Must Skepticism Remain Refuted? Inheriting Skepticism with Cavell and Levinas

Topoi - This article defends Cavell and Levinas’ view that anti-skeptical arguments cannot attain universal assent. In the first half of the article, I argue that Conant’s reading of...     

Rice-farming areas report more anxiety across two years of the COVID-19 pandemic in China

Cultures responded to the COVID-19 pandemic differently. We investigated cultural differences in mental health during the pandemic. We found regional differences in people's reports of anxiety in China over two years from 2020 to 2021 (N = 1186). People in areas with a history of rice farming reported more anxiety than people in wheat-farming areas. Next, we explored more proximal mechanisms that could help link the distal, historical factor of rice farming to people's modern experience of anxiety. Rice areas scored higher on collectivism and tight social norms than wheat areas, and collectivism, rather than norm tightness, mediated the rice-anxiety relationship. These findings advance our understanding of the distal sources of cultural differences, the proximal mechanisms, and mental health problems during the pandemics.     

Stop the blame game: An analysis of blaming on Weibo during the early days of the COVID-19 pandemic in rice and wheat areas in China

In the pandemic era, social media has provided the public with a platform to make their voice heard. One of the most important public opinions online during a pandemic is blame. Blame can lead to stigma towards patients as well as potential patients and decrease social cooperation, which might impede prevention and control measures during epidemics. Thus, studying online blame during the early days of COVID-19 can facilitate the management and control of future pandemics. By analyzing 3791 posts from one of the most popular social media sites in China (Weibo) over the 10 days immediately after COVID-19 was declared to be a communicable disease, we found that there were four main agents blamed online: Individuals, corporations, institutions, and the media. Most of the blame targeted individual agents. We also found that there were regional-cultural differences in the detailed types of blamed individual agents, that is, between rice- and wheat-farming areas in China. After controlling influence of distance from the epicenter of Wuhan, there were still stable differences between regions: people in wheat areas had a higher probability of blaming agentic, harmful individuals, and people in rice areas had a higher probability of blaming individuals with low awareness of social norms for preventive health behavior. Findings have implications for preventing and predicting blame across cultures in future pandemics.     

Remembering complex sentences

Recall of complex sentences at two retention intervals was examined, using sentences which varied simultaneously in three ways, being either active or passive, of low or high Yngve depth, and predictable or unpredictable. Recall of any particular sentence was cued with either the logical subject, logical object, verb or adverbial phrase noun. In general, unpredictable sentences were recollected better than predictable ones, low Yngve depth sentences were recalled better than high Yngve depth ones, and passive sentences were retained better than active ones. The most effective cue was the object, followed in turn by the subject and the adverbial phrase noun, with the verb being least effective. Implications of these findings are discussed.     

Momentary maximizing in concurrent schedules with a minimum interchangeover interval

Eight pigeons were trained on concurrent variable-interval variable-interval schedules with a minimum interchangeover time programmed as a consequence of changeovers. In Experiment 1 the reinforcement schedules remained constant while the minimum interchangeover time varied from 0 to 200 s. Relative response rates and relative time deviated from relative reinforcement rates toward indifference with long minimum interchangeover times. In Experiment 2 different reinforcement ratios were scheduled in successive experimental conditions with the minimum interchangeover time constant at 0, 2, 10, or 120 s. The exponent of the generalized matching equation was close to 1.0 when the minimum interchangeover time was 0 s (the typical procedure for concurrent schedules without a changeover delay) and decreased as that duration was increased. The data support the momentary maximizing theory and contradict molar maximizing theories and the melioration theory.     

What does the cook and medley hostility scale measure? Affect, behavior, and attributions in the marital context

The Cook and Medley (1954) Hostility (Ho) scale has been used in several important studies evaluating potential health consequences of hostility. A relative lack of compelling information about the construct validity of the Ho scale, however, has raised concerns about the appropriate interpretation of previous research. In this study, 60 married couples discussed a low conflict topic, a high conflict topic, and then a second low conflict topic. High Ho men responded to the high conflict topic with significant increases in self-reported anger and anxiety and overt hostile behavior, but low Ho men did not. Furthermore, compared to low Ho men, high Ho men blamed their wives more for their usual disagreements on the high conflict topic and saw their disagreement-engendering behavior as more intentional. Among women, Ho scores were weakly related only to overt hostile behavior. Finally, couples consisting of two low Ho persons displayed a uniquely agreeable interactional style.     

The effects of varying fins in Müller-Lyer and Holding illusions

Summary Five experiments were conducted to determine how distortion of spatial position induced by unidirectional Müller-Lyer fins varied as a function of angle and length of fins. Research employing Cornsweet's staircase method yielded ambiguous results, but psychophysical methods of magnitude estimation, paired comparisons, and production showed conclusively that distortions of position are affected by angle and length of fins in a manner similar to that found in distortions of length. It was concluded that similar strategies are employed in processing attributes of length and position and that a theory based on averaging of attributes within an attentional field describes the performance of real observers.Experiments 1 and 2 were reported in a Master's thesis submitted by Nancy Smith to the University of Manitoba in 1987.