Identifying living and sentient kinds from dynamic information: the case of goal-directed versus aimless autonomous movement in conceptual change

To reason competently about novel entities, people must discover whether the entity is alive and/or sentient. Exactly how people make this discovery is unknown, although past researchers have proposed that young children--unlike adults--rely chiefly on whether the object can move itself. This study examined the effect of goal-directed versus aimless autonomous movement on children's and adults' attributions of biological and psychological capacities in an effort to test whether goal-directedness affects inferences across documented periods of change in biological reasoning. Half of the participants (adults, and 4-, 5-, 7-, and 10-year-olds; Ns=32) were shown videos of unfamiliar blobs moving independently and aimlessly, and the other half were shown videos of identical blobs moving identically but toward a goal. No age group was likely to attribute biological or psychological capacities to the aimless self-moving blobs. However, for 5-year-olds through adults, goal-directed movement reliably elicited life judgments, and it elicited more biological and psychological attributions overall. Adults differed from children in that goal-directed movement affected their attributions of biological properties more than their attributions of psychological properties. The results suggest that both young children and adults consider the capacity for goal-directed movement to be a decisive factor in determining whether something unfamiliar is alive, though other factors may be important in deciding whether the thing is sentient.     

Physical health correlates of overprediction of physical discomfort during exercise

This study sought to determine if overprediction of physical discomfort prior to and following exercise was related to a number of self-report and objective measures of physical health status in a general population sample. Cross-sectional findings indicated a significant and specific relation between patterns of discomfort overprediction (vs under- or accurate prediction) and negative self-reported health status and attitudes to exercise, lower levels of physical activity, as well as poorer scores for resting heart rate, cardiorespiratory fitness and body mass index (but not waist:hip ratio). Females were more likely to overpredict discomfort, were less active and had poorer physical health than males. The potential usefulness of the prediction match-mismatch paradigm for studying exercise-related appraisal processes as proximal determinants of physical activity are discussed. Information obtained from such studies could prove useful in public health education campaigns aimed at increasing levels of physical activity in the general population, particularly among the less active.     

From molecular to molar: a paradigm shift in behavior analysis

A paradigm clash is occurring within behavior analysis. In the older paradigm, the molecular view, behavior consists of momentary or discrete responses that constitute instances of classes. Variation in response rate reflects variation in the strength or probability of the response class. The newer paradigm, the molar view, sees behavior as composed of activities that take up varying amounts of time. Whereas the molecular view takes response rate and choice to be "derived" measures and hence abstractions, the molar view takes response rate and choice to be concrete temporally extended behavioral allocations and regards momentary "responses" as abstractions. Research findings that point to variation in tempo, asymmetry in concurrent performance, and paradoxical resistance to change are readily interpretable when seen in the light of reinforcement and stimulus control of extended behavioral allocations or activities. Seen in the light of the ontological distinction between classes and individuals, extended behavioral allocations, like species in evolutionary taxonomy, constitute individuals, entities that change without changing their identity. Seeing allocations as individuals implies that less extended activities constitute parts of larger wholes rather than instances of classes. Both laboratory research and everyday behavior are explained plausibly in the light of concrete extended activities and their nesting. The molecular- view, because it requires discrete responses and contiguous events, relies on hypothetical stimuli and consequences to account for the same phenomena. One may prefer the molar view on grounds of elegance, integrative power, and plausibility.     

Recovery Recovered

The most controversial condition that the AGM theory of rational belief change places on belief contraction is the recovery condition. The condition is controversial because of a series of putative counterexamples due (separately) to I. Levi and S. O. Hansson. In this paper we show that the conflicts that Levi and Hansson arrange between AGM contraction and our intuitions about how to give up beliefs are merely apparent. We argue that these conflicts disappear once we attend more closely to the identification of the beliefs contracted away in each counterexample case. Since, on our view, speakers" belief contraction intentions are often more complicated than they may first appear, we are led to develop apparatus for thinking about the communication and identification of those intentions. Our argument refocuses attention on the difficult question of how to apply the AGM theory to particular cases.     

