Dispossessing Defeat

Higher-order evidence can make an agent doubt the reliability of her reasoning. When this happens, it seems rational for the agent to adopt a cautious attitude towards her original conclusion, even in cases where the higher-order evidence is misleading and the agent's original reasons were actually perfectly good. One may think that recoiling to a cautious attitude in the face of misleading self-doubt involves a failure to properly respond to one's reasons. My aim is to show that this is not so. My proposal is that (misleading) higher-order evidence can undermine the agent's possession of her first-order reasons, constituting what I call a dispossessing defeater. After acquiring the higher-order evidence, the agent is no longer in a position to rely competently on the relevant first-order considerations as reasons for her original conclusion, so that such reasons stop being available to her (even if they remain as strong as in the absence of the higher-order evidence). In this way, an agent with misleading higher-order evidence can adopt a cautious stance towards her original conclusion, while properly responding to the set of reasons that she possesses–a set that is reduced due to the acquisition of higher-order dispossessing defeaters.     

Young adults' partner preferences and parents' in-law preferences across generations,genders, and nations

To examine cultural, gender, and parent–child differences in partner preferences, in eight countries undergraduates (n = 2,071) and their parents (n = 1,851) ranked the desirability of qualities in someone the student might marry. Despite sizable cultural differences—especially between Southeast Asian and Western countries—participants generally ranked kind/understanding (reflecting interpersonal communion) highest, and intelligent and healthy (reflecting mental/physical agency) among the top four. Students valued exciting, attractive partners more and healthy, religious partners less than parents did; comparisons with rankings by youth in 1984 (i.e., from the parents' generation) suggested cohort effects cannot explain most parent–child disagreements. As evolutionary psychology predicts, participants prioritized wives' attractiveness and homemaker skills and husbands' education and breadwinner skills; but as sociocultural theory predicts, variations across countries/decades in gendered spousal/in-law preferences mirrored socioeconomic gender differences. Collectively, the results suggest individuals consider their social roles/circumstances when envisioning their ideal spouse/in-law, which has implications for how humans’ partner-appraisal capabilities evolved.     

Akrasia and the Desire to Become Someone Else: Venturinha on Moral Matters

Philosophia - This paper discusses practical akrasia from the perspective of the sophisticated form of moral subjectivism that can be derived from Nuno Venturinha’s (2018) remarks on moral...     

A model to study orienting responses in zebrafish,and applications towards the emotion–cognition interaction

Animal Cognition - Orienting responses (ORs) are whole-organism reflexes that are elicited by innocuous stimuli, and which decrease in magnitude after stimulus repetition. ORs represent relatively...     

Early assessment of psychological risk factors: On the role of husband/father during pregnancy and in the early postnatal period

The earliest phases of the mother-infant relationship may markedly be influenced, for better or worse, by the emotional availability of the father. In our contemporary Western societies young expectant couples are often isolated psychologically. It is suggested that if such circumstances exist and the mother also has psychological risk factors stemming from her past history and/or from her experience with the pregnancy and delivery, the husband's ability to fulfill some special mothering functions toward his wife would tip the balance between adequate coping or manifest disturbance in the mother—infant relationship.     

The effect of visual word features on the acquisition of orthographic knowledge

Research with adults has shown that the distortion of visual word features, and in particular of the multiletter features within words, hampers word recognition. In this study, "CaSe MiXiNg" was employed to examine the effect of disrupting visual word features on the acquisition of orthographic knowledge in children. During the training, 18 beginning and 27 advanced readers (in Grades 2, 4, and 5) repeatedly read a set of pseudowords in either lowercase or mixed case. During this training, case mixing appeared to impair reading speed in both reader groups. At posttest, 1 day after the training, case format was either the same as or different from that during the training. Lowercase pseudowords were recognized faster after a lowercase training than after a mixed-case training. In a second study, case was found not to affect the rapid naming of single letters. The combined results suggest that case mixing disrupted the multiletter features in pseudowords and that the disruption of these features can affect the acquisition of orthographic knowledge.     

Neuromuscular-skeletal origins of predominant patterns of coordination in rhythmic two-joint arm movement

The authors tested for predominant patterns of coordination in the combination of rhythmic flexion-extension (FE) and supination- (SP) at the elbow-joint complex. Participants (N=10) spontaneously established in-phase (supination synchronized with flexion) and antiphase (pronation synchronized with flexion) patterns. In addition, the authors used a motorized robot arm to generate involuntary SP movements with different phase relations with respect to voluntary FE. The involuntarily induced in-phase pattern was accentuated and was more consistent than other patterns. The result provides evidence that the predominance of the in-phase pattern originates in the influence of neuromuscular-skeletal constraints rather than in a preference dictated by perceptual-cognitive factors implicated in voluntary control. Neuromuscular-skeletal constraints involved in the predominance of the in-phase and the antiphase patterns are discussed.     

The influence of prior choices on current choice

Three pigeons chose between random-interval (RI) and tandem, continuous-reinforcement, fixed-interval (crf-FI) reinforcement schedules by pecking either of two keys. As long as a pigeon pecked on the RI key, both keys remained available. If a pigeon pecked on the crf-FI key, then the RI key became unavailable and the crf-FI timer began to time out. With this procedure, once the RI key was initially pecked, the prospective value of both alternatives remained constant regardless of time spent pecking on the RI key without reinforcement (RI waiting time). Despite this constancy, the rate at which pigeons switched from the RI to the crf-FI decreased sharply as RI waiting time increased. That is, prior choices influenced current choice-an exercise effect. It is argued that such influence (independent of reinforcement contingencies) may serve as a sunk-cost commitment device in self-control situations. In a second experiment, extinction was programmed if RI waiting time exceeded a certain value. Rate of switching to the crf-FI first decreased and then increased as the extinction point approached, showing sensitivity to both prior choices and reinforcement contingencies. In a third experiment, crf-FI availability was limited to a brief window during the RI waiting time. When constrained in this way, switching occurred at a high rate regardless of when, during the RI waiting time, the crf-FI became available.     

Goal setting in acquisition of a volleyball skill late in motor learning

To examine the effects of different types of goal setting on motor skill acquisition during advanced stages of learning. 44 female volleyball players were tested in four experimental training groups with generic goals, specific long-term goals, specific short-term goals, and as a control group. This study's pretest, training, and retention test phases used performance of a volleyball dig/forearm pass oriented to a target. Analyses yielded no significant differences among groups, although performance increased from pre- to retention test.