Functions and Health at the Interface of Biology and Technology

Synthetic biology promises to eliminate the distinction between biology and engineering by delivering a philosophically interesting new kind of entity: a biological organism that is wholly designed and constructed by humans. The possibility of such organisms raises interesting questions in three domains: the analysis of (1) biological functions, (2) engineering functions, and (3) health and disease. This paper identifies and systematically answers these questions. This does not only establish how we should think about functions and health and disease in synthetic biological organisms, but it also reveals insights that are of broader relevance: (1) aetiological accounts of biological function need to omit or reinterpret reference to natural selection. This results in complete continuity between aetiological analyses of function in engineering and philosophy; (2) considering synthetic biology prompts interesting further questions about heritability, ancestry, and biological individuals; and (3) accounts of disease as biological dysfunction do not straightforwardly map onto our intuitive health and disease judgments regarding non-human animals. In response to the latter point I examine three possible avenues, and tentatively defend one on behalf of the ‘disease as dysfunction’ theorist.     

负性情绪对注意促进效应的调节

近期研究发现,目标探测性质的注意分散并不会削弱,甚至会提高与之同时进行的记忆任务成绩,表现出注意促进效应（ABE）,但该效应可能会受到记忆材料独特性的调节。为了验证该假设,本文采用负性刺激为记忆材料,以目标探测任务为干扰任务,探讨负性情绪对ABE的调节。结果发现,与中性材料相比,负性材料的ABE有所减弱;而高唤醒的负性材料则没有表现出任何的ABE。可见目标探测所产生的促进作用会受到背景材料是否具有独特性的限制。     

认知需求和认知闭合需求对风险决策中外语效应的影响

外语效应指相比于母语背景,个体在外语背景下风险决策偏差会降低。针对影响外语效应的因素研究大多聚焦于外部因素和与个体外语水平相关的因素,少有研究探讨认知风格的作用。本研究通过524名成人被试,探索认知需求和认知闭合需求对外语效应的影响。结果表明:(1)风险决策中存在外语效应,相比于母语背景,外语背景下框架效应被削弱,且个体更偏向风险寻求。(2)对于认知需求和认知闭合需求都高或都低的个体,语言类型会影响风险决策,在母语环境下倾向于风险规避,在外语环境下倾向于风险寻求;而对于认知需求和认知闭合需求高低不一致的个体,语言类型对其风险决策倾向的影响不显著。本研究为认知风格如何综合影响风险决策提供了进一步的证据。     

Movement adjustments in preparation for single-leg jumps in individuals with functional ankle instability

There is some evidence showing that people with functional ankle instability (FAI) can present changes in postural control during the landing phase of a jump. These studies also show preliminary results indicating possible changes during phases prior to landing. Therefore, the objective of this study was to investigate whether movement adjustments prior to a jump are different between people with and without FAI. Sixty participants with (n = 30) and without (n = 30) FAI participated in this study. The main outcome measures were the variability of range of motion in ankle inversion/eversion and dorsiflexion/plantarflexion; and variability of center of pressure for the directions anterior-posterior and medio-lateral during the pre-jump period for drop jump, vertical jump and during single-leg stance. The group with instability showed more variability of center of pressure in anterior-posterior direction (p = 0.04) and variability of range of motion in ankle dorsiflexion/plantar flexion (p = 0.04) compared to control in the single-leg stance test. For the within-group comparisons, the group with instability showed more variability of center of pressure in anterior-posterior direction in the drop jump higher than single-leg stance and vertical jump. The same pattern was seen for the control group. Thus, this study suggests that people with FAI have greater ankle range of motion variability and center of pressure variability in the anterior-posterior axis when compared to healthy individuals during single-leg stance. For those same two variables, preparation for a drop jump causes more postural instability when compared to the preparation for a vertical jump and to single-leg stance.     

A Stronger Doctrine of Double Effect

Many believe that intended harms are more difficult to justify than are harms that result as a foreseen side effect of one's conduct. We describe cases of harming in which the harm is not intended, yet the harmful act nevertheless runs afoul of the intuitive moral constraint that governs intended harms. We note that these cases provide new and improved counterexamples to the so-called Simple View, according to which intentionally phi-ing requires intending to phi. We then give a new theory of the moral relevance of intention. This theory yields the traditional constraint on intending harm as a special case, along with several stronger demands.     

