Stimulus-specific sequence representation in serial reaction time tasks

Some recent evidence has favoured purely response-based implicit representation of sequences in serial reaction time tasks. Three experiments were conducted using serial reaction time tasks featuring four spatial stimuli mapped in categories to two responses. Deviant items from the expected sequence that required the expected response resulted in increased response latencies. The findings demonstrated a stimulus-specific form of representation that operates in the serial reaction time task. No evidence was found to suggest that the stimulus-specific learning was contingent on explicit knowledge of the sequence. Such stimulus-based learning would be congruent with a shortcut within an information-processing framework and, combined with other research findings, suggests that there are multiple loci for learning effects.     

Effects of hypertension on attention, memory, and executive function in older adults.

Hypertension is associated with impairments in cognitive function in older adults, but the nature and extent of these deficits are unclear. Brief cognitive measures lack sensitivity, whereas comprehensive assessments produce numerous variables that are difficult to interpret. The authors performed a principal-components analysis using a computerized cognitive assessment battery and neuropsychological measures of executive function in 506 hypertensive and normotensive older participants. Composite factor scores were used to reanalyze data from 223 untreated participants without vascular complications. The hypertensive group had deficits in Speed of Cognition, Episodic and Working Memory, and Executive Function but not Continuity of Attention. Using composite scores simplified data interpretation and suggested differential effects of hypertension on cognitive performance not clearly evident in individual test results.     

The Doctrine of Triple Effect and Why a Rational Agent Need not Intend the Means to His End: Frances M. Kamm

In this article I am concerned with whether it could be morally significant to distinguish between doing something 'in order to bring about an effect' as opposed to 'doing something because we will bring about an effect'. For example, the Doctrine of Double Effect (DDE) tells us that we should not act in order to bring about evil, but even if this is true is it perhaps permissible to act only because an evil will thus occur? I discuss these questions in connection with a version of the so-called Trolley Problem known as the Loop Case. I also consider how these questions may bear on whether a rational agent must aim at an event which he believes is causally necessary to achieve an end he pursues.     

PUTTING FEMINIST PEDAGOGY TO THE TEST

Critics of women's studies (WS) have charged that WS teaching overemphasizes students'personal experience and is overly politicized. They claim further that WS classes discourage critical, independent thinking and stifle open, participatory learning, causing student dissatisfaction. This study provides empirical evidence of the process of WS teaching from the perspective of 111 teachers and 789 of their students from 32 campuses in the United States. Contrary to WS critics, WS faculty and students reported strong emphases on critical thinking/open-mindedness and participatory learning and relatively weaker emphases on personal experience and political understanding/activism. In addition, student ratings of positive class impact were higher for WS than non-WS classes. The results support the pedagogic distinctiveness of women's studies.