Early alternative derivations of Fechner's law

Historians of psychology, notably Boring, fostered Fechner's idea that Weber's law is the indispensable basis for the derivation of the logarithmic psychophysical law. However, it is shown here that Bernoulli in 1738 and Thurstone in 1931 derived the logarithmic law using principles other than Weber's law and that Fechner and Thurstone based their derivations on the principles originally employed by Bernoulli. It is concluded that awareness of researchers about Bernoulli's and Thurstone's derivations could expand the directions of research on the form of the psychophysical law. © 2009 Wiley Periodicals, Inc.     

Support for discriminatory behaviours against immigrants in Italy: Perceived threat and positive beliefs mediate the effect of contact with immigrants

The present study aimed at investigating whether the effects of intergroup contact on support for discriminatory behaviours against immigrants was mediated by perceived threat from immigrants and positive beliefs toward immigrants. Using data from the Italian national survey on “Discrimination by Gender, Sexual Orientation and Ethnic Origin,” which followed a multi-stage stratified cluster sampling procedure, a representative sample of 5509 Italian residents (53.4% women), aged 18 to 74 years, participated. Findings showed that contact with immigrants was negatively related to perceived threat, and positively related to positive beliefs toward immigrants. Mediational analysis conducted by structural equation modelling, indicated that support for discriminatory behaviours was positively associated with perceived threat, and negatively associated with positive beliefs toward immigrants. Both variables together mediated the relationship between contact with immigrants and support for discriminatory behaviours against immigrants; individually, indirect relationships were also significant. To promote interaction between natives and immigrants by reducing the perceived threat and strengthening positive beliefs toward immigrants might lessen support for discriminatory behaviours against immigrants.     

Latino College Student Adjustment: Does an Increased Presence Offset Minority‐Status and Acculturative Stresses?1

This study examined whether minority‐status stresses and acculturative stresses increase the risk of psychological maladjustment of Latino students at a university where Latinos constitute the largest ethnic group. Participants were 338 Latino (228 Mexican American, 110 Central American) college students who responded to a mailed survey. The results of 2 separate hierarchical regression analyses of psychological distress and well‐being, controlling for demographic (gender, socioeconomic status, and ethnicity). sociocultural (level of acculturation), college role (generic college stresses), and personal (academic self‐confidence) influences provided partial support for our hypothesis and demonstrated the incremental predictive validity of acculturative stresses, but not of minority‐status stresses. Results are discussed in terms of the variety of stresses that Latino college students are likely to experience.     

Continuous Grey Scales Versus Sharp Contrasts: Styles of Representation in Italian Clinical Cytogenetics Laboratories

In some circumstances, scientists of the same discipline visualize and view differently the same scientific object. The question of representational difference, which has usually been connected to scientific revolutions or controversies, is framed here using the concept of “style,” addressing the plurality of scientific traditions within a well-established scientific field. Using ethnomethodology we will examine the divergences of representational practices that, beyond the apparent consensus of a scientific community, are present throughout the procedure of chromosomes preparation. The ethnographic data was gathered through participant observation and in-depth interviews in several Italian clinical cytogenetic laboratories. The concept of style emerges through the examination of the two alternate, and sometimes conflicting, ways of configuring the complex texture of practice, instrumental mediation, epistemic virtues, and expertise involved in scientific representation of chromosomes. Resonating with the recent debate on objectivity, it tries to articulate the concept of “epistemic virtue” outside an internalised scientific self through an aesthetic, analytical, instrumental, and ontological preferences in the current manners to produce and see the same research object.     

Sudden Unexpected Versus Violent Death and PTSD Symptom Development

Changes to posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD) trauma criterion in the 5th edition of the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders (DSM–5) have been an area of much scrutiny and debate. One of the proposed changes included removing sudden unexpected death (SUD) from the list of potentially traumatic events. This study tested the extent to which unexpected death differed from violent death and other traumas as measured by PTSD symptoms. Our results indicated a significant difference in symptom development between those experiencing sudden violent death and sudden unexpected, but nonviolent, death. Additional analyses at the DSM–IV symptom cluster level, as well as with Simms, Watson, and Doebbeling’s (2002) factor structure of PTSD symptoms, suggested further distinctions between event types and symptom development. The extent to which SUD should be included in the trauma criterion is considered.     

Programming Time as a Function of Response Duration

Reaction time was longer prior to longer-lasting pressing responses for low probability, unanticipated movements. By contrast, reaction time was independent of response duration for high probability, anticipated movements. This replicates and extends previous findings for choice and simple reaction time in the “dit-dah” paradigm. The present results (unanticipated responses) cannot be given a selective anticipation interpretation because the comparison is between responses which are never anticipated. The previous paradigm was open to an alternative interpretation in which selective anticipation of dit rather than dah could have produced the differences in choice reaction time. Confirmation of the finding that variations in required response duration lead to differences in reaction time supports the view that the underlying parameter of “complexity” in the “memory drum theory” may be response duration.     

Grades of individuality. A pluralistic view of identity in quantum mechanics and in the sciences

This paper offers a critical assessment of the current state of the debate about the identity and individuality of material objects. Its main aim, in particular, is to show that, in a sense to be carefully specified, the opposition between the Leibnizian ‘reductionist’ tradition, based on discernibility, and the sort of ‘primitivism’ that denies that facts of identity and individuality must be analysable has become outdated. In particular, it is argued that—contrary to a widespread consensus—‘naturalised’ metaphysics supports both the acceptability of non-qualitatively grounded (both ‘contextual’ and intrinsic) identity and a pluralistic approach to individuality and individuation. A case study is offered that focuses on non-relativistic quantum mechanics, in the context of which primitivism about identity and individuality, rather than being regarded as unscientific, is on the contrary suggested to be preferable to the complicated forms of reductionism that have recently been proposed. More generally, by assuming a plausible form of anti-reductionism about scientific theories and domains, it is claimed that science can be regarded as compatible with, or even as suggesting, the existence of a series of equally plausible grades of individuality. The kind of individuality that prevails in a certain context and at a given level can be ascertained only on the basis of the specific scientific theory at hand.