Natural,Artifactual, and Moral Goodness

In Natural Goodness, Philippa Foot (2001) aims to provide an account of moral evaluation that is both naturalistic and cognitivist. She argues that moral evaluation is a variety of natural evaluation in the sense that moral judgments of human action and character have the same “grammar” or “conceptual structure” as natural judgments of the goodness (e.g., health) of plants and animals. We argue that Foot’s naturalist project can succeed, but not in the way she envisions, because her central thesis that moral evaluation is a variety of natural evaluation is not entirely correct. We show that both moral and natural evaluation are species of kind evaluation, which encompasses moral, natural, and artifact evaluation. Kind evaluation is a form of evaluation, according to which things are evaluated qua members of a kind, in such a way that the kind into which something is classified informs the standards of evaluation (or norms) for things of that kind. Because the source of the normative standards for moral evaluation is different from the source of the normative standards for natural evaluation, moral evaluation is not a species of natural evaluation. However, both are varieties of kind evaluation. This account of moral evaluation as a variety of kind evaluation is still an effective response to non-naturalism and to non-cognitivism.     

Negative estimate of variance-accounted-for effect size: How often it is obtained,and what happens if it is treated as zero

Researchers recommend reporting of bias-corrected variance-accounted-for effect size estimates such as omega squared instead of uncorrected estimates, because the latter are known for their tendency toward overestimation, whereas the former mostly correct this bias. However, this argument may miss an important fact: A bias-corrected estimate can take a negative value, and of course, a negative variance ratio does not make sense. Therefore, it has been a common practice to report an obtained negative estimate as zero. This article presents an argument against this practice, based on a simulation study investigating how often negative estimates are obtained and what are the consequences of treating them as zero. The results indicate that negative estimates are obtained more often than researchers might have thought. In fact, they occur more than half the time under some reasonable conditions. Moreover, treating the obtained negative estimates as zero causes substantial overestimation of even bias-corrected estimators when the sample size and population effect are not large, which is often the case in psychology. Therefore, the recommendation is that researchers report obtained negative estimates as is, instead of reporting them as zero, to avoid the inflation of effect sizes in research syntheses, even though zero can be considered the most plausible value when interpreting such a result. R code to reproduce all of the described results is included as supplemental material.     

Is the child ‘father of the Man’? Evaluating the stability of genetic influences across development

This selective review considers findings in genetic research that have shed light on how genes operate across development. We will address the question of whether the child is ‘father of the Man’ from a genetic perspective. In other words, do the same genetic influences affect the same traits across development? Using a ‘taster menu’ approach and prioritizing newer findings on cognitive and behavioral traits, examples from the following genetic disciplines will be discussed: (a) developmental quantitative genetics (such as longitudinal twin studies), (b) neurodevelopmental genetic syndromes with known genetic causes (such as Williams syndrome), (c) developmental candidate gene studies (such as those that link infant and adult populations), (d) developmental genome‐wide association studies (GWAS), and (e) DNA resequencing. Evidence presented here suggests that there is considerable genetic stability of cognitive and behavioral traits across development, but there is also evidence for genetic change. Quantitative genetic studies have a long history of assessing genetic continuity and change across development. It is now time for the newer, more technology‐enabled fields such as GWAS and DNA resequencing also to take on board the dynamic nature of human behavior.     

Goliath and David in Gaza: Indonesian myth-building and conflict as a cultural system

The ongoing conflict between Israel and the Palestinians is a well established part of Indonesian religio-political discourse. Anti-Zionism if not outright anti-Semitism is foundational; Israel has few friends in Indonesia. Various media reactions to the 2008–2009 Gaza attacks are placed within wider ethnographic and linguistic contexts to explore how news is spun in a cultural system of conflict. In becoming part of a cultural system of conflict, discourses about Israel take on the properties of myth.     

Facilitation of corticospinal excitability during motor imagery of wrist movement with visual or quantitative inspection of EMG activity

The present study investigated facilitation of corticospinal excitability during motor imagery of wrist movement with visual or quantitative inspection of background electromyographic (EMG) activity. Ten healthy participants imagined wrist extension from a first-person perspective in response to a start cue. Transcranial magnetic stimulation was delivered to the motor cortex 2 sec. after the start cue. EMG signals were recorded from the extensor carpi radialis muscle. Trials with background EMG activity were discarded based on visual inspection. Both motor-evoked potential (MEP) and background EMG amplitudes increased during motor imagery. The amount of increase in MEP amplitude was positively correlated with the amount of increase in background EMG amplitude during motor imagery. The statistically significant increase in MEP amplitude during motor imagery disappeared when the effect of muscle activity was statistically eliminated or after trials with background EMG activity were discarded based on strict quantitative criteria. Facilitation of corticospinal excitability during motor imagery of wrist movement depends partially on muscle activity. Discarding background EMG activity during motor imagery based on visual inspection is not sufficient to equalize background EMG amplitude between resting and motor imagery. Discarding trials with background EMG activity through strict quantitative criteria is useful to equalize background EMG amplitude between at rest and during motor imagery.     

Detecting concealed information about person recognition

We examined a common, but understudied phenomenon: Assessing interviewees' truthfulness when they attempt to conceal their knowledge about another person. We argue that this should be mentally taxing because truthful answers are activated automatically, and hence, need to be suppressed when liars conceal their knowledge. Participants were shown three photographs of three females, only one of whom was known by the participants. The participants were asked questions about each female depicted in the photograph. Truth tellers were instructed to give the correct answers when discussing the female they know whereas liars were asked to conceal their knowledge about this female. Independent observer ratings revealed that liars appeared to be thinking the hardest when discussing the female they know, whereas truth tellers appeared to be thinking the hardest when discussing the females they did not know. Truth tellers looked the most at the photographs of the unknown females, whereas liars' gaze did not differ across photographs. Finally, liars' answers about the female they know contained substantial truthful elements. In summary, truth tellers' and liars' responses differed substantially and those different responses are valuable cues to detect deceit. Copyright © 2010 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Eyewitness memory: Balancing the accuracy,precision and quantity of information through metacognitive monitoring and control

Although memory deteriorates over time, people may be able to maintain high accuracy by metacognitively monitoring the quality of their memories and strategically controlling their memory reports. We test two mechanisms of metacognitive control: Exercising a report option (withholding uncertain responses) and adjusting response precision (providing imprecise, but likely accurate, responses). Participants observed a mock crime and were interviewed after 10 minutes or 1 week. Interviews consisted of answerable questions in one of three formats (free narrative, cued recall, yes/no), allowing participants to exert more or less control over their answers. Participants' reports showed tradeoffs between accuracy, quantity and precision of information. Depending on the question format, participants maintained high accuracy even at the delayed report either by opting not to answer (yes/no or cued recall) or by providing imprecise answers (cued recall or free narrative). We discuss implications for experimental research, metacognitive theory and the criminal justice system. Copyright © 2010 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.