The Mafioso Case: Autonomy and Self-respect

This article argues that immoralists do not fully enjoy autonomous agency because they are not capable of engaging in the proper form of practical reflection, which requires relating to others as having equal standing. An adequate diagnosis of the immoralist’s failure of agential authority requires a relational account of reflexivity and autonomy. This account has the distinctive merit of identifying the cost of disregarding moral obligations and of showing how immoralists may become susceptible to practical reason. The compelling quality of reason should not be represented as the capacity to force them to abide by morality on pain of incoherence. Rather, its authority (and objectivity) is shown when it presents them with the prospect of a transition that makes sense for them to undertake.     

Relational Services

Recent research projects have looked for social innovations, i.e., people creating solutions outside the mainstream patterns of production and consumption. An analysis of these innovations indicates the emergence of a particular kind of service configuration—defined here as relational services—which requires intensive interpersonal relations to operate. Based on a comparative analysis between standard and relational services, we propose to the Service Design discipline an interpretative framework able to reinforce its ability to deal with the interpersonal relational qualities in services, indicating how these qualities can be understood and favored by design activities, as well as the limits of this design intervention. Martin Buber’s conceptual framework is presented as the main interpretative basis. Buber describes two ways of interacting (“I-Thou” and “I-It”). Relational services are those most favoring “I-Thou” interpersonal encounters.

Getting it right by getting it wrong: When learners change languages

When natural language input contains grammatical forms that are used probabilistically and inconsistently, learners will sometimes reproduce the inconsistencies; but sometimes they will instead regularize the use of these forms, introducing consistency in the language that was not present in the input. In this paper we ask what produces such regularization. We conducted three artificial language experiments, varying the use of determiners in the types of inconsistency with which they are used, and also comparing adult and child learners. In Experiment 1 we presented adult learners with scattered inconsistency - the use of multiple determiners varying in frequency in the same context - and found that adults will reproduce these inconsistencies at low levels of scatter, but at very high levels of scatter will regularize the determiner system, producing the most frequent determiner form almost all the time. In Experiment 2 we showed that this is not merely the result of frequency: when determiners are used with low frequencies but in consistent contexts, adults will learn all of the determiners veridically. In Experiment 3 we compared adult and child learners, finding that children will almost always regularize inconsistent forms, whereas adult learners will only regularize the most complex inconsistencies. Taken together, these results suggest that regularization processes in natural language learning, such as those seen in the acquisition of language from non-native speakers or in the formation of young languages, may depend crucially on the nature of language learning by young children.     

Can chimpanzees (Pan troglodytes) discriminate appearance from reality?

A milestone in human development is coming to recognize that how something looks is not necessarily how it is. We tested appearance-reality understanding in chimpanzees (Pan troglodytes) with a task requiring them to choose between a small grape and a big grape. The apparent relative size of the grapes was reversed using magnifying and minimizing lenses so that the truly bigger grape appeared to be the smaller one. Our Lens test involved a basic component adapted from standard procedures for children, as well as several components designed to rule out alternative explanations. There were large individual differences in performance, with some chimpanzees’ responses suggesting they appreciated the appearance-reality distinction. In contrast, all chimpanzees failed a Reverse Contingency control test, indicating that those who passed the Lens test did not do so by learning a simple reverse contingency rule. Four-year-old children given an adapted version of the Lens test failed it while 4.5-year-olds passed. Our study constitutes the first direct investigation of appearance-reality understanding in chimpanzees and the first cross-species comparison of this capacity.     

The role of Funktionswandel in metamorphopsia

Patients with metamorphopsia perceive objects or faces as being distorted and/or different in size. In most cases, recognition is not impaired. The stimulus specificity, particularly in the case of face perception, has led to the suggestion that metamorphopsia is a deficit at the entry level of category‐specific recognition systems; in this case, the face processing system. An explanation in terms of a visuosensory deficit (i.e. Funktionswandel) that affects the perception of specific stimulus categories has not been systematically evaluated. In this study, we report two patients (MZ and CM) who experienced hemi‐metamorphopsia for faces after a stroke in the posterior part of the brain. Despite the distortions, they could still match and recognize faces. We carried out a detailed evaluation of their visual‐sensory status and found that both MZ and CM had specific problems with discriminating and estimating sizes and shapes, especially in the contralesional visual field. It was concluded that these cases, metamorphopsia was not due to a higher‐order perception impairment specific for faces, but rather of a specific impairment in shape perception in the contralesional visual field that proportionally affects the perception of faces.     

