“Explain” in scientific discourse

The philosophical literature on scientific explanation contains a striking diversity of accounts. I use novel empirical methods to address this fragmentation and assess the importance and generality of explanation in science. My evidence base is a set of 781 articles from one year of the journal Science, and I begin by applying text mining techniques to discover patterns in the usage of “explain” and other words of philosophical interest. I then use random sampling from the data set to develop and test a classification scheme for scientific explanation. My results show that explanation and inference to the best explanation are ubiquitous in science, that they occur across a wide range of scientific disciplines, and that they are a goal of scientific practise. These explanations and inferences to the best explanation come in a diversity forms, which at least partially justifies the fragmentation of philosophical accounts. I draw two methodological lessons: first that text mining can enhance traditional conceptual analysis by establishing facts about word usage; and second that random sampling of cases can increase our confidence that a philosophical account applies in general. These empirical techniques supplement traditional philosophical methods.     

The site of binocular rivalry suppression.

Two experiments were performed to localize the site of binocular rivalry suppression in relation to the locus of grating adaptation. In one experiment it was found that phenomenal suppression of a high-contrast adaptation grating presented to one eye had no influence on the strength of the threshold-elevation aftereffect measured interocularly. Evidently information about the adaptation grating arrives at the site of the aftereffect (presumably binocular neurons) even during suppression. In a second experiment 60 s of grating adaptation was found to produce a short-term reduction in the predominance of the adapted eye during binocular rivalry. These findings provide converging lines of evidence that suppression occurs at a site in the human visual system after the locus of grating adaptation and, hence, after the striate cortex.     

Self-esteem and self-disgust both mediate the relationship between dysfunctional cognitions and depressive symptoms

Previous research indicates that self-disgust partially mediates the relationship between dysfunctional cognitions and depression. However, as self-disgust is only a partial mediator, other variables are also likely to mediate this relationship. One potential variable is self-esteem, which has consistently been linked to depression in the literature. Hence, the current study aimed to examine whether self-disgust and self-esteem both mediate the relationship between dysfunctional cognitions and depression. Measures of self-disgust, self-esteem, dysfunctional cognitions and depression were completed by a non clinical sample of 120 participants. Self-disgust and self-esteem were found to be conceptually distinct constructs and both constructs were found to be partial mediators of the relationship between dysfunctional cognitions and depression: a finding which generalised across two measures of depression. The important mediational role of emotions in the development of depression needs to be taken into account in therapeutic practice.     

Is Disgust a Homogeneous Emotion?

Many theoretical accounts consider disgust to be a unitary emotion, although others have challenged this notion. We predict that if core disgust and socio-moral disgust are different constructs, then their co-associated elicited emotions are likely to be different, and time as well as gender are likely to differentially affect their intensity (via a greater reliance of socio-moral disgust on cognitive appraisal). To test these predictions, participants were shown photographs of core and socio-moral disgust elicitors and asked to provide a wide ranging rating of their emotional response to each at 3 time points. Each elicitor generated a significantly different emotional response. Furthermore, the disgust response to core elicitors weakened over time whereas socio-moral responses intensified. Males and females showed similar levels of disgust to socio-moral elicitors, but females showed higher levels to core elicitors. Overall, the results suggest that a different emotional construct was activated by each type of elicitor.     

The roles of impulsivity,self-regulation,and emotion regulation in the experience of self-disgust

Self-disgust is a distinct self-conscious emotion schema that is characterized by disgust appraisals directed towards the self. Recent studies have demonstrated the negative effects of self-disgust on physical and mental health, but little is known about the psychological characteristics that are associated with self-disgust experiences. The present study assessed the direct and indirect effects of impulsivity, self-regulation, and emotion regulation on self-disgust. Overall, 294 participants (M age?=?21.84 years, SD?=?4.56) completed structured and anonymous measures of trait impulsivity, self-regulation, emotion regulation strategies, and self-disgust. Path analysis showed that non-planning impulsivity and expressive suppression (positively) and cognitive reappraisal and self-regulation (negatively) predicted self-disgust. Intervening variable analysis showed that attentional and non-planning impulsivity had significant indirect effects on self-disgust via emotional regulation strategies and self-regulation. Our findings provide, for the first time, evidence about the association between self-disgust and individual differences in impulsivity, self-regulation, and emotion regulation, and have implications for the psychological phenomena that may lead to self-disgust experiences in non-clinical populations.

