Know Thyself: Macrocosm and Microcosm

There was a time when, in the Liberal Arts, philosophy and education enjoyed the most intimate and productive relationship. Drawing together philosophy and nature they sought to understand the greatest of human mysteries. This meant thinking about both the macrocosm and the microcosm and especially the relation between them. In this relation lies the most fundamental vocation of Liberal Arts education—Know Thyself. In my article I attempt to retrieve the philosophical education that lies between the individual and the universe. I explore the macrocosm through Newton and Einstein, the microcosm through Heisenberg and Zizek, and the relation between them in the structure of the modern Kant/Hegel philosophical experience. The result—only relatively overambitious—is an educational theory of the uncertainty of the universe and everything in it.     

Alcohol seeking by rats: Action or habit?

In two experiments, we examined the relative susceptibility to outcome devaluation of lever pressing by rats for either a 10% ethanol solution or food pellets. The rats were trained to press different levers for these two reinforcers using a sucrose-substitution procedure. An aversion was then conditioned from either the ethanol solution or the food pellets by pairing consumption with illness induced by lithium chloride. When instrumental performance was subsequently tested in extinction, the rats pressed less on the pellet lever if the pellets, rather than the ethanol, had been devalued by aversion conditioning. By contrast, performance on the ethanol lever was unaffected by whether the ethanol or pellets were devalued. Moreover, noncontingent presentations of the devalued reinforcer had no impact on test performance. The differential resistance to outcome devaluation suggests that, in contrast to food seeking, alcohol seeking is a stimulus-response habit rather than a goal-directed action mediated by a representation of the action-outcome contingency.     

Spatial knowledge of a real school environment acquired from virtual or physical models by able-bodied children and children with physical disabilities

In Experiment 1, 2 groups of able-bodied children were exposed to both a complex single-tier virtual environment (VE) and a physical model of a different environment. For 1 group, the VE accurately modeled a real school, and for the other group the physical model did so. In transfer testing in the real school, orientation accuracy was greater in the group exposed to the VE of the real school. In Experiment 2, children with physical disabilities explored the VE model of the real school and were tested as in the 1st experiment. Measures of orientation accuracy and map-placing were significantly better in this group than in the guessing adult control group. The results illustrate the potential for VEs as useful spatial training media.     

Lateralized regular spatial patterns in oscillating drawing arm movements of right-handed young women

There is a lacuna in literature with reference to the spatial lateral difference in fast rhythmical movements produced by the whole dominant and nondominant whole arm, where spinal regulation has a significant role. Based on a fast oscillating zigzag drawing task, this study focused on (a) creation of a specific model of the task based on the intermittencies of coupled vectors of the fast motion, (b) identification of the spatial patterns that triggered these vectors, and (c) identification of quantified lateral differences between the spatial rhythmical patterns. 12 strongly right-handed young women performed 9 to 11 trials drawing zigzag lines. Each participant was required to extend her arm and perform this task using the left and right arm selectively on a frontally positioned graphic design system. The spatial patterns produced on each trial were identified in terms of five constant combinations of horizontal (X) and vertical (Y) projections of each line on the zigzag drawings. The dominant arm differed from the nondominant arm in preferred patterns. Because the duration of each line in the zigzag was highly restricted in time, the appearance of the patterns with different block schemes of movement could be explained as being associated with lower levels of the central nervous system. Initiation of fast movement of the total upper arm is probably associated with selection of the block scheme of motor control appropriate to each arm. Each block scheme is grounded on the coupled vectors of motion organised with particular muscle groups. Some block schemes seemed linked specifically to the dominant arm.     

Life Interrupted: Family Routines Buffer Stress during the COVID-19 Pandemic

Adoption of certain behavioral and social routines that organize and structure the home environment may help families navigate the challenges presented by the COVID-19 pandemic. The current cross-sectional study aimed to assess family routines prior to and during the COVID-19 pandemic and examine associations with individual and family well-being. Using a national sample, 300 caregivers of children ages 6-18 were surveyed using Amazon Mechanical Turk platform during the first three months of COVID-19 pandemic in the United States. Caregivers reported on family demographics, COVID-19-related stress, engagement in family routines (prior to and during the COVID-19 pandemic), stress mindset, self-efficacy, and family resiliency. Overall, families reported engaging in fewer routines during the COVID-19 pandemic compared to prior to the pandemic. COVID-19-related stress was highest in low-income families, families of healthcare workers, and among caregivers who had experienced the COVID-19 virus. Moreover, COVID-19-related stress was negatively related to self-efficacy, positively related to an enhancing stress mindset, and negatively related to family resilience. Engagement in family routines buffered relations between COVID-19-related stress and family resilience, such that COVID-19-related stress was not associated with lower family resilience among families that engaged in high levels of family routines. Results suggest that family routines were challenging to maintain in the context of the COVID-19 pandemic, but were associated with better individual and family well-being during this period of acute health, economic, and social stress.

     

Teaching children with autism to tact private events based on public accompaniments

We evaluated a method for teaching children with autism spectrum disorder to respond to tactile stimulation of multiple body parts. Various objects (e.g., hairbrush) produced the sensations (e.g., prickly). In a multiple baseline design across participants, participants learned 9 sensation body part tacts and the evaluation concluded with tests of generalization to 3 novel body parts, 6 novel objects, and 3 novel sensations. Participants demonstrated generalization to novel objects, and to a lesser extent, novel body parts, but did not generalize tacts to novel sensations. These findings are discussed in terms of implications for teaching children with autism to tact sensations.     

“I don’t want to let myself down or the charity down”: men’s accounts of using various interventions to reduce smoking and alcohol consumption

Men are less likely to seek medical help than women and are more likely to adopt unhealthy practices. This study investigated men’s constructions of alcohol and tobacco cessation interventions in relation to dominant masculine identities. Focus groups and interviews with 12 male university students were analysed using an eclectic approach informed by discursive psychology and Foucauldian discourse analysis. Findings suggested that interventions encouraging competition among friends were constructed as favourable, and autonomy and control were central to men’s accounts. While men presented their behaviour change as intentional, their accounts revealed a tendency to conceal this from others, suggesting a negative influence of peer pressure. However, participants who had raised money for charity whilst abstaining described this process as rewarding and acting as a “buffer” to legitimise their healthy behaviour when socializing with other men. Implications for health providers and policy makers are discussed.     

Biased forecasting of postdecisional affect

Although anticipated postdecisional regret is a significant contributor to people's decision-making processes, the accuracy of people's regret forecasts has yet to be assessed systematically. Here we report two studies to fill this lacuna. In Study 1, we found that subjects who made reasonably high offers overpredicted the regret that they experienced after they unexpectedly failed at a negotiation. In Study 2, we found that subjects overpredicted the rejoicing and marginally underpredicted the regret that they experienced when they received higher marks than they had expected for their course work. Systematic affective misprediction implies that people making decisions should discount the regret and rejoicing that they anticipate will be associated with potential outcomes arising from those decisions.