We are All Bayesian,Everyone is Not a Bayesian

Medical research makes intensive use of statistics in order to support its claims. In this paper we make explicit an epistemological tension between the conduct of clinical trials and their interpretation: statistical evidence is sometimes discarded on the basis of an (often) underlined Bayesian reasoning. We suggest that acknowledging the potentiality of Bayesian statistics might contribute to clarify and improve comprehension of medical research. Nevertheless, despite Bayesianism may provide a better account for scientific inference with respect to the standard frequentist approach, Bayesian statistics is rarely adopted in clinical research. The main reason lies in the supposed subjective elements characterizing this perspective. Hence, we discuss this objection presenting the so-called Reference analysis, a formal method which has been developed in the context of objective Bayesian statistics in order to define priors which have a minimal or null impact on posterior probabilities. Furthermore, according to this method only available data are relevant sources of information, so that it resists the most common criticisms against Bayesianism.

     

Psychological Correlates of Populist Attitudes

Studies of demand-side populism with a focus on attitudinal and behavioral factors are becoming more popular, but only a few have explored the phenomenon's psychological determinants. We tackle the lack of conversation between populism scholars and political psychologists and test the impact of conspiracy beliefs, moral disengagement, need for cognition, and belief in simple solutions on populist attitudes. We use the most widespread ideational definition in an attempt to bring clarity to demand-side populism, as the literature often conflates the concept of populism with adjacent ideological and psychological factors. We analyze representative samples from two very different countries (Italy and Turkey) to test our hypotheses. We use two of the most often-used measures of populist attitudes and also explore populism's individual building blocks: people-centrism, antielitism, and a Manichean worldview. We consistently find conspiracy beliefs (and our control variable of institutional trust) as primary sources of populist attitudes, whereas the impact of the other psychological factors is more dependent on context and operationalization. Our article calls for more conceptual clarity, careful theorization, and more work on the refinement of available survey measures. We also highlight the importance of national contexts and the dangers of generalization based on individual country studies.     

The Naturality of Natural Deduction (II): On Atomic Polymorphism and Generalized Propositional Connectives

Studia Logica - In a previous paper (of which this is a prosecution) we investigated the extraction of proof-theoretic properties of natural deduction derivations from their impredicative...     

A defense of surgical procedures regulation

Theoretical Medicine and Bioethics - Since the advent of drug regulation in 1962, regulatory agencies have been in the practice of using strict standards to test the safety and efficacy of medical...     

Nietzsche's Sensualism

Abstract: The late Nietzsche defended a position which he sometimes to refers as ‘sensualism’ and which consists of two main theses: senses ‘do not lie’ (T1) and sense organs are ‘causes’ (T2). Two influential interpretations of this position have been proposed by Clark and Hussain, who also address the question whether Nietzsche's late sensualism is (Hussain) or not (Clark) compatible with the epistemological view which he held in his previous work and which has been dubbed the ‘falsification thesis’ (FT). In my paper I will show that both readings raise substantial difficulties and propose an alternative account of Nietzsche's sensualism. In particular, I will argue: (a) that according to Nietzsche the representational content of sensory experience ‘does not lie’ since it is physically grounded in causal exchanges with the external world which are mediated by sense organs; (b) that Nietzsche believes that the claim that senses ‘do not lie’ is also true of the phenomenal, qualitative content of sensory experience; and (c) that FT, despite its prima facie tension with (a) and (b), fit well Nietzsche's sensualism.     

Psychology of learning: a new approach to study behavior of Rhodnius prolixus stal under laboratory conditions

Conditioning methodologies associated with the psychology of learning are suggested as a new strategy to investigate behavior of the assassin bug Rhodnius prolixus, which is the main vector of Chagas disease in Venezuela. Chagas disease is the fourth leading cause of death in Latin America, as it causes severe chronic illness and approximately 43,000 deaths per year. To illustrate this strategy, two preliminary experiments are reported. In the first, Pavlovian conditioning was examined by pairing an olfactory conditioned stimulus with a temperature unconditioned stimulus. A temperature of 42 degrees C elicits a complex behavioral sequence in R. prolixus consisting of proboscis extension and crawling. Over the course of 12 training trials, this behavioral sequence was not elicited by an olfactory conditioned stimulus. In the second experiment, a latent inhibition paradigm was used to pre-expose R. prolixus to an olfactory conditioned stimulus before pairing the odor with temperature. Over the course of training, an effect of pre-exposure was found. Suggestions for research are discussed and potential conditioned and unconditioned stimuli identified.     

Physical and cognitive dimensions in stimulus comparison

Two experiments were carried out using a same-different task with sets of four stimuli varying orthogonally in three dimensions. Sameness was defined by each of the three dimensions in turn, as well as by physical identity. Two types of dimensions, physical and cognitive, were studied. In Experiment 1, the numerals 6, 10, VI, and X, which vary in Length, System, and Name, were used. With simultaneous presentation, order of difficulty was from the physical dimension of Length to the cognitive dimension of Name. While overall difficulty was related to dimensional discriminability, internal evidence suggested that Name was not a dimension in the same sense as Length is, and that some stimulus pairs were simply easier to process than others, regardless of the response required (e.g., short stimulus pairs and Arabic numerals). With sequential presentation, Name was processed as fast as System, due largely to the fact that much faster responding occurred when an Arabic numeral was the second stimulus. Thus, with sequential presentation, Name provides a processing mechanism not provided by physical dimensions. In Experiment 2, the numerals 3, 4, 6, and 7, which vary in Magnitude, Oddness, and Curvilinearity, were used. The cognitive dimension of Magnitude was pro cessed most rapidly, and numerical distance between pairs of numbers dominated the results for “same” responses, regardless of the sameness rule used. Again, evidence was found for fast processing of some stimulus pairs (e.g., 3 4), regardless of the response required. Overall, these experiments are interpreted as indicating that cognitive factors such as stimulus familiarity may override aspects of physical discriminability with many dimensions and stimuli, that, even though a cognitive dimension can be used to generate a logically proper set of stimuli, it does not necessarily act as other, more physical dimensions do, and that clarification of the functional role of a dimension is more important than attempts to locate stages.     

Psychological distress and coping in nasopharyngeal cancer: an explorative study in Western Europe

Nasopharyngeal carcinoma (NPC) is the head and neck cancer with the greatest impact on patients’ quality of life. The aim of this explorative study is to investigate the psychological distress, coping strategies and quality of life of NPC patients in the post-treatment observation period. Twenty-one patients disease-free for at least two years were assessed with a medical and a psycho-oncological evaluation. Clinically relevant depressive symptoms (CRD) were present in 23.8% of patients and 33.3% reported clinically relevant anxiety symptoms (CRA). Patients with CRD and CRA showed a significantly higher score in the use of hopelessness/helplessness and anxious preoccupation coping strategies and a worse quality of life. Even in the post-treatment period, about a quarter of patients showed CRD and CRA. Results showed that patients with high anxiety or depressive symptoms seem to use dysfunctional coping strategies, such as hopelessness and anxious preoccupation, more than patients with lower levels of anxiety and depression. The use of these styles of coping thus seems to be associated to a higher presence of CRA or CRD symptomatology and to a worse quality of life.