Des personnes et des situations aux préférences et contraintes

The paper will basically be an attempt to state what the author take to be: a) the main message of Walter Mischel's 1968 and 1973 critique of personality trait psychology; b) the connection between Walter Mischel's work and the work of Roy D'Andrade and Richard Shweder on the "systematic distortion hypothesis; and c) the good reasons for moving from a conception of the "person" as a vessel for response dispositions (whether globally or narrowly defined) [the "person-situation" model] to a conception of the person as a purposeful agent whose behavior can be explained by reference to means and ends (the "preference-constraint" model).     

Misreadings,Clarifications and Reminders: A Reply to Hutchinson and Read

ABSTRACT

Analytic philosophy is often associated with a physicalistic naturalism that privileges natural-scientific modes of explanation. Nevertheless there has since the 1980s been a heterodox, somewhat subterranean trend within analytic philosophy that seeks to articulate a more expansive, ‘non-reductive‘ conception of nature. This trend can be traced back to P.F. Strawson’s 1985 book Skepticism and Naturalism: Some Varieties. However, Strawson has long been ignored in the literature around ‘soft naturalism’ – especially in comparison to John McDowell. One of the reasons for this is that Strawson’s account of soft naturalism is not often viewed as particularly plausible – it has come in for heavy criticism from the likes of Sebastian Gardner (2007) and Robert Stern (2003). In this paper, I argue that Strawson’s soft naturalism ought to be re-assessed: that his critics can be refuted, and that his naturalism remains a compelling alternative to the likes of McDowell’s. I attempt this through a ‘radicalisation’ of the modest Strawson’s position, demonstrating that his naturalism has implicit in it something like Marx’s conception of human ‘species-being’.     

Pirh2在分化型甲状腺癌中的表达及意义

探讨Pirh2、P53在分化型甲状腺癌(DTC)中的表达及其意义.随机选取湖南省人民医院乳腺甲状腺外科2006.6～2011.6间DTC64例,应用免疫组化法检测癌组织中的Pirh2、P53的表达.并以结节性甲状腺肿等良性甲状腺疾病病例作为对照,分析Pirh2、P53对DTC的可能作用.Pirh2、P53分别在64例DTC中阳性表达为68.8％ (44/64)、28.1％(18/64),而在36例甲状腺良性疾病中阳性表达为25％(9/36)、16.7％(6/36).Pirh2在DTC与良性肿瘤间的表达存在差异显著性(P＜0.001).P53在两者间的表达无差异显著性(P＞0.05).Pirh2表达与P53的表达具有正相关性(r=0.316、P＜0.05).Pirh2在DTC中呈较高表达,而在良性甲状腺疾病中表达率低,Pirh2可能与P53共同调节DTC的发生发展.     

Perceptual-Motor Contributions to Static and Dynamic Balance Control in Children

The authors addressed balance control in children from the perspective of skill development and examined the relationship between specific perceptual and motor skills and static and dynamic balance performance. Fifty 11- to 13-year-old children performed a series of 1-legged balance tasks while standing on a force platform. Postural control was reflected in the maximum displacement of the center of mass in anterior-posterior and mediolateral directions. Simple visual, discrimination, and choice reaction times; sustained attention; visuomotor coordination; kinesthesis; and depth perception were also assessed in a series of perceptual and motor tests. The correlation analysis revealed that balancing under static conditions was strongly associated with the ability to perceive and process visual information, which is important for feedback-based control of balance. On the other hand, when greater task demands were imposed on the system under dynamic balancing conditions, the ability to respond to the destabilizing hip abductions-adductions in order to maintain equilibrium was associated with motor response speed, suggesting the use of a descending, feedforward control strategy. Therefore, like adults, 11- to 13-year-old children have the ability to select varying balance strategies (feedback, feedforward, or both), depending on the constraints of a particular task.     

The role of temporal context and expectancy in resource allocation to and perception of rapid serial events

The perception of target events presented in a rapid stream of non-targets is impaired for early target positions, but then gradually improves, a phenomenon known as attentional awakening. This phenomenon has been associated with better resource allocation. It is unclear though whether improved resource allocation and attentional awakening are a consequence of the temporal context, that is, the position of the target event in the stimulus stream, or are due to a simple expectancy or foreperiod effect. Expectancy is an alternative explanation of attentional awakening because it depends on the a posteriori probabilities, which will increase with target position when all target positions are equally likely. To differentiate between the expectancy and the temporal context account the a priori (objective) probability of target position was defined such that the a posteriori probability would be high for early and late, and low for intermediate target positions. EEG was collected and the P3 ERP evoked by target events was derived as an indicator of resource allocation. A robust attentional awakening effect was observed. The relationships between measures of performance and P3 amplitude, and respectively target position, a priori, and a posteriori probability were analyzed. Results showed that in contrast to target position, a posteriori probability had little impact on performance and did not moderate the association between P3 amplitude and performance. Results also indicated that in spite of the evident role of target position on resource allocation and the perception of target events in rapid stimulus streams, target position is likely not the only variable these are affected by. Nevertheless, the findings of the present study suggest that whereas the temporal context of a rapid serial event is a key player for resource allocation to and perception of the event, expectancy seems of very little consequence.     

