On Equal Citizenship and Public Reason: Reply to Critics

In writing Equal Citizenship and Public Reason, we aimed to show that political liberalism is a feminist liberalism. To that end, we develop and defend a particular understanding of the commitments of political liberalism. Then, we argue that certain laws and policies are needed to protect and secure the interests of persons as free and equal citizens. We focus on the laws and policies that we think are necessary for gender justice. In particular, we apply our view to the contexts of prostitution law, family and marriage law, state support for caregivers, and religious exemptions from generally applicable laws. In this article, we consider some of the challenges made by the thoughtful critics who are part of this symposium. In particular, we address: why the collective enterprise view of liberal democracy requires shared reasons for the justification of certain laws and policies; how we understand substantive equality and why our understanding of substantive equality does not commit us to a comprehensive doctrine; how we avoid defending a particular political conception of justice in showing that political liberalism is a feminist liberalism; and how it is that, given justice pluralism, public reasons can provide stability for the right reasons.     

Contrast and spatial frequency components in visual preferences of newborns

A preferential-looking procedure was used to investigate newborns' responses to square-wave gratings varying in spatial frequency and contrast. A preliminary study confirmed that the gratings used in the experiment were suprathreshold. In the experiment newborns' preference for a grating of 0.1 cycle deg-1 within the peak contrast sensitivity range was examined. Reduction in the contrast of this grating led to a transfer of the preference to a high-contrast grating of the same space-averaged luminance with a spatial frequency outside this range (0.42 cycle deg-1). The findings are discussed with reference to the role of the contrast sensitivity function in pattern preferences of newborns: it is suggested that contrast and spatial frequency interact in determining pattern preferences.     

Widening Choices in Motherhood of The Future

The new biomedical techniques of reproduction either currently available or being researched, such as sex predetermination of offspring, sperm banking, test tube conception with embryo transplant, development of artificial wombs and human cloning, allow greatly expanded choices in methods of procreation. A survey of attitudes among 2,138 adults, most of whom are in the early to middle stages of reproductive decision making, shows varying levels of acceptance towards the use of such techniques and towards priority values they would assign to ongoing research to perfect specific technorogies. Male-female variation in response patterns are analyzed along with racial and religious differences. Possible and probable impacts that widespread use of these new alternatives might have on the future of women in particular and on various aspects of society in general are discussed.     

Book reviews

Lipsitt, L. P. and Rove-Collier, C. K. (Eds.). Advances in infancy research. Volume 2. New York: Ablex Publishing Corporation. 1983. Pp. xxix + 314. ISBN 0-89391-113-5. £40.40.

Mollon, J. D. and Sharpe, J. T. (Eds.). Colour vision physiology and psychophysics. London: Academic Press. 1983.

Solan, L. pronominal reference: Child language and the theory of gram- mar. Dordreht: Reidel. 1983. Pp xii +237. ISBN 90-277-1495-9. £26.40.

Atkinson, Martin. Explanations in the study of child language development. Cambridge Studies in Linguistics: 35. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Pp. 289. ISBN 0-521-25593-3 (Paperback). £7.50. ISBN 0-521-24302-5 (Case).     

Predictors of Improvement in Pediatric Chronic Migraine: Results from the Cognitive-Behavioral Therapy and Amitriptyline Trial

Explore predictors of improvement in headache days and migraine-related disability through a secondary analysis of the cognitive-behavioral therapy plus amitriptyline trial in children and adolescents (Clinical Trials Registration Number: NCT00389038). Participants were 135 youth aged 10–17 years old diagnosed with chronic migraine. Predictor variables included group assignment (treatment or control), baseline scores from depression and quality of life measures, and demographic variables. Criterion variables included headache days and migraine-related disability. Higher baseline depression scores were indicative of more days with headache post-treatment regardless of group assignment. Family income at the higher-end of the low-income range was significantly associated with less migraine-related disability regardless of group assignment (Household Income: HINC-01 in The United States Census Bureau. Bureau, U, 2020). Results from this secondary analysis identify depression symptoms and family income as predictors that can impact headache frequency and migraine-related disability. Self-reported symptoms of depression and family income are important factors to consider as part of the biopsychosocial model of care.

     

Causal Information-Seeking Strategies Change Across Childhood and Adolescence

Intervening on causal systems can illuminate their underlying structures. Past work has shown that, relative to adults, young children often make intervention decisions that appear to confirm a single hypothesis rather than those that optimally discriminate alternative hypotheses. Here, we investigated how the ability to make informative causal interventions changes across development. Ninety participants between the ages of 7 and 25 completed 40 different puzzles in which they had to intervene on various causal systems to determine their underlying structures. Each puzzle comprised a three- or four-node computer chip with hidden wires. On each trial, participants viewed two possible arrangements of the chip's hidden wires and had to select a single node to activate. After observing the outcome of their intervention, participants selected a wire configuration and rated their confidence in their selection. We characterized participant choices with a Bayesian measurement model that indexed the extent to which participants selected nodes that would best disambiguate the two possible causal structures versus those that had high causal centrality in one of the two causal hypotheses but did not necessarily discriminate between them. Our model estimates revealed that the use of a discriminatory strategy increased through early adolescence. Further, developmental improvements in intervention strategy were related to changes in the ability to accurately judge the strength of evidence that interventions revealed, as indexed by participants' confidence in their selections. Our results suggest that improvements in causal information-seeking extend into adolescence and may be driven by metacognitive sensitivity to the efficacy of previous interventions in discriminating competing ideas.     

Thinking and Modeling at Multiple Levels: The Potential Contribution of Multilevel Modeling to Communication Theory and Research

In this introduction to the special issue on applications of multilevel modeling (MLM) to communication research, we provide a conceptual overview of the benefits of MLM—the ability to simultaneously analyze data collected at multiple levels, the ease with which it can be used to assess trends and change over time, and its incorporation of the nested structure of data in the estimation process. We highlight ways in which MLM can be used to further theory and research in communication. In addition, we comment on the applications of MLM highlighted in this special issue and echo past calls for more multilevel theorizing and analysis in the field of communication.