Hedonism Reconsidered

This paper is a plea for hedonism to be taken more seriously. It begins by charting hedonism's decline, and suggests that this is a result of two major objections: the claim that hedonism is the 'philosophy of swine', reducing all value to a single common denominator, and Nozick's 'experience machine' objection. There follows some elucidation of the nature of hedonism, and of enjoyment in particular. Two types of theory of enjoyment are outlined–internalism, according to which enjoyment has some special 'feeling tone', and externalism, according to which enjoyment is any kind of experience to which we take some special attitude, such as that of desire. Internalism–the traditional view–is defended against current externalist orthodoxy. The paper ends with responses to the philosophy of swine and the experience machine objections.     

Reconstructing N: A New Approach to Measuring Emotional Sensitivity

Neuroticism (N) assesses emotional sensitivity or lability, but the construct is poorly defined and instruments used to assess N are marred by a number of psychometric shortcomings. Neuroticism is also described in an overtly pejorative way, with items keyed for themes reflecting low self-esteem, anxiety, and depression. The present paper presents a revised model based on a new questionnaire entitled the Emotional Sensitivity Scale (ESS). Using an innovative scenario technique to generate items, exploratory factor analysis of the responses of 242 participants yielded orthogonal dimensions for positive (other-oriented) and negative (self-centered) emotional sensitivity, and the structure was confirmed using confirmatory factor analysis. Validation studies showed that the ESS dimensions were related in systematic ways to related psychometric instruments and that, as predicted, participants scoring high on the positive dimension were better able to recognize displayed emotions. The new scale offers a basis for extending the research on emotional sensitivity using empirically discriminable positive and negative components.     

Comparison of two exercise protocols on fitness score improvement in poorly conditioned Air Force personnel

A 12-wk. study was conducted to contrast the effects of a longer and more frequent aerobic exercise protocol with a shorter and less frequent circuit strength-training protocol for improving U.S. Air Force physical fitness test scores of subjects who previously failed to achieve a passing point total. 83 men and women of the U.S. Air Force (M age = 32.7 yr.) participated in either the unsupervised standard conditioning program, which recommended approximately 60 min. of aerobic activity 4 to 5 days per week (n=26), or the supervised circuit strength-training program, which required approximately 25 min. of alternating strength and endurance exercises 3 days per week (n=57). Subjects were assessed on a 2400-m (1.5-mile) run, abdominal circumference, push-ups completed in 1 min., and abdominal crunches completed in 1 min. Dependent t tests with Bonferroni adjustment indicated that significant improvements were attained by the circuit strength-training group only on each of the aforementioned measures. Significantly more participants in the circuit strength-training group (26%) achieved a passing point total than in the standard conditioning group (19%) at Wk. 12 (chi1(2) =3.96, p = .05). Implications for enhancing physical fitness in poorly conditioned adults were discussed.     

Sensitive questions in surveys

Psychologists have worried about the distortions introduced into standardized personality measures by social desirability bias. Survey researchers have had similar concerns about the accuracy of survey reports about such topics as illicit drug use, abortion, and sexual behavior. The article reviews the research done by survey methodologists on reporting errors in surveys on sensitive topics, noting parallels and differences from the psychological literature on social desirability. The findings from the survey studies suggest that misreporting about sensitive topics is quite common and that it is largely situational. The extent of misreporting depends on whether the respondent has anything embarrassing to report and on design features of the survey. The survey evidence also indicates that misreporting on sensitive topics is a more or less motivated process in which respondents edit the information they report to avoid embarrassing themselves in the presence of an interviewer or to avoid repercussions from third parties.     

Creating a strategy for progress: a contextual behavioral science approach

Behavior analysis is a field dedicated to the development and application of behavioral principles to the understanding and modification of the psychological actions of organisms. As such, behavior analysis was committed from the beginning to a comprehensive account of behavior, stretching from animal learning to complex human behavior. Despite that lofty goal, basic behavior analysis is having a generally harder time finding academic support, and applied behavior analysis has narrowed its focus. In the present paper we argue that both of these trends relate to the challenge of human language and cognition, and that developments within clinical behavior analysis and the analysis of derived relational responding are providing a way forward. To take full advantage of these developments, however, we argue that behavior analysts need to articulate their unique approach to theory, to develop more flexible language systems for applied workers, and to expand their methodological flexibility. This approach, which we term contextual behavioral science, is meant as an evolutionary step that will allow behavior analysis to better capture the center of modern psychological concerns in both the basic and applied areas. Clinical behavior analysis is showing a way forward for behavior analysis to regain its vision as a comprehensive approach to behavior.     

