Nanoscale Science and Technology and People with Disabilities in Asia: An Ability Expectation Analysis

Science and technology, including nanoscale science and technology, influences and is influenced by various discourses and areas of action. Ableism is one concept and ability expectation is one dynamic that impacts the direction, vision, and application of nanoscale science and technology and vice versa. At the same time, policy documents that involve or relate to disabled people exhibit ability expectations of disabled people. The authors present ability expectations exhibited within two science and technology direction documents from Asia, as well as in two policy documents generated and influenced by disabled people from Asia. As well, the authors discuss the impact of the ability expectations exhibited in these four documents with respect to the relationship between science and technology and disabled people.     

Independent influences of verbalization and race on the configural and featural processing of faces: a behavioral and eye movement study

Describing a face in words can either hinder or help subsequent face recognition. Here, the authors examined the relationship between the benefit from verbally describing a series of faces and the same-race advantage (SRA) whereby people are better at recognizing unfamiliar faces from their own race as compared with those from other races. Verbalization and the SRA influenced face recognition independently, as evident on both behavioral (Experiment 1) and eye movement measures (Experiment 2). The findings indicate that verbalization and the SRA each recruit different types of configural processing, with verbalization modulating face learning and the SRA modulating both face learning and recognition. Eye movement patterns demonstrated greater feature sampling for describing as compared with not describing faces and for other-race as compared with same-race faces. In both cases, sampling of the eyes, nose, and mouth played a major role in performance. The findings support a single process account whereby verbalization can influence perceptual processing in a flexible and yet fundamental way through shifting one's processing orientation.     

Let me guess how old you are: effects of age, gender, and facial expression on perceptions of age

Perceptions of age influence how we evaluate, approach, and interact with other people. Based on a paramorphic human judgment model, the present study investigates possible determinants of accuracy and bias in age estimation across the adult life span. For this purpose, 154 young, middle-aged, and older participants of both genders estimated the age of 171 faces of young, middle-aged, and older men and women, portrayed on a total of 2,052 photographs. Each face displayed either an angry, fearful, disgusted, happy, sad, or neutral expression (FACES database; Ebner, Riediger, & Lindenberger, 2010). We found that age estimation ability decreased with age. Older and young adults, however, were more accurate and less biased in estimating the age of members of their own as compared with those of the other age group. In contrast, no reliable own-gender advantage was observed. Generally, the age of older faces was more difficult to estimate than the age of younger faces. Furthermore, facial expressions had a substantial impact on accuracy and bias of age estimation. Relative to other facial expressions, the age of neutral faces was estimated most accurately, while the age of faces displaying happy expressions was most likely underestimated. Results are discussed in terms of methodological and practical implications for research on age estimation.     

Retrospective Frequency Formats Promote Consistent Experience‐Based Bayesian Judgments

On the basis of their experiences with pregnant patients in their practice, obstetrician/gynecologists estimated the posterior probability of Down syndrome given a positive screening result. They also estimated the base rate of Down syndrome in their practice, along with the hit and false alarm rates for the screening test; for each subject, these numbers were combined to calculate a posterior probability to which the initial estimated posterior probability could be compared. Physicians gave highly consistent estimates when asked to think about their past experiences in terms of event frequencies. However, those told to respond using single event probabilities or to use past experiences to predict prospective frequencies gave inconsistent Bayesian estimates. Thus, when making Bayesian judgments based on real life experience, natural frequency formats only lead to better judgments, compared with single event probability formats, if people think retrospectively, not when using past experiences to make prospective predictions. Copyright © 2011 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Maternal Emotion Dysregulation Predicts Emotion Socialization Practices and Adolescent Emotion Lability: Conditional Effects of Youth ADHD Symptoms

Research on Child and Adolescent Psychopathology - Maternal emotional functioning and emotion socialization practices can facilitate or hinder children’s emotional development, and youth with...     

