In Defense of Sensitivity

The sensitivity condition on knowledge says that one knows that P only if one would not believe that P if P were false. Difficulties for this condition are now well documented. Keith DeRose has recently suggested a revised sensitivity condition that is designed to avoid some of these difficulties. We argue, however, that there are decisive objections to DeRose’s revised condition. Yet rather than simply abandoning his proposed condition, we uncover a rationale for its adoption, a rationale which suggests a further revision that avoids our objections as well as others. The payoff is considerable: along the way to our revision, we learn lessons about the epistemic significance of certain explanatory relations, about how we ought to envisage epistemic closure principles, and about the epistemic significance of methods of belief formation.     

Interindividual‐intergroup discontinuity as a joint function of acting as a group and interacting with a group

An experiment assessed the prisoner's dilemma game (PDG) choices of a set of three persons who interacted with another supposed set of three persons. There were four conditions: (1) group‐on‐group (both three‐person sets constrained by a majority vote), (2) group‐on‐one (only own three‐person set constrained by a majority vote), (3) one‐on‐group (only other three‐person set constrained by a majority vote), (4) one‐on‐one (neither three‐person set constrained by a majority vote). The four conditions were compared with three orthogonal contrasts. Consistent with the assumption that interindividual interactions are less competitive than interactions involving groups, the first contrast indicated that there were fewer competitive choices in the one‐on‐one condition than in the other three conditions pooled. Consistent with the assumption that competitiveness can flow either from acting as a group or interacting with a group, the second contrast found no significant difference between the group‐on‐one and one‐on‐group conditions. Finally, consistent with the assumption that the interindividual‐intergroup discontinuity effect is a joint function of acting as a group and interacting with a group, the third contrast revealed that there were more competitive choices in the group‐on‐group condition than in the one‐on‐group and group‐on‐one conditions pooled. Copyright © 2006 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Reduced specificity of autobiographical memory and depression: the role of executive control

It has been widely established that depressed mood states and clinical depression, as well as a range of other psychiatric disorders, are associated with a relative difficulty in accessing specific autobiographical information in response to emotion-related cue words on an Autobiographical Memory Test (AMT; J. M. G. Williams & K. Broadbent, 1986). In 8 studies the authors examined the extent to which this relationship is a function of impaired executive control associated with these mood states and clinical disorders. Studies 1-4 demonstrated that performance on the AMT is associated with performance on measures of executive control, independent of depressed mood. Furthermore, Study 1 showed that executive control (as measured by verbal fluency) mediated the relationship between both depressed mood and a clinical diagnosis of eating disorder and AMT performance. Using a stratified sample in Study 5, the authors confirmed the positive association between depressed mood and impaired performance on the AMT. Studies 6-8 involved experimental manipulations of the parameters of the AMT designed to further indicate that reduced executive control is to a significant extent driving the relationship between depressed mood and AMT performance. The potential role of executive control in accounting for other aspects of the AMT literature is discussed.     

On-task distractors associated with totball baseball games: a preliminary study

Two totball baseball leagues in southern Louisiana were monitored to judge what type of parental involvement yielded the highest on-task behaviors among participants. 39 children ages 3 to 5 years participated in 3- or 4-inning baseball games with parents on the field. In the Parent on Bases League, a parent stood on first, second, and third base only. In the Parent with Every Child League, a parent stood next to every child on the field. Children were observed on the field at three different dates at 1-min. intervals during the first two innings of one game in both leagues. On-task behaviors were defined as standing in the correct field position and watching the ball. Off-task behaviors consisted of sitting, rolling on the field, talking to a coach or parent, and not watching the ball. A statistically significant difference in the percent of time children spent on-task favored the Parents on Bases League (75.7) versus the other league (50.3). Having fewer parents on the field in these baseball games kept players on-task more effectively than having a parent with each child.     

