Cohen’s Conservatism and Human Enhancement

In an intriguing essay, G. A. Cohen has defended a conservative bias in favour of existing value. In this paper, we consider whether Cohen’s conservatism raises a new challenge to the use of human enhancement technologies. We develop some of Cohen’s suggestive remarks into a new line of argument against human enhancement that, we believe, is in several ways superior to existing objections. However, we shall argue that on closer inspection, Cohen’s conservatism fails to offer grounds for a strong sweeping objection to enhancement, and may even offer positive support for forms of enhancement that preserve valuable features of human beings. Nevertheless, we concede that Cohen’s arguments may suggest some plausible and important constraints on the modality of legitimate and desirable enhancements.     

The effect of prior knowledge on understanding from text: Evidence from primed recognition

We investigated the relationships that readers with different levels of prior knowledge established between the elements of a procedural text. More specifically, we examined the relationships between the goal, a sequence of actions, and their outcome. Our hypothesis was that the main difference between the prior knowledge organisation of beginner, intermediate, and advanced participants can be described in terms of these relationships. To test this hypothesis, we investigated participants' reading times and used a primed recognition task with the goal as prime and both the outcome and the actions as targets. As we assumed, results indicated that the beginner participants did not establish a relationship between the goal and the outcome when they were distant in the surface structure of the text, whereas the intermediate and advanced participants did. The Construction-Integration model of Kintsch (1998) was used to simulate the recognition results and to reproduce the effect of prior knowledge on the retrieval of textual information.     

What hands know about objects; taking perception of hills out of context: A response to Durgin (2013)

In a recent paper, we provided independent evidence on the accuracy of ‘haptically’ measured geographical slant perception (Taylor-Covill & Eves, 2013). Durgin (2013) argues that the devices used in our work, namely the palm-board, and palm-controlled inclinometer (PCI), are not measures of perception. In response, we outline four failures of replication in the laboratory work of Durgin and colleagues on which they base their model of slant perception. We also highlight fundamental differences between the perceptual tasks Durgin and colleagues ask of participants relative to those of Proffitt and colleagues' traditional measures. These subtle differences might help explain how the two groups have arrived at discrepant conclusions.     

When the smile is a cue to familiarity

The question discussed in the two following experiments concerns the effect of facial expressions on face recognition. Famous and unknown faces with neutral or smiling expression were presented for different inspection durations (15 ms vs 1000 ms). Subjects had to categorise these faces as famous or unknown (Experiment 1), or estimate their degree of familiarity on a rating scale (Experiment 2). Results showed that the smile increased ratings of familiarity for unfamiliar faces (Experiments 1 and 2) and for famous faces (Experiment 2). These data are discussed in the framework of current face-recognition models and are interpreted in terms of social value of the smile. It is proposed that the smiling bias found here acts at the level of the decision process.     

The Neural Correlates of Updating Information in Verbal Working Memory

The aim of the present study was to re-examine cerebral areas subserving the updating function of the central executive with a running span task requiring subjects to watch strings of consonants of unknown length and then to recall serially a specific number of recent items. In order to dissociate more precisely the updating process from the storage function, a four-item instead of a six-item memory load was used, contrary to our previous study (Salmon et al., 1996). In addition, a serial recall procedure was preferred to a recognition procedure in order to suppress the use of visuospatial strategies. The most significant increase of rCBF occurred in the left frontopolar cortex (Brodmann's area 10), spreading to the left middle frontal (Brodmann's area 46). Results suggest that frontopolar activation underlies an updating process in working memory.     

Loss-aversion or loss-attention: The impact of losses on cognitive performance

Losses were found to improve cognitive performance, and this has been commonly explained by increased weighting of losses compared to gains (i.e., loss aversion). We examine whether effects of losses on performance could be modulated by two alternative processes: an attentional effect leading to increased sensitivity to task incentives; and a contrast-related effect. Empirical data from five studies show that losses improve performance even when the enhanced performance runs counter to the predictions of loss aversion. In Study 1–3 we show that in various settings, when an advantageous option produces large gains and small losses, participants select this alternative at a higher rate than when it does not produce losses. Consistent with the joint influence of attention and contrast-related processes, this effect is smaller when a disadvantageous alternative produces the losses. In Studies 4 and 5 we find a positive effect on performance even with no contrast effects (when a similar loss is added to all alternatives). These findings indicate that both attention and contrast-based processes are implicated in the effect of losses on performance, and that a positive effect of losses on performance is not tantamount to loss aversion.     

