See the devil and tame him

Born in 1921, professor of philosophy at the University of Warsaw and art theory in the Polish Academy of Sciences; has published twelve books and more than three hundred articles (bibliography in volume 14 of A. Mercier (ed.).Philosophers on Their Own Work. Bern: 1990) ranging over the history of aesthetics, Marxist and Soviet aesthetics, and issues related to the status of the arts in contemporary Western culture.     

Mobilizing positive reinforcement in communities to reduce youth access to tobacco

A community intervention to mobilize positive reinforcement for not selling tobacco to young people was evaluated. The intervention had five components: (a) mobilization of community support, (b) merchant education, (c) changing consequences to clerks for selling or not selling to those under 18, (d) publicity about clerks’ refusals to sell, and (e) feedback to store owners or managers about the extent of their sales to adolescents. A multiple baseline design experiment was conducted, in which two small Oregon communities received the intervention, while two others continued in baseline. Outlets’ willingness to sell was assessed repeatedly by teenage volunteers. The intervention significantly reduced the proportion of stores willing to sell. Mobilizing socia and material reinforcement for stores not selling tobacco to young people is a viable means of reducing such sales. It may be especially valuable in communities where laws against sales to minors go unenforced. This paper supported in part by the National Cancer Institute Grant CA38273.     

Response force is sensitive to the temporal uncertainty of response stimuli

Three experiments examined whether temporal uncertainty about the delivery of a response stimulus affects response force in a simple reaction time (RT) situation. All experiments manipulated the foreperiod; that is, the interval between a warning signal and the response stimulus. In the constant condition, foreperiod length was kept constant over a block of trials but changed from block to block. In the variable condition, foreperiod length varied randomly from trial to trial. A visual warning and response stimulus were used in Experiment 1; response force decreased with foreperiod length in the variable condition, but increased in the constant condition. This result is consistent with the hypothesis that responses are less forceful when the temporal occurrence of the response stimulus is predictable. In a second experiment with an auditory warning signal and a response stimulus, response force was less sensitive to foreperiod manipulations. The third experiment manipulated both the modality and the intensity of the response signal and employed a tactile warning signal. This experiment indicated that neither the modality nor the intensity of the response signal affects the relation between response force and foreperiod length. An extension of Näätänen’s (1971) motor-readiness model accounts for the main results.     

Postnatal development of heart rate patterns elicited by an aversive CS and US in cats

Heart rate and motor responses were recorded in cats of different ages during classical conditioning. A deceleratory-acceleratory heart rate pattern observed during the CS-US interval in one and four-week-old kittens is an alpha conditioned response, a potentiated original response to the CS. At eight weeks of age two new distinct patterns of pure acceleration or pure deceleration are acquired during conditioning and in the absence of motor learning. At 12 weeks of age and in adult subjects, heart rate patterns during the CS-US interval become more complex and conditioned motor responses can be observed. A covariance of HR acceleration and motor responses during the CS-US interval is absent in eight-week-old subjects, but quite high in 12-week-old subjects and adult cats. The data are interpreted as suggesting separate elicitatory mechanisms of HR and motor responses which may show synchrony later in ontogeny.     

Towards a new model of science

Journal for General Philosophy of Science - One — Sided understanding of Aristotle led to the view that the principal aim of science is general knowledge. In modern times this view must be...     

Dwuwymiarowe wykresy dowodów i ich znaczenie dydaktyczne

Allatum est die 2 Julii 1969     

Use and interpretation of test scores from limited cognitive test batteries: How g + Gc can equal g

Single scores from limited and unbalanced test batteries of cognitive ability can be ambiguous to interpret theoretically. In this study, a limited verbally and knowledge‐loaded cognitive test battery, from applicants to the Swedish police academies (N = 1,344), was examined to provide foundations for the use and interpretation of test scores. Three measurement models were compared: one single factor model and two bifactor models, which decomposed the variance of the battery into orthogonal components. The models were evaluated by fit indices and omega coefficients, and then applied to the prediction of academic performance. The overall prediction of all models was similar, although specific abilities also were found to provide substantial predictive validity over and above general intelligence (g). The findings provide support for the use of single scores in applied settings (selection), but suggest that it may be more appropriate to interpret such scores as composites of substantive components, and not just as measures of g.