Posture affects emotional responses: A Head Down Bed Rest and ERP study

Body posture, mainly represented by horizontal bed rest, has been found to be associated with cortical inhibition, altered perceptual and cognitive processing. In the present research, the influence of Head Down Bed Rest (HDBR) – a condition also termed simulated microgravity – on emotional responses has been studied. Twenty-two male subjects were randomly assigned to either Sitting Control or HDBR group. After 3-h, subjects attended to a passive viewing emotional task in which 75 IAPS slides, divided into 25 pleasant, 25 neutral and 25 unpleasant, were presented in random order for 6 s each, while EEG was recorded from F7, F8 and Pz locations. Results showed in Sitting Controls the expected greater P300 and Late Positive Potential (LPP) to pleasant and unpleasant compared with neutral slides, an effect which indicates greater processing of emotional arousing stimuli. The HDBR group showed smaller non-significant differences among all emotional conditions in both ERP components. Arousal and valence subjective evaluations, typically less sensitive to experimental manipulation, did not differentiate groups. The observed ability of HDBR to inhibit cortical emotional responses raises an important issue on the risk that astronauts underestimate a dangerous/threatening situation or that long-term bedridden inpatients develop depressive symptoms.     

Whiteheadian Societies and Peirce's Law of Mind: Actuality and Potentiality in the Cosmic Process

Abstract

A more suitable philosophical position to counter the claims of scientific materialism re the nature of physical reality can possibly be found in combining the metaphysics of A.N. Whitehead and C.S. Peirce. Peirce postulated a habit-forming tendency or inbuilt potentiality of the cosmic process as a whole to move over time toward ever greater organization and more complex structure. But he is vague on how “the law of the mind” applies to nature below the level of human self-awareness. Whitehead's notion of actual entities (momentary self-constituting subjects of experience) as the “final real things of which the world is made up” logically allows for some primitive form of subjectivity with the requisite potentiality for habit-formation at all levels of existence and activity within nature. In addition, Whitehead's notion of structured societies made up of subsocieties with a “regnant” subsociety seems philosophically to justify the new emphasis on bottom-up rather than top-down causation in the emergence of more complex levels of existence and activity within the life-sciences.     

The im-possibility of secular critique: The future of religion's memory

The legacy of secular critique, with its Greek, Christian, Kantian, modernist traces, constitutes an aporetic law (or contradiction). That law is this: a critical legacy, if it is critical, can affirm and sustain itself only by trying to separate it from itself (from the very crisis that it is). The legacy or history of ‘religion’ is always a history of such critique. Such a legacy always anticipates critiquing itself, its memory (of whatever kind – racist, sexist, colonialist, nationalist). Such a legacy of critique is always a legacy of crisis. However, the crisis of such a legacy cannot be resolved, because critique, as kairos/krisis (critical/decisive moment), can admit of no resolution. Yet the (secular) history of religion, if it is ever historical, can only be a history of such aporetic critique. Such an aporetic critique will be the heritage of religion's im-possible ¹ ?1. I write the word impossible/impossibility with and without a hyphen. When I hyphenate im-possible, I do so to remain true to Derrida's use of it. The im-possible is irreducible to either possibility or impossibility. Sometimes Derrida also writes the word without hyphenating it, but he still implies such irreducibility. future. It is an im-possible future because it will always be a promise, a promise to separate it from itself, a promise that will remain always deferred, always to come. Today, the promise of this secular critique is (in) democracy with its sovereign ‘decisive’ politics. We can no longer simply critique the (future) legacy of religion, understood this way. To do so is to fulfil that legacy's own messianic wish. This is the aporetic limit of secular critique. To think at the limits of the legacy of the critique of religion is to think the very question of the (secular) history of ‘religion’ and its others, that is, ‘religions’.     

多动症儿童与认知事件相关电位的实验研究

本研究通过对29名多动症(MBD)儿童与正常儿童认知事件相关电位各成份的比较,结果发现多动症组与正常儿童组在反映大脑认知功能P300潜伏期有明显的差异,从而说明P300可以作为检测多动症儿童的参考性的客观指标。