Adolescent socialization and use of licit and illicit substances: Impact on adult health

Abstract

This study examined the impact of adolescent substance use on young adult health. Longitudinal data from 825 participants were assessed when the participants were junior high school and high school students (1969-1973) and again in 1981. Latent variable models were used to determine what effect adolescent drug use had on later health. General substance use, which included tobacco, alcohol, stimulants, sedatives, and other hard drugs, had a small effect on adult health problems associated with substance use, and also predicted accidents related to substance use. In addition, the specific use of tobacco and cannabis in adolescence predicted later respiratory problems, while cigarette smoking during adolescence also predicted decreased physical hardiness. Lower adolescent socialization predicted post high school accidents (automobile and other) serious enough to require medical attention, and predicted increased psychosomatic and seizure symptoms, as well as general psychiatric distress. Implications of these results for the successful prevention or intervention of drug use are discussed. In addition to these results, gender differences are also examined.     

Distress and emotional well-being in breast cancer patients prior to radiotherapy: an expectancy-based model

Understanding precursors to distress and emotional well-being (EWB) experienced in anticipation of radiotherapy would facilitate the ability to intervene with this emotional upset (i.e. higher distress, lower EWB). Thus, this study tested an expectancy-based model for explaining emotional upset in breast cancer patients prior to radiotherapy. Women affected by breast cancer (N?=?106) were recruited and participants completed questionnaires prior to commencing radiotherapy. Structural equation modelling was used to test a cross-sectional model, which assessed the ability of dispositional optimism (Life Orientation Test-Revised – two factors), response expectancies (Visual Analog Scale items), medical (type of surgery, cancer stage and chemotherapy history) and demographic (age, race, ethnicity, education and marital status) variables to predict both EWB (Functional Assessment of Chronic Illness Therapy – Emotional Well-being Subscale) and distress (Profile of Mood States – short version). The model represented a good fit to the data accounting for 65% of the variance in EWB and 69% in distress. Significant predictors of emotional upset were pessimism, response expectancies, Latina ethnicity, cancer stage and having had a mastectomy. These variables explained a large portion of emotional upset experienced prior to radiotherapy for breast cancer and are important to consider when aiming to reduce distress and improve EWB in this context.     

Index

Visuospatial working memory (VSWM) and intuitive geometry were examined in two groups aged 11–13, one with children displaying symptoms of nonverbal learning disability (NLD; n?=?16), and the other, a control group without learning disabilities (n?=?16). The two groups were matched for general verbal abilities, age, gender, and socioeconomic level. The children were presented with simple storage and complex-span tasks involving VSWM and with the intuitive geometry task devised by Dehaene, Izard, Pica, and Spelke (2006 Dehaene, S., Izard, V., Pica, P. and Spelke, E. S. 2006. Core knowledge of geometry in an Amazonian indigene group. Science, 311: 381–384. [Crossref], [PubMed], [Web of Science ®] , [Google Scholar]). Results revealed that the two groups differed in the intuitive geometry task. Differences were particularly evident in Euclidean geometry and in geometrical transformations. Moreover, the performance of NLD children was worse than controls to a larger extent in complex-span than in simple storage tasks, and VSWM differences were able to account for group differences in geometry. Finally, a discriminant function analysis confirmed the crucial role of complex-span tasks involving VSWM in distinguishing between the two groups. Results are discussed with reference to the relationship between VSWM and mathematics difficulties in nonverbal learning disabilities.     

Doing good by doing nothing? The role of social norms in explaining default effects in altruistic contexts

We explore whether the known preference for default options in choice contexts—default effects—occur in altruistic contexts and the extent to which this can be explained through appeal to social norms. In four experiments, we found that (i) participants were more likely to donate money to charity when this was the default option in an altruistic choice context; (ii) participants perceived the default option to be the socially normative option; (iii) perceptions of social norms mediated the relationship between default status and charitable donations; and (iv) a transfer effect, whereby participants translated social norms they inferred from the default option in one domain into behavior in a second, related domain. Theoretically, our analysis situates default effects within a comprehensive body of social psychological research concerning social norms and the attitude‐behavior relationship, providing novel empirical predictions. Practically, these findings highlight that the way donation policies are framed can have an important impact on donation behavior: in our third study, we found that 81% donated half of their earnings for taking part in the experiment to charity when this was the default option, compared with only 19% when keeping the money was the default. Our work suggests that making use of default effects could be an effective tool to increase altruistic behavior without compromising freedom. © 2014 The Authors. European Journal of Social Psychology published by John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.