Downsizing,changes in work,and self-rated health of employees: A 7-year 3-wave panel study

Abstract

The question of whether changes in work and interpersonal relationships mediate the adverse effects of downsizing on health of employees was explored. Longitudinal data from a 7-year study of 550 municipal workers in a variety of jobs was collected before, immediately after, and 4 years after downsizing. The degree of downsizing for each job category was assessed using organizational records of contracted days worked. Downsizing predicted adverse changes in work characteristics and a long-lasting decline in self-rated health. Decreased job control, high job insecurity and increased physical demands, in combination, appeared to be the linking mechanism between downsizing and general health. Interestingly, social conflict did not play a role in the mediation process.     

Parameter Inference for Computational Cognitive Models with Approximate Bayesian Computation

This paper addresses a common challenge with computational cognitive models: identifying parameter values that are both theoretically plausible and generate predictions that match well with empirical data. While computational models can offer deep explanations of cognition, they are computationally complex and often out of reach of traditional parameter fitting methods. Weak methodology may lead to premature rejection of valid models or to acceptance of models that might otherwise be falsified. Mathematically robust fitting methods are, therefore, essential to the progress of computational modeling in cognitive science. In this article, we investigate the capability and role of modern fitting methods—including Bayesian optimization and approximate Bayesian computation—and contrast them to some more commonly used methods: grid search and Nelder–Mead optimization. Our investigation consists of a reanalysis of the fitting of two previous computational models: an Adaptive Control of Thought—Rational model of skill acquisition and a computational rationality model of visual search. The results contrast the efficiency and informativeness of the methods. A key advantage of the Bayesian methods is the ability to estimate the uncertainty of fitted parameter values. We conclude that approximate Bayesian computation is (a) efficient, (b) informative, and (c) offers a path to reproducible results.     

L1 effects on the processing of inflected nouns in L2

This study investigated the effect of L1 on the recognition of L2 Swedish inflected nouns. Two groups of late L2 learners with typologically very different native languages, Hungarian (agglutinative) and Chinese (isolating), participated in a visual lexical decision experiment. The target words were matched inflected vs. monomorphemic nouns from three frequency levels. The Hungarian group showed a morphological processing cost (longer reaction times for the inflected words) for low and medium frequency words but not for high frequency words, suggesting morphological decomposition of low and medium frequency Swedish inflected nouns. In contrast, for the Chinese group the reaction times of the inflected vs. monomorphemic words were similar at all frequency levels, indicating full-form processing of all the inflected nouns. This cross-language difference suggests that L1 can exert an effect on the morphological processing in L2. The application of full-form processing for the Swedish inflected nouns in the Chinese group might reflect strategy transfer from their isolating native language to Swedish.     

Proto-Rigidity*

What is it for a predicate or a general term to be a rigid designator? Two strategies for answering this question can be found in the literature, but both run into severe difficulties. In this paper, it is suggested that proper names and the usual examples of rigid predicates share a semantic feature which does the theoretical work usually attributed to rigidity. This feature cannot be equated with rigidity, but in the case of singular terms this feature entails their rigidity, as understood in the standard characterisation. Hence, it is appropriate to call this feature proto-rigidity.     

The effects of attention on speech perception: an fMRI study

Focusing of attention to a specific speech source plays an important role in everyday speech perception. However, little is known of the neuronal substrates of focused attention in speech perception. Thus, the present study investigated the effects on neuronal activation of directed attention to auditory stimuli that differed in semantic content. Using an event-related fMRI protocol, single vowels, three-phoneme pseudowords and three- and four-phoneme real nouns and words were randomly presented to the subjects during four different instructional conditions. One condition was passive listening without any specific instructions of focusing of attention. The other conditions were attention focused on either the vowels, the pseudowords or the words. Thus, the acoustic stimulation was constant across conditions. The subjects were 13 healthy adults. Functional MRI was performed with a 1.5 T scanner, using an event-related design. During passive listening, there were significant activations bilaterally in the superior temporal gyrus. Instruction to attend to the pseudowords caused activation in middle temporal lobe areas, extending more anterior compared to the activations seen during passive listening. Instruction to attend to the vowel sounds caused an increase in activation in the superior/medial temporal lobe, with a leftward asymmetry. Instruction to attend to the words caused a leftward asymmetry, particularly in the middle and superior temporal gyri. It is concluded that attention plays a modulatory role in neuronal activation to speech sounds, producing specific activations to specific stimulus categories that may act to facilitate speech perception.     

Human Costs of Organizational Downsizing: Comparing Health Trends Between Leavers and Stayers

We studied health-related selection and consequences of an organizational downsizing among 886 municipal employees. Measurements of health indicators were conducted before any rumor of the downsizing and immediately after the downsizing 3 years later. Results of predownsizing health showed that those who did not find employment after the staff reductions were older employees with high preexisting morbidity. Those getting a new job elsewhere were younger and had better health already before the downsizing than the stayers. After the downsizing, deterioration of health was most likely in the stayers working in groups of major staff reductions and among the nonemployed leavers. In the reemployed leavers, the risk of increased health problems was lower than in others including employees working in no or minor downsizing groups.     

Judgment Internalism: an Argument from Self-Knowledge

One of the most important metaethical debates concerns the relationship between evaluative judgments and motivation. The so-called judgment internalists claim that there is an internal modal connection between our evaluative judgments and motivation, whereas the so-called externalists believe that evaluative judgments are connected to desires only through contingent external facts. This debate has reached a standoff. My aim is to introduce a completely new argument for internalism, which does not rely on our intuitions about individual cases. I argue that the truth of internalism explains best why the so-called transparency method yields self-knowledge of what we desire.