Acute exercise: buffering psychosocial stress responses in women.

We evaluated the experimental hypothesis that an acute bout of aerobic exercise (AE) serves as a buffer to psychosocial stress responses in low to moderate physically fit women. Forty-eight (24 White, 24 Black) 25- to 40-year-old women participated in two counterbalanced experimental conditions: an attention control and a 40-min bout of AE at 70% heart rate (HR) reserve. The attention control and AE treatments were followed by (a) 30 min of quiet rest, (b) exposure to mental and interpersonal threat, and (c) 5 min of recovery. Blood pressure (BP) and HR were monitored at baseline, during the stressors, and throughout recovery. Self-reported distress was assessed before each stressor and upon completion of the recovery period. The results provided clear evidence that exercise dampens BP reactivity to psychosocial stress. Additionally, compared with the attention placebo control, AE reduced both the frequency and intensity of anxiety-related thoughts that occur in anticipation of interpersonal threat and challenge.     

Inducing Resistance to Conspiracy Theory Propaganda: Testing Inoculation and Metainoculation Strategies

This investigation examined the boundaries of inoculation theory by examining how inoculation can be applied to conspiracy theory propaganda as well as inoculation itself (called metainoculation). A 3‐phase experiment with 312 participants compared 3 main groups: no‐treatment control, inoculation, and metainoculation. Research questions explored how inoculation and metainoculation effects differ based on the argument structure of inoculation messages (fact‐ vs. logic‐based). The attack message was a 40‐minute chapter from the 9/11 Truth conspiracy theory film, Loose Change: Final Cut. The results indicated that both the inoculation treatments induced more resistance than the control message, with the fact‐based treatment being the most effective. The results also revealed that metainoculation treatments reduced the efficacy of the inoculation treatments.     

Causation in a timeless world

This paper offers a new way to evaluate counterfactual conditionals on the supposition that actually, there is no time. We then parlay this method of evaluation into a way of evaluating causal claims. Our primary aim is to preserve, at a minimum, the assertibility of certain counterfactual and causal claims once time has been excised from reality. This is an important first step in a more general reconstruction project that has two important components. First, recovering our ordinary language claims involving notions such as persistence, change and agency and, second, recovering enough observational evidence so that any timeless metaphysics is not empirically self-refuting. However, the project of investigating causation in a timeless setting has a greater relevance than its application to timeless physical theory alone. For, as we show, it can be used to model the assertibility conditions of causal claims more generally.     

Evaluating information processing in Autism Spectrum Disorder: The case for Fuzzy Trace Theory

Literature on the developmental trajectory of cognition in Autism Spectrum Disorders (ASD) presents several inconsistent findings. In this review, we focus on information processing, and specifically, the use of gist and verbatim representations to guide memory, reasoning, and concept formation. The added perspective of Fuzzy Trace Theory may help to resolve mixed results regarding the frequency, nature, and effectiveness of gist processing in ASD by providing established process models and tasks suitable for use in individuals at all levels of functioning. In order to demonstrate the utility of FTT to the field of ASD research, we present evidence from three complementary theories–Weak Central Coherence (WCC), Executive Function (EF), and Theory of Mind (ToM)–which have dominated the landscape to date. We discuss the potential utility of FTT tasks and process models, proposing testable hypotheses that address ambiguous or conflicting results in the current literature. Applying a theory of typical development to the study of ASD may add value to past and future research.     

The Effects of Instructions on Mothers’ Ratings of Attention-Deficit/Hyperactivity Disorder Symptoms in Referred Children

Tested whether instructions for how to rate child attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) symptoms would improve the agreement between mothers’ ratings of symptoms in their children and ratings provided by teachers and objective observers. Sixty-eight mothers of 5 to 12 year old children (53 boys and 15 girls) referred for ADHD assessment were randomly assigned to receive or not receive the instructions. Mothers and teachers rated the children on the SNAP-IV Rating Scale and objective observers rated the children’s behavior during structured tasks. Relations between mother and teacher, and mother and observer ratings were generally stronger for mothers in the Instruction group compared to mothers in the No Instruction group, in some cases significantly stronger. The instructional materials also improved mothers’ knowledge of how to rate ADHD symptoms and reduced some associations between mothers’ ratings and family socioeconomic status. These instructions have the potential to improve clinical assessments of child ADHD symptoms.     

“We Now Control Our Evolution”: Circumventing Ethical and Logical Cul-de-Sacs of an Anticipated Engineering Revolution

Philosophers, scientists, and other researchers have increasingly characterized humanity as having reached an epistemic and technical stage at which “we can control our own evolution.” Moral–philosophical analysis of this outlook reveals some problems, beginning with the vagueness of “we.” At least four glosses on “we” in the proposition “we, humanity, control our evolution” can be made: “we” is the bundle of all living humans, a leader guiding the combined species, each individual acting severally, or some mixture of these three involving a market interpretation of future evolutionary processes. While all of these glosses have difficulties under philosophical analysis, how we as a species handle our fate via technical developments is all-important. I propose our role herein should be understood as other than controllers of our evolution.