Rushton’s contributions to the study of mental ability

This essay describes Rushton’s contribution to examining the nexus of intelligence, race, and genetics, specifically what I termed “Spearman’s hypothesis”. It states that Black–White differences are “most marked in just those [tests] which are known to be saturated with g”. I (Jensen) had confirmed this hypothesis using large data sets in the 1970s and 1980s and also found that Black–White differences were most marked on the more heritable rather than the more cultural subtests. Rushton confirmed and extended these findings in many highly innovative ways and demonstrated Spearman’s hypothesis applied among samples of Gypsy Roma in Serbia, and East Asian, European, South Asian, Colored and Black samples in South Africa. He has not only documented group differences in brain size, intelligence, life span, family structure, infant mortality, developmental precocity, personality, and temperament, and rates of two egg twinning, and crime among East Asians, Europeans, and Africans, but also provided a life history theory that explains them.     

Thomas Aquinas and Antonio de Córdoba on self-defence: saving yourself as a private end

ABSTRACT

Revisionists about Aquinas’ teaching on private self-defence take the standard reading to hold that Aquinas applies a version of the Doctrine of Double Effect (DDE) according to which the intentional killing of a wrongful attacker by a private person is morally prohibited while the non-intentional but foreseeable killing of the attacker is permitted. Revisionists dispute this reading and argue that Aquinas permits the intentional killing of wrongful attackers. I argue that revisionists mischaracterize the standard reading of Aquinas. I consider one of its main proponents, Antonio de Córdoba (1485–1579). When Córdoba condemned the intentional killing of wrongful attackers by private persons, he was not applying DDE. Rather, he was arguing that when you decide to kill an attacker you treat the attacker as a resource for the private end of saving your life. Killing a member of your community is a form of irrevocable social exclusion. This decision ought to be left to the public authorities. The disagreement between the authors defending the standard view and their critics was not about DDE but rather about the moral limits that membership in a community sets on the pursuit of private ends, including the private end of staying alive.     

Proteus效应：虚拟世界研究的新视角

随着虚拟世界的迅速发展,特别是虚拟现实环境与现实生活的日趋融合,虚拟现实环境对用户的影响引起了研究者的重视。在基于自我呈现的线上互动中,化身特点会有意或无意地影响到用户的知觉、态度和行为,即普罗透斯效应（Proteus Effect）。近年来,有研究者围绕着普罗透斯效应进行了一系列研究,对这一效应的概念、潜在发生机制、影响因素以及对用户个体和群体水平的影响等方面进行了一些探讨,并取得一定进展,这为国内学者开展虚拟世界中心理现象的探究提供了新的切入点。在未来研究中,普罗透斯效应的研究方法和范式仍需拓展,研究样本仍需丰富,本土化研究、跨文化研究以及应用研究也有待逐步展开。     

The theory of intelligence and its measurement

Mental chronometry (MC) studies cognitive processes measured by time. It provides an absolute, ratio scale. The limitations of instrumentation and statistical analysis caused the early studies in MC to be eclipsed by the ‘paper-and-pencil’ psychometric tests started by Binet. However, they use an age-normed, rather than a ratio scale, which severely limits the ability of IQ tests to probe the physical basis of differences in cognition. For this reason, Arthur Jensen reinitiated mental chronometry in the 1970s. He designed an apparatus that measures reaction time to a task known as the Hick paradigm that requires the testee to respond to a display of 1 to 8 lights. Faster decision times were related to psychometric g, with theoretically important consequences. He was able to do this, where many other studies had failed, mainly because his apparatus clearly separated movement (MT) from reaction time (RT, also called ‘decision time’.) Interestingly, while RT is clearly related to IQ, MT is not. Principal components analysis reveals RT to be a cognitive variable and MT a motor variable. Failure to distinguish between them drastically obscures the correlation between composite RT (i.e., RT + MT) and cognitive variables. When Jensen (2006) reviewed the literature on MC he found there was a shocking lack of standardization in the administration, recording, and analysis. Consequently, the results of a study conducted in one lab, even though measured in absolute time, could not be compared directly against those from another. Termed “method variance,” this is a major obstacle to the advancement of MC. For that reason, Jensen's Institute of Mental Chronometry commissioned a leading electronics firm to construct a state-of-the-art apparatus to administer, record, and analyze MC experiments.     

权力相关词语的判断的大小效应及其可控性

采用Stroop干扰实验范式,证实权力词语判断的大小效应,并探索采用意识性干预和试次偏差分布策略是否会使大小效应得到控制。实验1中试次类型变量主效应极其显著。实验2中试次类型变量与提示条件变量的交互作用边缘显著。实验3中试次类型变量与提示条件变量的交互作用显著;试次类型变量与试次分布变量的交互作用显著。结果表明,权力相关词语的判断中存在大小效应,提示信息使大小效应得到控制,试次偏差分布使大小效应发生反转。