Kant’s conception of proper science

Kant is well known for his restrictive conception of proper science. In the present paper I will try to explain why Kant adopted this conception. I will identify three core conditions which Kant thinks a proper science must satisfy: systematicity, objective grounding, and apodictic certainty. These conditions conform to conditions codified in the Classical Model of Science. Kant’s infamous claim that any proper natural science must be mathematical should be understood on the basis of these conditions. In order to substantiate this reading, I will show that only in this way it can be explained why Kant thought (1) that mathematics has a particular foundational function with respect to the natural sciences and (2) as such secures their scientific status.     

The beneficial and detrimental effects of major depression on intuitive decision-making

Intuitions play a central role in everyday life decision-making but little is known regarding this capacity during depression. Thus, in Study 1, N?=?39 depressed in-patients completed two well-established tasks, assessing intuitions of visual and semantic coherence. In the semantic coherence task, patients judged whether presented words triads were coherent (e.g. SALT DEEP FOAM, related to SEA) or not (e.g. DREAM BALL BOOK, no denominator). In the visual coherence task, patients judged whether blurred pictures depicted real-life objects (coherent) or not (incoherent). Results showed that higher depressive symptomatology was associated with impaired intuitions of semantic coherence but with enhanced intuitions of visual coherence. In Study 2, visual coherence intuitions of depressed patients (n?=?27) were compared to healthy control participants (n?=?30). Depressed patients outperformed the healthy control subjects in the visual coherence task. This pattern of findings shows both detrimental and beneficial decisional consequences of depression.     

National Origin and Behavioural Problems of Toddlers: The Role of Family Risk Factors and Maternal Immigration Characteristics

In many societies the prevalence of behavioural problems in school-aged children varies by national origin. We examined the association between national origin and behavioural problems in 1½-year-old children. Data on maternal national origin and the Child Behavior Checklist for toddlers (n?=?4943) from a population-based cohort in the Netherlands were used. Children from various non-Dutch backgrounds all had a significantly higher mean behavioural problem score. After adjustment for family risk factors, like family income and maternal psychopathology, the differences attenuated, but remained statistically significant. Non-Dutch mothers with immigration risk factors, such as older age at immigration or no good Dutch language skills, reported significantly more behavioural problems in their offspring. In conclusion, the present study indicated more behavioural problems in immigrant toddlers from various backgrounds. Researchers and policymakers aiming to tackle disparities in behavioural problems should take into account that risks associated with national origin are intertwined with unfavourable family and immigration characteristics.     

What the eyes already ‘know’: using eye movement measurement to tap into children's implicit numerical magnitude representations

To date, a number of studies have demonstrated the existence of mismatches between children's implicit and explicit knowledge at certain points in development that become manifest by their gestures and gaze orientation in different problem solving contexts. Stimulated by this research, we used eye movement measurement to investigate the development of basic knowledge about numerical magnitude in primary school children. Sixty‐six children from grades one to three (i.e. 6–9 years) were presented with two parallel versions of a number line estimation task of which one was restricted to behavioural measures, whereas the other included the recording of eye movement data. The results of the eye movement experiment indicate a quantitative increase as well as a qualitative change in children's implicit knowledge about numerical magnitudes in this age group that precedes the overt, that is, behavioural, demonstration of explicit numerical knowledge. The finding that children's eye movements reveal substantially more about the presence of implicit precursors of later explicit knowledge in the numerical domain than classical approaches suggests further exploration of eye movement measurement as a potential early assessment tool of individual achievement levels in numerical processing. Copyright © 2009 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Unmasking the standing wave of invisibility: An account in terms of object-mediated representational updating

A central bar presented in counterphase with two flanking bars creates the perception of only two bars, instead of three, flickering (standing wave of invisibility illusion). Current explanations of this illusion highlight the importance of local interactions between the central bar and the flankers as a reason for the invisibility of the central bar. In three experiments, we show that the reduction in visibility of the central bar occurs even when the flankers are spatially separated from the central bar. Thus local mechanisms—low-level lateral inhibition or border-ownership competition—do not suffice to account for the decreased visibility. Furthermore, the reduced visibility of the central bar is accompanied by the perception of the flankers in apparent motion at all separations. We suggest an account of the standing wave phenomenon in terms of object updating: The representation of the central bar is updated with the representation of the flankers leaving the perception of just the flankers moving across space. The stimuli for the key conditions from this study, in QuickTime format, may be down loaded from http://app.psychonomic-journals.org/content/supplemental.     