The categorical structure of knowledge for famous people (and a novel application of Centre-Surround theory)

Knowledge of familiar people is essential to guide social interaction, yet there is uncertainty about whether semantic knowledge for people is stored in a categorical structure as for objects. Four priming experiments using hard-to-perceive primes investigated whether occupation forms a category connecting famous persons in semantic memory. Primes were famous faces exposed for 17ms with masking, resulting in severely restricted awareness and thus precluding expectancy-based priming effects. Targets were consciously perceptible famous faces (Experiments 1-3), famous names (Experiment 3), or occupations (Experiment 4) representing either the same or different occupation to the prime. Significant priming demonstrated the operation of automatic processes, including spreading activation, among persons sharing a common occupation; this supports the categorical view. The direction of priming (faster/slower responses to same-occupation than different-occupation targets) was dependent on prime-target stimulus onset asynchrony (Experiments 1-3) and type of target (Experiment 4). This pattern of results is attributed to the Centre-Surround mechanism proposed by Carr and Dagenbach [Carr, T. H., & Dagenbach, D. (1990). Semantic priming and repetition priming from masked words: evidence for a centre-surround attentional mechanism in perceptual recognition. Journal of Experimental Psychology: Learning, Memory and Cognition, 16, 341-350]. These results support (a) the categorical structure of semantic knowledge for famous people and (b) the application of the Centre-Surround mechanism to the domain of person recognition.     

The accuracy of self-monitoring and its relationship to self-focused attention in dysphoria and clinical depression

The accuracy with which dysphoric (Study 1) and clinically depressed (Study 2) individuals make self-regulatory judgments about their own performance in the absence of external feedback and the extent to which this relates to trait self-focused attention (SFA) were examined. Relative to objective criteria, both dysphoric and depressed participants showed a positive judgment bias, overestimating the number of trials they had performed correctly. Relative to control participants, the dysphoric and depressed groups showed a reduction in the extent of this positive bias in that they judged error trials more accurately and correct trials less accurately. Although the dysphoric and depressed groups both reported elevated trait SFA, this did not correlate significantly with accuracy of self-judgment on the performance-monitoring task. Implications for self-regulation models of depression are discussed.     

Diagnostic, demographic, memory quality, and cognitive variables associated with acute stress disorder in children and adolescents

To date, no studies have investigated factors associated with acute stress disorder (ASD) in children and adolescents. Relationships between ASD and a number of demographic, trauma, cognitive, and trauma memory variables were therefore investigated in a sample (N=93) of children and adolescents involved in assaults and motor vehicle accidents. Several cognitive variables and the quality of trauma memories, but not demographic or trauma variables, were correlated with ASD and also mediated the relationship between peritraumatic threat and ASD. Finally, nosological analyses comparing ASD with indexes of posttraumatic stress disorder in the month posttrauma revealed little support for the dissociation mandate that uniquely characterizes ASD. The results are discussed with respect to assessment and treatment for the acute traumatic stress responses of children and young people.     

Psychological profiles and emotional regulation characteristics of women engaged in risk-taking sports

We investigated the psychological profiles and emotional regulation characteristics of women involved in risk-taking sports. The research sample (N=180) consisted of three groups of women engaged in: (1) non-risk sports (N=90); (2) risk-taking sports for leisure purposes (N=53); or (3) risk-taking sports as professionals (N=37). Each participant completed five questionnaires, the Sensation Seeking Scale, the Bem Sex Role Inventory, the Barratt Impulsiveness Scale, Risk & Excitement Inventory, and the Toronto Alexithymia Scale. The results revealed significant differences between the groups' profiles. Of particular interest are the differences that exist between the profiles of Group 2 (escape profile, masculine gender identity, and high scores on sensation seeking, impulsivity, alexithymia) and Group 3 (compensation profile, androgynous gender identity, average score on sensation seeking, and low scores on impulsivity, alexithymia). We propose that the professional woman might be considered a model for preventing destructive risk-taking behaviors.     

Event-related potentials and recognition memory

According to dual-process models, recognition memory is supported by distinct retrieval processes known as familiarity and recollection. Important evidence supporting the dual-process framework has come from studies using event-related brain potentials (ERPs). These studies have identified two topographically distinct ERP correlates of recognition memory--the "parietal" and "mid-frontal" old/new effects--that are dissociated by variables that selectively modulate recollection and familiarity, respectively. We evaluate the extent to which ERP data support dual-process models in light of the proposal that recollection is a continuous rather than a discrete memory process. We also examine the claim that the putative ERP index of familiarity is a reflection of implicit rather than explicit memory. We conclude that ERP findings continue to offer strong support for the dual-process perspective.