Magic Learning Pill: Ontological and Instrumental Learning in Order to Speed Up Education

The purpose of this research is to investigate the phenomenology of learning — people”s attitudes toward their learning experiences that have inherent worth in themselves (i.e., ontological learning) or have value outside of the learning itself (i.e., instrumental learning). In order to explore this topic, 58 participants from the U.S., Russia, and Brazil were interviewed with a central question derived from the science fiction writer Isaac Asimov’s short story “Profession”: whether participants would take a “Magic Learning Pill” (MLP) to avoid the process of learning, and instead magically acquire the knowledge. The MLP would guarantee the immediate learning by skipping the process of learning while achieving the same effect of gaining skills and knowledge. Almost all participants could think of some learning experiences for which they would take MLP and others for which they would not. Many participants would not take MLP for ontological learning, which is learning experiences that have inherent value for the people, while they would take MLP for instrumental learning, which is learning that mainly serves some other non-educational purposes. The main finding suggests that both instrumental and ontological types of learning are recognized by a wide range of people from diverse cultures as present and valued in their lives. This is especially significant in light of the overwhelmingly instrumental tone of public discourse about education. In the context of formal education, ontological learning was mentioned 35 times (28.0%) while instrumental learning was mentioned 74 times (60.2%). Although ontological learning was often mentioned as taking place outside of school, incorporating pedagogy supporting ontological learning at school deserves consideration.     

Excusing Responsibility for the Inevitable

It is by now well established that the fact that an action or aconsequence was inevitable does not excuse the agent from responsibilityfor it, so long as the counterfactual intervention which ensures thatthe act will take place is not actualized. However, in this paper I demonstrate that there is one exception to this principle: when theagent is aware of the counterfactual intervener and the role she wouldplay in some alternative scenario, she might be excused, despite the fact that in the actual scenario she acts, as we say, of her own freewill. I illustrate this contention by way of a critique of Fischer andRavizza's well-known account of responsibility for consequences.     

Experimental test of the prospect theory value function: A stochastic dominance approach

According to prospect theory, individuals are risk averse regarding gains but risk seeking regarding losses, implying an S-shaped value function. The S-shaped value function hypothesis is based on experiments in which subjects are asked to choose separately between alternatives with either only positive or only negative outcomes, alternatives which rarely exist in the capital market. In addition, the S-shaped findings may be biased by the “certainty effect” and by probability distortion. In this paper we employ the recently developed prospect stochastic dominance criterion to test the prospect theory S-shaped value function hypothesis with mixed outcomes and with no “certainty effect.” Assuming that subjects do not distort moderate probabilities, we strongly reject the prospect theory S-shaped value function, with at least 76–86% of the choices being inconsistent with such preferences. When possible subjective probability distortions are taken into account, we find that at least 50–66% of the choices are inconsistent with an S-shaped value function.     

Individual differences in the suppression of unwanted memories: the executive deficit hypothesis

When confronted with reminders to an unpleasant memory, people often try to prevent the unwanted memory from coming to mind. In this article, we review behavioral and neurocognitive evidence concerning the consequences of exerting such control over memory retrieval. This work indicates that suppressing retrieval is accomplished by control mechanisms that inhibit the unwanted memories, making them harder to recall later, even when desired. This process engages executive control mechanisms mediated by the lateral prefrontal cortex to terminate recollection-related activity in the hippocampus. Together, these findings specify a neurocognitive model of how memory control operates, suggesting that executive control may be an important means of down-regulating intrusive memories over time. We conclude by proposing that individual differences in the regulation of intrusive memories in the aftermath of trauma may be mediated by pre-existing differences in executive control ability. In support of this executive deficit hypothesis, we review the recent work indicating links between executive control ability and memory suppression.     

Transference focused psychotherapy: overview and update

This paper describes a specific psychoanalytic psychotherapy for patients with severe personality disorders, its technical approach and specific research projects establishing empirical evidence supporting its efficacy. This treatment derives from the findings of the Menninger Foundation Psychotherapy Research project, and applies a model of contemporary psychoanalytic object relations theory as its theoretical foundation. The paper differentiates this treatment from alternative psychoanalytic approaches, including other types of psychoanalytic psychotherapy as well as standard psychoanalysis, and from three alternative non-analytical treatments prevalent in the treatment of borderline patients, namely, dialectic behavior therapy, supportive psychotherapy based on psychoanalytic theory, and schema focused therapy. It concludes with indications and contraindications to this particular therapeutic approach derived from the clinical experience that evolved in the course of the sequence of research projects leading to the empirical establishment of its efficacy.     

