Following the Path to Equality Through Law: Reflections on Baker et al., <Emphasis Type="Italic">Equality: from Theory to Action</Emphasis>

This article assesses the significance of Baker et al., Equality: from Theory to Action from the perspective of current concerns occupying legal equality scholars in the UK, focusing in particular on the practical relevance of equality studies to the kinds of issues arising from the debate over the new Commission for Equality and Human Rights (CEHR). The article highlights and considers key issues, including the delineation of the sphere of inequality protection, the normative content of the concept of equality espoused by law and the potential of law to reach beyond its current limits to embrace the broader dimensions of (in)equality identified in Baker et al.’s account.     

Testing for effects of racial attitudes and visual contrast on the speed of a driver’s response to a pedestrian

Although ethnic minorities are overrepresented in pedestrian-vehicle collisions, previous driving studies did not examine racial attitudes in such collisions. Our objective was to determine whether the speed of a driver’s response to a pedestrian was affected by the driver’s racial attitudes and the contrast between the pedestrian’s skin colour and background. Participants viewed simulated driving scenes of a pedestrian on a road and pressed a button as soon as they saw an obstacle. Visual information, but not racial attitudes, affected the time it took observers to respond to pedestrian and non-pedestrian stimuli in driving scenes. Results indicated that contrast affected response time even when the stimulus was subliminal. We believe this is the first demonstration of contrast effects with subliminal stimuli in a driving context. Results have implications for traffic safety and for methodology used to study racial attitudes.     

The Mental Model Theory of Conditionals: A Reply to Guy Politzer

This paper replies to Politzer’s (2007) criticisms of the mental model theory of conditionals. It argues that the theory provides a correct account of negation of conditionals, that it does not provide a truth-functional account of their meaning, though it predicts that certain interpretations of conditionals yield acceptable versions of the ‘paradoxes’ of material implication, and that it postulates three main strategies for estimating the probabilities of conditionals.     

Specialization effect and its influence on memory and problem solving in expert chess players

Expert chess players, specialized in different openings, recalled positions and solved problems within and outside their area of specialization. While their general expertise was at a similar level, players performed better with stimuli from their area of specialization. The effect of specialization on both recall and problem solving was strong enough to override general expertise—players remembering positions and solving problems from their area of specialization performed at around the level of players 1 standard deviation (SD) above them in general skill. Their problem-solving strategy also changed depending on whether the problem was within their area of specialization. When it was, they searched more in depth and less in breadth; with problems outside their area of specialization, the reverse. The knowledge that comes from familiarity with a problem area is more important than general purpose strategies in determining how an expert will tackle it. These results demonstrate the link in experts between problem solving and memory of specific experiences and indicate that the search for context-independent general purpose problem-solving strategies to teach to future experts is unlikely to be successful.     

Cognitive models of choice: comparing decision field theory to the proportional difference model

People often face preferential decisions under risk. To further our understanding of the cognitive processes underlying these preferential choices, two prominent cognitive models, decision field theory (DFT; Busemeyer & Townsend, 1993 ) and the proportional difference model (PD; González-Vallejo, 2002 ), were rigorously tested against each other. In two consecutive experiments, the participants repeatedly had to choose between monetary gambles. The first experiment provided the reference to estimate the models' free parameters. From these estimations, new gamble pairs were generated for the second experiment such that the two models made maximally divergent predictions. In the first experiment, both models explained the data equally well. However, in the second generalization experiment, the participants' choices were much closer to the predictions of DFT. The results indicate that the stochastic process assumed by DFT, in which evidence in favor of or against each option accumulates over time, described people's choice behavior better than the trade-offs between proportional differences assumed by PD.     

Imagining the Future of Photoacoustic Mammography

How can a realistic ethical imagination about the future of a technology take shape? This article contains a reflection which is based on the experiences of an embedded ethicist in the context of biophysical research conducive to the development of photoacoustic mammography, which is intended for the non-invasive detection of breast cancer. Imagination in this context already informs the activities of the biophysical researchers, but its role is limited: biophysical future scenarios concentrate on the technological advances that photoacoustics could bring about. In this article it is argued that it is advisable to also consider the medical practice and the ways in which this practice is likely to change as an effect of the introduction of photoacoustic mammography into it. On the basis of this more encompassing imaginative endeavor it is possible to get a clearer idea about how new technologies are able to contribute to human well being, which is informative for the setting of research-goals/priorities and a responsible implementation of new technologies into the world.     

The interacting roles of testosterone and challenges to status in human male aggression

This paper reviews the literature on sex and cultural differences in physical aggression and argues that only through understanding the interactions among evolutionary predispositions, hormonal influences, and social/situational factors can we possibly make sense of the patterns of human aggression that we see around us. Specifically, it is proposed that the process of natural selection has shaped hormonal responses in males that are sensitive to situations involving challenges to status and/or competition with other males, and that these hormonal changes are essential ingredients of the aggressiveness that occurs in these situations. Models of aggression that focus only on situational and cognitive/emotional triggers of aggressive behavior and attempt to understand human aggression without any reference to biology are destined to be incomplete at best.     

Development as Happiness: The Subjective Perception of Happiness and UNDP’s Analysis of Poverty, Wealth and Development

This paper examines to what extent the concept of happiness is complementary to the United Nations Development Program's (UNDP) human development approach in the evaluation of poverty, wealth and development. The deconstruction of UNDP's discourse on and its measurement of these concepts show that its perspective is highly arbitrary. Poverty is exclusively defined as lack and state of ill-being, inferior to wealth regarded as a state of abundance and well-being. Development then becomes a teleological process trying to promote well-being through abundance. Yet, this external perspective of UNDP on well-being is questioned by the subjective perception of the individuals themselves. Happiness studies—which define happiness as the degree to which an individual judges the overall quality of his life-as-a-whole favorably—prove that higher levels of UNDP's development indicators are not necessarily better for subjective well-being. Despite methodological and conceptual problems, happiness studies discover that the individuals' perception of poverty, wealth and development can differ considerably from UNDP's perspective. Increased income, better objective health and higher levels of education do not automatically lead to greater happiness. Furthermore, additional dimensions essential for human happiness are detected by the research, yet not taken into account by UNDP. A country ranking comparison between the two approaches confirms the different visions of well-being. The integration of a happiness indicator in its analysis of poverty, wealth and development is thus indispensable for UNDP in order to correct its analytical and also practical approach to development.     

Attention to repeated events in human infants (Homo sapiens): effects of joint visual attention versus stimulus change

The goal of this study was to examine the effect of joint visual attention on infants' behavior during subsequent events. Thirty-seven mother-infant (aged from 9 to 13 months) pairs were twice shown a pair of line drawing stimuli on a computer screen. For the control group, the mother never paid attention to the stimuli. For experimental group 1, the mother pointed to one stimulus in the first presentation but did not point to it in the second presentation. The infants gazed longer at the stimulus pointed to by their mothers in the first presentation. In the second presentation, during which mothers did not attend to the stimuli, infants gazed longer at the stimulus which had been pointed to by the mothers in the first presentation. In experimental group 2, one of two stimuli blinked during the first presentation but not the second presentation. Infants gazed for longer at the blinking stimulus in the first presentation, but there was no difference in looking time toward the two stimuli in the second presentation. These results suggest that joint visual attention affects infants' looking behavior during subsequent events, and that simple stimulus change does not. Accepted after revision: 2 May 2001 Electronic Publication