An Analysis of Intrinsicality

The leading account of intrinsicality over the last thirty years has arguably been David Lewis's account in terms of perfect naturalness. Lewis's account, however, has three serious problems: i) it cannot allow necessarily coextensive properties to differ in whether they are intrinsic; ii) it falsely classifies non‐qualitative properties like being Obama as non‐intrinsic; and iii) it is incompatible with a number of metaphysical theories that posit irreducibly non‐categorical properties. I argue that, as a result of these problems, Lewis's account should be rejected and replaced with an alternative account, which also analyses intrinsicality in terms of perfect naturalness, but which avoids these problems.     

Public and Private Values

In this paper, we experimentally examine whether looking at other people's pricing decisions is a type of a decision rule that people over‐apply even when it is not applicable, as in the case of private‐value goods. In Study 1, we find evidence that this is indeed the case—individual valuation of a subjective experience under full information, elicited using incentive compatible mechanism, is highly influenced by values of others. In Study 2, we find that people expect to use this rule to some degree with respect to actual consumption of goods, especially goods with some public value (music), and less so for private‐value goods (noise). However, people expect to use the rule to a very large extent when they are required to express their valuation of a good using a dollar figure (Study 3). These results can shed light on price behavior as rigidities and rents. Copyright © 2015 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

5～6岁不同数学能力水平儿童的执行功能差异研究

为了考察不同数学能力水平儿童的执行功能差异,根据331名学前儿童的数学能力得分选取了潜在数学学习困难儿童组、低分组、典型发展儿童组和数学优秀组等4个实验组。首先分析了各组儿童的执行功能差异特点,之后使用判别分析进一步探索了各执行功能子结构对儿童早期数学能力差异分组的贡献。结果表明:相对于典型发展儿童组,潜在数学学习困难儿童在执行功能的更新、抑制和转换方面普遍缺损;低分组儿童则仅表现出数字更新能力不足;数学优秀组在数字更新和有时间要求的认知转换方面比典型发展组有明显优势。进一步判别分析表明,对早期数学能力差异分组贡献最大的并非独立执行功能子结构,而是更新和转换的共同因素结构。     

How to assess children’s virtue literacy: methodological lessons learnt from the Knightly Virtues programme

Character education is of growing importance in educational discourse. The Knightly Virtues programme draws on selected classic stories to teach eight moral virtues to nine- to 11-year-olds; it has proved to be hugely popular with UK schools. A finding of the trial was the different levels of ‘virtue literacy’ in faith and non-faith schools. This article outlines the key features of this trial which yielded the positive results and details its methodological strengths and potential shortcomings. Overall, statistical concerns are less problematic than the practical concerns of running trials designed to measure the impact of character education interventions. Of greatest theoretical interest is the conflation of general and virtue-specific literacy; in addition, we tease apart differences in understanding and motivation. The article highlights and discusses the challenges of running trials designed to measure character education, as well as providing insights into promising methodological approaches.     

Flavor Fatigue: Cognitive Depletion Influences Consumer Enjoyment of Complex Flavors

Surprisingly, little research has examined how consumer responses to specific flavor characteristics of food are formed or how they may fluctuate situationally. We address this lacuna in the literature on the hedonic appreciation of food by demonstrating that enjoyment along one important gustatory dimension, flavor complexity, varies with the degree to which consumers are mentally depleted. Specifically, showing that gustatory sensations are more cognitively demanding than previously thought, findings from three studies evince that cognitive depletion reduces consumer enjoyment of complex‐flavored (but not simple‐flavored) foods via a reduction in pleasure that otherwise can be derived from complex flavors. We establish this effect across three different food categories and provide preliminary evidence for consumers’ ability to identify flavors as the underlying process. Our findings offer theoretical contributions and avenues for future research.     