老年人记忆补偿的长期稳定性和变异性：来自维多利亚纵向研究的证据

两种记忆状况组来自于参与加拿大维多利亚纵向研究(VLS)的老年人原样本。一种是未受损伤的控制组(NIC), 另一种是轻度记忆损伤组(MMD)。在基线水平和纵向水平上(即5次追踪或12年)比较了他们在日常生活中对记忆补偿技术的使用。我们使用多水平模型(以年龄和教育水平为协变量)来检验基线水平的差异和长期的变化模式。基线的结果表明MMD组被试报告了近期在日常生活中使用记忆补偿策略方面有更大的增长。纵向的结果表明记忆补偿的使用在12年中具有明显的稳定性, 但是与努力相关的补偿机制存在显著组间差异。教育水平这一协变量(可认为是潜在的认知储备指标)和三种记忆补偿策略随时间的不同变化相关。     

Sleep deprivation affects multiple distinct cognitive processes

Sleep deprivation adversely affects the ability to perform cognitive tasks, but theories range from predicting an overall decline in cognitive functioning (because of reduced stability in attentional networks) to claiming specific deficits in executive functions. In the present study, we measured the effects of sleep deprivation on a two-choice numerosity discrimination task. A diffusion model was used to decompose accuracy and response time distributions in order to produce estimates of distinct components of cognitive processing. The model assumes that, over time, noisy evidence from the task stimulus is accumulated to one of two decision criteria and that parameters governing this process can be extracted and interpreted in terms of distinct cognitive processes. The results showed that sleep deprivation affects multiple components of cognitive processing, ranging from stimulus processing to peripheral nondecision processes. Thus, sleep deprivation appears to have wide-ranging effects: Reduced attentional arousal and impaired central processing combine to produce an overall decline in cognitive functioning.     

Combined eyetracking and keystroke-logging methods for studying cognitive processes in text production

Writers typically spend a certain proportion of time looking back over the text that they have written. This is likely to serve a number of different functions, which are currently poorly understood. In this article, we present two systems, ScriptLog+TimeLine and EyeWrite, that adopt different and complementary approaches to exploring this activity by collecting and analyzing combined eye movement and keystroke data from writers composing extended texts. ScriptLog+TimeLine is a system that is based on an existing keystroke-logging program and uses heuristic, pattern-matching methods to identify reading episodes within eye movement data. EyeWrite is an integrated editor and analysis system that permits identification of the words that the writer fixates and their location within the developing text. We demonstrate how the methods instantiated within these systems can be used to make sense of the large amount of data generated by eyetracking and keystroke logging in order to inform understanding of the cognitive processes that underlie written text production.     

Observer agreement for event sequences: Methods and software for sequence alignment and reliability estimates

When sequences of discrete events, or other units, are independently coded by two coders using a set of mutually exclusive and exhaustive codes, but the onset times for the codes are not preserved, it is often unclear how pairs of protocols should be aligned. Yet such alignment is required before Cohen’s kappa, a common agreement statistic, can be computed. Here we describe a method—based on the Needleman and Wunsch (1970) algorithm originally devised for aligning nucleotide sequences—for optimally aligning such sequences; we also offer the results of a simulation study of the behavior of alignment kappa with a number of variables, including number of codes, varying degrees of observer accuracy, sequence length, code variability, and parameters governing the alignment algorithm. We conclude that (1) under most reasonable circumstances, observer accuracies of 90% or better result in alignment kappas of .60 or better; (2) generally, alignment kappas are not strongly affected by sequence length, the number of codes, or the variability in the codes’ probability; (3) alignment kappas are adversely affected when missed events and false alarms are possible; and (4) cost matrices and priority orders used in the algorithm should favor substitutions (i.e., disagreements) over insertions and deletions (i.e., missed events and false alarms). Two computer programs were developed: Global Sequence Alignment, or GSA, for carrying out the simulation study, and Event Alignment, or ELign, a user-oriented program that computes alignment kappa and provides the optimal alignment given a pair of event sequences.