The physical self-attribute questionnaire: development and initial validation

The Physical Self-attribute Questionnaire was developed for use in conjunction with the Physical Self-perception Profile to model cognitive facets of perceived competence, certainty, importance, and discrepancy from ideal to each of the physical subdomains measured by the latter (Strength, Attractive Body, Condition, and Sport). To this end, two studies were conducted. Study 1 examined the factor structure, test-retest reliability, and validity of the questionnaire in a sample of 154 (28 men, 126 women) undergraduate health students. Reliability and validity were acceptable, and confirmatory factor analysis indicated good fit for a four-factor solution. In Study 2, the reliability, validity, and factor structure was again confirmed in a sample of 120 (83 men, 37 women) undergraduate students recruited from exercise classes. Results of these two studies suggest that the Physical Self-attribute Questionnaire is a viable tool to measure the underlying cognitive facets of subdomain-specific physical self-esteem.     

On the interdependence of cognition and emotion

Affect and cognition have long been treated as independent entities, but in the current review we suggest that affect and cognition are in fact highly interdependent. We open the article by discussing three classic views for the independence of affect. These are (i) the affective independence hypothesis, that emotion is processed independently from cognition, (ii) the affective primacy hypothesis, that evaluative processing precedes semantic processing, and (iii) the affective automaticity hypothesis, that affectively potent stimuli commandeer attention and evaluation is automatic. We argue that affect is not independent from cognition, that affect is not primary to cognition, nor is affect automatically elicited. The second half of the paper discusses several instances of how affect influences cognition. We review experiments showing affective involvement in perception, semantic activation, and attitude activation. We conclude that one function of affect is to regulate cognitive processing.     

When Consumers’ Self‐Image Motives Fail

Self‐image motives and “sacrosanct beliefs” are powerful motivators of consumer judgment and decision making. The sacrosanct belief that one is rational, for instance, can cause consumers to justify seemingly unwise economic decisions. This article outlines some of the occasions when self‐image motives appear to fail. For instance, although consumers occasionally pat themselves on the back for making questionable purchase decisions, at other times they find fault in perfectly reasonable ones. These and other recent findings provide an exception to the more general rule outlined by Dunning (2007).     

When quantity trumps number: discrimination experiments in cotton-top tamarins (<Emphasis Type="Italic">Saguinus oedipus</Emphasis>) and common marmosets (<Emphasis Type="Italic">Callithrix jacchus</Emphasis>)

The capacity for non-linguistic, numerical discrimination has been well characterized in non-human animals, with recent studies providing careful controls for non-numerical confounds such as continuous extent, density, and quantity. More poorly understood are the conditions under which animals use numerical versus non-numerical quantification, and the nature of the relation between these two systems. Here we test whether cotton-top tamarins and common marmosets can discriminate between two quantities on the basis of the amount of food rather than on number. In three experiments, we show that when choosing between arrays containing different numbers and sizes of food objects, both species based their decisions on the amount of food with only minor influences of numerical information. Further, we find that subjects successfully discriminated between two quantities differing by a 2:3 or greater ratio, which is consistent with the ratio limits found for numerical discrimination with this species. These studies demonstrate that non-human primates possess mechanisms that enable quantification of total amount, in addition to the numerical representations demonstrated in previous studies, with both types of quantification subject to similar processing limits.     

Further lesion evidence for the neural basis of conceptual knowledge for persons and other concrete entities

The neural underpinnings of conceptual knowledge have been studied intensively, but many unanswered questions remain. In a previous study examining recognition of persons, animals, and tools in 116 participants with unilateral brain lesions, we found no instance of a patient who manifested defective recognition in all three categories. We reasoned that the spatial distribution of the lesion loci critical for the appearance of recognition defects for these different categories explained why this ‘three‐way’ defect could not be found in patients with unilateral lesions, and we proposed that only a suitable bilateral lesion would be likely to produce such a combined defect. In the study reported here, we tested this hypothesis by investigating recognition performances in 55 participants with bilateral cortical lesions. In support of the hypothesis, nine patients, all of whose lesions included bilateral occipitotemporal and/or temporal cortices, had a three‐way recognition impairment (persons, M=18.3%; animals, M=35.7%; tools, M=71.3%; all scores >2 SDs below normal). As expected, bilateral lesions to other neural sectors, for example prefrontal cortices, did not lead to recognition impairments. These findings provide further support for the notion that retrieval of knowledge for concrete entities from different conceptual categories depends on partially segregated neural systems, located in different sectors of occipitotemporal and temporal regions in right and left hemisphere.     

Instructive feedback embedded within group instruction for children diagnosed with autism spectrum disorder

The present study evaluated the effects of instructive feedback embedded within a group discrete trial teaching to teach tact relations to nine children diagnosed with autism spectrum disorder using a nonconcurrent multiple‐baseline design. Dependent variables included correct responses for: primary targets (directly taught), secondary targets (taught via instructive feedback), primary observational targets (directly taught to other members of the group), and secondary observational targets (taught via instructive feedback provided to other members of the group). Results showed that all nine participants reached the mastery criterion for the primary targets, as well as acquired the secondary and observational targets without direct teaching. Clinical implications and areas for future research are provided.     

Frankfurt cases: the fine-grained response revisited

Frankfurt cases are supposed to provide us with counterexamples to the principle of alternative possibilities. Among the most well known responses to these cases is what John Fischer has dubbed the flicker of freedom strategy. Here we revisit a version of this strategy, which we refer to as the fine-grained response. Although a number of philosophers, including some who are otherwise unsympathetic to Frankfurt’s argument, have dismissed the fine grained response, we believe there is a good deal to be said on its behalf. We argue, in particular, that reflection on certain cases involving omissions undermines the main objections to the response and also provides the groundwork for an argument in support of it.     

Objectivity and reliability

Scanlon’s Being Realistic about Reasons is a beautiful book – sleek, sophisticated, and programmatic. One of its key aims is to demystify knowledge of normative and mathematical truths, realistically construed – i.e. construed, roughly, as being true relevantly independent of minds and languages, when interpreted at face-value. In this article, I develop an epistemological problem that Scanlon fails to explicitly address. I argue that his ‘metaphysical pluralism’ can be understood as a response to that problem. However, it resolves the problem only if it undercuts the objectivity of normative and mathematical inquiry.     

Defending Nietzsche's Constructivism about Objects

Nietzsche appears to adopt a radical Kantian view of objects called constructivism, which holds that the existence of all objects depends essentially on our practices. This essay provides a new reconstruction of Nietzsche's argument for constructivism and responds to five pressing objections to reading Nietzsche as a constructivist that have not been addressed by commentators defending constructivist interpretations of Nietzsche.