Psychopaths and blame: The argument from content

The recent debate over the moral responsibility of psychopaths has centered on whether, or in what sense, they understand moral requirements. In this paper, I argue that even if they do understand what morality requires, the content of their actions is not of the right kind to justify full-blown blame. I advance two independent justifications of this claim. First, I argue that if the psychopath comes to know what morality requires via a route that does not involve a proper appreciation of what it means to cause another harm or distress, the content of violations of rules against harm will be of a lower grade than the content of similar actions by normal individuals. Second, I argue that in order to intend a harm to a person—that is, to intend the distinctive kind of harm that can only befall a person—it is necessary to understand what personhood is and what makes it valuable. The psychopath's deficits with regard to mental time travel ensure that s/he cannot intend this kind of harm.     

The time course of episodic associative retrieval: Electrophysiological correlates of cued recall of unimodal and crossmodal pair-associate learning

Little is known about the time course of processes supporting episodic cued recall. To examine these processes, we recorded event-related scalp electrical potentials during episodic cued recall following pair-associate learning of unimodal object-picture pairs and crossmodal object-picture and sound pairs. Successful cued recall of unimodal associates was characterized by markedly early scalp potential differences over frontal areas, while cued recall of both unimodal and crossmodal associates were reflected by subsequent differences recorded over frontal and parietal areas. Notably, unimodal cued recall success divergences over frontal areas were apparent in a time window generally assumed to reflect the operation of familiarity but not recollection processes, raising the possibility that retrieval success effects in that temporal window may reflect additional mnemonic processes beyond familiarity. Furthermore, parietal scalp potential recall success differences, which did not distinguish between crossmodal and unimodal tasks, seemingly support attentional or buffer accounts of posterior parietal mnemonic function but appear to constrain signal accumulation, expectation, or representational accounts.     

Using Small-Group Instruction to Improve Students' Reading Fluency: An Evaluation of the Existing Research

Reading fluency is necessary for reading comprehension, but approximately 40% of U.S. fourth-grade students have inadequate reading fluency skills. Because small-group (SG) instruction is often used as a first line of intervention for struggling readers, SG instruction targeting deficiencies in text reading fluency ought to be part of every school's intervention toolbox. The authors summarize the existing research on instruction and interventions that specifically targets reading fluency and is implemented by an adult with 3 or more students at once. Key findings revealed that most studies used a single-case design, nearly all studies were rated positively in terms of methodological quality, and the majority of participants significantly improved as a result of receiving SG intervention. Furthermore, of the five studies examining comparable SG and 1-on-1 interventions, 79% of the students performed equally well from both interventions. Implications and several recommendations for future research are discussed.     

Childbirth and Alcohol Consumption Impact of Recent Childbirth on Alcohol Consumption

While the devastating effects of parental alcohol use on children’s health are well known, the specific impact of childbirth on parental alcohol consumption has rarely been examined in the general population. We sought to examine patterns of alcohol use associated with childbirth. Data were drawn from the US National Epidemiologic Survey on Alcohol and Related Conditions. We compared successively the characteristics of alcohol use among females living with a child under 1 year with (i) those of females not living with children under 1 year and (ii) those of females living with an older child. Mean daily ethanol intake was lower among females living with a child under 1 than among females either not living with children under 1 year (p?<?0.001) or living with an older child (p?<?0.01). Moreover, low-to-mild drinking frequencies fell among females living with a child under 1, compared with females either not living with children under 1 year (adjusted odds ratio (AOR)?=?0.56; 95% CI [0.40, 0.80] for at least once a month and AOR?=?0.40; 95% CI [0.27, 0.58] for less than once a month) or living with an older child (AOR?=?0.52; 95% CI [0.36, 0.75] for at least once a month and AOR?=?0.66, 95% CI [0.46, 0.94] for less than a month). No significant difference was found for males. Our study suggests that childbirth, as opposed to motherhood per se, reduces several (though not all) dimensions of alcohol consumption in females, but not in males.     

