A generalized least squares regression approach for computing effect sizes in single-case research: application examples

A new method for deriving effect sizes from single-case designs is proposed. The strategy is applicable to small-sample time-series data with autoregressive errors. The method uses Generalized Least Squares (GLS) to model the autocorrelation of the data and estimate regression parameters to produce an effect size that represents the magnitude of treatment effect from baseline to treatment phases in standard deviation units. In this paper, the method is applied to two published examples using common single case designs (i.e., withdrawal and multiple-baseline). The results from these studies are described, and the method is compared to ten desirable criteria for single-case effect sizes. Based on the results of this application, we conclude with observations about the use of GLS as a support to visual analysis, provide recommendations for future research, and describe implications for practice.     

‘The moral irrelevance of moral coercion’

Philosophical Studies - An agent A morally coerces another agent, B, when A manipulates non-epistemological facts in order that B’s moral commitments enjoin B to do what A wants B to do, and...     

Respecting Context to Protect Privacy: Why Meaning Matters

In February 2012, the Obama White House endorsed a Privacy Bill of Rights, comprising seven principles. The third, “Respect for Context,” is explained as the expectation that “companies will collect, use, and disclose personal data in ways that are consistent with the context in which consumers provide the data.” One can anticipate the contested interpretations of this principle as parties representing diverse interests vie to make theirs the authoritative one. In the paper I will discuss three possibilities and explain why each does not take us far beyond the status quo, which, regulators in the United States, Europe, and beyond have found problematic. I will argue that contextual integrity offers the best way forward for protecting privacy in a world where information increasingly mediates our significant activities and relationships. Although an important goal is to influence policy, this paper aims less to stipulate explicit rules than to present an underlying justificatory, or normative rationale. Along the way, it will review key ideas in the theory of contextual integrity, its differences from existing approaches, and its harmony with basic intuition about information sharing practices and norms.     

Children's knowledge of prepositional phrase structure: An experimental test

A test of prepositional phrase structure in 4- to 6-year-old children's language is reported. Children's productions of PP and verb-particle sequences were elicited. Children produced pronominal and full NP objects of sequences corresponding to PPs and verb-plus-particle in the adult grammar. Prepositions freely took both pronominal and full NP objects (He's jumping over it. He's jumping over the table). In particle verb constructions, pronominal objects were placed immediately after the verb in all but a few cases (He's pushing it overnot He's pushing over it). With full NP objects, the preference was to place the verb after the particle (He's pushing over the table). These facts support an analysis in which if the child constructs a PP-over-P—NP structure for prepositional phrases but not for verb-particle sequences, and follows adultlike rules for these structures.This research was supported in its initial stages by NIH grant No. HD90647-03 to T. Roeper and S.J. Keyser and was completed while the author was supported in part by grants from the Graduate School Research Committee of the University of Wisconsin-Madison and from the Spencer Foundation through the University of Wisconsin School of Education.     

Object naming induces reliance on orientation-independent representations during longer-term, but not short-term, visual remembering

Naming novel objects with novel count nouns changes how the objects are drawn from memory, revealing that object categorisation induces reliance on orientation-independent visual representations during longer-term remembering, but not during short-term remembering. Serial position effects integrate this finding with a more established conceptualisation of short-term and longer-term visual remembering in which the former is identified as keeping an item in mind. Adults were shown a series of four novel objects in orientations in which they would not normally be drawn from memory. When not named ("Look at this object"), the objects were drawn in the orientations in which they had been seen. When named with a novel count noun (e.g., "Look at this dax"), the final object continued to be depicted in the orientation in which it had been seen, but all other objects were depicted in an unseen but preferred (canonical) orientation, even though participants could still remember the orientations in which they had been seen. Although orientation-dependent exemplar representations appear to be more accessible than orientation-independent generic representations during short-term remembering, the reverse is the case during longer-term remembering. How the theoretical framework emerging from these observations accommodates a broader body of evidence is discussed.