Promoting Science-based Approaches to Teen Pregnancy Prevention: Proactively Engaging the Three Systems of the Interactive Systems Framework

In the field of teen pregnancy prevention many efficacious prevention programs are available but adoption of these programs is slow at the community level. In this article, we present a multi-site, capacity-building effort called the Promoting Science-based Approaches to Teen Pregnancy Prevention project (PSBA) as a case example of a proactive application of the Interactive System Framework (ISF) for dissemination and implementation. The ISF is a multi-system model leading to dissemination and implementation of science-based prevention programming through the work of three interactive systems: The "Prevention Delivery," "Prevention Support," and "Prevention Synthesis & Translation" Systems. This article describes the proactive use of the ISF to conceptualize and bolster the PSBA program's goal of assisting local prevention partners in the use of science-based approaches (SBA) to prevent teen pregnancy. PSBA uses all three systems of the ISF to facilitate practice improvements and offers valuable research opportunities to investigate factors related to dissemination and implementation processes across these systems. Describing our application of this framework highlights the feasibility of actively using the ISF to build prevention infrastructure and to guide large-scale prevention promotion strategies in the area of teen pregnancy prevention. The program's ongoing evaluation is presented as an example of early efforts to develop an evidence base around the ISF. Research implications are discussed.     

The self-regulation of automatic associations and behavioral impulses

The distinction between automatic processes and controlled processes is a central organizational theme across areas of psychology. However, this dichotomy conceals important differences among qualitatively different processes that independently contribute to ongoing behavior. The Quadruple process model is a multinomial model that provides quantitative estimates of 4 distinct processes in a single task: the likelihood that an automatic response tendency is activated; the likelihood that a contextually appropriate response can be determined; the likelihood that automatic response tendencies are overcome when necessary; and the likelihood that in the absence of other information, behavior is driven by a general response bias. The model integrates dual-process models from many domains of inquiry and offers a generalized, more nuanced framework of impulse regulation across these domains. The model offers insights into many central questions surrounding the operation and the interaction of automatic and controlled processes. Applications of the model to empirical and theoretical concerns in a variety of areas of psychology are discussed.     

Timed excitatory conditioning under zero and negative contingencies

Rats (rattus norvegicus) anticipated the arrival of a food pellet unconditioned stimulus (US) even when the conditioned stimulus (CS) signaled no overall change or a substantial decrease in the overall rate of US occurrence. Pellet USs were scheduled probabilistically in the intertrial interval at either an equivalent rate (Experiment 1) or a four times higher rate (Experiments 2 and 3) than in the CS, which included one fixed-time target US. Conditioning has been said to involve learning "whether" (contingency) the CS signals a change in the US, and if so, "when" (contiguity) the US is scheduled to arrive. Our results suggest that "when" trumps "whether," challenging the received view that a positive CS-US contingency is necessary for successful conditioning.     

Neurodevelopmental impairment: Predictors of its impact on the families of extremely low birth weight infants at 18 months

Effects on a family of a child with chronic illness have been described. The Impact on Family Scale (IOF) was developed to measure these effects. The impact of extremely low birth weight (ELBW) infants with neurodevelopmental impairment on families is unknown. This study determined IOF scores for families of ELBW infants with increasing degree of impairment at 18 months and identified factors that increase vulnerability to impact. A total of 3,849 ELBW infant survivors born at the 16 centers of the National Institute of Child Health and Human Development Neonatal Research Network between January 1993 and February 2001 were assessed at 18 to 22 months. Infants were divided into four groups by degree of impairment. IOF scores were analyzed by impairment group. Multivariate analyses assessed effects of impairment, social/demographic factors, unmet service needs, and resource utilization on the IOF. A total of 1,624 (42.2%) infants had moderate/severe impairment. Increasing severity of impairment was associated with higher IOF scores. Severity of impairment contributed 6% of variance to the IOF scores. Twenty‐one percent of variance was contributed by additional medical needs, low socioeconomic status (SES), and lack of social support. Although increasing severity of impairment impacts families of ELBW infants, significantly more impact is contributed by additional medical needs, low SES, and lack of social support.