审美的神经机制

审美能力是人类独有的高级功能。本文介绍了审美的认知神经模型, 以及相关研究的实验范式, 对各种刺激材料和任务进行了评价。回顾了近年来脑成像研究的主要进展, ERP和MEG研究证明审美包含发生在不同时段的不同加工阶段, 与审美判断相关的ERP成分为300~400 ms 额中部负成分和440~880 ms 头皮后部晚期正成分。fMRI研究发现与审美相关的主要脑区包括尾状核、框额部皮质和扣带前回。未来研究应进一步区分审美的不同方面的神经机制之间的差别, 扩大刺激材料范围, 更深入地探讨复杂因素, 如文化因素对审美神经机制的影响。     

Cross-cultural investigations of stress: Conceptual and methodological considerations

Cross-cultural studios on stress are confounded by conceptual, methodological and applied problems. Although several comprehensive definitions of stress have been offered, the conceptual schema from which the definitions emerge reflect a Western perspective and are not always relevant when transposed into other cultures. The word stress itself is not easily translated into other languages which creates a problem for research workers in non-Western cultures. While studies in India of Westernized executives in organizations using Western models have offered valuable insights into problems related to organizational structures, executive stress, etc., they do not tell us a great deal about the nature and experience of stress in the rest of the population. A brief history of stress research is offered with a concentration on stress research in India. Conceptual and methodological issues are discussed leading to an assessment of the difficulties of stress research in India.     

Collaborative learning in engineering ethics

This paper discusses collaborative learning and its use in an elective course on ethics in engineering. Collaborative learning is a form of active learning in which students learn with and from one another in small groups. The benefits of collaborative learning include improved student performance and enthusiasm for learning, development of communication skills, and greater student appreciation of the importance of judgment and collaboration in solving real-world problems such as those encountered in engineering ethics. Collaborative learning strategies employed in the course include informal small group discussions/problem solving, role-playing exercises, and cooperative student group projects, including peer grading. Student response to these techniques has been highly favorable. Realizing the benefits of collaborative learning is a challenge to both teachers, who must give up some control in the classroom, and students, who must be willing to take greater responsibility for their learning. An earlier version of this paper was presented by the author at a mini-conference, Practicing and Teaching Ethics in Engineering and Computing, held during the Sixth Annual Meeting of the Association for Practical and Professional Ethics, Washington, D.C., March 8–9, 1997 The author teaches courses in Science, Technology and Society and is Director of the Benjamin Franklin Scholars Program, a dual-degree program in engineering and humanities/social sciences.     

Attending to feelings and cognitive performance

The effect on cognitive performance of attending to internally generated stimuli was examined. Specifically, the effect of examining feelings and sensations upon performance in the Stroop test and upon the performance of mental addition was measured. In two initial experiments subjects more quickly named, in the Stroop test, the color of the ink (“red”) in which a color word (“green”) was printed following instructions to attend to their feelings. It was found that this facilitation was due in part to the slowing of the automatic, interfering habit of reading for word meanings. In a third experiment, the effect of attending to physical sensations on the back of the hand was found to have a similar facilitating effect and was seen as resulting from the allocation of attention to internally generated stimuli. In a final experiment, attending to feelings and to the physical sensations on the back of the hand was found to increase speed of mental addition. This effect was attributed to increased attention to internally generated stimuli (here knowledge about the arithmetic performance at the moment).     

Parameter estimation for the thurstone case III model

A Monte Carlo study was conducted to investigate the ability of three estimation criteria to recover the parameters of Case V and Case III models from comparative judgment data. Significant differences in recovery are shown to exist.This research was supported by grant SOC76-20517 from the National Science Foundation. The authors acknowledge with appreciation comments received on an earlier draft by Harold Lindman, Joseph Zinnes, and anonymous reviewers.     

The technical drift of applied behavior analysis

Four dimensions (applied, analytic, general, conceptual) were selected from Baer, Wolf, and Risley's (1968) seminal article on the nature of applied behavior analysis and were monitored throughout the first 10 volumes of the Journal of Applied Behavior Analysis. Each of the experimental articles in Volumes 1 through 6 and the first half of Volumes 7 through 10 was rated on each of these dimensions. The trends showed that applied behavior analysis is becoming a more purely technical effort, with less interest in conceptual questions. We are using simpler experimental designs and are conducting fewer analogue studies. Although concern for maintenance is increasing, other forms of generality are being measured or analyzed less often. These trends are discussed in terms of a technical drift in applied behavior analysis.     

Alterity,Intimacy, and the Cultural Turn in Religious Ethics

This essay responds to four critics of Friends and Other Strangers: Studies in Religion, Ethics and Culture: Diana Fritz Cates, Eric Gregory, Ross Moret, and Atalia Omer. Focusing on the book’s organizing concepts of intimacy and alterity, engagement with empirical sources, discussion of Augustine’s thought, and attention to moral psychology and political morality, these interlocutors take up various strands in the book’s argument and extend them into metaethical, normative, and metadisciplinary domains. The author organizes his response under three rubrics: Metaethics and Personal Relationships; Political Morality; and Multidisciplinary Horizons.     

Recherche sur données : aspects juridiques et éthiques à travers l’expérience de l’hôpital Foch

Health data is the object of covetousness by many actors, of course by the healthcare industry, in particular the drug and medical device industry, by hospitals and research institutes, but also by all types of merchant companies which would like to derive substantial benefits from it. Faced with this phenomenon, the European Commission, within the framework of the replacement of the European Directive on health data of 1995, by the General Data Protection Regulation of 2016 (GDPR) has strengthened the protection of health data which is particularly sensitive data for everyone and, consequently, carrying out studies on health data. Researches that does not involve human beings, improperly called “Data studies”, are closely regulated by the GDPR and, for France, by the Data Protection Act, which has been amended accordingly. This article describes the steps to be taken for the implementation of data studies and what are the rights of participants/patients in the context of these researchs. Ethical vigilance would require that such research be reviewed by an ad hoc committee.