Social decision making mediates the association between anger and externalising problems in Chinese adolescents

The goal of this study was to test the mediating effect of social decision making in the relations of anger and anger control to externalising and internalising problems. A sample of 174 Chinese adolescents (mean age = 15.36 years) completed self‐reports of trait anger, anger control, externalising problems, internalising problems and social decision making, which was operationalized as situational judgement reflecting an individual's ability to interact effectively with parents, teachers and peers. Findings indicated that adolescents' trait anger and anger control were positively related to both externalising and internalising problems. In addition, path analysis revealed that social decision making mediated the relationship between trait anger, anger control and externalising problems. Findings on the mediating effect will be discussed by referencing appraisal tendency theory and response evaluation and decision.     

The moderating role of arousal on the seductive detail effect in a multimedia learning setting

Arousal has been found to increase learners' attentional resources. In contrast, seductive details (interesting but learning‐irrelevant information) are considered to distract attention away from relevant information and, thus, hinder learning. However, a possibly moderating role of arousal on the seductive detail effect has not been examined yet. In this study, arousal variations were induced via audio files of false heartbeats. In consequence, 100 participants were randomly assigned to a 2 (with or without seductive details) × 2 (lower vs. higher false heart rates) between‐subjects design. Data on learning performance, cognitive load, motivation, heartbeat frequency, and electro‐dermal activity were collected. Results show learning‐inhibiting effects for seductive details and learning‐enhancing effects for higher false heart rates. Cognitive processes mediate both effects. However, the detrimental effect of seductive details was not present when heart rate was higher. Results indicate that the seductive detail effect is moderated by a learner's state of arousal.     

Does attention impair temporal discrimination? Examining non-attentional accounts

Recently, Yeshurun and Levy (Psychol Sci 14:225-231, 2003) have provided evidence for the notion that visual attention impairs the temporal resolution of the visual system. Specifically, the detection of a temporal gap within a visual stimulus was impaired when a cue directed attention towards the spatial location of the stimulus. As this negative cueing effect is important to constrain theories about visual attention, we further investigated this novel effect and assessed whether it truly reflects an attentional effect. Experiment 1 examines whether the negative cueing effect is due to local temporal interference, and Experiments 2 and 3 investigate whether it reflects a luminance confound. The complete pattern of results argues against these alternatives and thus further strengthens the conclusion of Yeshurun and Levy (Psychol Sci 14: 225-231, 2003).     

Adjustments to recent and frequent conflict reflect two distinguishable mechanisms

In conflict paradigms such as the Eriksen flanker task, interference has been found to be reduced under conditions of recent and/or frequent cognitive conflict. Using a modified flanker task, we investigated the interplay of conflict recency and conflict frequency by comparing the interference reductions following conflict trials under conditions in which conflict was either frequent or infrequent overall, while controlling for stimulus and response feature repetitions to rule out nonattentional accounts. The reduction of flanker interference after a conflict trial was attenuated when overall conflict was frequent. This result is consistent with models assuming that processing adjustments occur gradually in response to conflict strength, such as the connectionist model of Botvinick, Braver, Barch, Carter, and Cohen (2001), in which both recency and frequency modulations are brought about by the same mechanism. By decomposing response times into initiation times and movement times, we revealed that frequent conflict delayed response initiation but sped up movement. Moreover, whereas frequent conflict reduced interference in both components, interference reduction after individual conflict trials was confined to movement times. Taken together, these results suggest that different mechanisms underlie the two kinds of modulation.