How to Prove Hume’s Law

Journal of Philosophical Logic - This paper proves a precisification of Hume’s Law—the thesis that one cannot get an ought from an is—as an instance of a more general theorem...     

Beauty is in the 'we' of the beholder: greater agreement on facial attractiveness among close relations

Scientific research on facial attractiveness has focused primarily on elucidating universal factors to which all raters respond consistently. However, recent work has shown that there is also substantial disagreement between raters, highlighting the importance of determining how attractiveness preferences vary among different individuals. We conducted a typical attractiveness ratings study, but took the unusual step of recruiting pairs of subjects who were spouses, siblings, or close friends. The agreement between pairs of affiliated friends, siblings, and spouses was significantly greater than between pairs of strangers drawn from the same race and culture, providing evidence that facial-attractiveness preferences are socially organized.     

Real-world face recognition: the importance of surface reflectance properties

The face recognition task we perform [corrected] most often in everyday experience is the identification of people with whom we are familiar. However, because of logistical challenges, most studies focus on unfamiliar-face recognition, wherein subjects are asked to match or remember images of unfamiliar people's faces. Here we explore the importance of two facial attributes -shape and surface reflectance-in the context of a familiar-face recognition task. In our experiment, subjects were asked to recognise color images of the faces of their friends. The images were manipulated such that only reflectance or only shape information was useful for recognizing any particular face. Subjects were actually better at recognizing their friends' faces from reflectance information than from shape information. This provides evidence that reflectance information is important for face recognition in ecologically relevant contexts.     

THE USE OF REBT PRINCIPLES AND PRACTICES IN LEADERSHIP TRAINING AND DEVELOPMENT

Training, coaching, and consulting with people in leadership roles can be a primary consulting function for clinicians. In this paper, the authors describe their model of leadership, and what they believe to be the central personality or character components of leadership necessary for producing extraordinary results. Throughout they will show where and how REBT skills can make a significant contribution.     

Neuroanatomical correlates of handedness for tool use in chimpanzees (Pan troglodytes): implication for theories on the evolution of language

It has been hypothesized that cognitive mechanisms underlying lateralized complex motor actions associated with tool use in chimpanzees may have set the stage for the evolution of left-hemisphere specialization for language and speech in humans. Here we report evidence that asymmetries in the homologues to Broca's and Wernicke's areas are associated with handedness for tool use in chimpanzees. These results suggest that the neural substrates of tool use may have served as a preadaptation for the evolution of language and speech in modern humans.     

Evaluating dynamic performance: the influence of salient Gestalt characteristics on performance ratings

It is well recognized that performance changes over time. However, the effect of these changes on overall assessments of performance is largely unknown. In a laboratory experiment, we examined the influence of salient Gestalt characteristics of a dynamic performance profile on supervisory ratings. We manipulated performance trend (flat, linear-improving, linear-deteriorating, U-shaped, and inverted U-shaped), performance variation (small, large), and performance mean (negative, zero, positive) within subjects and display format (graphic, tabular) between subjects. Participants received and evaluated information about the weekly performance of different employees over a simulated 26-week period. Results showed strong main effects on performance ratings of both performance mean and performance trend, as well as interactions with display format. Theoretical and practical implications of the results are discussed.     

A systematic examination of different parameters of presession exposure to tangible stimuli that maintain problem behavior

We examined the effects of three different presession conditions on tangibly maintained problem behavior for 2 students with autism, using individual-participant multielement designs. First, an analogue functional analysis demonstrated that problem behavior was maintained by access to tangible items. Next, topographies of item rejection were identified. Finally, students were exposed to (a) brief access, (b) no access, and (c) satiation to the tangible items prior to tangible sessions. The results demonstrated high levels of problem behavior following the brief-access and no-access presession conditions and low levels of problem behavior following the satiation condition. The findings are discussed in the context of how satiation might best be defined for these sorts of evaluations.     

Sensation seeking and danger invulnerability: Paths to college student risk-taking

This study examines the roles of sensation seeking and invulnerability as predictors of health compromising behaviors in a multiethnic sample of 1690 emerging adult college students (mean age = 19.8, range 18–25 years) from nine US colleges and universities. Participants completed the Arnett Sensation Seeking Inventory and the Adolescent Invulnerability Scale; and reported how often they had participated in a set of health compromising risk behaviors (i.e., substance use, impaired driving, and sexual behaviors) in the 30 days prior to assessment. Sensation seeking and danger invulnerability scores were moderately correlated (r = .30). Findings from a series of multivariate Poisson regression analyses suggest that when considered simultaneously as predictors, sensation seeking appears to be a general risk factor associated with engagement in a variety of risk behaviors, whereas danger invulnerability is primarily a factor in those risk behaviors that are less common among peers (e.g., hard drug use, casual sex, and driving while intoxicated).