Remember-know: a matter of confidence

This article critically examines the view that the signal detection theory (SDT) interpretation of the remember-know (RK) paradigm has been ruled out by the evidence. The author evaluates 5 empirical arguments against a database of 72 studies reporting RK data under 400 different conditions. These arguments concern (a). the functional independence of remember and know rates, (b). the invariance of estimates of sensitivity, (c). the relationship between remember rates and overall hit and false alarm rates, (d). the relationship between RK responses and confidence judgments, and (e). dissociations between remember and overall hit rates. Each of these arguments is shown to be flawed, and despite being open to refutation, the SDT interpretation is consistent with existing data from both the RK and remember-know-guess paradigms and offers a basis for further theoretical development.     

The consequences of effortful emotion regulation when processing distressing material: A comparison of suppression and acceptance

The present study investigated the consequences of different forms of emotion regulation. Eighty nine healthy participants viewed a distressing video of the aftermath of road traffic accidents under either suppression (of both felt and expressed affect), acceptance, or no-regulation control instructions and the immediate and longer-term consequences on emotion, mood, and memory were examined. Suppression (relative to control) led to reduced subjective experience of fear when viewing the video, but did not alter electrodermal (EDA) or heart rate (HR) response. Subsequently, suppression led to a less marked subjective emotional reaction to positive but not negative emotional images, reduced free recall memory of the video, and a greater likelihood of experiencing zero intrusions of the video's content. Acceptance (relative to control) had no impact when viewing the video, was associated with a less marked increase in EDA activity in the 5 min period immediately after viewing the video, a more marked HR deceleration and EDA response to both positive and negative images, and elevated negative affect at one week follow-up. These findings suggest, contrary to the current clinical zeitgeist, that emotion suppression can successfully lead to an ongoing down-regulation of emotion and memory, whereas acceptance may elevate subsequent emotionality.     

Virginity for Sale: A Foucauldian Moment in the History of Sexuality

Natalie Dylan attempted to auction her virginity through the website of a legal Nevada brothel. Public discourses surrounding Dylan’s auction have characterized it as everything from a smart business transaction to the sale of her self-respect. Using a theoretical frame from Foucault, methods of textual construction, and rhetorical methods of analysis guided by cluster criticism, our paper explores how online discourses surrounding the auction enact problematics concerning the concepts of virginity and the interrelationships among women, sex, money, and power in American society. While Dylan’s discourse attempts to create space for sexual women and commodified sexuality as empowering for women, responses to her enterprise indicate there is little room for a woman’s unapologetic offer of her commodified virginity.     

Breaking the Cyber-Security Dilemma: Aligning Security Needs and Removing Vulnerabilities

Current approaches to cyber-security are not working. Rather than producing more security, we seem to be facing less and less. The reason for this is a multi-dimensional and multi-faceted security dilemma that extends beyond the state and its interaction with other states. It will be shown how the focus on the state and “its” security crowds out consideration for the security of the individual citizen, with detrimental effects on the security of the whole system. The threat arising from cyberspace to (national) security is presented as possible disruption to a specific way of life, one building on information technologies and critical functions of infrastructures, with relatively little consideration for humans directly. This non-focus on people makes it easier for state actors to militarize cyber-security and (re-)assert their power in cyberspace, thereby overriding the different security needs of human beings in that space. Paradoxically, the use of cyberspace as a tool for national security, both in the dimension of war fighting and the dimension of mass-surveillance, has detrimental effects on the level of cyber-security globally. A solution out of this dilemma is a cyber-security policy that is decidedly anti-vulnerability and at the same time based on strong considerations for privacy and data protection. Such a security would have to be informed by an ethics of the infosphere that is based on the dignity of information related to human beings.