A rational analysis of rule-based concept learning

This article proposes a new model of human concept learning that provides a rational analysis of learning feature-based concepts. This model is built upon Bayesian inference for a grammatically structured hypothesis space—a concept language of logical rules. This article compares the model predictions to human generalization judgments in several well-known category learning experiments, and finds good agreement for both average and individual participant generalizations. This article further investigates judgments for a broad set of 7-feature concepts—a more natural setting in several ways—and again finds that the model explains human performance.     

The Medical Offset Effect: Patterns in Outpatient Services Reduction for High Utilizers of Health Care

Psychosocial intervention has been found to be related to subsequent reductions in health care use. Studies generally measure this “offset effect” by combining medical use categories into one outcome variable, such as outpatient doctor visits. However, using a general outcome variable may obscure more specific patterns of reduction. In an effort to identify potential “targets” for mental health intervention, outpatient care for health screening, illness visits, laboratory/X-ray, and urgent care were considered. Health care use reductions were most prominent for high utilizers and were found across a number of different types of outpatient care. With high utilizers, those who participated in MFT showed significant reductions of 68% for health screening visits, 38% for illness visits, 56% for laboratory/X-ray visits, and 78% for urgent care visits.     

The ABC of cardinal and ordinal number representations

Numerical cognition encompasses the concepts of quantity ('how many?') and serial order ('which position?'). Yet, although numbers can convey different meanings, a recent imaging study by Fias and coworkers showed that ranking letters in the alphabet is subserved by a cortical network highly similar to that involved in judging magnitudes. In terms of neural processing, quantity and rank might just be two sides of the same coin.     

Tensions in a Certain Conception of Just War as Law Enforcement

Many just war theorists (call them traditionalists) claim that just as people have a right to personal self-defense, so nations have a right to national-defense against an aggressive military invasion. David Rodin claims that the traditionalist is unable to justify most defensive wars against aggression. For most aggressive states only commit conditional aggression in that they threaten to kill or maim the citizens of the nation they are invading only if those citizens resist the occupation. Most wars, then, claimed to be justified by the traditionalist fail to meet the proportionality criterion. Thus, a just war, for Rodin, is best conceived of as a punitive war of law enforcement, not as a war of national-defense. I argue that Rodin does not have a case against the traditionalist. If national-defense is a disproportionate response to conditional aggression, then punitive war is a disproportionate response as well. Furthermore, the belief that punitive war is a proportionate response to conditional aggression underscores the traditionalist’s view that self-determination, cultural identity and the like are of sufficient value to defend by means of lethal force. I end the paper by very briefly sketching an account, different from that of Rodin’s, of how individual nations can be justified in waging wars of law enforcement.

The Developmental Mentoring Relationship Between Academic Women

This exploratory study focused on the needs and attributes that female doctoral students, during their academic and professional careers, seek in mentoring relationships with female faculty. Two domains—personal and professional—were identified as essential components in the developmental mentoring relationship. As a result, the Rheineck Mentoring Model was created.     

Reclaiming Embodiment within Critical Psychology: A Material‐Discursive Analysis of the Menopausal Body

Social and Critical Psychology have been accused of ‘disembodying’ the discipline through the negation of embodied experience. In contrast, Bio‐Medicine and Biological Psychology focus on the body, within a realist framework. A material‐discursive approach, and a critical‐realist epistemology, is proposed as a way forward to examine embodiment in a socio‐cultural context, wherein the materiality of the body is recognised, but always mediated by culture, language, and subjectivity. As a case example, women's experience of embodied change at menopause is examined. The bio‐medical positioning of the menopausal body as the site of disease, distress, and debilitation, necessitating medical management, is contrasted with women's reports of minimal distress, and effective negotiation of midlife changes. Cultural context, relational factors and the positioning of embodied changes as symptoms, or as natural, are key factors determining women's coping. This material‐discursive approach thus allows us to ‘re‐embody’ psychology and move beyond the mind–body divide.     

A Factor Structure of Wellness: Theory,Assessment, Analysis,and Practice

The Wheel of Wellness, a theoretical model of well‐being, incorporates 16 dimensions of healthy functioning that can be assessed using the Wellness Evaluation of Lifestyle (WEL; J. E. Myers, T. J. Sweeney, & J. M. Witmer, 1998). A series of studies are reported concerning the development and validation of the WEL based on a large database. In the current study, exploratory and confirmatory factor analyses of the items and scales revealed 5 primary factors of well‐being (Creative, Coping, Social, Essential, and Physical) and 1 superordinate factor identified as “Wellness.”