Intersubjectivity in perception

The embodied, embedded, enactive, and extended approaches to cognition explicate many important details for a phenomenology of perception, and are consistent with some of the traditional phenomenological analyses. Theorists working in these areas, however, often fail to provide an account of how intersubjectivity might relate to perception. This paper suggests some ways in which intersubjectivity is important for an adequate account of perception.

Precis: Enactivist Interventions

Philosophical Studies -     

Replies to Barrett,Corris and Chemero,and Hutto

Philosophical Studies - In this essay, I respond to the critical remarks of Louise Barrett, Amanda Corris and Anthony Chemero, and Daniel Hutto on my book Enactivist Interventions. In doing so, I...     

Custodial suicide and class action remedies: Current obstacles and future directions

Custodial suicide is a foundational concern for correctional systems. The incarcerated population is at an increased risk for suicide as compared with people living in the community. Sufficient suicide prevention is a critical component of a constitutionally adequate system of correctional mental health care. The remedial phases of class action litigations have animated improvement in suicide prevention in many correctional systems across the United States. In the current climate, many legal obstacles make it more difficult for plaintiffs to prevail in such cases, but it is expected that advocates will find novel approaches in response to these legal hurdles, such as greater reliance on state law remedies, and will seek to expand the scope of potential actions in emerging areas such as immigration detention. Defendants and courts will, in turn, need to respond to these changes. This article explores the history of relevant litigations, and the legal obstacles currently faced by plaintiffs, as well as future directions the authors consider will likely be taken. Practical issues such as appropriate measurement of improvement in the area of suicide prevention are also explored.     

Union commitment and participation: a 10-year longitudinal study

The authors longitudinally investigated the causal nature of the relationship between union commitment and participation in informal union activities. A total of 134 members of the National Association of Letter Carriers were studied over a 10-year period. Using cross-lagged regression analysis, early union commitment was found to predict the level of informal union participation 10 years later. The reverse and reciprocal relationships were not supported. These findings support and extend earlier research on the causal nature of the short-term relationship between union commitment and participation. The implications of the findings for researchers and labor unions are discussed.     

Longitudinal prediction of child outcomes from differing measures of parenting in a low-income sample

This study examined predictions from preschool parenting measures to middle childhood cognitive and socioemotional child outcomes to explore whether parenting assessment methodologies that require more time, training, and expense yield better predictions of child outcomes than less intensive methodologies. Mother-child dyads (N = 278) in low-income African American families were assessed when the child was in preschool, using maternal report, the Home Observation for Measurement of the Environment-Short Form (P. Baker & F. Mott, 1989; R. Bradley & B. Caldwell, 1984), and structured observational measures of parenting. Child outcomes reported by children, mothers, teachers, and direct assessment were collected 4 years later. All parenting methodologies showed some predictive value; however, observational parenting measures showed the strongest and most consistent predictions of child outcomes.     

Construct validity of the relationship profile test: a self-report measure of dependency-detachment

This study evaluated the construct validity of the Relationship Profile Test (RPT; Bornstein & Languirand, 2003), a 30-item self-report measure of dependency-detachment that yields three subscale scores: (a) destructive overdependence, (b) dysfunctional detachment, and (c) healthy dependency. Scores on the RPT subscales generally showed the expected patterns of intercorrelations and gender differences, and comparison of RPT scores with scores on other tests supported the convergent and discriminant validity of each RPT subscale. Results of internal and retest reliability analyses were generally supportive as well, and suggested that the three RPT subscales assess aspects of the traits they purport to measure     

Effects of response disparity on stimulus and reinforcer control in human detection tasks

In two detection experiments, university students reported whether the second of two sequentially presented tones was longer or shorter than the first by responding to stimuli presented on a touch screen. Stimulus disparity and response disparity were manipulated to compare their effects on measures of discrimination and response bias when the reinforcement ratio for correct responses was asymmetric. Choice stimuli consisted of squares filled with different pixel densities. Response disparity was manipulated by varying the difference in density between the two choice stimuli. In both experiments, decreasing stimulus disparity reduced discrimination but had no consistent effect on bias. Decreasing response disparity also reduced discrimination in both experiments, and often reduced estimates of bias. The effects of response disparity on bias were most clear in Experiment 2, in which a greater overall level of response disparity was arranged. The data show that, like corresponding research with pigeons, detection performance of human subjects can be conceptualized as discriminated operants.