On correctly responding to all decisive reasons we have

Benjamin Kiesewetter has recently provided an argument to the effect that necessarily, if one has decisive reason to φ, then one has sufficient reason to believe that she herself has decisive reason to φ. If sound, this argument has important implications for several debates in contemporary normative philosophy. I argue that the main premise in the argument is problematic and should be rejected. According to this premise (PRR), necessarily, one can respond correctly to all the decisive reasons one has. I show that PRR is confronted with counterexamples and presupposes an implausible commensurability of all kinds of reasons. If so, the conclusion in Kiesewetter’s argument doesn’t follow. I also discuss further implications of my objections to PRR for a specific family of ‘ought’ implies ‘can’ principles and ability constraints on reasons, and the consequences that these could have for a number of contemporary debates in normative philosophy.     

Experiences and consequences on prison police's well-being

In view of the deep crisis affecting Italian prisons and the urgent need to review the sense and meaning of this institution, initiatives promoting innovative custodial and rehab practices are increasing. Our study refers to one of the most advanced Italian prisons as far as prisoners' rehabilitation and re-education are concerned, with activities such as open cells, prisoners' self-organization of recreational–cultural activities, promotion of cooperative working activities both inside and outside the prison, in order to study if and how this detention culture change has caused organizational transformations which affect the professional well-being of operators who manage inmates in penal institutions. A qualitative study involving 15 correctional officers working in the three most critical departments of the building that host the so called “protected” prisoners (long-lasting sentences, drug addicts, and sex offenders) investigates the subjects' experiences and representations of their role and organizational life aspects indicating their professional well-being.     

Positive and problematic support,stress and quality of life in patients with systemic lupus erythematosus

Background and Objectives: Systemic lupus erythematosus (SLE) is a chronic autoimmune disease. Previous studies showed that perceived social support has an important role in enhancing patient's quality of life (QOL). However, the precise mechanisms through which social support exerts such an effect are not completely understood. The aim of this paper is to test two alternative models explaining the relationship between social support (positive and problematic) and two dimensions of QOL: Health-Related (HR-QOL) and Non-Health-Related (NHR-QOL). Design: Model A (mediation) hypothesized that positive support would reduce stress while problematic support would increase stress), and that this in turn would reduce QOL. Model B (moderation) hypothesized that the effect of support on QOL would be moderated by the experience of stress in that more stressed individuals would show stronger effects. Methods: Three hundred and forty-four Italian patients with SLE completed an online questionnaire. Results: Stress partially mediated the relationship between support and QOL dimensions (either HR-QOL and NHR-QOL) thus supporting Model B. As hypothesized, positive support reduced stress, while problematic support increased stress. Conclusions: These findings help to explain the complex relationship between social support, stress and QOL in patients with SLE.     

Fit to last: Exploring the longevity of the survival processing effect

Mounting evidence indicates that processing items for their survival value produces superior recall compared to a number of other well-known memory-enhancing techniques, and that this mnemonic advantage remains up to 48 hours after encoding (Raymaekers et al., 2014 Raymaekers, L. H. C., Otgaar, H., &; Smeets, T. (2014). The longevity of adaptive memory: Evidence for the mnemonic advantages of survival processing 24 and 48 hours later. Memory, 22, 19–25. doi: 10.1080/09658211.2013.791321[Taylor &; Francis Online], [Web of Science ®] , [Google Scholar]). However, little attention has been dedicated to the survival processing effect in location memory, which may represent a better test of adaptive memory than retrieval of verbal information. The current study aims to fill this gap by exploring the longevity of the survival processing effect with both word list (Experiment 1) and location-based (Experiment 2) stimuli. Participants rated target items using a single incidental encoding scenario, either Survival versus Pleasantness (word stimuli) or Survival versus Scavenger Hunt (location stimuli). They were then asked to complete a surprise recall task immediately after the ratings and a second recall task 96 hours later. The results demonstrated that, despite a general reduction in memory performance across time, the survival processing advantage was detected at both test times for both stimuli types. These findings provide further support for the survival processing effect and extend the observed effect duration for both word lists and location to 96 hours.     