The role of diverse instruction in conceptual change

This study examined how a fundamental principle of induction and scientific reasoning, information diversity, could be used to promote change in children's mental models of the earth's shape. Six-year-old children (N=132) were randomly allocated to a control or to one of two training conditions. Some training groups received instruction that simultaneously challenged children's beliefs concerning (a) why the earth appears flat to a surface observer and (b) the role of gravity. Others received instruction that repeatedly challenged only one of these beliefs. An adaptation of the Vosniadou and Brewer (1992, Cognitive Psychology 24, 535-585) protocol for identifying mental models of the earth was administered before and after instruction. Both instruction methods produced increases in factual knowledge. Only children receiving instruction about two core beliefs, however, showed an increased rate of acceptance of a spherical earth model at posttest. The findings show that instruction that challenges diverse aspects of children's na?ve scientific beliefs is more likely to produce conceptual change.     

The relationship between theory of mind and episodic memory: evidence for the development of autonoetic consciousness

The study investigated a link between theory of mind and episodic memory involving autonoetic consciousness (). Eighty-nine Japanese 4- to 6-year-olds received two versions of a false belief task, a task of aspectuality or knowledge origins, and four memory tests. After controlling for age, most theory of mind abilities showed no interrelations, and own and other's belief understandings in deceptive appearance tasks were solely related to source memory, but not to free recall, temporal ordering, or working memory. Moreover, even when age and verbal intelligence were controlled, the association between representational change and source memory was highly significant in 6-year-olds but not in 4- and 5-year-olds. Results suggest that during development only a particular kind of theory of mind ability is integrated with episodic memory.     

Human Costs of Organizational Downsizing: Comparing Health Trends Between Leavers and Stayers

We studied health-related selection and consequences of an organizational downsizing among 886 municipal employees. Measurements of health indicators were conducted before any rumor of the downsizing and immediately after the downsizing 3 years later. Results of predownsizing health showed that those who did not find employment after the staff reductions were older employees with high preexisting morbidity. Those getting a new job elsewhere were younger and had better health already before the downsizing than the stayers. After the downsizing, deterioration of health was most likely in the stayers working in groups of major staff reductions and among the nonemployed leavers. In the reemployed leavers, the risk of increased health problems was lower than in others including employees working in no or minor downsizing groups.     

Imaginal perspective switches in remembered environments: transformation versus interference accounts

Imaginal perspective switches are often considered to be difficult, because they call for additional cognitive transformations of object coordinates (transformation hypothesis). Recent research suggests that problems can also result from conflicts between incompatible sensorimotor and cognitive object location codes during response specification and selection (interference hypothesis). Three experiments tested contrasting predictions of both accounts. Volunteers had to point to unseen object locations after imagined self-rotations and self-translations. Results revealed larger pointing latencies and errors for rotations as compared to translations, and monotic latency and error increases for both tasks as a function of the disparity of object directions between real and imagined perspective. Provision of advance information about the to-be-imagined perspective left both effects unchanged. These results, together with those from a systematic error analysis, deliver clear support for an interference account of imaginal perspective switches in remembered surroundings.     

Age-related development of self-regulation: Evidence on stability and change in action orientation

Action (vs. state) orientation describes the ability to modulate affect and is at the core of goal-directed self-regulation. However, evidence on stability and change over time is scarce. In Study 1 (N = 368 couples), we investigated measurement invariance of action orientation (measured with the ACS-90) as well as rank-order stability and mean-level change over a period of four years. We report results from three samples with young adults (Study 2). Measurement invariance was obtained for an adjusted ACS-90 scale after removing 4 items. Rank-order stability was high. In both studies, one of two subscales – prospective action orientation – increased over time. Positive change was most consistent for middle-aged adults, implying that self-regulatory abilities improve during middle adulthood.     

A fundamental change in vision: where black lives matter

Using the lens of clinical work, the author, a white supervisor, plots her concerns about unconscious racism in the training of a black supervisee. Years later this supervisee brings a distressed black trainee nurse to supervision who is struggling with relational difficulties while suffering from unconscious racism in her hospital. Supervisor and supervisee grapple to offer the patient treatment on both fronts. The author explores the underlying presence of ‘white privilege’ and ‘unconscious racism’ which finds a global audience as a result of the killing of George Floyd – an event which also had implications for the long-term supervisory partnership. Links to Jessica Benjamin’s concept of ‘doer and done to’ are made, as well as discussion of a gradual change of vision in the supervisor herself. The author also makes use of insights gained from consultancy work in a multi-racial company and two Channel 4 UK television programmes that feature workshops on unconscious racism in a mixed secondary school in the London Borough of Sutton.