The Ethics of Teaching Rhetorical Intertextuality

Journal of Academic Ethics - Three approaches to intertextual writing are available to college instructors: mechanical, ethical, and rhetorical. The mechanical approach, a staple of writing...     

Eye movements are not a prerequisite for learning movement sequence timing through observation

The present experiment examined learning of a three-segment movement sequence using physical or observational practice, and whether permitting eye movements to be made during observation is a prerequisite for learning such a movement sequence. Specifically, participants were required to move a mouse cursor through a three-segment movement sequence in order to satisfy one of three movement time goals (800, 1000, 1200 ms). A yoked-participant design was used in which a physical practice group acted as a learning model, which was viewed simultaneously by two groups that carried out different observational practice procedures. An observation group was permitted to move their eyes whilst observing the model, whereas the fixation group was instructed to maintain fixation on a central target. The difference between pre-test and post-test data indicated that all the three experimental groups significantly altered their timing accuracy, variability and movement kinematics over practice, while the control group’s behaviour was unchanged. These data indicate that movement time as well as the underlying movement control was learned following observation of a movement with or without an explicit contribution from eye movements, albeit to a lesser extent during the final segment of the sequence when compared to the physical practice group. The implication is that while similar processes might normally be involved in physical and observational practice, information afforded by eye movements during observation (e.g., efference copy and eye proprioception) is not necessary for movement sequence learning.     

Too much to count on: impaired very small numbers in corticobasal degeneration

Patients with corticobasal degeneration (CBD) have calculation impairments. This study examined whether impaired number knowledge depends on verbal mediation. We focused particularly on knowledge of very small numbers, where there is a precise relationship between a cardinality and its number concept, but little hypothesized role for verbal mediation. We evaluated accuracy and reaction time (RT) for matching dot arrays and Arabic numerals involving smaller (2-4) and larger (5-9) cardinalities in non-aphasic patients with CBD (n=16), frontotemporal dementia (FTD; n=23), and healthy controls (n=15). CBD were less accurate and slowed at judging smaller Arabic numeral-dot array stimuli compared to FTD patients and controls. Moreover, only CBD showed longer RTs judging successively larger number-dot array pairs among the smaller cardinalities. Difficulty judging very small numbers is impaired in CBD, suggesting degraded representation of precise number knowledge that does not depend on language functioning.     

Delineating components of emotion and its dysregulation in anxiety and mood psychopathology

Two studies sought to elucidate the components of emotion and its dysregulation and examine their role in both the overlap and distinctness of the symptoms of 3 highly comorbid anxiety and mood disorders (i.e., generalized anxiety disorder, major depression, and social anxiety disorder). In Study 1, exploratory factor analyses demonstrated that 4 factors--heightened intensity of emotions, poor understanding of emotions, negative reactivity to emotions, and maladaptive management of emotions--best reflected the structure of 4 commonly used measures of emotion function and dysregulation. In Study 2, a separate sample provided support for this 4-factor model of emotion dysregulation. Poor understanding, negative reactivity, and maladaptive management were found to relate to a latent factor of emotion dysregulation. In contrast, heightened intensity of emotions was better characterized separately, suggesting it may relate more strongly to dispositional emotion generation or emotionality. Finally, the 4 components demonstrated both common and specific relationships to self-reported symptoms of generalized anxiety disorder, major depression, and social anxiety disorder.     

Embedding an identity-matching task within a prompting hierarchy to facilitate acquisition of conditional discriminations in children with autism

Least-to-most prompting hierarchies (e.g., progressing from verbal to modeled to physical prompts until the target response occurs) may be ineffective when the prompts do not cue the individual to attend to the relevant stimulus dimensions. In such cases, emission of the target response persistently requires one or more of the higher level prompts, a condition called prompt dependence (Clark & Green, 2004). Reinforcement of differential observing responses (DORs) has sometimes been used to ensure that participants attend to the relevant stimulus dimensions in matching-to-sample (MTS) tasks (e.g., Dube & McIlvane, 1999). For 2 participants with autism, we embedded an identity-matching task within a prompting hierarchy as a DOR to increase the likelihood that the participants attended to and discriminated the relevant features of the comparison stimuli in an MTS task. This procedure was compared with a traditional least-to-most prompting hierarchy and a no-reinforcement control condition in a multielement design. Results for both participants indicated that mastery-level acquisition of spoken-word-to-picture relations occurred only under the identity-matching condition. Findings are discussed relative to the use of DORs to facilitate acquisition of conditional discriminations in persons with autism or other conditions who do not attend to the comparison stimuli.     

Type of Job Loss and its Impact on Decision Control, Mastery, and Depression: Comparison of Employee and Company-Stated Reasons

In the present study, we explore agreement between company versus self-reported reasons for job loss and the degree of perceived control employees report over the job loss, looking to see if either job loss type or perceived control is related to subsequent levels of mastery and depression. Two thousand two hundred seventy-nine of 3,700 (61%) employees responded to a survey at Time One; of these participants, 310 later lost their jobs and were mailed a Time Two survey. Comparison of self- versus company-reported reasons for the job loss from the 171 usable surveys (55% response rate) revealed relatively good agreement. Roughly one third of the former employees, however, categorized the job loss in more than one way. There was also a very strong tendency for employees to report that they had very high control over the decision to leave the company, and nearly all employees reported improvements to their levels of mastery and depression; exceptions to this pattern were observed for those losing their jobs due to “rule violation” or “involuntary layoff.” Control over the job loss was related to Time Two levels of mastery and depression, but only weakly related to changes in these outcomes moving from Time One to Time Two.     

Should Extremely Premature Babies Get Ventilators During the COVID-19 Crisis?

Abstract

In a crisis, societal needs take precedence over a patient’s best interests. Triage guidelines, however, differ on whether limited resources should focus on maximizing lives or life-years. Choosing between these two approaches has implications for neonatology. Neonatal units have ventilators, some adaptable for adults. This raises the question of whether, in crisis conditions, guidelines for treating extremely premature babies should be altered to free-up ventilators. Some adults who need ventilators will have a survival rate higher than some extremely premature babies. But surviving babies will likely live longer, maximizing life-years. Empiric evidence demonstrates that these babies can derive significant survival benefits from ventilation when compared to adults. When “triaging” or choosing between patients, justice demands fair guidelines. Premature babies do not deserve special consideration; they deserve equal consideration. Solidarity is crucial but must consider needs specific to patient populations and avoid biases against people with disabilities and extremely premature babies.     

Black Lives Matter: We are in the Same Storm but we are not in the Same Boat

Black Lives Matter is a clarion call for racial equality and racial justice. With the arrival of Africans as slaves in 1619, a racial hierarchy was formed in the United States. However, slavery is commonly dismissed as that less than noble aspect of the United States’ history without really confronting the legacies of racial inequality and racial injustice left in its wake. White supremacy, based on the myths of white superiority and Black inferiority, have obscured racial inequality and racial injustice, resulting in blaming the victims. Using Black Lives Matter as a platform, we focus on some key considerations for theory, research, education, training, and practice in clinical, community, and larger systems contexts. Broadly, we focus on Black Lives Matter, literally; Black dehumanization; historical oppression; healing; and implications for the field of family therapy. More specifically, we draw attention to health disparities, mass incarceration and aggressive policing, intergenerational racial trauma, restorative justice, and antiracist work.