Gender Differences in Intercepting A Moving Target by Using a Throw or Button Press

Humans are a throwing species just as much as a talking species (Calvin, 1982), but preadaptations for throwing remain largely unexplored. The ability of undergraduate students (N = 165) to intercept a stimulus with a thrown object was determined for 10 stimulus speeds, ranging from 2 to 5 m/s. The inclusion of a condition in which the moving stimulus was intercepted. via button press allowed the role of the perceptual aspect of velocity estimation to be evaluated separately from the act of throwing. Gender differences were observed in both the button and the throwing intercept tasks: The men had smaller timing errors and higher accuracy than the women. Contrary to expectations, the male and female patterns of intercept errors as a function of stimulus speed were more similar in the throwing task than in the button intercept task     

Ethical issues in cochlear implant surgery: an exploration into disease, disability, and the best interests of the child

This paper examines ethical issues related to medical practices with children and adults who are members of a linguistic and cultural minority known as the DEAF-WORLD. Members of that culture characteristically have hearing parents and are treated by hearing professionals whose values, particularly concerning language, speech, and hearing, are typically quite different from their own. That disparity has long fueled a debate on several ethical issues, most recently the merits of cochlear implant surgery for DEAF children. We explore whether that surgery would be ethical if implants could deliver close to normal hearing for most implanted children, thereby diminishing the ranks of the DEAF-WORLD. The ethical implications of eugenic practices with the DEAF are explored, as are ethical quandaries in parental surrogacy for DEAF children, and their parallels in transracial adoption.     

Automation bias: decision making and performance in high-tech cockpits

Automated aids and decision support tools are rapidly becoming indispensable tools in high-technology cockpits and are assuming increasing control of"cognitive" flight tasks, such as calculating fuel-efficient routes, navigating, or detecting and diagnosing system malfunctions and abnormalities. This study was designed to investigate automation bias, a recently documented factor in the use of automated aids and decision support systems. The term refers to omission and commission errors resulting from the use of automated cues as a heuristic replacement for vigilant information seeking and processing. Glass-cockpit pilots flew flight scenarios involving automation events or opportunities for automation-related omission and commission errors. Although experimentally manipulated accountability demands did not significantly impact performance, post hoc analyses revealed that those pilots who reported an internalized perception of "accountability" for their performance and strategies of interaction with the automation were significantly more likely to double-check automated functioning against other cues and less likely to commit errors than those who did not share this perception. Pilots were also lilkely to erroneously "remember" the presence of expected cues when describing their decision-making processes.     

Commitment,intimacy, and women's perceptions of premarital sex and contraceptive readiness

A person-perception study was conducted to examine the influence of intimacy and commitment on the acceptability of premarital sex and contraceptive preparedness. Ninety-six women rated a female target's personality and behavior after reading a diary entry describing a couple's initial sexual encounter. The nature of the couple's relationship and who provided the condom were manipulated between participants. Women inferred a committed relationship when intimacy was present. Women rated the target, and her behavior, as more acceptable when she had sex in a relationship with commitment. When she provided a condom, the target was perceived as less nice in the noncommitted than in the committed relationship. When her partner provided the condom, however, commitment level did not influence personality ratings.     

Sexuality education and young people's sexual behavior: a review of studies

Sexuality education for children and young adults is one of the most heavily debated issues facing policy-makers, national AIDS program planners, and educators, provoking arguments over how explicit education materials should be, how much of it there should be, how often it should be given, and at what age instruction should commence. In this context, the World Health Organization's Global Program on AIDS' Office of Intervention Development and Support commissioned a comprehensive literature review to assess the effects of HIV/AIDS and sexuality education upon young people's sexual behavior. 52 reports culled from a search of 12 literature databases were reviewed. The main purpose of the review is to inform policy-makers, program planners, and educators about the impact of HIV and/or sexuality education upon the sexual behavior of youth as described in the published literature. Of 47 studies which evaluated interventions, 25 reported that HIV/AIDS and sexuality education neither increased nor decreased sexual activity and attendant rates of pregnancy and sexually transmitted diseases (STDs). 17 reported that HIV and/or sexuality education delayed the onset of sexual activity, reduced the number of sex partners, or reduced unplanned pregnancy and STD rates Only 3 studies found increases in sexual behavior associated with sexuality education. Inadequacies in study design, analytic techniques, outcome indicators, and the reporting of statistics are discussed.     

Child abuse and neglect by parents with disabilities: A tale of two families

Two families, in which the children had been placed in foster care due to abuse and neglect by parents who had disabilities, were studied. In the first case, the mother was instructed in skills that our assessment suggested were important for her child's survival. The mother readily acquired and applied these skills, a fact reflected both in changes in her behavior and in changes in the child's well-being. In the second case, the parent's incremental resumption of child custody was made contingent upon completion of relevant parenting tasks. Initially, improvements in the completion of such tasks were evident, but over time and with the onset of militating factors, no further progress was made and all parental rights were terminated. The implications of these cases for behavior analysis and the effort to reunite and preserve families are discussed.     

Sacrificing one to save many

Attempts to solve the Trolley Problem by means of a single principle have proved unpersuasive. Nor can the intuition about Transplant be adequately grounded in the hypothetical dissent of rational contractors. It is explained by the initial liability principle, that loss should lie where it falls unless there is sufficient reason to shift it. If we did not think we should accept misfortune in such cases and thought that minimising loss of life was sufficient reason to shift the loss we should not be according others the minimum respect and treatment we feel is their due. The intuition about Trolley is explained by the affinity of that case to the pure case where the choice is between saving many and saving fewer, where minimising misfortune is the only credible option. But these considerations are not yet enough to accommodate the cases that lie between the extremes of Trolley and Transplant. We can handle the intermediate cases by attempting to assimilate them to one or other paradigm and to one another with a sensitivity to morally relevant and irrelevant differences that seeks initially to be faithful to the values reflected by our moral intuitions. Those intuitive judgements are unlikely to survive such an examination wholly unmodified.     

Telling stories: metaphors of the Human Genome Project

Scientists of the Human Genome Project tend to rely on three metaphors to describe their work, each of which implicitly tells much the same story. Whether they claim to interpret the ultimate “book,” to fix a flawed “machine,” or to map a mysterious “wilderness,” they invariably cast the researcher as one who dominates and exploits the Other. This essay, which explores the ways such a story conflicts with feminist values, proposes an alternative.     

A multi-systems theory of the structure and dynamics of motor functions

A theoretical analysis of the structure and dynamics of human motor functioning is presented from the perspective of a general theory of individuality. Within multifactor-systems theory, the structural units of the six systems of integrative personality (i.e., sensory, motor, cognitive, affect, style, and value) are hierarchical factor structures. Integrative functioning, both within and among systems, is described via the principles of general systems and information-processing theory. Our theoretical synthesis of the structure and dynamics of human motor functioning involves conceptualizing the hierarchy of motor factors as: (a) the basic dimensions of individual differences in the motor domain, (b) classes of decomposable motor programs that specify the spatio-temporal organization of behavior, and (c) decomposable classes of processing components entailed by motor programs. Some of the implications for understanding the role of affect in motor functioning and some research suggestions were presented.