Fostering Analytic Metacognitive Processes and Reducing Overconfidence by Disfluency: The Role of Contrast Effects

Overconfidence leads to premature termination of study and, thus, to decreased performance. The aim of the present study is to improve students' monitoring and control. We assume that disfluency fosters analytic metacognitive processes and thus reduces overconfidence. However, we expect that contrast effects moderate the fluency effects on metacognitive processes because disfluency activates analytic metacognitive processes not only for disfluent but also for succeeding fluent learning material. To test our hypotheses, university students (N = 75) learned either with a fluent text first and afterward a disfluent text or with a disfluent text first and afterward a fluent text. The results show fluency effects on control, monitoring, and monitoring accuracy only when students learned with a fluent and afterward a disfluent text. Performance was worse for disfluent than for fluent texts in both conditions. Therefore, instructional settings that help students to implement accurate monitoring into better control and better performance are required. Copyright © 2017 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

The phenomenology of action: a conceptual framework

After a long period of neglect, the phenomenology of action has recently regained its place in the agenda of philosophers and scientists alike. The recent explosion of interest in the topic highlights its complexity. The purpose of this paper is to propose a conceptual framework allowing for a more precise characterization of the many facets of the phenomenology of agency, of how they are related and of their possible sources. The key assumption guiding this attempt is that the processes through which the phenomenology of action is generated and the processes involved in the specification and control of action are strongly interconnected. I argue in favor of a three-tiered dynamic model of intention, link it to an expanded version of the internal model theory of action control and specification, and use this theoretical framework to guide an analysis of the contents, possible sources and temporal course of complementary aspects of the phenomenology of action.     

No difference between conscious and nonconscious visuomotor control: evidence from perceptual learning in the masked prime task

Negative compatibility effects (NCEs) in the masked-prime paradigm are usually obtained when primes are masked effectively. With ineffective masks-and primes above the perceptual threshold-positive compatibility effects (PCEs) occur. We investigated whether this pattern reflects a causal relationship between conscious awareness and low-level motor control, or whether it reflects the fact that both are affected in the same way by changes in physical stimulus attributes. In a 5-session perceptual learning task, participants learned to consciously identify masked primes. However, they showed unaltered NCEs that were not different from those produced by participants in a control group without equivalent perceptual learning. A control experiment demonstrated that no NCEs occur when prime identification is made possible by ineffective masking. The results suggest that perceptual awareness and low-level motor control are affected by the same factors, but are fundamentally independent of each other.     

Can Politics Practice Compassion?

On realist terms, politics is about power, security, and order, and the question of whether politics can practice compassion is irrelevant. The author argues that a politics of compassion is possible and necessary in order to address human security needs. She extend debates on care ethics to develop a politics of compassion, using the example of asylum seekers to demonstrate that politics can practice compassion with (1) attentiveness to the needs of vulnerable people who are suffering, (2) an active listening to the voices of the vulnerable, and (3) open, compassionate, and appropriate responses to particular needs.