Increasing magnitude counts more: asymmetrical processing of ordinality in 4-month-old infants

While infants' ability to discriminate quantities has been extensively studied, showing that this competence is present even in neonates, the ability to compute ordinal relations between magnitudes has received much less attention. Here we show that the ability to represent ordinal information embedded in size-based sequences is apparent at 4months of age, provided that magnitude changes involve increasing relations. Infants in Experiments 1A and 1B discriminated changes in ordinal relations after habituation to ascending sequences, but did not show evidence of discrimination after habituation to descending sequences. In Experiment 2 we replicated this asymmetry in magnitude discrimination even when additional cues known to boost ordinal competence were provided. The presence of an asymmetry between ascending vs. descending order during infancy suggests a developmental continuity in the underlying code used to represent magnitude, whereby the reported addition advantage in children and adults' arithmetic performance emerges.     

Effect of an aerobic training program as complementary therapy in patients with moderate depression

The aim of this study was to assess the effects of an aerobic training program as complementary therapy in patients suffering from moderate depression. 82 female patients weredivided into a group that received traditional pharmacotherapy (Fluoxetine 20 mg) and a group that received pharmacotherapy plus an aerobic training program. This program was carried out for eight consecutive weeks, three days per week, and included gymnastics, dancing, and walking. Depressive symptoms were measured with the Beck Depression Inventory and the ICD-10 Guide for Depression Diagnosis, both administered before and after treatments. The results confirm the effectiveness of the aerobic training program as a complementary therapy to diminish depressive symptoms in patients suffering from moderate depression.     

Factor Analysis via Components Analysis

When the factor analysis model holds, component loadings are linear combinations of factor loadings, and vice versa. This interrelation permits us to define new optimization criteria and estimation methods for exploratory factor analysis. Although this article is primarily conceptual in nature, an illustrative example and a small simulation show the methodology to be promising.     

Analysis of the US-preexposure effect in flavor acceptance conditioning

In three experiments, rats received exposure to a sucrose solution followed by conditioning with a neutral flavor as the conditioned stimulus (CS) and sucrose as the unconditioned stimulus (US). In Experiments 1 and 2, some rats were given both the preexposure and the conditioning phases in a highly familiar context (the homecage), whereas other animals received both phases in a novel and distinctive context. In both cases the magnitude of the conditioning effect was reduced by preexposure to the US. Experiment 3 directly assessed the possible role of contextual cues by changing the context between the exposure phase and the conditioning phase but found no loss of the US-preexposure effect in these conditions. These results lend no support to the blocking-by-context account of the US-preexposure effect; alternative interpretations are considered.     

The Quasi-lattice of Indiscernible Elements

The literature on quantum logic emphasizes that the algebraic structures involved with orthodox quantum mechanics are non distributive. In this paper we develop a particular algebraic structure, the quasi-lattice ( \mathfrakI{\mathfrak{I}}-lattice), which can be modeled by an algebraic structure built in quasi-set theory \mathfrakQ{\mathfrak{Q}} . This structure is non distributive and involve indiscernible elements. Thus we show that in taking into account indiscernibility as a primitive concept, the quasi-lattice that ‘naturally’ arises is non distributive.     

The axiomatic method,the order of concepts and the hierarchy of sciences: an introduction

We offer an overview of some ways of examining the connections between stance and rationality, by surveying recent work on four central topics: (a) the very idea of a stance, (b) the relations between stances and voluntarism, (c) the metaphysics and epistemology that emerge once stances are brought to center stage, and (d) the role that emotions and phenomenology play in the empirical stance.