Hypocritical Blame: A Question for the Normative Accounts of Assertion

Philosophia - An agent A blames B hypocritically for violating a moral norm N if and only if: (i) A is likewise blameworthy for violating N, and (ii) A is not disposed to blame herself for...     

The Emergence of Suicidal Ideation During the Post‐Hospital Treatment of Depressed Patients

There is a paucity of research on the emergence of suicidal ideation in recently hospitalized patients undergoing treatment for depression. As part of a larger clinical trial, patients (N = 103) with major depression without suicidal ideation at hospital discharge were followed for up to 6 months while receiving study‐related outpatient treatments. Fifty‐five percent reported the emergence of suicidal ideation during the outpatient period, with the vast majority (79%) exhibiting this problem within the first 2 months post‐discharge. Seventy percent of those reporting severe suicidality prior to hospitalization exhibited a reemergence of suicidal ideation post‐discharge. However, 29% without significant suicidality at the index hospitalization later developed suicidal ideation during the outpatient treatment period. A faster time to the emergence of suicidal ideation was predicted by both higher prehospitalization levels of suicidal ideation as well as greater depression severity at hospital discharge. Overall, rates of emergent suicidal ideation found in the current sample of recently hospitalized patients were higher than those reported in previous outpatient samples.     

An experimental investigation of the misinformation effect in crime-related amnesia claims

Research suggests that both internal (i.e., lying) and external (i.e., misinformation) factors can affect memory for a crime. We aimed to explore the effects of post-event misinformation on crime-related amnesia claims. We showed participants a mock crime and asked them to either simulate amnesia (simulators) or confess to it (confessors). Next, some participants were provided with misinformation. Finally, all participants were requested to genuinely recollect the crime. Overall, simulators reported less correct information than confessors. Moreover, these two groups were equally vulnerable to misinformation. In addition, exploratory analyses on strategies adopted by simulators revealed that those who previously, mostly omitted information while simulating amnesia exhibited the lowest amount of correct details. Simulators who instead used a mixed strategy disclosed more fabricated memory errors. Findings suggest that legal professionals and jurors should take into account that even offenders, irrespective of confessing or simulating memory loss for a crime, can be susceptible to post-event misinformation.     

Online Calibration Via Variable Length Computerized Adaptive Testing

Item calibration is an essential issue in modern item response theory based psychological or educational testing. Due to the popularity of computerized adaptive testing, methods to efficiently calibrate new items have become more important than that in the time when paper and pencil test administration is the norm. There are many calibration processes being proposed and discussed from both theoretical and practical perspectives. Among them, the online calibration may be one of the most cost effective processes. In this paper, under a variable length computerized adaptive testing scenario, we integrate the methods of adaptive design, sequential estimation, and measurement error models to solve online item calibration problems. The proposed sequential estimate of item parameters is shown to be strongly consistent and asymptotically normally distributed with a prechosen accuracy. Numerical results show that the proposed method is very promising in terms of both estimation accuracy and efficiency. The results of using calibrated items to estimate the latent trait levels are also reported.     

On Field’s Epistemological Argument Against Platonism

Hartry Field’s formulation of an epistemological argument against platonism requires knowledge to be causally constrained. Contrary to recent claims (e.g. in [6], [7]), it thus fails the very same criterion usually taken to discredit Benacerraf’s earlier version.     

THE HUMAN BEING SHAPING AND TRANSCENDING ITSELF: WRITTEN LANGUAGE,BRAIN, AND CULTURE

Recent theological anthropology emphasizes a dynamic and integral understanding of the human being, which is also related to Karl Rahner's idea of active self‐transcendence and to the imago Dei doctrine. The recent neuroscientific discovery of the “visual word form area” for reading, regarded in light of the concept of cultural neural reuse, will produce fresh implications for the interrelation of brain biology and human culture. The theological and neuroscientific parts are shown in their mutual connections thus articulating the notion that human beings shape and transcend themselves both at the biological and at the cultural level. This will have relevant implications for the timely topic of human uniqueness in science and theology, and in proposing a new research perspective in which theology may consider culture along with its biological import, but not necessarily in strictly evolutionary terms alone.