Tūsī on Avicenna’s Logical Connectives ∗

Tūsī, a thirteenth century logician writing in Arabic, uses two logical connectives to build up molecular propositions: ‘if-then’, and ‘either-or’. By referring to a dichotomous Tree, Tūsī shows how to choose the proper disjunction relative to the terms in the disjuncts. He also discusses the disjunctive propositions which follow from a conditional proposition     

Does gratitude to R for ϕ-ing imply gratitude that R ϕ-ed?

Philosophical Studies - Many find it plausible that for a given beneficiary, Y, benefactor, R, and action, ?, Y’s being grateful to R for ?-ing implies Y’s being grateful that...     

Effects of canonical color,luminance, and orientation on sustained inattentional blindness for scenes

Whether scene gist perception occurs automatically and unconsciously has been the subject of much debate. In addition to demonstrating a new method that adapts the Mack and Rock (1998) inattentional blindness cross procedure to allow for sustained inattentional blindness over a large number of trials, we report evidence from a series of experiments that shows that canonical scene features reduce inattentional blindness to scenes by facilitating the extraction of scene gist. When attentional demands are high, the combination of canonical color, canonical luminance, and canonical orientation reduces rates of inattentional blindness. However, when attentional demands are reduced, canonical features are independently sufficient to facilitate gist extraction and to capture attention. These results demonstrate that canonical color, canonical luminance, and canonical orientation all contribute to scene gist perception, and that when attentional demands are high, only highly canonical stimuli are sufficient to capture attention.     

Leader election outcomes as contextual moderators explaining the different frequencies of action-oriented terms and negation terms used in inaugural speeches of effective versus ineffective leaders and charismatic versus non-charismatic leaders: Evidence from 30 U.S. presidents

Psychologists have increasingly employed dictionary-based text analysis to examine the language of leadership, as leadership is embedded in a web of negotiated meanings and contextual factors. This research seeks to embed leaders’ rhetorical influence in leader–follower relationships and identify contextual factors that explain the different patterns of effective versus ineffective leaders’ and charismatic versus non-charismatic leaders’ uses of action-oriented terms and negation terms in their inaugural speeches. By analyzing data of 30 U.S. presidents’ inaugural addresses, presidential election outcomes, and leadership styles, I found that effective leaders used action-oriented terms more frequently in their inaugural speeches than ineffective leaders only when follower participation was low, whereas charismatic leaders used negation terms more frequently in their inaugural speeches than non-charismatic leaders only when follower endorsement was low. These findings suggest that effective leaders are attuned to action-related situational cues whereas charismatic leaders are attuned to value-related situational cues.     

Tele-counselling for Problem Gambling: A Case Study

Innovative approaches to the treatment of pathological gambling are required since the number of individuals who seek treatment tend to be fewer than the prevalence studies would indicate. In this study, an innovative approach to the treatment of pathological gambling was used in order to address the common hindrances to treatment-seeking these patients face. One such approach is to offer the option of manual-guided tele-counselling. This case study reports on the progress of one individual who was treated using this modality. For reasons of privacy and anonymity, the individual in this case report preferred to address her problem gambling with the assistance of a therapist whom she never met. The client was provided with 10 weeks of tele-counselling treatment during which six treatment modules were delivered. Problems of access, privacy and anonymity were overcome with this method and the client was able to reduce their gambling behavior significantly with the therapeutic gains being maintained at the 6-month follow-up. The implications for the treatment of problem gambling using a non-traditional approach are discussed.     

Because I want to share,not because I should: Prosocial implications of gratitude expression in repeated zero-sum resource allocation exchanges

Motivation and Emotion - The current research examines how gratitude (vs. neutral) expression indirectly reinforces prosocial resource-allocation decisions in repeated zero-sum social exchanges....     

Impaired memory retrieval correlates with individual differences in cortisol response but not autonomic response

Stress can enhance or impair memory performance. Both cortisol release and sympathetic nervous system responses have been implicated in these differential effects. Here we investigated how memory retrieval might be affected by stress-induced cortisol release, independently of sympathetic nervous system stress responses. Thirty-two healthy participants (16 women) learned emotionally arousing and neutral words. One hour later, half of the participants underwent a stressor (cold pressor test) and the other half, a control warm water exposure, both followed by a delayed free recall task. The stressed participants were split into those who did (responders, N = 8) and those who did not (nonresponders, N = 6) show a cortisol response. Both responders and nonresponders showed comparable sympathetic nervous system activity (skin conductance level) during the cold pressor. The cortisol responders recalled significantly fewer words compared to nonresponders, and compared to control participants; this effect was most pronounced for moderately arousing words (compared to highly arousing and neutral words). These results suggest that individual differences in cortisol reactivity affect memory retrieval performance, and help to explain the differential effects of stress on memory.