Philosophical intervention and cross-disciplinary science: the story of the Toolbox Project

In this article we argue that philosophy can facilitate improvement in cross-disciplinary science. In particular, we discuss in detail the Toolbox Project, an effort in applied epistemology that deploys philosophical analysis for the purpose of enhancing collaborative, cross-disciplinary scientific research through improvements in cross-disciplinary communication. We begin by sketching the scientific context within which the Toolbox Project operates, a context that features a growing interest in and commitment to cross-disciplinary research (CDR). We then develop an argument for the leading idea behind this effort, namely, that philosophical dialogue can improve cross-disciplinary science by effecting epistemic changes that lead to better group communication. On the heels of this argument, we describe our approach and its output; in particular, we emphasize the Toolbox instrument that generates philosophical dialogue and the Toolbox workshop in which that dialogue takes place. Together, these constitute a philosophical intervention into the life of CDR teams. We conclude by considering the philosophical implications of this intervention.     

A laboratory analogue of mirrored-self misidentification delusion: The role of hypnosis,suggestion, and demand characteristics

Mirrored-self misidentification is the delusional belief that one’s own reflection in the mirror is a stranger. In two experiments, we tested the ability of hypnotic suggestion to model this condition. In Experiment 1, we compared two suggestions based on either the delusion’s surface features (seeing a stranger in the mirror) or underlying processes (impaired face processing). Fifty-two high hypnotisable participants received one of these suggestions either with hypnosis or without in a wake control. In Experiment 2, we examined the extent to which social cues and role-playing could account for participants’ behaviour by comparing the responses of 14 hypnotised participants to the suggestion for impaired face processing (reals) with those of 14 nonhypnotised participants instructed to fake their responses (simulators). Overall, results from both experiments confirm that we can use hypnotic suggestion to produce a compelling analogue of mirrored-self misidentification that cannot simply be attributed to social cues or role-playing.     

“We Always Spend Time Together on Sundays”: How Grandparents and Their Grandchildren Think About and Use Informal Learning Spaces

ABSTRACT

Self-reflection is critical for visitors to make sense of an exhibit collection in which they are the subject of investigation and may play an important role in any informal learning context. This study examines this construct by listening for self-reflective talk at Mind, an exhibit collection focused on helping visitors explore aspects of themselves rather than external objects or phenomena. It addresses 3 questions: (a) What does self-reflective talk sound like in such a collection? (b) What categories of self-reflective talk are prevalent? (c) What types of exhibits engender what categories of self-reflective talk? Findings indicate that self-reflective talk comes in various forms. Self-monitoring talk, including self-assessments about how visitors are feeling and doing and what they know, is more prevalent than self-connecting talk, comments about visitors’ own lives, values, and their sense of self. Comparisons among different types of exhibits suggest that exhibits designed for multiple users prompt high frequencies of self-connecting talk and self-monitoring talk, whereas interactive exhibits and exhibits that pose a challenge elicit high frequencies of self-monitoring but not self-connecting talk. Additional work is needed to better understand self-reflection, its role in informal learning, and effective means of fostering self-reflection in science museums.     

Play it again: neural responses to reunion with excluders predicted by attachment patterns

Reunion behavior following stressful separations from caregivers is often considered the single most sensitive clue to infant attachment patterns. Extending these ideas to middle childhood/early adolescence, we examined participants' neural responses to reunion with peers who had previously excluded them. We recorded event‐related potentials among nineteen 11‐ to 15‐year‐old youth previously classified on attachment interviews (11 secure and 8 insecure‐dismissing) while they played a virtual ball‐toss game (Cyberball) with peers that involved fair play, exclusion and reunion phases. Compared to secure participants, dismissing participants displayed a greater increment in the N2 during reunion relative to fair play, a neural marker commonly linked to expectancy violation. These data suggest a greater tendency toward continued expectations of rejection among dismissing children, even after cessation of social exclusion. In turn, the link between self‐reported ostracism distress and neural signs of negative expectancy at reunion was moderated by attachment, such that self‐reports were discordant with the neural index of expectancy violation for dismissing, but not for secure children. A video abstract of this article can be viewed at http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qzoRel5c-4s .     

