Wisdom and Life Experience: How Grandfathers Mentor Their Grandchildren

This exploratory study uses qualitative methods to focus on the largely unexamined role of the grandfather and to examine men's experiences as grandfathers. We gathered information through both surveys and individual interviews to explore men's feelings and attitudes toward the grandfather role. Of the 51 grandfathers that completed a survey, 20 participated in interviews. Our examination of the data collected reveals the life lessons men teach their grandchildren. The grandfathers in this study expressed strong desires for purposeful involvement in their grandchildren's lives and indicated desires for transferring values to grandchildren and teaching interpersonal relationships. Through this involvement, they educate through life experiences and serve as mentors for their grandchildren. We suggest that this mentoring role makes a positive contribution to the lives of grandchildren and to the identity of grandfathers.     

Object-based attentional selection and aging

The authors conducted 2 studies to examine potential age-related differences in object-based attentional selection. Participants were briefly presented with pairs of wrenches and were asked to make 1 response if both target properties (i.e., an open end and a hexagonal end) were present and another response if only a single target property was present in the display. The critical manipulation was whether the target properties were present on 1 wrench or distributed between 2 wrenches. Space-based models of selective attention predict no difference in performance between these conditions. However, object-based attentional selection models predict better performance when both target properties appear on a single object. The results from both of the studies were consistent with object-based models of attentional selection. Furthermore, both young and old adults showed similar performance effects, suggesting the object-based attentional selection is insensitive to normal aging.     

Chronic stress-induced alterations in mouse colonic 5-HT and defecation responses are strain dependent

Mood disorders and chronic stress are frequently associated with gastrointestinal (GI) symptoms including diarrhoea or constipation. Locally produced serotonin [5-hydroxytryptamine (5-HT)] regulates GI motility and is a key factor in the pathophysiology of stress-associated GI disorders. We aimed to establish whether chronic stress can differentially affect faecal output and colon 5-HT concentration in two inbred mouse strains: BALB/c and C57BL/6 which differ in their ability to cope with stress. Adult male BALB/c and C57BL/6 mice were restrained for 2?h daily for 10 days. Defecation was monitored during each stress session. Twenty-four hours after the last session of stress, plasma corticosterone concentration was higher than control in both strains, indicative of a physiological effect of chronic stress; however, stress-induced diarrhoea was more persistent in C57BL/6 mice. Basal concentration of colon 5-HT was higher in C57BL/6 mice, and stress elicited an increase in colon 5-HT only in this strain. Finally, na?ve BALB/c mice had a higher sensitivity (incidence of diarrhoea) to 5-HT (0.33?mg/kg, i.p.) than C57BL/6 mice. Our results suggest that differential defecation responses to stress may be associated with colon 5-HT concentration, which may in turn reflect the individual sensitivity to 5-HT. In addition, C57BL/6 mice emerge as a relevant model for studying GI alterations induced by chronic stress.     

Real Analysis in Paraconsistent Logic

This paper begins an analysis of the real line using an inconsistency-tolerant (paraconsistent) logic. We show that basic field and compactness properties hold, by way of novel proofs that make no use of consistency-reliant inferences; some techniques from constructive analysis are used instead. While no inconsistencies are found in the algebraic operations on the real number field, prospects for other non-trivializing contradictions are left open.     

Eternalism and Propositional Multitasking: in defence of the Operator Argument

It is widely held that propositions perform a plethora of theoretical roles. They are believed to be the semantic values of sentences in contexts, the objects of attitudes, the contents of illocutionary acts, the referents of ??that??-clauses, and the primary bearers of truth. This assumption is often combined with the claim that propositions have their truth-values eternally. Following Kaplan??s and Lewis??s Operator Argument, I argue that the compositional semantic values of sentences do not correspond to eternal propositions. Therefore, we cannot hold on to both assumptions at the same time: either we regard the non-eternal entities that realize the compositional role of propositions as fulfilling the remaining theoretical roles, or we abandon the assumption that there is a unique realizer. The Operator Argument has recently come under attack, mainly for its intensional assumptions. However, rejecting these assumptions is not a sufficient defense of eternal propositions as compositional semantic values of sentences. Firstly, we can give a generalized version of the Operator Argument that seems independent of the contested assumptions. Secondly, the extensional alternative to the intensional framework does not allow us to retain eternal propositions as unique semantic values either.     

