Similarities and differences in eyewitness testimonies of children who directly versus vicariously experience stress.

This study tested questions of ecological validity by comparing the eyewitness testimonies of children directly experiencing a painful inoculation experience those of children in a yoked-control group who vicariously experienced the inoculation onwith videotape. The study involved 86 5-year-olds, divided between 2 groups: the experiential and yoked control. The experiential group was followed through a health department with a video camera as they received diphtheria, pertussis, tetanus (DPT), and oral polio inoculations. They were tested immediately, 20 min later, and 1 month later. Each child in the yoked-control group merely watched the videotape of his or her counterpart in the experiential group, made similar ratings of pain, and was given the same tests and suggestions. Stress and personal experience affected items congruent with the stressor to produce flashbulb-like memories, with slower rates of forgetting for some items, such as nurse identifications, and greater suggestibility for other items, such as estimates of needle size. These and the apparently conflicting results in the literature were said to make sense when personally experienced stress was viewed from S.-A. Christianson's (1992) interactive perspective rather than as a single ubiquitous variable.     

Pictorial cues and three-dimensional information processing in early infancy.

Adults derive 3-D information from 2-D images by initially processing local line junction cues and then combining information from many junctions. Prior research indicates that 3-month-olds are sensitive to 3-D cues in individual line junctions. In Experiment 1, we examined whether infants are sensitive to holistic combinations of line junctions that adults use to derive overall 3-D structure. Infants detected a misoriented shape in an array depicting 3-D blocks but not in 2-D patterns that contained all of the trilinear junctions of the 3-D shapes but without the connecting lines. Thus, like adults, infants exhibited sensitivity to holistic combinations of line junctions rather than to individual junctions. In Experiment 2, when confronted with two test patterns, one containing an individual novel element among 15 familiar elements and the other containing a single familiar element among 15 novel elements, infants preferred to look at the former pattern in the 3-D condition but at the latter pattern in the 2-D condition. Thus, akin to pop-out in adults, discrepancies in 3-D cues selectively engaged infants' attention. These results suggest that 3-month-olds are not only sensitive to holistic combinations of line junctions that adults use to derive 3-D information but also selectively attend to these 3-D cues in static images.     

Effects of retention intervals on the magnitude of optokinetic rotation-induced taste aversions.

This study investigated the effects of different retention intervals on the magnitude of optokinetic rotation-induced conditioned taste aversions in humans. Two experiments were conducted. In Exp. 1, 20 subjects were divided into two groups, a CS-UCS group in which drinking soybean milk was paired with optokinetic rotation-induced gastric illness and a CS-Only group in which drinking soybean milk was not paired with optokinetic rotation. Analysis indicated that two days after pairing soybean milk drinking with optokinetic rotation, the subjects in the CS-UCS group had significantly reduced palatability ratings of soybean milk and lower consumption of soybean milk than those in the CS-Only group. In Exp. 2, 40 subjects were divided into four CS-UCS groups with 1-day, 3-day, 5 day, and 10-day retention intervals between the session of pairing soybean milk with optokinetic rotation and the session of retasting soybean milk. Analysis yielded no significant differences among four groups on palatability of soybean milk and consumption of soybean milk in the retasting session. It is concluded that optokinetic rotation is an effective unconditioned stimulus for conditioned taste aversions formation and that the aversion has a retention period of at least 10 days.     

Contested commodities at both ends of life: buying and selling gametes, embryos, and body tissues.

This essay examines the increasing commodification of the body with respect to tissues, games, and embryos. Such commodifcation contributes to a diminishing sense of human personhood on an individual level, even as it erodes commitments to human flourishing at the societal level. After the case for social harm resulting from the increasing commodification of the body is made, the question becomes whether that harm is best remedied by following any of three approaches by which government traditionally seeks to promote the flourishing of its citizens. The author concludes that it is not, and that what is needed is a pragmatic and somewhat casuistic approach to the regulation of contested commodities--that which legal scholar Margaret Jane Radin calls "incomplete commodification."     

Turnover and organizational performance: a comparative analysis of the effects of voluntary, involuntary, and reduction-in-force turnover.

Data were collected from 31 regional subunits of a national financial services company to examine differential effects of 3 types of turnover (voluntary, involuntary, and reduction-in-force) on measures of organizational subunit performance. Although each form of turnover exhibited adverse effects on subunit performance when examined separately, partial correlation results revealed greater and more pervasive adverse effects for reduction-in-force turnover (i.e., downsizing) in comparison with the effects of voluntary and involuntary turnover. The results confirm the negative effects of downsizing, suggesting the need to move beyond the traditional voluntary-involuntary classification scheme used in turnover research.     

Responsible engineering: the importance of character and imagination

Engineering Ethics literature tends to emphasize wrongdoing, its avoidance, or its prevention. It also tends to focus on identifiable events, especially those that involve unfortunate, sometimes disastrous consequences. This paper shifts attention to the positive in engineering practice; and, as a result, the need for addressing questions of character and imagination becomes apparent.     

The ‘redefinition of death’ debate: Western concepts and western bioethics

Biomedicine is a global enterprise constructed upon the belief in the universality of scientific truths. However, despite huge scientific advances over recent decades it has not been able to formulate a specific and universal definition of death: In fact, in its attempt to redefine death, the concept of death appears to have become immersed in ever increasing vagueness and ambiguity. Even more worrisome is that bioethics, in the form of principlism, is also endeavouring to become a global enterprise by claiming neutrality. It appears that the discourse within both disciplines have similarly manipulated the boundaries of death to include the “dying”. This paper argues that the redefinition of death debate in biomedicine reveals a concept of personhood which is profoundly western in origin and which is in accordance to the concept adhered to within principlism. Biomedicine and bioethics do not appear to acknowledge the limitations of their own world view and hence lack an understanding of their applicability and appropriateness in diverse social and cultural contexts; a situation which adds credence to claims as to the hegemonic and imperialistic nature of all such global enterprises. Ms. Jones is an intensive care clinical nursing specialist. Dr. Kessel is a public health physician and medical ethicist.     

Absolute Versus Tentative Interpretations: Mediating Effects of Client Locus of Control

An analog design was used to investigate the mediating effects of client locus of control (i.e., an internal focus or external focus) on perceptions of counselor style of interpreting events (i.e., absolute or tentative interpretations) on measures of perceived session depth and smoothness, and perceived counselor expertness, attractiveness, and trustworthiness. One hundred and thirty-four undergraduate college students, crossed on level of locus of control, were randomly assigned to one of two treatment conditions, and then completed measures of perceived session depth and smoothness, as well as perceived counselor expertness, attractiveness, and trustworthiness. Results indicated a significant interaction effect on perceived counselor trustworthiness. Implications for college counselors are provided.