Global subjective memorability and the strength-based mirror effect in recognition memory

Between-list manipulations of memory strength through repetition commonly generate a mirror effect, with more hits and fewer false alarms for strengthened items. However, this pattern is rarely seen with within-list manipulations of strength. In three experiments, we investigated the conditions under which a within-list mirror effect of strength (items presented once or thrice) is observed. In Experiments 1 and 2, we indirectly manipulated the overall subjective memorability of the studied lists by varying the proportion of nonwords. A within-list mirror effect was observed only in Experiment 2, in which a higher proportion of nonwords was presented in the study list. In Experiment 3, the presentation duration for each item (0.5 vs. 3 sec) was manipulated between groups with the purpose of affecting subjective memorability. A within-list mirror effect was observed only for the short presentation durations. Thus, across three experiments, we found the within-list mirror effect only under conditions of poor overall subjective memorability. We propose that when the overall subjective memorability is low, people switch their response strategy on an item-by-item basis and that this generates the observed mirror effect.     

War experiences and emerging rights claims in postwar former Yugoslavia: The role of generalized conflict exposure and collective anomie

Violent conflicts have often been observed to generate social environments in which human rights violations are more easily tolerated and legitimized. However, recent research has documented cases in which communities exposed to violence react with increased condemnations of human rights violations. In this article, we focus on the distinction between generalized and particularized violence. Our findings show that, in the postwar ex-Yugoslavia context, when local communities have been exposed to violence that was generalized across different ethno-national groups, they strongly condemn human rights violations. Multilevel structural equation models show that the relationship between generalized victimization and the condemnation of human rights violations is mediated by a collective sense of anomie. The processes that move from collective exposure to violence to the collective reaffirmation of human rights are more likely to unfold in communities where violence transcended group boundaries than in communities where particular groups were disproportionately affected by the violence.     

Selective impairment of living things and musical instruments on a verbal 'Semantic Knowledge Questionnaire' in a case of apperceptive visual agnosia

Semantic memory was investigated in a patient (MR) affected by a severe apperceptive visual agnosia, due to an ischemic cerebral lesion, bilaterally affecting the infero-mesial parts of the temporo-occipital cortices. The study was made by means of a Semantic Knowledge Questionnaire (Laiacona, Barbarotto, Trivelli, & Capitani, 1993), which takes separately into account four categories of living beings (animals, fruits, vegetables and body parts) and of artefacts (furniture, tools, vehicles and musical instruments), does not require a visual analysis and allows to distinguish errors concerning super-ordinate categorization, perceptual features and functional/encyclopedic knowledge. When the total number of errors obtained on all the categories of living and non-living beings was considered, a non-significant trend toward a higher number of errors in living stimuli was observed. This difference, however, became significant when body parts and musical instruments were excluded from the analysis. Furthermore, the number of errors obtained on the musical instruments was similar to that obtained on the living categories of animals, fruits and vegetables and significantly higher of that obtained in the other artefact categories. This difference was still significant when familiarity, frequency of use and prototypicality of each stimulus entered into a logistic regression analysis. On the other hand, a separate analysis of errors obtained on questions exploring super-ordinate categorization, perceptual features and functional/encyclopedic attributes showed that the differences between living and non-living stimuli and between musical instruments and other artefact categories were mainly due to errors obtained on questions exploring perceptual features. All these data are at variance with the 'domains of knowledge' hypothesis', which assumes that the breakdown of different categories of living and non-living things respects the distinction between biological entities and artefacts and support the models assuming that 'category-specific semantic disorders' are the by-product of the differential weighting that visual-perceptual and functional (or action-related) attributes have in the construction of different biological and artefacts categories.     

Intraoperative conversion to open technique: is informed consent implied?

This case raises issues regarding the anesthesia and surgical components of preoperative informed consent and the differing views of anesthesiologists and surgeons with regards to informed consent, in the context of conversion to open surgery from a minimally invasive approach.     

Twenty-four hours of total sleep deprivation selectively impairs attentional networks

Performance decrements after sleep loss have been extensively studied and are usually attributed to generic attentional deficits. This claim, however, is based on the view of attention as a unitary construct, despite evidence that it should be considered a multidimensional cognitive ability. The aim of the present study was to evaluate the impact of one night of sleep deprivation on the efficiency of three attentional networks, defined by Posner and Raichle (1994) in anatomical and functional terms, as alerting, orienting, and executive control. Thirty participants performed the Attention Network Test at 9:00 a.m. following two different sleep conditions: baseline (a normal night of sleep) and deprivation (24 hrs of wakefulness). Results showed an overall slowing in reaction times and a significant decrease in accuracy after sleep deprivation. Sleep deprivation selectively affected the three attentional networks, given that only executive control efficacy significantly decreased after sleep deprivation. By contrast, phasic alerting and orienting showed no differences in the two sleep conditions. Thus, performance deficits following sleep deprivation do not reflect global attentional deficits.