Paying attention to reading errors in acquired dyslexia

The important role of selective attention in normal reading is illustrated by a relatively rare form of acquired dyslexia known as 'attentional dyslexia'. Theories of the functional deficit underlying this disorder differ as to the locus of the attentional dysfunction. A recent study by Mayall and Humphreys has contributed to this debate by studying letter migration errors in an attentional dyslexic.     

Satir's Therapeutically Oriented Educational Process: A Critical Appreciation

Virginia Satir, one of the most influential of the early family therapists, reached millions of people throughout the world through her writings, videotapes, workshops, and personal appearances. Yet the Satir model has never been fully accepted by the mainstream of the family therapy movement. This article introduces Satir and her work, and outlines the conceptual foundations of the model, organized in terms of presuppositions, basic constructs, therapeutic process, and methods, and offers some reasons for this lack of acceptance. The relation of theory to method and practice is the least developed aspect of the Satir model.     

Personality Dysfunction and the Management of Chronic Medical Illness: A Community Health Sample

The purpose of this study was to determine the influence of personality disorders on perceived health status, self-efficacy for management of the chronic illness, and physician perception of patient health. A total of 607 patients with self-identified chronicillness(es) volunteered to participate in the study. Out of this sample, 147 had collaborative physician data indicating a chronic illness. The final sample was 143 due to incomplete data. Results suggested that maladaptive personality characteristics, as measured by the Short-Form of the Coolidge Axis II Inventory (SCATI), were related to a number of important factors that influence self-management of chronic illnesses. When the personality constellations were broken into 3 groups (normal, subclinical, and clinical) significant differences were found on the 3 groups of dependent variables (Subjective Health, Self-Efficacy, Physician Appraisal) for the different personality disorders. These data provide useful information on several factors that influence effective disease management. Clinical implications and directions for future research are provided.     

Psychological Hardiness and Adjustment to Life Events in Adulthood

Data were collected from 88 persons who had lost their jobs and 227 persons whose youngest child had left home to explore the impact of psychological hardiness on personal distress, adjustment, and coping strategies. Analyses controlling for numerous sociodemographic factors as well as NEO Neuroticism and Extroversion suggested that the interaction between overall hardiness and the experience of differential life events influenced the use of planful problem solving and positive reappraisal as coping mechanisms, as well as influencing levels of positive affect. In addition, a main effect for overall hardiness on several coping strategies, positive affect, and life satisfaction was obtained. Findings also suggested that job loss was a more stressful experience for adults in this study than was the empty nest. These data indicate that hardiness may mediate responses to life events that differ in terms of their predictability and anticipatory nature.     

Are there lexicons?

Many models of the processing of printed or spoken words or objects or faces propose that systems of local representations of the forms of such stimuli—lexicons—exist. This is denied by partisans of the distributed-representation connectionist approach to cognitive modelling. An experimental paradigm of key theoretical importance here is lexical decision and its analogue in the domain of objects, object decision. How does each theoretical camp account for our ability to perform these two tasks? The localists say that the tasks are done by matching or failing to match a stimulus to a local representation in a lexicon. Advocates of distributed representations often do not seek to explain these two tasks; however, when they do, they propose that patterns of activation evoked in a semantic system can be used to discriminate between words and nonwords, or between real objects and false objects. Therefore the distributed-representation account of lexical and object decision tasks predicts that performance on these tasks can never be normal in patients with an impaired semantic system, nor in patients who cannot access semantics normally from the stimulus domain being tested. However, numerous such patients have been reported in the literature, indicating that semantic access is not needed for normal performance on these tasks. Such results support the localist form of modelling rather than the distributed-representation approach.