The effect of explanation in simple binary decision tasks

Many studies of explanation have focused on higher level tasks and on how explanations draw upon relevant prior knowledge, which then helps in understanding some event or observation. However, explanations may also affect performance in simple tasks even when they include no task-relevant information. In three experiments, we show that explanations adding no task-relevant information alter performance in a sequential binary decision task. Whereas people with no explanation for why two events occurred at different rates tended to predict each outcome in proportion to their probability of occurrence (to "probability match"), people with an explanation tended to predict the more likely event more often (to "overmatch," a better strategy). These results suggest a broader view of explanation, which includes a role in shaping simple tasks outside of higher level reasoning.     

Attunement to haptic information helps skilled performers select implements for striking a ball in cricket

This study examined the perceptual attunement of relatively skilled individuals to the physical properties of striking implements in the sport of cricket. We also sought to assess whether utilizing bats with different physical properties would influence performance of a specific striking action: the front foot straight drive. Eleven skilled male cricketers (mean age = 16.6 ± 0.3 years) from an elite school cricket development program consented to participate in the study. While blindfolded, participants wielded six bats exhibiting different mass and moment of inertia (MOI) characteristics and were asked to identify the three bats they preferred the most for hitting a ball to a maximum distance by performing a front foot straight drive (a common shot in cricket). Next, participants actually attempted to hit balls projected from a ball machine using each of the six bat configurations to enable kinematic analysis of front foot straight drive performance with each implement. Results revealed that, on first choice, the two bats with the smallest mass and MOI values (1 and 2) were most preferred by almost two thirds (63.7 %) of the participants. Kinematic analysis of movement patterns revealed that bat velocity, step length, and bat–ball contact position measures significantly differed between bats. Data revealed how skilled youth cricketers were attuned to the different bat characteristics and harnessed movement system degeneracy to perform this complex interceptive action.     

Can an old dog learn (and want to experience) new tricks? Cognitive training increases openness to experience in older adults

The present study investigated whether an intervention aimed to increase cognitive ability in older adults also changes the personality trait of openness to experience. Older adults completed a 16-week program in inductive reasoning training supplemented by weekly crossword and Sudoku puzzles. Changes in openness to experience were modeled across four assessments over 30 weeks using latent growth curve models. Results indicate that participants in the intervention condition increased in the trait of openness compared with a waitlist control group. The study is one of the first to demonstrate that personality traits can change through nonpsychopharmocological interventions.     

Suggested visual hallucination without hypnosis enhances activity in visual areas of the brain

This functional Magnetic Resonance Imaging (fMRI) study investigated high and low suggestible people responding to two visual hallucination suggestions with and without a hypnotic induction. Participants in the study were asked to see color while looking at a grey image, and to see shades of grey while looking at a color image. High suggestible participants reported successful alterations in color perception in both tasks, both in and out of hypnosis, and showed a small benefit if hypnosis was induced. Low suggestible people could not perform the tasks successfully with or without the hypnotic induction. The fMRI results supported the self report data, and changes in brain activity were found in a number of visual areas. The results indicate that a hypnotic induction, although having the potential to enhance the ability of high suggestible people, is not necessary for the effective alteration of color perception by suggestion.     

Feasibility and Acceptability of Technology-supported Sexual Health Education Among Adolescents Receiving Inpatient Psychiatric Care

Journal of Child and Family Studies - Mental illness in adolescence is associated with high-risk sexual behaviors including multiple sex partners, infrequent or inconsistent condom use, and nonuse...     

