Question-begging and infinite regress

InMetaphysics , Ch. 4, Aristotle speaks of both infinite regress and question-begging, but does not explicitly relate them. We get the impression that he thinks that to use one of these arguments to avoid the other is to jump from the frying-pan into the fire. This relationship is illustrated in terms of the ignorant belief that everything can be proved, and of attempts to prove the Law of Noncontradiction.     

The role of direct-care staff

This article examines the current role of direct-care staff, and their significance to individuals with disabilities living in the community. The role of staff will be redefined with respect to client normalization within the community. Finally, a framework for training staff is provided.     

Resetting the pitch-analysis system: 1. Effects of rise times of tones in noise backgrounds or of harmonics in a complex tone

The question of whether sudden increases in the amplitude of pure-tone components would perceptually isolate them from a more complex spectrum was investigated in two experiments. In Experiment 1, a 3.5-sec noise was played as a masker. During the noise, two pure-tone components of different frequencies appeared in succession. Subjects were asked to judge whether the pitch sequence went up or down. The rise time of these components had only a small and inconsistent effect on discrimination. In Experiment 2, the 3.5-sec background signal was a complex tone. The amplitudes of two of its components were incremented in succession. Again, subjects judged whether the pitch pattern went up or down. This time there was a sizable, monotonic effect of the rise time of the increments, with more rapid increments leading to better discrimination. The difference between the two results is interpreted in terms of the auditory system’s response to changing and unchanging signals and the role of its “sudden-change” responses in attracting perceptual processing to certain spectral regions.     

Contrary-to-duty obligations

We investigate under what conditions contrary-to-duty (CTD) structures lacking temporal and action elements can be given a coherent reading. We argue, contrary to some recent proposals, that CTD is not an instance of defeasible reasoning, and that methods of nonmonotonic logics are inadequate since they are unable to distinguish between defeasibility and violation of primary obligations. We propose a semantic framework based on the idea that primary and CTD obligations are obligations of different kinds: a CTD obligation pertains to, or pre-supposes, a certain context in which a primary obligation is already violated. This framework is presented initially as an extension of Standard Deontic Logic (SDL), a normal modal logic of type KD, and is illustrated by application to a series of examples. The concluding section is concerned with some resemblances between CTD and defeasible reasoning. We show first that the SDL-based framework contains a flaw and must be adjusted. A discussion of possible adjustments, including an alternative treatment in terms of a preference-based semantics, reveals difficulties that are reminiscent of problems in defeasible reasoning and intensional accounts of defeasible conditionals.     

The psychologist's role in assessing and facilitating patients' knowledge of advance directives in medical settings: A preliminary investigation

In a time of budgetary shortfalls in the medical industry, an aging population, and an increased emphasis on health care choices, psychologists are being called upon to administer advance medical directive programs to patients. This study reports preliminary findings from a program to assess and facilitate patients' knowledge of advance directives (ADs) by the Psychology Service at the Ann Arbor VA Medical Center. The participant pool included 243 male veteran patients admitted to medical and surgical wards at the hospital. The intervention included the use of a computer-generated prompt for consultation, which was sent to the psychology staff in response to a patient inquiry regarding ADs. It also involved an increased emphasis on the delivery of written material on ADs by the admissions clerks. The intervention appeared to result in a modest increase in patients' knowledge of advance directives. Suggestions are offered for areas that should be emphasized in future attempts to increase patients' knowledge and utilization of advance directives.     

Chlorpromazine and serial reaction performance

The effect of 25 mg or 75 mg of chlorpromazine on the serial reaction performance of 12 male human subjects was studied. Speed or number of correct responses was reduced by the high dose of chlorpromazine and errors of commission and omission were increased. The adverse effect of the drug upon speed appeared only at the end of the half-hour test. By contrast the adverse effect upon gaps and errors was apparent throughout the test and there was no interaction with test duration.     

Children's knowledge of the separation of variables concept

Children 8, 10, and 13 years of age were either given prior experience constructing seriations or matrices with two-dimensional stimuli, or no prior experience. Knowledge of the separation of variables concept was then assessed by examining children's use of controlled tests of a problem variable's effect (probe questions), and recognition of the inadequacy of confounded variable tests (negative counter-suggestion questions). Although many children either passed both questions or failed both questions, a significant number of children correctly used controlled variable tests, and yet failed to recognize the inadequacy of a confounded test. These results suggest that although a preliminary form of the separation of variables concept is characterized by use of controlled variable tests, subsequent refinement of the concept includes recognition of the inadequacy of confounded tests. Relative to seriation, prior experience constructing matrices facilitated recognition of a confounded test's inadequacy. Constructing matrices may have focused attention on the simultaneous variation of problem elements on multiple dimensions and thus facilitated recognition of the necessary role of both variation of stimuli on test dimensions and equality of stimuli on nontest dimensions, e.g., a controlled test.     

Experimental assessment of tinnitus aurium

A 32-year-old male volunteer with an eight year history of chronic unilateral tinnitus (ear-ringing) participated in a behavioral assessment strategy that included a series of measurement and modification procedures. A psychophysical matching technique was employed throughout a planned combination of procedures to assess and manipulate the intensity or loudness of tinnitus responses. Following baseline assessment, measurements were conducted at varying times of the day, concomitant with exposure to music, during progressive relaxation training, and under conditions of caffeine consumption. The value of careful assessment to describe cues and conditions associated with tinnitus and its reduction are discussed with implications for behavior treatment design and evaluation.     

Semantic specificity in cued recall

In three cued recall experiments, extralist retrieval cues that were congruous in meaning to an encoded target pair of words produced better recall of the targets than wh6n the cuetarget relation was incongruous. However, this result, which differs from that of other experiments, depended in some cases on scoring recall of a target pair when either member of the pair was recalled. It is argued that (1) pairs of words are typically stored as higher order units, (2) the best test procedure is to request recall of both members of the pair when an extralist cue is presented, and (3) semantic features provide an important dimension in the mnemonic representation of word events.     

Conceptual memory for picture and prose episodes

In two experiments, subjects decided whether probes were true or false of one of some previously studied picture and prose episodes. The results indicated that response times to probes depicting explicit events were faster when they were in the same modality (picture or prose) as their episodes than when they were in the opposite modality, but response times to probes depicting implicit events were as fast when they were in the opposite modality as when they were in the same modality. These results suggest that the conceptual representations of picture and prose episodes are identical in form. The second experiment indicated that probes could be evaluated as fast from long as from short episodes. This result is consistent with the notion that retrieving information from episodes is done, not by scanning all the events of an episode, but by restricting the search only to the relevant slot in the schema into which the episode is assimilated.