Color,Variation, and the Appeal to Essences: Impasse and Resolution

Many philosophers have been attracted by the view that colors are mind-independent properties of object surfaces. While this view has come in for a fair bit of criticism for failing to do justice to the facts about perceptual variation, Byrne and Hilbert have recently argued that perceptual variation involving color is no more problematic for physicalism about color than representational variation involving temperature is for physicalism about temperature. Unfortunately, the analogy on which this response rests is no less controversial than the disputed view about color, and so the response leads to a standoff rather than a resolution of the debate. However, we can appeal to facts about our inferential treatment of color and other properties as a way of resolving this impasse; doing so gives us defeasible reason for rejecting the Byrne and Hilbert response, and so for rejecting their mind-independent conception of color.     

The effect of constant threat of terror on Israeli Jewish and Arab adolescents

The effect on Israeli Jewish and Arab adolescents of living under constant threat of terrorist attacks was assessed in a sample of 346 adolescents. The study probed their direct and indirect exposure to terrorist attacks, avoidance of public centers, sharing feelings with significant others, and stress reaction symptoms. The adolescents showed mild to low levels of stress symptoms in reaction to terrorist attacks in Israel, with no significant differences between Jews and Arabs. The Jewish adolescents reported knowing more people involved in terror attacks and being more informed by their parents about them. Demographic and exposure variables explained 39% of the variance of stress reaction symptoms. Being female, knowing someone injured, having parents who discuss terrorist attacks or forbid going out, and more sharing of feelings were significantly related to higher stress symptoms. For Jewish adolescents, greater levels of sharing of feelings were related to higher distress. Jewish and Arab adolescents proved to be similarly affected by the threat of terror but were also resilient even in highly unusual circumstances.     

The oblique effect and three-dimensional shape

The classical oblique effect refers to the finding that observers are faster and more accurate in discriminating the orientation of a line or edge when it is at or near vertical or horizontal than when it is at an oblique orientation (Appelle, 1972; Mach, 1861). Based on the finding that observer sensitivity to orientation of simple symmetric shapes like an ellipse or the letter "X" also exhibits an oblique effect, Li and Westheimer (1997) suggested that the effect does not arise solely from inequality of simple orientation-tuned receptors in early visual processing, but also involves later orientation processing that can encompass more complex inputs such as shape axes. In this work, we examined how the oblique effect impacts three-dimensional shapes defined by texture cues.     

Developing a cortex specialized for face perception

Recent developmental functional magnetic resonance imaging studies provide evidence that the cortical specialization for face perception observed in adults emerges only gradually over the first decade of childhood. These developmental results provide a middle-ground view on the long-standing debate in the literature from adults about the specificity or otherwise of face-sensitive areas of cortex. According to this developmental perspective, certain cortical regions become specialized for face perception in adults, partly as a result of a decade or more of experience and partly as a result of initial biases.     

Encoding of others’ beliefs without overt instruction

Under what conditions do people automatically encode and track the mental states of others? A recent investigation showed that when subjects are instructed to track the location of an object but are not instructed to track a belief about that location in a non-verbal false-belief task, they respond more slowly to questions about an agent’s belief, suggesting that belief information was not encoded or tracked automatically [Apperly, I. A., Riggs, K. J., Simpson, A., Samson, D., & Chiavarino, C. (2006). Is belief reasoning automatic? Psychological Science, 17, 841-844]. In the current experiments, we show that if belief probes occur closer in time to the events that signal the content of the agent’s false belief, responses to those probes are faster than responses to probes about reality, and as fast as responses to probes about belief when instructed to track them, suggesting (i) beliefs may get encoded automatically in response to certain cues and (ii) that belief information rapidly decays unless it is maintained via ‘top-down’ instructions.     

"Queremos Aprender": Latino Immigrants' Call to Integrate Cultural Adaptation with Best Practice Knowledge in a Parenting Intervention

Despite the unique and challenging circumstances confronting Latino immigrant families, debate still exists as to the need to culturally adapt evidence-based interventions for dissemination with this population. Following the grounded theory approach, the current qualitative investigation utilized focus group interviews with 83 Latino immigrant parents to explore the relevance of culturally adapting an evidence-based parenting intervention to be disseminated within this population. Findings from this study indicate that Latino immigrant parents want to participate in a culturally adapted parenting intervention as long as it is culturally relevant, respectful, and responsive to their life experiences. Research results also suggest that the parenting skills participants seek to enhance are among those commonly targeted by evidence-based parenting interventions. This study contributes to the cultural adaptation/fidelity balance debate by highlighting the necessity of exploring ways to develop culturally adapted interventions characterized by high cultural relevance, as well as high fidelity to the core components that have established efficacy for evidence-based parenting interventions.     

Chaplain–Physician Consultancy: When Chaplains and Doctors Meet in the Clinical Context

This paper summarizes the perspectives of 327 Australian health care chaplains concerning their interaction with physicians within the clinical context. In general terms the findings indicated that nearly 90% of chaplains believed that it was part of their professional role to consult with physicians regarding patient/family issues. Differences of involvement between volunteer and staff chaplains, Catholic and Protestant, male and female chaplains and the type of chaplaincy training are noted, as are the perspectives of chaplaincy informants regarding their role in relation to physicians. Some implications of this study with respect to chaplaincy utility and training are noted.     

Tactile Enumeration and Embodied Numerosity Among the Deaf

Representations of the fingers are embodied in our cognition and influence performance in enumeration tasks. Among deaf signers, the fingers also serve as a tool for communication in sign language. Previous studies in normal hearing (NH) participants showed effects of embodiment (i.e., embodied numerosity) on tactile enumeration using the fingers of one hand. In this research, we examined the influence of extensive visuo-manual use on tactile enumeration among the deaf. We carried out four enumeration task experiments, using 1–5 stimuli, on a profoundly deaf group (n = 16) and a matching NH group (n = 15): (a) tactile enumeration using one hand, (b) tactile enumeration using two hands, (c) visual enumeration of finger signs, and (d) visual enumeration of dots. In the tactile tasks, we found salient embodied effects in the deaf group compared to the NH group. In the visual enumeration of finger signs task, we controlled the meanings of the stimuli presentation type (e.g., finger-counting habit, fingerspelled letters, both or neither). Interestingly, when comparing fingerspelled letters to neutrals (i.e., not letters or numerical finger-counting signs), an inhibition pattern was observed among the deaf. The findings uncover the influence of rich visuo-manual experiences and language on embodied representations. In addition, we propose that these influences can partially account for the lag in mathematical competencies in the deaf compared to NH peers. Lastly, we further discuss how our findings support a contemporary model for mental numerical representations and finger-counting habits.     

The effects of phencyclidine and chlordiazepoxide on target biting of confined male mice

Target-biting of confined mice increases following delivery of tail shock and decreases during a tone that precedes the shock. Both phencyclidine and chlordiazepoxide reduced biting (dose dependently) following shock and had no effect on biting during the tone. These observations are discussed in reference to previous reports, which infer that the effects of phencyclidine and chlordiazepoxide on aggression might depend upon the baseline rate of the behavior.