You meta believe it

Because of the privileged place of beliefs in explaining behaviour, mismatch cases—in which agents sincerely claim to believe that p, but act in a way that is inconsistent with that belief—have attracted a great deal of attention. In this paper, I argue that some of these cases, at least, are at least partially explained by agents believing that they believe that p, while failing to believe that p. Agents in these cases do not believe that ~p; rather, they have an indistinct first‐order, beliefy, representation that p. The indistinctness of this first‐order representation provides the leeway for the inconsistency seen in their behaviour.     

Neither Fish nor Fowl: Implicit Attitudes as Patchy Endorsements

Implicit attitudes are mental states that appear sometimes to cause agents to act in ways that conflict with their considered beliefs. Implicit attitudes are usually held to be mere associations between representations. Recently, however, some philosophers have suggested that they are, or are very like, ordinary beliefs: they are apt to feature in properly inferential processing. This claim is important, in part because there is good reason to think that the vocabulary in which we make moral assessments of ourselves and of others is keyed to folk psychological concepts, like ‘belief’, and not to concepts that feature only in scientific psychology: if implicit attitudes are beliefs there is a prima facie case for thinking that they can serve as the basis for particular kinds of moral assessment. In this paper I argue that while implicit attitudes have propositional structure, their sensitivity and responsiveness to other mental representations is too patchy and fragmented for them to properly be considered beliefs. Instead, they are a sui generis kind of mental state, a state I dub patchy endorsements.     

Spiritual coaching in cancer patients: treating the spirit as well as the disease

Interest in the exploration of spirituality in medical practice has been growing recently due to some studies suggesting its role in the improvement of patient well-being and quality of life. This project examined the feasibility of providing spiritual coaching with patients in an outpatient Radiation Oncology clinic setting. The purpose of spiritual coaching was to provide patients with opportunities to explore their current spiritual lives, increase their involvement in spiritually enhancing activities, and expand their spiritual opportunities. Quality-of-life measurements focused on feelings of hopefulness and distress were used in patients undergoing radiation treatment for cancer. This study suggests that there is a potential benefit for spiritual coaching in the care of cancer patients, and future studies will be done to further el ucidate the ationship of spirituality and quality of life in this population.     

Using a metaperspective to clarify the structural-narrative debate in family therapy

The debate in family therapy between structural and narrative therapists often seems irreconcilable. Drawing from work in theoretical sociology that identifies the basic structure of existing social theory, a metaperspective is introduced to clarify a discussion between leading figures in the debate. Disparate views of family interactions are examined in terms of more fundamental disagreements about the center of attention in therapy. Narrative and structural modes of presentation are examined as separate traditions that could not be further apart conceptually. Efforts to identify common ground are discussed in terms of more significant differences that are minimized by drawing out similarities. This analysis provides a framework for standing outside entrenched arguments to see more clearly the unique contributions of each approach.     

Kinematic assessment of treadmill running using different body-weight support harnesses

10 male collegiate runners (M age = 21.4, SD = 1.5 yr.) ran on a treadmill with no body-weight support (BWS), 20% BWS, and 40% BWS conditions. In addition, they wore three different commercially available harnesses at the 20% and 40% BWS conditions. The aim was to run on the treadmill at a fast speed while maintaining an adequate step length. The purpose was to investigate how each harness changed running gait, and the differences in running gait between the harnesses with various body-weight support. Analysis of variance indicated significant restriction of upper body torso rotation between the harnesses at the 40% BWS conditions. Body-weight support resulted in a longer stride, decreased cadence, less vertical displacement of the center of mass, and diminished hip and ankle joint excursions. These changes indicated that increased body-weight support results in longer steps with the foot contacting the belt for a shorter period of time with less leg angular changes throughout the running cycling.     

Learning Under Conditions of Action Information Feedback

Methodological and empirical issues in research on action information feedback (AIF) are discussed, with particular reference to the procedures and results of Annett (1970). Positioning responses practiced under conditions of AIF training are learned, though generally less well than under terminal IF conditions. Effects obtained as a result of AIF training may be subject to variations in movement extent required, gain and other transformations, frequency, temporal locus, and mode of augmentation, many aspects of which remain to be systematically studied.