The American plan completed: Alternative classical-style semantics,without stars,for relevant and paraconsistent logics

American-plan semantics with 4 values 1, 0, { {1, 0}} {{}}, interpretable as True, False, Both and Neither, are furnished for a range of logics, including relevant affixing systems. The evaluation rules for extensional connectives take a classical form: in particular, those for negation assume the form 1 (A, a) iff 0 (A, a) and 0 (A, a) iff 1 (A, a), so eliminating the star function *, on which much criticism of relevant logic semantics has focussed. The cost of these classical features is a further relation (or operation), required in evaluating falsity assignments of implication formulae.Two styles of 4 valued relational semantics are developed; firstly a semantics using notions of double truth and double validity for basic relevant systemB and some extensions of it; and secondly, since the first semantics makes heavy weather of validating negation principles such as Contraposition, a reduced semantics using more complex implicational rules for relevant systemC and various of its extensions. To deal satisfactorily with elite systemsR,E andT, however, further complication is inevitable; and a relation of mateship (suggested by the Australian plan) is introduced to permit cross-over from 1 to 0 values and vice versa.     

Comparison of two video prompting interventions to teach daily living skills to adolescents with autism

The present study used an adapted alternating treatment design to evaluate and compare the effects of video prompting (VP) and video prompting plus frequency building (VP + FB) to teach daily living skills to three adolescents with autism spectrum disorder. Results demonstrated all three students made substantial improvements over their baseline performance using VP and VP + FB. Furthermore, a strong intervention effect emerged for VP and VP + FB conditions when compared to the control task. However, in terms of one intervention proving superior to the other (e.g., VP to VP + FB), the data offer a mixed interpretation with VP + FB affecting changes better for two of the three students. The FB component in the VP + FB produced strong, consistent gains for all students in terms of retention.     

Locke and “ad”

In IV, xvii, 19–22 of his Essay, Locke employs Latin labels for four kinds of argument, of which one (ad hominem) was already in circulation and one (ad judicium) has never had much currency. The present proposal seeks to locate and clarify what Locke was aiming to describe, and to contrast what he says with some subsequent uses that have been made of these labels as if they named fallacies. Though three of the four kinds of argument that Locke picks out are often less than decisive, he casts no aspersion on the legitimacy of their use in debate.

     

Behavioral extremity moderates the association between certainty in attitudes about COVID and willingness to engage in mitigation-related behaviors

People generally intend to act more on beliefs and attitudes about which they have greater certainty. However, we introduce a boundary condition to the positive association between certainty and behavioral intentions—behavioral extremity. Uncertainty about a threatening issue like COVID-19 can be disconcerting, and we propose that uncertain people cope in part through increased openness to extreme actions like accepting risky medical treatments and aggression toward those defying mitigation policies. Testing this, we compiled and analyzed all the data on certainty about COVID-19 mitigation policies and willingness to engage in mitigation-related behaviors that our lab collected during the pandemic (6 samples, 20 behaviors, Ns up to 1496). External ratings of the behaviors' extremity moderated certainty-willingness associations: whereas greater certainty was associated with increased willingness to engage in moderate behaviors (the typical result), lower certainty was associated with increased willingness to engage in extreme behaviors, especially among those worried about becoming ill.     

A note on McDonald's generalization of principal components analysis

It is shown that McDonald's generalization of classical Principal Components Analysis to groups of variables maximally channels the total variance of the original variables through the groups of variables acting as groups. A useful equation is obtained for determining the vectors of correlations of theL2 components with the original variables. A calculation example is given.