关于不确定性与风险社会的沉思——从日本“3·11”大地震中的福岛核电站事故谈起

2011年3月11日,日本发生了9级特大地震,随后引发的海啸造成了更大危害,除了数额巨大的财产损失之外,更加让人震惊的是福岛第一核电站的一、三、二、四号机组先后发生爆炸,使日本和邻国一时间笼罩在令人恐怖的核阴云之下。这次突如其来的灾难,不仅让人想起历史上许多损失惨重的大地震,而且也让人想起1979年美国三里岛核泄露事件以及1986年乌克兰切尔诺贝利核灾难。     

How to measure post-error slowing: A confound and a simple solution

In many response time tasks, people slow down after they make an error. This phenomenon of post-error slowing (PES) is thought to reflect an increase in response caution, that is, a heightening of response thresholds in order to increase the probability of a correct response at the expense of response speed. In many empirical studies, PES is quantified as the difference in response time (RT) between post-error trials and post-correct trials. Here we demonstrate that this standard measurement method is prone to contamination by global fluctuations in performance over the course of an experiment. Diffusion model simulations show how global fluctuations in performance can cause either spurious detection of PES or masking of PES. Both confounds are highly undesirable and can be eliminated by a simple solution: quantify PES as the difference in RT between post-error trials and the associated pre-error trials. Experimental data are used as an empirical illustration.     

Alerting and orienting of attention without visual awareness

Two types of the attentional network, alerting and orienting, help organisms respond to environmental events for survival in the temporal and spatial dimensions, respectively. Here, we applied chromatic flicker beyond the critical fusion frequency to address whether awareness was necessary for activation of the two attentional networks. We found that high-frequency chromatic flicker, despite its failure to reach awareness, produced the alerting and orienting effects, supporting the dissociation between attention and awareness. Furthermore, as the flicker frequency increased, the orienting effect attenuated whereas the alerting effect remained unchanged. According to the systematic decline in temporal frequency sensitivity across the visual hierarchy, this finding suggests that unconscious alerting might be associated with activity in earlier visual areas than unconscious orienting. Since high-frequency flicker has been demonstrated to only activate early visual cortex, we suppose that neural activation in early visual areas might be sufficient to activate the two attentional networks.     

The VIA inventory of strengths,positive youth development,and moral education

ABSTRACT

The VIA Inventory of Strengths and the VIA model were originally developed to assess and study 24 character strengths. In this paper, I discuss how the VIA Inventory and its character strength model can be applied to the field of moral education with moral philosophical considerations. First, I review previous factor analysis studies that have consistently reported factors containing candidates for moral virtues, and discuss the systematic structure and organization of VIA character strengths. Second, I discuss several issues related to the VIA model, including a lack of previous studies that directly support the moral justifiability of the model and the presence of a fundamental virtue component required for optimal moral functioning in virtue ethics, phronesis, practical wisdom, in the model. Finally, I propose future directions for research on the VIA model in order to address the aforementioned issues and facilitate the application of the model in moral education.     

Association Between Suicidal Ideation and Exposure to Suicide in Social Relationships Among Family,Friend, and Acquaintance Survivors in South Korea

Exposure to suicide in social relationships may be associated with suicidal ideation among survivors. In South Korea, which is known for having the highest suicide rate among OECD countries, exposure to suicide in social relationships can have serious consequences as social relationships are greatly emphasized in the society. The purpose of this study was to examine the association between survivors' suicidal ideation and their exposure to suicide in close relationships. Data collected through a telephone survey of a total of 1,000 men and women selected from across the nation using a stratified sampling method were analyzed. The results show that individuals who lost a family member, friend, or acquaintance in their lifetime are 4.5 times, 3.7 times, 2.2 times, respectively, more likely to have suicidal ideation in the past year compared to those without such experience. These findings suggest that special intervention for suicide survivors should be considered for those who experience suicide in close relationships.     

Shifts of spatial attention in perceived 3-D space.

Previous studies have shown that spatial attention can shift in three-dimensional (3-D) space determined by binocular disparity. Using Posner's precueing paradigm, the current work examined whether attentional selection occurs in perceived 3-D space defined by occlusion. Experiment 1 showed that shifts of spatial attention induced by central cues between two surfaces in the left and right visual fields did not differ between the conditions when the two surfaces were located at the same or different perceptual depth. In contrast, Experiment 2 found that peripheral cues generated a stronger cue validity effect when the two surfaces were perceived at a different rather than at the same perceptual depth. The results suggest that exogenous but not endogenous attention operates in perceived 3-D space.     

损害赔偿:中国法的体系、问题与立法改进

引言损害赔偿是民法中最基本、最核心的问题之一,民法典关于损害赔偿规范的设计和构成,可以反映出起草者对于损害赔偿的认识程度,可以作为评价民法典优劣的一个尺度。法典化本身是大陆法系的特色之一,中国民法法典化的进程,也应当遵循大陆法系通常的做法,即通过层次结构和提取公因式的技术,使法典简约化。本文准备先考察、整理和分析我国现行的损害赔偿法的体系构成,揭示其存在的不足及问题;考察已存在的民法典官方草案与学者草案(分别由梁慧星、王利明、徐国栋主持的三个学者草案),分析其得失、评价其优劣;最后就损害赔偿的基本问题,提示若…