     

Moderated multiple regression for interactions involving categorical variables: a statistical control for heterogeneous variance across two groups

Moderated multiple regression (MMR) arguably is the most popular statistical technique for investigating regression slope differences (interactions) across groups (e.g., aptitude-treatment interactions in training and differential test score-job performance prediction in selection testing). However, heterogeneous error variances can greatly bias the typical MMR analysis, and the conditions that cause heterogeneity are not uncommon. Statistical corrections that have been developed require special calculations and are not conducive to follow-up analyses that describe an interaction effect in depth. A weighted least squares (WLS) approach is recommended for 2-group studies. For 2-group studies, WLS is statistically accurate, is readily executed through popular software packages (e.g., SAS Institute, 1999; SPSS, 1999), and allows follow-up tests.     

Personality as the basis for theoretical predilections

Four groups of behavioral scientists with divergent theoretical persuasions--43 sociobiologists, 25 behaviorists, 35 personality psychologists, and 16 human developmentalists--showed significantly different mean scores on two measures of philosophical assumptions: the World Hypothesis Scale (WHS) and the Organicism-Mechanism Paradigm Inventory (OMPI). The OMPI, which appears to be more psychometrically sound than the WHS, showed in 12 additional groups of subjects (N = 622) consistent correlations with self-report and peer ratings of personality, intellectual and interpersonal style, and occupational interests. Taken together, the two studies suggest that behavioral scientists' philosophical presuppositions (e.g., whether reality is better described by stable, isolated elements or changing holistic patterns; and whether persons are passive and reactive or purposive and active) may mirror their views of themselves.     

Conditional reasoning and the competence-performance issue: A developmental analysis of a training task

Empirical investigations of conditional reasoning have generally found that both children and young adults perform poorly on tasks that require the selection or evaluation of those propositions that test the truth status of conditional statements (if p then q). Earlier work (D. O'Brien & W. F. Overton, Journal of Experimental Child Psychology 1980, 30, 44–60) suggested that poor performances with these tasks by young adults show improvement following the introduction of evidence that contradicts earlier faulty inferences, and this improvement generalizes to other conditional reasoning tasks. The effects of the contradiction training were not found with younger subjects. The present research is an extension of the contradiction training paradigm. Ten-, fourteen-, and eighteen-year-olds were tested to assess developmental differences in improvement with an evaluation and a conditional syllogism task. Significant improvement in performance was found for the twelfth grade students following the contradiction training, and this generalized across tasks. This effect was not found for the two younger groups. The usual poor performance of the oldest group is considered to be a false negative assessment of their conditional reasoning competency. Further, it is suggested that several correct performances of younger reasoners are false positive assessments of their conditional reasoning competency.     

Interocular transfer of visual aftereffects

A number of the well-known visual after-effects of adaptation exhibit interocular transfer, so that presentation of an adaptation figure to one eye produces a temporary change in the performance of the nonadapted eye. This outcome is usually attributed to the involvement of binocular visual neurons that respond to stimulation of either eye. The fact that interocular transfer is incomplete (i.e., the transferred aftereffect is smaller in magnitude than that induced and measured in the same eye) is routinely cited as evidence for the involvement of monocular neurons. This article critically examines these two interpretations, which are developed in terms of a neural model of interocular transfer. No evidence, logical or empirical, was obtained for rejecting the model. Our analysis further shows that the model must assume some type of pooling process that operates over all tested neurons, both adapted and unadapted. Finally, general implications of the interocular transfer model are discussed, the aim being to delimit the conclusions that may be drawn from interocular transfer experiments.