Some remarks on “ambiguity” and “perceptual processes”

A paper by Bever, Garrett, and Hurtig on the perception of ambiguous sentences is analyzed in terms of (1) the explanation offered for the experimental findings, (2) the linguistic theory underlying the experiment, and (3) the characteristics of the stimuli utilized. It is concluded that Bever, Garrett, and Hurtig's findings are open to serious question, particularly because of multiple deficiencies in the design of the experiment.     

Justice in Transnational Governance

The small portion of philosophical work on global distributive justice that directly discusses particular agents, institutions or practices in global politics tends to focus on a narrow range of the existing set. The emphasis is chiefly on bilateral diplomacy or intergovernmental organisations, to the neglect of a variety of more recent forms of transnational governance, many of which incorporate non‐state actors, have more limited membership, involve informal and dynamic structures, employ cooperative and reflexive methods for ensuring compliance, and operate largely out of the public eye. This article considers how philosophers should conceive of distributive justice in relation to these neglected sites of transnational governance, using the International Organization for Standardization (ISO) as an illustration.     

Improving Delivery Behaviors During Exposure for Pediatric OCD: A Multiple Baseline Training Trial With Community Therapists

This study tested whether a new training tool, the Exposure Guide (EG), improved in-session therapist behaviors (i.e., indicators of quality) that have been associated with youth outcomes in prior clinical trials of exposure therapy. Six therapists at a community mental health agency (CMHA) provided exposure therapy for 8 youth with obsessive–compulsive disorder (OCD). Using a nonconcurrent multiple baseline design with random assignment to baseline lengths of 6 to 16 weeks, therapists received gold-standard exposure therapy training with weekly consultation (baseline phase) followed by addition of EG training and feedback (intervention phase). The primary outcome was therapist behavior during in-session exposures, observed weekly using a validated coding system. Therapist behavior was evaluated in relation to a priori benchmarks derived from clinical trials. Additional outcomes included training feasibility/acceptability, therapist response to case vignettes and beliefs about exposure, and independent evaluator-rated clinical outcomes. Three therapists reached behavior benchmarks only during the EG (intervention) phase. Two therapists met benchmarks during the baseline phase; one of these subsequently moved away from benchmarks but met them again after starting the EG phase. Across all therapists, the percentage of weeks meeting benchmarks was significantly higher during the EG phase (86.4%) vs. the baseline phase (53.2%). Youth participants experienced significant improvement in OCD symptoms and global illness severity from pre- to posttreatment. Results provide initial evidence that adding the EG to gold-standard training can change in-session therapist behaviors in a CMHA setting.     

Alliance-Outcome Associations in a Community-Based Social Skills Intervention for Youth With Autism Spectrum Disorder

Although the alliance is a consistent predictor of treatment outcomes in psychosocial interventions, few studies have examined this association among youth with autism spectrum disorder (ASD). In particular, youth-therapist alliance has never been examined in social skills interventions (SSIs), a common modality for this population. In this study, thirty-four youth with ASD (M_age = 12.41; 79% male) participated in a community-delivered, group-based SSI in a summer camp format led by eight Head Therapists (M_age = 32.12; 50% male). Early alliance and change in alliance over the course of the treatment were assessed via self- and observer-reported measures. Both self- and observer-rated alliance were associated with positive treatment outcomes as reported by parents (decreased problem behaviors) and other peers in the group (reciprocated friendship and social preference). These results provide the first evidence of the role of the alliance in an SSI for youth with ASD and add to the growing body of literature that demonstrates the importance of assessing and addressing the alliance in treatment for this population.     

Environmental and Psychological Factors that Influence the Creative Excellence of Brazilian and Portuguese Women

There is increasing recognition of the importance of creativity for social development. The purpose of this study was to investigate whether there were differences among Brazilian and Portuguese women recognized for their creative excellence in relation to the psychological and environmental factors that might impact their achievements. The sample was composed of 33 women; 18 who were socially recognized for excellence in creativity in different areas (nine Brazilian, nine Portuguese) were compared to 15 who were not recognized (nine Brazilian, six Portuguese). The instruments used were the Biographical Questionnaire of Creative Women, a semi‐structured interview guide, and the Creative Production Analysis Guide. Non‐parametric tests indicated significant differences in environmental factors and personal cognitive characteristics between the creative and non‐creative women when compared within each country. However, no significant differences among Brazilian and Portuguese creative women were found, thus indicating that they present similar psychological profiles.     

Mirrors without warnings

Synthese - Veritism, the position that truth is necessary for epistemic acceptability, seems to be in tension with the observation that much of our best science is not, strictly speaking, true when...     

The Role of Emotional Content and Perceptual Saliency During the Programming of Saccades Toward Faces

Previous studies have shown that the human visual system can detect a face and elicit a saccadic eye movement toward it very efficiently compared to other categories of visual stimuli. In the first experiment, we tested the influence of facial expressions on fast face detection using a saccadic choice task. Face-vehicle pairs were simultaneously presented and participants were asked to saccade toward the target (the face or the vehicle). We observed that saccades toward faces were initiated faster, and more often in the correct direction, than saccades toward vehicles, regardless of the facial expressions (happy, fearful, or neutral). We also observed that saccade endpoints on face images were lower when the face was happy and higher when it was neutral. In the second experiment, we explicitly tested the detection of facial expressions. We used a saccadic choice task with emotional-neutral pairs of faces and participants were asked to saccade toward the emotional (happy or fearful) or the neutral face. Participants were faster when they were asked to saccade toward the emotional face. They also made fewer errors, especially when the emotional face was happy. Using computational modeling, we showed that this happy face advantage can, at least partly, be explained by perceptual factors. Also, saccade endpoints were lower when the target was happy than when it was fearful. Overall, we suggest that there is no automatic prioritization of emotional faces, at least for saccades with short latencies, but that salient local face features can automatically attract attention.     

Spirituality in Clinical Practice: The Perspective of Brazilian Medical Students

Journal of Religion and Health - The purpose of this study was to evaluate the beliefs, opinions, and experiences of medical students from a Catholic confessional university concerning spirituality...     

Réflexions critiques sur les notions d’abolition et d’altération de la faculté à discerner

Inasmuch as the constitution of the mens rea of any offence remains suspended to its integrity, the capacity for discernment represents a condition of accountability whose definition responds to issues that are as much technical – with respect to psychiatric and psychological penal expertise – as they are theoretical – with respect to our conception of criminal responsibility and the psychological prerequisites that underlie it. Now, the fact is that since its introduction in 1992 with article 122–1 of the Penal Code, this notion of discernment is characterized by a certain conceptual inconsistency, giving rise to a damaging plurality of meanings making the verb discern the condensed version of a heterogeneous network of distinct psychological functions. The polysemic term of discernment thus gives rise to a fundamental indetermination as to the nature of the faculty that must be examined in order to decide on its abolition or its preservation at the moment of the act. This is not without favouring the appearance and persistence of arbitrary interpretations, and consequently discordant expert conclusions. Even more problematic, however, is the idea of an alteration of discernment, given the irreducible discrepancy between the continuous nature of an alteration and the discontinuous nature of the conclusion to which the agent is subject, in that the legal demand requires a decision – in a discretization of what is continuous – between the presence and absence of something that is lacking. We will in fact show in what way this concept of alteration as it applies to discernment tends to be either meaningless, or redundant – and therefore useless – in relation to that of abolition. So much so that the only conceivable solution to maintain a certain gradation of degrees of non-accountability seems to consist in having to specify the different types of abolition of discernment potentially observed, and then to propose a hierarchization according to their greater or lesser compatibility with the conservation of a criminal responsibility. .