Examining the Reading of Informational Text in 4th Grade Class and Its Relation with Students' Reading Performance

Being proficient in independently reading and writing complex informational text has become a need for college and career success. While there is a great deal of agreement on the importance of the reading of informational text in early grades and teachers are encouraged to increase amount of the reading of informational text in early grades, few quantitative studies have been conducted to examine if the frequency of reading informational text is relevant to student reading achievement. This study aims to investigate the relationship of reading informational text and students' reading performance in 4th grade based on PIRLS 2011 data through multilevel modeling.     

Relational Spending in Funerals: Caring for Others Loved and Lost

Funeral rituals perform important social functions for families and communities, but little is known about the motives of people planning funerals. Using mixed methods, we examine funeral planning as end-of-life relational spending. We identify how relational motives drive and manifest in funeral planning, even when the primary recipient of goods and services is dead. Qualitative interviews with consumers who had planned pre-COVID funerals (N = 15) reveal a caring orientation drives funeral decision-making for loved ones and for self-planned funerals. Caring practices manifest in three forms: (a) balancing preferences between the planner, deceased, and surviving family; (b) making personal sacrifices; and (c) spending amount (Study 1). Archival funeral contract data (N = 385) reveal supporting quantitative evidence of caring-driven funeral spending. Planners spend more on funerals for others and underspend on their own funerals (Study 2). Preregistered experiments (N = 1,906) addressing selection bias replicate these results and find generalization across different funding sources (planner-funded, other-funded, and insurance; Studies 3A–3C). The findings elucidate a ubiquitous, emotional, and financially consequential decision process at the end of life.     

集体仪式促进群体情绪感染的机制

近年来, 诸多学者将研究视角投向群体情绪感染, 即群体内部成员间的情绪感染交互过程。群体情绪感染不仅包括个体间的直接情绪感染, 而且受到群体认同、共同行为以及集体规则等多方面因素的影响。基于集体仪式的过程框架, 分析集体仪式的三要素即同步动作、共享注意和共享意义与群体情绪感染的关系, 能更清楚阐述群体情绪感染的发生与增强过程：集体仪式通过自我定型和自我锚定增强群体认同, 在认同基础上的身份融合促进个体关注群体身份, 导致个体的自我表征发生转化, 社会自我的突出使其更容易接受群体的观点和情感表达, 最终增强了群体情绪感染。未来研究应进一步考察群体情绪感染的影响因素并丰富其测量方法。     

The question shapes the answer: the neural correlates of task differences reveal dynamic semantic processing

Task effects in semantic processing were investigated by contrasting the neural activation associated with two semantic categorization tasks (SCT) using event-related fMRI. The two SCTs involved different decision categories: is it an animal? vs. is it a concrete thing? Participants completed both tasks and, across participants, the same core set of items were presented in both tasks. Results showed task differences in the neural activation associated with these items: in the animal SCT there was greater activation in a number of frontal and temporal regions, including left superior and middle temporal gyri, while in the concrete SCT there was greater activation in left medial frontal gyrus and bilaterally in the precentral gyri. These results are interpreted as evidence of top-down modulation of semantic processing; participants make adjustments to optimize performance in a given task and these adjustments have consequences for the activation observed.     

Multichannel fNIRS assessment of overt and covert confrontation naming

Confrontation naming tasks assess cognitive processes involved in the main stage of word production. However, in fMRI, the occurrence of movement artifacts necessitates the use of covert paradigms, which has limited clinical applications. Thus, we explored the feasibility of adopting multichannel functional near-infrared spectroscopy (fNIRS) to assess language function during covert and overt naming tasks. Thirty right-handed, healthy adult volunteers underwent both naming tasks and cortical hemodynamics measurement using fNIRS. The overt naming task recruited the classical left-hemisphere language areas (left inferior frontal, superior and middle temporal, precentral, and postcentral gyri) exemplified by an increase in the oxy-Hb signal. Activations were bilateral in the middle and superior temporal gyri. However, the covert naming task recruited activation only in the left-middle temporal gyrus. The activation patterns reflected a major part of the functional network for overt word production, suggesting the clinical importance of fNIRS in the diagnosis of aphasic patients.