Parenting and Conduct Problems: Moderation by Child Empathy

Child empathy was examined as a moderator of the relations between positive and negative parenting behavior and child conduct problems. Participants were 56 mother-child dyads (child age M?=?10.8 years; 64 % male) and children were recruited with a range of Attention-Deficit/Hyperactivity Disorder (ADHD) symptoms. Parenting was assessed by direct observations of mothers’ praise and criticism during parent–child interactions and child empathy was measured with mother report. Child conduct problems were assessed via observation and mother-report measures, and a composite variable was created. In regression analyses, child ADHD symptoms were uniquely related to child conduct problems. Second, as hypothesized, child empathy moderated the relations between parenting and conduct problems. Mother praise was negatively related to child conduct problems at lower levels of child empathy, but this relation was not significant at higher levels of child empathy. On the contrary, mother criticism was positively related to child conduct problems at high levels of child empathy, but this relation was not significant at low levels of empathy. The results suggest that different types of parenting behavior may be differentially beneficial to children, depending on their level of empathy.     

Lineup Member Similarity Effects on Children's Eyewitness Identification

To date, research investigating the similarity among lineup members has focused on adult eyewitnesses. In the present research, children made identifications from lineups containing members of lower or higher similarity to a target person. In Experiment 1, following a live interaction, children's (6–14 years) correct identification rate was reduced in higher‐similarity relative to lower‐similarity lineups. In Experiment 2, children (6–12 years) and adults watched a video containing a target person. Again, higher‐similarity lineup members reduced children's correct identifications; however, similarity had no effect on adults' correct identification rate. Although children benefited from lower‐similarity lineups when the target was present, lower‐similarity lineups generally increased misidentifications of an innocent suspect when the target was absent. Thus, increasing similarity in lineups for children had a cost on target‐present lineups and a benefit on target‐absent lineups. Copyright © 2014 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Using Invariance to Examine Cheating in Unproctored Ability Tests

Despite their widespread use in personnel selection, there is concern that cheating could undermine the validity of unproctored Internet‐based tests. This study examined the presence of cheating in a speeded ability test used for personnel selection. The same test was administered to applicants in either proctored or unproctored conditions. Item response theory differential functioning analyses were used to evaluate the equivalence of the psychometric properties of test items across proctored and unproctored conditions. A few items displayed different psychometric properties, and the nature of these differences was not uniform. Theta scores were not reflective of widespread cheating among unproctored examinees. Thus, results were not consistent with what would be expected if cheating on unproctored tests was pervasive.     

The ethics of animal research: a survey of pediatric health care workers

Introduction

Pediatric health care workers (HCW) often perform, promote, and advocate use of public funds for animal research (AR). We aim to determine whether HCW consider common arguments (and counterarguments) in support (or not) of AR convincing.

Design

After development and validation, an e-mail survey was sent to all pediatricians and pediatric intensive care unit nurses and respiratory therapists (RTs) affiliated with a Canadian University. We presented questions about demographics, support for AR, and common arguments (with their counterarguments) to justify the moral permissibility (or not) of AR. Responses are reported using standard tabulations. Responses of pediatricians and nurses/RTs were compared using Chi-square, with P?<?.05 considered significant.

Results

Response rate was 53/115(46%) (pediatricians), and 73/120(61%) (nurses/RTs). Pediatricians and nurses/RTs are supportive of AR. Most considered ‘benefits arguments’ sufficient to justify AR; however, most acknowledged that counterarguments suggesting alternative research methods may be available, or that it is unclear why the same ‘benefits arguments’ do not apply to using humans in research, significantly weakened ‘benefits arguments’. Almost all were not convinced of the moral permissibility of AR by ‘characteristics of non-human-animals arguments’, including that non-human-animals may not be sentient, or are simply property. Most were not convinced of the moral permissibility of AR by ‘human exceptionalism’ arguments, including that humans have more advanced mental abilities, are of a special ‘kind’, can enter into social contracts, or face a ‘lifeboat situation’. Counterarguments explained much of this, including that not all humans have these more advanced abilities [the argument from species overlap], and that the notion of ‘kind’ is arbitrary [e.g., why are we not of the kind ‘sentient animal’ or ‘subject-of-a-life’]. Pediatrician and nurse/RT responses were similar.

Conclusions

Most respondents were not convinced of the moral permissibility of AR when given common arguments and counterarguments from the literature. HCW should seriously consider arguments on both sides of the AR debate.