Design and its discontents

The design argument was rebutted by David Hume. He argued that the world and its contents (such as organisms) were not analogous to human artifacts. Hume further suggested that there were equally plausible alternatives to design to explain the organized complexity of the cosmos, such as random processes in multiple universes, or that matter could have inherent properties to self-organize, absent any external crafting. William Paley, writing after Hume, argued that the functional complexity of living beings, however, defied naturalistic explanations. In effect he dared anyone to come up with an alternative to his inference to design, and hence a designer, outside of nature. Charles Darwin explained the apparent design of functional complexity by his theory of natural selection. Asa Gray, however, in essays as well as in correspondence with Darwin argued that natural selection allowed for a type of ‘evolutionary teleology’ in which design at most could be considered the result of universal principles. F.E. Hicks updated Hume by specifically objecting to the use of design arguments by Paley. Hicks argued that the apparent design seen in nature reflected order at a deep level in nature. The design argument was briefly revived by Lawrence Henderson early in the twentieth century but he ultimately concluded that design and teleology were not necessarily mutually entailing and he retracted his design argument in favor of one that he termed ‘natural teleology’. The current claims of ‘intelligent design’ have the same logical problems that have beset previous design arguments. If design is divorced from teleology and its discontents put behind us, then there is a possibility that the latter can have a place in the development of theories to explain the phenomena of emergent complexity.     

Predicting school achievement from cognitive and non-cognitive variables in a Chinese sample of elementary school children

The present study had two aims: First, to investigate the joint and specific roles of working memory (WM) and intelligence as predictors of school achievement. And second, to replicate and extend earlier findings (Spinath, Spinath, Harlaar, & Plomin, 2006) on the incremental validity of non-cognitive over cognitive abilities in the prediction of school achievement. The present sample consisted of N = 179 Chinese primary school children in the fourth grade. All measures including working memory (WM), intelligence and motivational items were assessed in class. Teachers provided test scores for the domains of Chinese and Math. We found that WM was a good predictor of school achievement and comparable in predictive power to intelligence. Together, cognitive ability including both WM and intelligence explained 17.8% and 36.4% of the variance in children's Chinese and Math scores, respectively. The relative importance of WM and intelligence varied with school domains with greater predictive power of WM for Math while intelligence explained a greater proportion of the variance in Chinese although the magnitude of this difference was only moderate. Domain-specific motivational constructs contributed only marginally to the prediction of school achievement for both Chinese and Math.     

Mind-Wandering and Childhood ADHD: Experimental Manipulations across Laboratory and Naturalistic Settings

Research on Child and Adolescent Psychopathology - The conceptual overlap between mind-wandering and attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder (ADHD)-related impairments is considerable, yet little...     

A Longitudinal Examination of Overgeneral Memory and Psychopathology in Children Following Recent Trauma Exposure

This study represents the first longitudinal examination of the trajectory of overgeneral memory (OGM) in children and how this relates to psychopathology immediately after trauma exposure. We recruited fifty 7‐ to 17‐year‐olds who had experienced an accidental injury that resulted in hospital admission. Assessment of psychological symptoms, OGM and cognitive processes proposed to drive OGM was completed at three points over a 6‐month period post‐trauma. We found that OGM was not related to depressive symptoms and that time since trauma exposure moderated the relationship between post‐traumatic stress disorder symptoms and OGM. Although no relationship was found in the first 3 months following trauma, OGM was protective against post‐traumatic stress disorder symptoms at 6 months post‐trauma. Despite models of OGM (e.g. Williams et al., 2007 ) emphasising the role of rumination and executive control in explaining OGM, we found no evidence that they were related to OGM. Copyright © 2014 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Comparative Philosophy and the Tertium: Comparing What with What,and in What Respect?

Comparison is fundamental to the practice and subject-matter of philosophy, but has received scant attention by philosophers. This is even so in “comparative philosophy,” which literally distinguishes itself from other philosophy by being “comparative.” In this article, the need for a philosophy of comparison is suggested. What we compare with what, and in what respect it is done, poses a series of intriguing and intricate questions. In Part One, I offer a problematization of the tertium comparationis (the third of comparison) by examining conceptualizations of similarity, family resemblance, and analogy, which it is sometimes argued can do without a tertium comparationis. In Part Two, I argue that a third of comparison is already required to determine what is to be compared, and insofar as that determination precedes the comparison that tertium may be called “pre-comparative.” This leads me to argue against incomparability and to show how anything can indeed be compared to anything. In Part Three, I relate my arguments to what is today commonly labelled “comparative philosophy.” Finally, I raise some questions of ontology and politics in order to demonstrate the relevance of a philosophy of comparison.