MouseTracker: Software for studying real-time mental processing using a computer mouse-tracking method

In the present article, we present a software package, MouseTracker, that allows researchers to use a computer mouse-tracking method for assessing real-time processing in psychological tasks. By recording the streaming x-, y-coordinates of the computer mouse while participants move the mouse into one of multiple response alternatives, motor dynamics of the hand can reveal the time course of mental processes. MouseTracker provides researchers with fine-grained information about the real-time evolution of participant responses by sampling 60–75 times/sec the online competition between multiple response alternatives. MouseTracker allows researchers to develop and run experiments and subsequently analyze mouse trajectories in a user-interactive, graphics-based environment. Experiments may incorporate images, letter strings, and sounds. Mouse trajectories can be processed, averaged, visualized, and explored, and measures of spatial attraction/curvature, complexity, velocity, and acceleration can be computed. We describe the software and the method, and we provide details on mouse trajectory analysis. We validate the software by demonstrating the accuracy and reliability of its trajectory and reaction time data. The latest version of MouseTracker is freely available at http://mousetracker.jbfreeman.net.     

Hope and positive religious coping as predictors of social justice commitment

The present study tested a theoretical model of dispositional hope and positive religious coping as unique predictors of social justice commitment over and above impression management in a sample of graduate students (N?=?214) in helping professions at an Evangelical Protestant university in the USA. This empirical study utilised a cultural psychology approach with a theoretical framework developed from (a) an earlier cultural psychology study of hope and social justice using the social philosophies of Martin Luther King, Jr, Cornel West, and Paulo Freire and (b) several liberation and Pietistic theologians. Results supported the discriminant validity hypothesis with dispositional hope and positive religious coping each predicting social justice commitment over and above a measure of spiritual impression management. Implications are considered for contextually sensitive training and future empirical and interdisciplinary research on social justice commitment.     

Cohen’s Conservatism and Human Enhancement

In an intriguing essay, G. A. Cohen has defended a conservative bias in favour of existing value. In this paper, we consider whether Cohen’s conservatism raises a new challenge to the use of human enhancement technologies. We develop some of Cohen’s suggestive remarks into a new line of argument against human enhancement that, we believe, is in several ways superior to existing objections. However, we shall argue that on closer inspection, Cohen’s conservatism fails to offer grounds for a strong sweeping objection to enhancement, and may even offer positive support for forms of enhancement that preserve valuable features of human beings. Nevertheless, we concede that Cohen’s arguments may suggest some plausible and important constraints on the modality of legitimate and desirable enhancements.     

Working with prisoners in a transitional space

In this paper I talk about the potential benefits for offenders of working within the transitional space provided by a discussion group. Through ‘play’ these men have an opportunity to interact and learn to be potent without resorting to omnipotent defences of violence to get their own way. In considering the discussion group within the context of the prison as a whole, I focus on the relationship between staff and prisoners and how this relationship can be managed in such a way as to create more opportunities for thinking, leading to an enhanced focus on rehabilitation.     

Saboteur and superego: The judgement of the ego in brief dynamic therapy

Drawing principally upon the work of Woodmansey the author describes the development of the punitive or humiliating superego as arising from the internalisation of an external conflict, which the child experiences with adult carers, and from whom the child fears retaliatory punishment or scornful reproach. The superego serves the function of extricating the child from the external conflict. Woodmansey’s view of the natural instincts and the development of a moral sense are compared to those of Winnicott, Fairbairn and Guntrip. The notion of a pristine unitary ego and the development of an internal saboteur arising from the frustration of needs for relatedness are outlined and linked conceptually to the development of the punitive superego. The role and judgement of the ego and its emancipation from the superego in accordance with Britton’s formulation are highlighted and related to clinical practice and the alternating transference. These clinical themes are discussed in relation to eliciting affects and narrative construction and deconstruction in brief dynamic work and illustrated by a case example.     

Slouching Toward Policy: Lazy Bioethics and the Perils of Science Fiction

Too much contemporary bioethical discourse is weak on science, lazily citing and adopting science fiction scenarios rather than science facts in the framing of analyses and policies. We challenge bioethicists to take more seriously the role of providing informed insight into and oversight over contemporary science and its implications and applications. Bioethicists must work harder to understand the fast-changing truths and limits of basic science, and they must incorporate only appropriate and authentic science into their discourse, just as they did in the past when addressing the quandaries of clinical medicine. The field of bioethics is not so old and entrenched that its future is assured. Bioethicists must make themselves useful to society in order to deserve and retain the public's trust. They can best do this by ensuring that decision making and public policy are grounded in facts, not fictions and fantasies.     

More than just perception–action recalibration: Walking through a virtual environment causes rescaling of perceived space

Egocentric distances in virtual environments are commonly underperceived by up to 50 % of the intended distance. However, a brief period of interaction in which participants walk through the virtual environment while receiving visual feedback can dramatically improve distance judgments. Two experiments were designed to explore whether the increase in postinteraction distance judgments is due to perception–action recalibration or the rescaling of perceived space. Perception–action recalibration as a result of walking interaction should only affect action-specific distance judgments, whereas rescaling of perceived space should affect all distance judgments based on the rescaled percept. Participants made blind-walking distance judgments and verbal size judgments in response to objects in a virtual environment before and after interacting with the environment through either walking (Experiment 1) or reaching (Experiment 2). Size judgments were used to infer perceived distance under the assumption of size–distance invariance, and these served as an implicit measure of perceived distance. Preinteraction walking and size-based distance judgments indicated an underperception of egocentric distance, whereas postinteraction walking and size-based distance judgments both increased as a result of the walking interaction, indicating that walking through the virtual environment with continuous visual feedback caused rescaling of the perceived space. However, interaction with the virtual environment through reaching had no effect on either type of distance judgment, indicating that physical translation through the virtual environment may be necessary for a rescaling of perceived space. Furthermore, the size-based distance and walking distance judgments were highly correlated, even across changes in perceived distance, providing support for the size–distance invariance hypothesis.