Judicial Responses to Civil Disobedience: A Comparative Approach

In this paper, I compare the extent of Anglo-American judicial engagement in response to civil disobedience with that of the French judiciary. I begin by examining what the civil disobedient can realistically expect to achieve in a court of law. I shall argue that his priority should be to require the judge, acting as a mouthpiece for the law, to respond to his complaints. To do this, the civil disobedient must be able to deny liability for the offence he has allegedly committed by urging a different interpretation of the law on the basis of an alternative -- but plausible -- reading of constitutional or human rights. If the civil disobedient can do this, he can claim a victory of sorts, even if his claims are ultimately unsuccessful. But legal culture can present a further barrier. Judges have different roles in different jurisdictions and therein lie further difficulties for the French civil disobedient.     

Inhibitory priming effects in auditory word recognition: when the target's competitors conflict with the prime word

Several studies indicate that the number of similar sounding words that are activated during recognition is a powerful predictor of performance on auditory targets. Words with few competitors are processed more quickly and accurately than words with many competitors. In the present study, we examined the contribution of the competitor set size in determining the magnitude of the inhibitory priming effect. The data show that the priming effect is stronger when word targets have few competitors. This result supports the view of direct competition between lexical candidates.     

Extinction of conditioned odor potentiation of startle

Several recent studies with rats (Sprague-Dawley strain) have documented that an odor previously paired with shock potentiates the acoustic startle response, a phenomenon referred to as conditioned odor potentiation of startle (OPS). A surprising finding in these studies was that OPS did not extinguish even though the odor was present throughout the 25-min test session. Therefore, the present study more fully examined extinction of OPS. The results of Experiment 1, which employed both within-subject and between-group comparisons, showed that extinction of OPS occurred in adult rats only after several days of testing. Experiment 2 used the between-group procedure and found similar results with 23-day-old rats, the youngest age that exhibits the OPS effect. Experiment 2 also showed that giving rats 15 odor-shock pairings at 16 days of age, an age where they acquire the odor-shock association but cannot express it via OPS, does not increase subsequent resistance to extinction following odor-shock pairings at 23 days of age. Taken together, the results of this study show that (1) although OPS is somewhat resistant to extinction, it does extinguish with repeated tests and (2) suggests that there are no age differences in the rate of extinction of OPS.     

Computerised Cognitive Behavioural Therapy for the Prevention and Treatment of Depression and Anxiety in Children and Adolescents: A Systematic Review

Research has shown that computerised cognitive behaviour therapy (cCBT) can be effective in the treatment of depression and anxiety in adults, although the outcomes with children and adolescents are unclear. The aim of the study is to systematically review the literature on the effectiveness of cCBT for the prevention and treatment of depression and anxiety in children and adolescents. EMBASE, PsychInfo and Pubmed were searched using specific terms and inclusion criteria for cCBT studies involving young people under the age of 18. A hand search was also conducted, and the authors were contacted to identify additional papers. Ten studies met the inclusion criteria. These included case series and randomised controlled trials concerned with both treatment and prevention. Six different software packages were described that varied in length and the nature and extent of professional contact and supervision. All studies reported reductions in clinical symptoms and also improvements in variables such as behaviour, self-esteem and cognitions. Satisfaction with treatment was moderate to high from both children and parents, though levels of drop out and non-completion were often high. Additional randomised controlled trials are required, as the literature is currently limited. However, preliminary evidence suggests that cCBT is an acceptable and effective intervention for this age group.     

A New Interpretation of the Weighted Kappa Coefficients

Reliability and agreement studies are of paramount importance. They do contribute to the quality of studies by providing information about the amount of error inherent to any diagnosis, score or measurement. Guidelines for reporting reliability and agreement studies were recently provided. While the use of the kappa-like family is advised for categorical and ordinal scales, no further guideline in the choice of a weighting scheme is given. In the present paper, a new simple and practical interpretation of the linear- and quadratic-weighted kappa coefficients is given. This will help researchers in motivating their choice of a weighting scheme.     

The development of co-representation effects in a joint task: Do children represent a co-actor?

When two adults jointly perform a task, they often show interference effects whereby the other’s task interferes with their own performance (Sebanz, Knoblich, & Prinz, 2003). The current study investigated whether these co-representation effects can be observed in young children. This phenomenon can be used as a criterion for adult-like joint action in children, which has been under debate in existing literature due to the difficulty in identifying what mechanisms underlie the behaviours observed (Brownell, 2011). In Experiment 1, two children performed an adapted Bear Dragon task (Kochanska, Murray, Jacques, Koenig, & Vandegeest, 1996), where children were required to point to a picture when instructed to do so by one puppet and to inhibit pointing when instructed to by the other. In the Same Task condition, both children in a pair were asked to respond to the same puppet, whereas in the Different Task condition, they were asked to respond to different puppets. Children made more errors in the Different Task condition than the Same Task, suggesting that they were experiencing interference from their partner’s task rule. In Experiment 2 children in Different and Same task conditions began with the same task as in Experiment 1 and then switched which puppet to respond to. Switch costs were lower in the Different task condition, consistent with children having already represented the alternative task rule on behalf of their partner during the pre-switch phase. Experiment 3 replicated the effect of Task in a novel computer-based paradigm with children between 4 and 5 years, but not younger. These data provide the first direct evidence that children as young as 4 years co-represent a partner's task during a joint activity, and that younger children may not be capable of co-representation.     

Auditory attention switching and judgment switching: Exploring multicomponent task representations

An auditory attention-switching paradigm was combined with a judgment-switching paradigm to examine the interaction of a varying auditory attention component and a varying judgment component. Participants heard two dichotically presented stimuli—one spoken by a female speaker and one spoken by a male speaker. In each trial, the stimuli were a spoken letter and a spoken number. A visual explicit cue at the beginning of each trial indicated the auditory attention criterion (speaker sex/ear) to identify the target stimulus (Experiment 1) or the judgment that had to be executed (Experiment 2). Hence, the attentional selection criterion switched independently between speaker sexes (or between ears), while the judgment alternated between letter categorization and number categorization. The data indicate that auditory attention criterion and judgment were not processed independently, regardless of whether the attention criterion or the judgment was cued. The partial repetition benefits of the explicitly cued component suggested a hierarchical organization of the auditory attention component and the judgment component within the task set. We suggest that the hierarchy arises due to the explicit cuing of one component rather than due to a “natural” hierarchy of auditory attention component and judgment component.