Task prioritisation in multitasking during driving: opportunity to abort a concurrent task does not insulate braking responses from dual‐task slowing

In typical dual‐task driving studies, participants concurrently perform pairs of driving‐related and ‐unrelated tasks (e.g. vehicle braking and mental arithmetic). Requiring responses to both may implicitly equate their importance. In real‐life driving, however, the potential for collision dictates that a concurrent task should be assigned far lower priority than driving. To better reflect naturalistic driving conditions, we not only instructed participants to assign maximum priority to braking in a simulated driving task, but also encouraged them to ignore the concurrent task altogether on dual‐task trials. Despite these instructions, responses to the concurrent task often preceded braking, which suffered from dual‐task interference. We also found that redundant signals to the lead vehicle's brake lights resulted in faster braking responses and an increased likelihood that the braking response would occur first. The results are consistent with the Central Bottleneck (CB) model of dual‐task interference and may help guide the design of driver‐assistance systems. Copyright © 2007 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Refining the borderline personality disorder phenotype through finite mixture modeling: implications for classification

Borderline personality disorder (BPD) is characterized by considerable heterogeneity. Prior approaches to resolving heterogeneity in BPD pathology have used factor and cluster analytic as well as latent class analysis strategies. These prior studies have been atheoretical in nature, but provide an initial empirical corpus for further sub-typing efforts in BPD. A model-based taxonomy for BPD that is supported by evidence from an advanced statistical methodology would enhance investigations of BPD etiology, pathophysiology, and treatment. This study applied finite mixture modeling analysis, in a model-guided fashion, to selected dimensions of pathology within a group of well-characterized BPD patients to determine if latent groups are harbored within the disorder. Subjects with BPD (N = 90) were examined on a variety of model-relevant psychopathology dimensions. We applied finite mixture modeling to these dimensions. We then evaluated the validity of the obtained solution by reference to a variety of external measures not included in the initial mixture modeling. Three phenotypically distinct groups reside within the overall BPD category. Group-1 is characterized by low levels of antisocial, paranoid, and aggressive features. Group-2 is characterized by elevated paranoid features, whereas Group-3 is characterized by elevated antisocial and aggressive features. External correlates reveal a pattern of differences consistent with the validity of this proposed grouping structure. A theory-guided finite mixture modeling analysis supports a parsing of the BPD category into three subgroups. This proposed BPD taxonomy represents an approach to reducing heterogeneity observed among BPD patients and it may prove useful in studies seeking to understand etiologic and pathophysiologic factors as well as treatment response in BPD.     

Initiation of evidence-based psychotherapies in Veterans with posttraumatic stress disorder

The Department of Veterans Affairs (VA) requires that all VA hospitals and clinics provide access to evidence-based psychotherapies (EBPs). Despite these widespread dissemination efforts, only a minority of Veterans receive EBP services. Reasons for these low rates of EBP utilization are largely unknown. This study examined the characteristics of Veterans with posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD) who did (Initiation group) and did not (No-Initiation group) initiate a VA-approved EBP after participating in an information session. Veterans chose their preferred treatment from a menu of EBPs. Results demonstrated that Veterans in the No-Initiation group had longer periods of time between their referral and first EBP visit. Among Veterans in the Initiation group, the majority (68%) initiated a trauma-focused EBP as their first or second treatment, suggesting that providing a range of treatment options did not negatively impact their willingness to engage in PTSD treatment. Results are discussed in terms of VA initiatives to improve access to and initiation of mental health care for Veterans.     

Text repetition and text integration

Two experiments explored the levels of text representation that mediate text repetition effects, following the Raney (2003) model. The magnitude of the repetition benefit in Experiment 1 supported predictions of Raney's model, indicating that the ease of forming a situation model contributed to the magnitude of the reprocessing benefit. In addition, representations organized around a good situation model were more sensitive to changes than were representations formed from reading without a good situation model. The results of Experiment 2 did not support the suggestion that the surface form and textbase are bound to a well-developed situation model, thereby limiting repetition effects to similar linguistic contexts. Rather, the nature of the repetition benefits in the present series of experiments are better explained by the degree o foverlap between passages at eachof the three levels of text representation.