Rational Choice Virtues

In this essay, I review some results that suggest that rational choice theory has interesting things to say about the virtues. In particular, I argue that rational choice theory can show, first, the role of certain virtues in a game-theoretic analysis of norms. Secondly, that it is useful in the characterization of these virtues. Finally, I discuss how rational choice theory can be brought to bear upon the justification of these virtues by showing how they contribute to a flourishing life. I do this by discussing one particular example of a norm - the requirement that agents to honor their promises of mutual assistance - and one particular virtue, trustworthiness.     

The Role of Occupational Characteristics and Occupational Imbalance in Explaining Well-being

One of the key factors for promoting well-being lies in balancing one’s daily life occupations and the nature of these occupations. Occupation refers to a group of everyday life goal-directed activities which may be associated to any life domain, not necessarily work, such as leisure, education, or self-care. Yet it is not clear what constitutes occupational imbalance, and its association to other factors has not been examined systematically. This study proposed and tested a theoretical model for specifying the structural relationships between occupational imbalance, occupational characteristics, personality and well-being. 288 working adults completed the following questionnaires: Inter-goal Relations Questionnaire (occupational imbalance), Personal Projects Analysis (occupational characteristics), the Big Five Inventory (personality traits) and the Satisfaction with Life Scale (well-being). Twenty-five models were tested using structural equation modeling. All the models fit the data well. Occupational characteristics, with the exception of stress, served as significant mediators between personality and well-being, yet occupational imbalance did not play a significant role across all models. Our findings provide substantial support for the importance of occupation to well-being, however occupational imbalance is still an elusive concept that requires further investigation theoretically and empirically.     

How does the strength of the relationships between cognitive abilities evolve over the life span for low-IQ vs high-IQ adults?

The present study was designed to examine how the correlations between cognitive abilities evolve during adulthood. Data from 1104 participants on the French version of the Wechsler Adult Intelligence Scale-Third Edition were analyzed. The entire sample was divided into four age groups (16–24 years; 25–44 years; 45–69 years and 70–89 years), which were themselves split into two IQ-levels using the mean standard score on Vocabulary and Block Design. For every age group, the mean correlation between subtest scores of low-IQ participants was higher than that of high-IQ participants. There was also no interaction between age and IQ for the strength of subtest relationships. Indeed, the effect sizes of correlation differences between low- and high-IQ participants appeared to be relatively constant across age. A general developmental schema of how the strength of correlations between cognitive abilities of low- and high-IQ individuals evolves during the entire life span is sketched in the discussion.     

Newborns' face recognition is based on spatial frequencies below 0.5 cycles per degree

A critical question in Cognitive Science concerns how knowledge of specific domains emerges during development. Here we examined how limitations of the visual system during the first days of life may shape subsequent development of face processing abilities. By manipulating the bands of spatial frequencies of face images, we investigated what is the nature of the visual information that newborn infants rely on to perform face recognition. Newborns were able to extract from a face the visual information lying from 0 to 1 cpd (Experiment 1), but only a narrower 0-0.5 cpd spatial frequency range was successful to accomplish face recognition (Experiment 2). These results provide the first empirical support of a low spatial frequency advantage in individual face recognition at birth and suggest that early in life low-level, non-specific perceptual constraints affect the development of the face processing system.     

Value-based accounts of normative powers and the wishful thinking objection

Philosophical Studies - Normative powers like promising allow agents to effect changes to their reasons, permissions and rights by the means of communicative actions whose function is to effect...     

Emotion recognition and expression in young obese participants: preliminary study

This study of the presence of alexithymic characteristics in obese adolescents and preadolescents tested the hypothesis of whether they showed impaired recognition and expression of emotion. The sample included 30 obese young participants and a control group of 30 participants of normal weight for their ages. Stimuli, 42 faces representing seven emotional expressions, were shown to participants who identified the emotion expressed in the face. The Level of Emotional Awareness Scale was adapted for children to evaluate their ability to describe their emotions. Young obese participants had significantly lower scores than control participants, but no differences were found in recognition of emotion. The lack of words to describe emotions might suggest a greater prevalence of alexithymic characteristics in the obese participants, but the hypothesis of a general deficit in the processing of emotional experiences was not supported.     

Is the loss of diagnosticity of the eye region of the face a common aspect of acquired prosopagnosia?

A recent study published in this journal has shown an abnormal performance at discriminating differences with respect to the eyes of unfamiliar faces in two acquired prosopagnosic patients, but preserved processing of the mouth region. Here we extend these findings by showing a similar lack of sensitivity to the eyes in the very same face matching experiment for the prosopagnosic patient PS, who also showed normal performance for detecting differences in the mouth region. These results complement previously published evidence that the patient PS presents a lack of sensitivity to diagnostic information located on the eyes of familiar faces during individual face recognition tasks. More generally, they indicate that the impaired processing of the eyes of faces is a fundamental aspect of acquired prosopagnosia that can arise following damage to different brain localizations.     

The Sin of Ian McEwan's Fictive Atonement:Reading his Later Novels

Ian McEwan is arguably the best living British novelist. His most successful novel, Atonement , was recently made into an internationally successful film. And indeed, through analysis of his novels, it is clear that Ian McEwan believes literature—precisely as fictive—might very well bear the task of atonement for postmodernity. His novels, though, are patently hopeless, (even as they are truly well-written). Because McEwan doesn't accept or see the causes of sin as such—formally understood as rebellion against the Creator—his diagnostic aesthetic of our postmodern malaise is incomplete and ineffectual. The literary or fictive atonement that he would achieve through his novels does not satisfy. This article aims to lay bare the philosophico-literary characteristics of Ian McEwan's later novels. The ultimate goal of this critical reading, though—tending toward an "evangelical lection"—is to transfigure McEwan's imaginative and creative virtuosity for otherwise disappointed Christian readers, precisely by envisioning his novels in the dark light of their redemptive deficit. Thus, the literary or fictive atonement that Ian McEwan's atheism cannot achieve might be saved apropos the Judeo-Christian revelation of divine atonement.     

Generalizing Teaching Techniques from University to K-12 Classrooms: Teaching Preservice Teachers to Use What They Learn

Preservice teachers learn evidence-based practices in university classrooms but often fail to use them later on in their own K-12 classrooms. The problem may be a missing link in teacher preparation, i.e., failure to teach preservice teachers to generalize newly acquired techniques. Two experiments using multiple baseline designs across participants assessed effectiveness of a model to promote generalization and maintenance of a specific teaching skill. In Experiment 1, preservice teachers’ maintenance of behavior deteriorated from practicum to student teaching when intervention consisted of training to criteria alone. When a programming for generalization component (program common stimuli) was added to the intervention, teachers in Experiment 2 generalized and maintained behavior across settings (student teaching to own classrooms) at a higher average than occurred during intervention.     

Does the intention to communicate affect action kinematics?

The aim of the present study was to investigate the effects of communicative intention on action. In Experiment 1 participants were requested to reach towards an object, grasp it, and either simply lift it (individual condition) or lift it with the intent to communicate a meaning to a partner (communicative condition). Movement kinematics were recorded using a three-dimensional motion analysis system. The results indicate that kinematics was sensitive to communicative intention. Although the to-be-grasped object remained the same, movements performed for the ‘communicative’ condition were characterized by a kinematic pattern which differed from those obtained for the ‘individual’ condition. These findings were confirmed in a subsequent experiment in which the communicative condition was compared to a control condition, in which the communicative exchange was prevented. Results are discussed in terms of cognitive pragmatics and current knowledge on how social behavior shapes action kinematics.