The Wounded Counselor: Battle for the Soul at an Elite Private School

A Jungian analyst describes her experiences as a counselor in an independent school. Inspired to work in a nontherapeutic setting by James Hillman's call for “a depth psychology of extraversion,” she initially finds the school tolerant of human vulnerability and shadow and receptive to her efforts to engage with psyche on the individual and group levels. However, under new leadership the school goes through a radical change and certain forces ascendant in the larger collective—technology, globalization, rationalism, and stepped-up demand for measurable outcomes—come to dominate the school's values and culture. The author explores the impact of these changes on her own role as well as on the social, emotional, and psychological lives of the students. Although tempted to despair over the marginalization of psyche in an increasingly dehumanized world, she also finds cause for optimism in the upcoming generation of young people, which she sees as possessing remarkable psychological and relational intelligence. She ventures some observations about the unique struggles and gifts of the millennial generation, coming of age in the hyperconnected era of the Internet and largely outside the purview of the adults in their lives. Given the culture's failure to provide the psychological eldering these young people crave, she suggests that Jungians are uniquely qualified to fill this role and urges depth psychologists to consider the possibilities that exist in schools for fostering individuation, initiation, and other forms of soul-making. Finally, she explores some ideas for “emotional intelligence” programs grounded not in the standard cognitive-behavioral approaches but in imaginal, archetypal, and psychodynamic perspectives.     

Supererogation in an Ethics of Care

Most philosophers who advance an ethics of care do not claim that their theories are meant to account for all of morality, or that they can, or should, replace the traditional Western philosophical approaches to moral theory. However, one care ethicist, Michael Slote, holds that his theory can be used to understand all of individual and political morality. Moreover, while Kantianism, utilitarianism, and both ancient and contemporary Aristotelian ethics are all uncomfortable with supererogation and are typically committed to assumptions that rule out the possibility of someone acting beyond the call of duty, Slote claims that the way in which his theory accommodates supererogation constitutes a real advantage over other approaches to ethics. My aim in this paper is to cast doubt on the truth of this claim by showing that Slote’s theory has considerable difficulty accommodating supererogation.     

Parsing the rainbow

Navigating the ontology of color used to be a simple affair. There was the naive view that colors really are in objects the way they appear, and the view that they are secondary qualities to cause certain experiences in us. Today, there are myriad well-developed views but no satisfactory taxonomy of philosophical theories on color. In this article, I first examine the two newest taxonomies on offer and argue that they are inadequate. In particular, I look at Brogaard’s taxonomy and then Cohen’s. One of the reasons I am displeased with Brogaard and Cohen’s taxonomies is that I find it implausible that dispositions are relational properties. I provide an argument against this way of classifying dispositions. Having learned from the vices and virtues of Brogaard and Cohens’ taxonomies, I provide what I believe is a much-enhanced way of taxonomizing philosophical views on color. My taxonomy rules out certain views, clarifies others, and shows that there is an unnoticed view worthy of consideration.     

Service and Medication Use and Their Effects on Arrest Rates Among Children with Emotional Disturbances Before Disenrollment from Medicaid

In this study we examine two assumptions that underlie the hypothesis that the outcomes of children with emotional disturbances are negatively affected by the loss of access to mental health services during their transitions to adulthood. The first is that children access mental health services during the pre-transition years, and the second is that these services are effective in reducing poor outcomes. We tested these assumptions using children who lost Medicaid enrollment between their 18th and 20th birthdays in Florida’s Medicaid program using arrests as the outcome. All children with an emotional disturbance received at least one outpatient service. However, while the mean days of service per month were 3, more than half the children received less than one day of service. Fifty-six percent of children received some psychotherapeutic medication treatment. Children with ADHD had the highest number of days of medication per month in both univariate and multivariate analysis. In multivariate analysis, children with disruptive behavior disorders had significantly more days per month of outpatient services than children with any other diagnoses except anxiety disorders. Medication days but not outpatient service days were negatively associated with arrests. Post hoc analysis suggested that children with ADHD who had high medication days had significantly fewer arrests than children with disruptive behavior disorders. This was not the case for children with ADHD and low medication days. Children with ADHD and high medication use may be most at risk of increases in arrests after Medicaid disenrollment as many will lose access to a service that was associated with fewer arrests. Findings suggest the need for reform of the children’s mental health system.