The dynamics of motivated perception: Effects of control and status on the perception of ambivalent stimuli

Previous studies on attentional biases often show contradictory results. This suggests that important moderating variables have been neglected so far. We suggest that (1) control over potential consequences and (2) satisfaction with the current status are important factors that need to be considered. We explored the influence of these variables using a colour classification task, where colours are associated with financial gains and losses. Data were analysed with hierarchical logistic regression models and with stochastic diffusion models. The latter approach has the special advantage that it allows separating perceptual and judgemental biases. Results show an overall positive judgemental bias. In the absence of control, this positivity bias increases with the amount of money that has been gained, whereas the opposite pattern is present when dangers can be controlled. In the second experiment, no general feedback was given, which led to an increasing negativity bias. Results are discussed within an action theoretic framework.     

多重样例变异性与先前知识对样例学习效果的影响述评

样例学习研究表明多重样例的学习效果好于单个样例。然而研究者关于如何有效设计多重样例得出了不同的发现。通过综述已有关于多重样例学习的实证研究,总结出两个尚未得到解决的问题：（1）多重样例之间的相似或相异程度应该如何;（2）学生的先前知识在多重样例学习中的作用如何。针对已有研究的局限性,本文指出,具有不同先前知识的学生学习时感受到不同的关键属性,多重样例应该基于学生学习时的关键属性设计特定的变易范式以帮助学生学习。     

Frankfurt-Type Examples, Obligation, and Responsibility

I examine John Martin Fischer's attempt to block an argument for the conclusion that without alternative possibilities, morally deontic judgments (judgments of moral right, wrong, and obligation) cannot be true. I then criticize a recent attempt to sustain the principle that an agent is morally blameworthy for performing an action only if this action is morally wrong. I conclude with discussing Fisher's view that even if causal determinism undermines morally deontic judgments, it still leaves room for other significant moral assessments including assessments of moral blameworthiness.     

Working with Fischer and Ravizza’s Account of Moral Responsibility

This paper examines the account of guidance control given in Fischer and Ravizza's book, Responsibility and Control, with the aim of revising it so as to make it a better account of what needs to be added to having alternatives open to yield a specification of the control condition for responsibility that will be acceptable to an adherent of the principle that one is responsible for something only if one could have avoided it.     

‘Philosophy is its own time comprehended in thought’

So much philosophy is so unavoidably guided by intuitions, and such intuitions are so formed by examples, and such examples must of necessity present so cropped and abstract a picture of an instance or event or decision, that, left to its traditional methods, philosophy might be ill-equipped on its own to answer a question about the true content of an historical ideal like ``autonomy', or authenticity or ``leading a free life'. One needs to bring so many factors into play at once that one non-traditional but more promising path might be through reflection on the modern novel—or modern drama or poetry or film or even modern painting.     

正误样例组合学习的相似性效应和认知加工深度效应

为了考察物体受力分析图正、误样例的相似程度以及被试对错误受力分析的认知加工(即对错误受力分析的辨别、解释和改正)水平对物体受力分析规则正误样例组合学习迁移效果的影响,以初中三年级学生为被试进行两项实验研究。实验结果表明:在物体受力分析图正误样例组合学习中存在明显的相似性效应,即正、误样例的相似程度越高,学习迁移的效果越好;对错误受力分析进行"改正"加工的学习迁移效果明显优于对错误的"辨别"加工,即存在明显的认知加工深度效应。     

Hypocrisy, Change of Mind, and Weakness of Will: How to Do Moral Philosophy with Examples

What are the differences between hypocrisy, change of mind, and weakness of will? Each typically involves a gap between word and deed, yet they do not seem morally equivalent. Moreover, they are intuitively different concepts, even though the conceptual boundaries between them are fuzzy. This paper explores diverse examples, attempting to identify elements which may be distinctive of each concept, with special attention to hypocrisy. It also provides a discussion of the appropriateness of such use of examples in moral philosophy.     

Book Reviews

Books reviewed:
Raymond D. Boisvert, John Dewey: Rethinking Our Time
Larry A. Hickman, ed., Reading Dewey: Interpretations for a Postmodern Generation
Jennifer Welchman, Dewey's Ethical Thought
Richard Shusterman, Practicing Philosophy: Pragmatism and the Philosophical Life
Richard E. Hart and Douglas R. Anderson, eds., Philosophy in Experience: American Philosophy in Transition
Richard Kearney, Poetics of Modernity: Toward a Hermeneutic Imagination     

From Brouwerian Counter Examples to the Creating Subject

The original Brouwerian counter examples were algorithmic in nature; after the introduction of choice sequences, Brouwer devised a version which did not depend on algorithms. This is the origin of the creating subject technique. The method allowed stronger refutations of classical principles. Here it is used to show that negative dense subsets of the continuum are indecomposable.     

Does calling it “Morgan's way” reduce student learning? Evaluating the effect of person-presentation during comparison and discussion of worked examples in mathematics classrooms

Mathematics textbooks sometimes present worked examples as being generated by particular fictitious students (i.e., person-presentation). However, there are indicators that person-presentation of worked examples may harm generalization of the presented strategies to new problems. In the context of comparing and discussing worked examples during extended classroom instruction, the current study compared the impact of person-presentation to strategy labels on students' posttest accuracy and ratings of strategy generalizability. Five algebra teachers and their 168 students used worked examples either presented using fictitious students or with a strategy label during a multiweek unit on equation solving, with teachers randomly assigned to condition. All students compared and discussed the worked examples. In this context, we found no effect of condition on student accuracy at posttest, nor on their ratings of the generalizability of the presented strategies. We discuss why previously found negative effects of person-presentation may not have extended to this context.