRI研究进行系统的定量分析, 探究自我面孔识别的神经基础。结果显示, 自我面孔识别的关键脑区包括顶上小叶、额中回、额下回、脑岛、梭状回、楔前叶和枕叶皮层。另外, 自我面孔识别可能包括两个层面的加工过程：知觉层面的加工整合过程以及由知觉引发的评价和情绪反应过程。知觉加工整合涵盖了自我面孔识别的各个加工阶段, 主要涉及枕叶、梭状回和楔前叶的功能; 而评价加工及情绪反应过程则发生在自我面孔识别的中晚期, 主要涉及顶上小叶、额中回、额下回及脑岛的功能。未来研究可结合时间和空间数据并关注脑区间的协同功能, 考察与内感受的神经关联, 开展临床研究并探索威胁信息的影响机制。     

Gender differences in object location memory: A meta-analysis

The goal of the present study was to quantify the magnitude of gender differences in object location memory tasks. A total of 123 effect sizes (d) drawn from 36 studies were included in a meta-analysis using a hierarchical approach. Object identity memory (37 effect sizes) and object location memory (86 effect sizes) tasks were analyzed separately. Object identity memory task showed significant gender differences that were homogeneous and in favor of women. For the object location memory tasks, effect sizes had to be partitioned by age (younger than 13, between 13 and 18, older than 18), object type (common, uncommon, gender neutral, geometric, masculine, feminine), scoring method (accuracy, time, distance), and type of measure (recall, recognition) to achieve homogeneity. Significant gender differences in favor of females were obtained in all clusters above the age of 13, with the exception of feminine, uncommon, and gender-neutral objects. Masculine objects and measures of distance produced significant effects in favor of males. Implications of these results for future work and for theoretical interpretations are discussed.     

Simultaneous masking in a dichotic emotion detection task

The present study investigated the possible role of ceiling effects in producing laterality effects of small magnitude in dichotic emotion detection. Twenty two right-handed undergraduate students participated in the present experiment. They were required to detect the presence of a target emotion in the expressions tones of happiness, sadness, anger, and neutrality presented dichotically. Stimuli were adjusted to 70 dB and occurred simultaneously with a white noise mask that had an intensity of 65, 70, 80, or 85 dB. Results showed a left ear advantage (LEA) for the 65 dB mask and a right ear advantage for the 85 dB mask, but only after two testing sessions. The possible existence of a generalized right ear bias that might affect the observed LEA for non-verbal tasks is discussed. Alternative explanations and limitations of the present experiment are also presented.     

ArtWare: Macintosh multimedia software for aesthetics research

This paper describes ArtWare, a HyperCard stack for the Apple Macintosh that allows researchers to configure and run simple experiments in visual aesthetics. ArtWare allows researchers to (1) choose paintings or other works of art from commercially available laser discs to use as stimuli, (2) create and edit sets of semantic differential response scales, and (3) create an experiment stack that randomizes the presentation of stimuli and scales as well as collects data from subjects. In addition, the paper discusses revisions planned for the current software to broaden its utility to areas beyond visual aesthetics.     

Event-related potential sensitivity to acoustic and semantic properties of terminal words in sentences.

This experiment was concerned with the effects of phonologically correct masking on the electrophysiological responses to terminal words of spoken sentences differing in contextual constraint. Two event-related potential (ERP) components, the N400 and N200, were recorded to the terminal words of high and low constraint sentences in four conditions. In the Control condition, subjects (Ss) simply attended to the sentences with no explicit task instructions. In the Semantic condition, Ss were required to listen to the stimuli in order to make semantic judgements about the terminal word of each sentence. The Control+Masking condition was identical to the Control condition except for the simultaneous presentation of a masking stimulus. The Semantic+Masking condition had Ss listening to sentences in the presence of masking with the task of making semantic judgements about the terminal word of each sentence. ERPs were recorded from Fz, Cz, Pz, T3, and T4 in 10 subjects. Amplitudes of both the N200 and the N400 were sensitive to contextual constraint with larger responses elicited by the terminal words of low constraint sentences. In addition to demonstrating the co-occurrence of the N200 and N400, this experiment highlighted a functional separation between the two components. Masking had no statistically significant effect on N200 latency but N400 latency was delayed in the masked conditions relative to those in the unmasked conditions. It is proposed that the N200 and N400 are manifestations of two different processes; the N200 reflects the acoustic/phonological processing of the terminal word while the N400 reflects the cognitive/linguistic processing. The relationship between the N200 recorded in this experiment and the discrimination N200 is discussed.     

Marriage,Morality, and Institutional Value

This paper develops a Kantian account of the moral assessment of institutions. The problem I address is this: while a deontological theory may find that some legal institutions are required by justice, it is not obvious how such a theory can assess institutions not strictly required (or prohibited) by justice. As a starting-point, I consider intuitions that in some cases it is desirable to attribute non-consequentialist moral value to institutions not required by justice. I will argue that neither consequentialist nor virtue-ethical accounts account for these intuitions, suggesting that a distinctive deontological account is needed. The account I give is drawn from Kant’s Metaphysics of Morals; I distinguish it from Kantian views of institutions developed by Barbara Herman and Onora O’Neill. Throughout, I use marriage as an example.

Does delay of reinforcement produce durable persistence?

In a foru-phase experiment, phase I was runway training under four different reinforcement conditions: partial reinforcement (PRF), partial delayed reinforcement (PDR), constant delayed reinforcement (CDR), and consistent reinforcement (CRF). During phase 2 extinction, PRF and PDR groups did not differ; both groups were more persistent than group CDR, which was in turn superior to the CRF control. Phase 3 was CRF reacquisition for all groups. During phase 4 extinction, PRF group was more presistent than the other three groups which did not differ. A Pavlovian counter-conditioning hypothesis was proposed to account for the absence of durable persistence following PDR training.