Medieval <Emphasis Type="Italic">Obligationes</Emphasis> as Logical Games of Consistency Maintenance

I argue that the medieval form of dialectical disputation known as obligationes can be viewed as a logical game of consistency maintenance. The game has two participants, Opponent and Respondent. Opponent puts forward a proposition P; Respondent must concede, deny or doubt, on the basis of inferential relations between P and previously accepted or denied propositions, or, in case there is none, on the basis of the common set of beliefs. Respondent loses the game if he concedes a contradictory set of propositions. Opponent loses the game if Respondent is able to maintain consistency during the stipulated period of time. The obligational rules are here formalised by means of familiar notational devices, and the application of some game-theoretical concepts, such as (winning) strategy, moves, motivation, allows for an analysis of some crucial properties of the game. In particular, the primacy of inferential (syntactic) relations over semantic aspects and the dynamic character of obligations are outlined.     

Comparability of Self‐Reported Conscientiousness Across 21 Countries

In cross‐national studies, mean levels of self‐reported phenomena are often not congruent with more objective criteria. One prominent explanation for such findings is that people make self‐report judgements in relation to culture‐specific standards (often called the reference group effect), thereby undermining the cross‐cultural comparability of the judgements. We employed a simple method called anchoring vignettes in order to test whether people from 21 different countries have varying standards for Conscientiousness, a Big Five personality trait that has repeatedly shown unexpected nation‐level relationships with external criteria. Participants rated their own Conscientiousness and that of 30 hypothetical persons portrayed in short vignettes. The latter type of ratings was expected to reveal individual differences in standards of Conscientiousness. The vignettes were rated relatively similarly in all countries, suggesting no substantial culture‐related differences in standards for Conscientiousness. Controlling for the small differences in standards did not substantially change the rankings of countries on mean self‐ratings or the predictive validities of these rankings for objective criteria. These findings are not consistent with mean self‐rated Conscientiousness scores being influenced by culture‐specific standards. The technique of anchoring vignettes can be used in various types of studies to assess the potentially confounding effects of reference levels. Copyright © 2011 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Doing African political philosophy from a universalist perspective

There has been a strong impetus to set the definitional parameters of study in African political philosophy and theory. Many scholars advance the idea of a discipline intended to provide lessons that stem from “original” African moral, ideological, and political traditions. Often, these traditions and their ideas are presented as holding categorical moral substance in so far as they are seen to be specific to a culturally essentialist understanding of “Africa.” In turn, an influential part of the literature estimates the normative value of the intellectual ideas and arguments afforded by a varied historical, socio-cultural and economic African geography by the degree to which, in being tethered to a seemingly homogenous, “culturally African” influence, these ideas can be opposed to a “Western” equivalent. In this article, I argue that the effects on the discipline of attending to, and being defined by, this cultural essentialism are at best unclear, at worst detrimental. I aim to contribute to the side of those who advocate a universalist perspective to the study of African political philosophy and thought, and who argue for jettisoning an unhelpful dichotomy between “West” and “African,” in favour of a methodological, conceptual and historical specificity that allows the discipline to be truly useful to itself and to others.     

文字线索浏览方向、空间位置与移动光标对伪忽视的影响

采用线段平分任务,以无文字线索作为基线条件,考察文字线索的浏览方向、空间位置和移动光标对具有两种不同方向阅读经验的熟练双语者伪忽视的影响。结果发现,无文字线索条件下,光标从左往右方向移动时被试的判断偏向于线段中点的右侧,而从右往左移动时,偏向于线段中点的左侧。在有文字线索条件下发现,文字线索的浏览方向和空间位置的交互作用显著,简单效应检验显示文字线索的浏览方向和空间位置一致时伪忽视明显,不一致时伪忽视消失。结果表明,文字线索浏览方向、空间位置与移动光标能够影响伪忽视。伪忽视的存在和消失,不仅与眼球运动有关,还有与大脑两半球的激活水平有关。研究结果支持了视觉扫描假设和激活朝向假设。     

The embodied cognition theory and the motor component of “yes” and “no” verbal responses

Most of the experiments which give theories of embodied cognition their empirical anchorage only take into consideration the motor responses induced by the task or the motor component of the visual stimulus. And yet, these motor responses are often associated with a linguistic answer. Our hypothesis is that “YES” and “NO” verbal responses have a motor component. In a first experiment we showed that producing a verbal response (YES vs. NO) involves motor planning (pushing vs. pulling): participants push a lever more quickly when they have to answer “yes” than “no”, and conversely, they pull a lever more quickly when they have to answer “no” than “yes”. Moreover, in a second experiment, we showed that perceiving the words “YES” and “NO”, on its own, leads to the same motor planning than when “yes” and “no” answers actually have to be produced. Participants detect the word “YES” faster when they have to push a lever than when they have to pull it and conversely they detect the word “NO” faster when they have to pull the lever than when they have to push it down. These results are discussed in reference to “online” and “offline embodiment” concepts and to the cognitive linguistic theories.     

熟悉性对被试操作效应的作用:来自无线索回忆再认的证据

在动作事件的再认记忆中,被试操作后的记忆成绩优于单纯的词语记忆(SPT效应)。人们认为操作促进了回想加工,而熟悉性是否对SPT效应起作用仍然存在分歧。研究采用无线索回忆再认范式,考察了信息提取失败时熟悉性对SPT效应的作用。结果显示:(1)SPT和VT两种编码都引发了稳定的无线索回忆再认效应(RWCR效应)。(2)与VT编码相比,SPT编码引发更强的熟悉性加工,表现出无线索回忆再认的记忆优势。上述结果表明,即使无法正确提取细节信息,在SPT编码中被试凭借熟悉性辨认的能力仍然高于VT编码。该结果从信息提取失败的视角为熟悉性对SPT效应的作用提供了更为直接的证据。     

Perceived sources and levels of stress,general self-efficacy and coping strategies in clinical dental students

The aims of this study were to identify sources of stress among clinical students and to evaluate the students’ perceived levels of stress, general self-efficacy and effective coping strategies in a private dental school environment. The study group consisted of 130 undergraduate clinical dental students in a Turkish private dental school, during the academic year 2014–2015. The students were surveyed using modified version of the dental environment stress (DES) survey, the perceived stress scale, the general self-efficacy scale (G-SES) and the brief coping scale. Age, sex, year of study, history of psychiatric treatment and factors that affected the choice of dentistry were also recorded. Final year and female clinical dental students, who were found to be the most stressful students, had moderate to high perceived stress scores. Total and ‘Faculty and administration’ related DES scores increased with the year of study. Stressors related to ‘Workload’ and ‘Clinical training’ affected females more than males. G-SES scores were higher in male students and students, who had no history of psychiatric treatment. The most and the least common coping strategies were ‘Planning’ and ‘Substance abuse’, respectively. ‘Religion’ was found to be one of the main coping strategies. Stress factors affecting Turkish clinical dental students studying at private dental school differed from the previously reported stress factors affecting students studying at a governmental dental school. Advanced year and female students experienced more stress than the other students.     

I was always on my mind: The self and temporary forgetting

Previous research has demonstrated that the act of remembering can prompt the temporary suppression of related items in memory—that is,retrieval-induced forgetting (Anderson, Bjork, & Bjork, 1994). In extending work of this kind, the present research sought to identify some important boundary conditions of this effect. As expected, temporary forgetting was eliminated under task conditions that elicited distinctive encoding operations—specifically, when material was relevant to the self. This result is noteworthy since it identifies spontaneous processing operations that protect information from temporary forgetting, a finding that has important implications both for the emergence of this inhibitory effect in everyday life and for theoretical treatments of memory function.