LANGUAGE AS A VALUES‐REALIZING ACTIVITY: CARING,ACTING, AND PERCEIVING

A problem for natural scientific accounts, psychology in particular, is the existence of value. An ecological account of values is reviewed and illustrated in three domains of research: carrying differing loads; negotiating social dilemmas involving agreement and disagreement; and timing the exposure of various visual presentations. Then it is applied in greater depth to the nature of language. As described and illustrated, values are ontological relationships that are neither subjective nor objective, but which constrain and obligate all significant animate activity physically, socially, and morally. As an embodied social activity, conversational dialogue is characterized in terms of values, pragmatics, and presence rather than in terms of syntactic and semantic rules. In particular the nature of dialogical arrays is explored, and the hypothesis that language is an action system, a perceptual system, and a caring system is explored. Language expands horizons and makes it possible for humans to realize their calling as culture makers and caretakers.     

A Behavioral Analysis of Morality and Value

Morality has long been conceived as divinely instituted, so otherworldly, rules meant not to describe or explain behavior but to guide it towards an absolute good. The philosophical formulation of this theory by Plato was later grafted onto Christian thought by Augustine and Aquinas. The equally ancient theory of the Greek sophist Protagoras (that the good is relative to personal preferences and morality to man-made social customs) was forgotten until revived in the 18th and 19th centuries by such empiricists as David Hume and J. S. Mill. Then it was dismissed again in the 20th century by G. E. Moore and W. D. Ross as naturalistic fallacy, that is, conflation of what is with what ought to be. However, those who took this dismissive attitude themselves made the reverse mistake of conflating what ideally ought to be with what actually is. In other words, they mistook ideals for actualities. As B. F. Skinner (1971) said in Beyond Freedom and Dignity, sorting things out requires behaviorist parsing of the good (the personally reinforcing) and duty (the socially reinforced).     

Dynamic Simulation and Static Matching for Action Prediction: Evidence From Body Part Priming

Accurately predicting other people's actions may involve two processes: internal real‐time simulation (dynamic updating) and matching recently perceived action images (static matching). Using a priming of body parts, this study aimed to differentiate the two processes. Specifically, participants played a motion‐controlled video game with either their arms or legs. They then observed arm movements of a point‐light actor, which were briefly occluded from view, followed by a static test pose. Participants judged whether this test pose depicted a coherent continuation of the previously seen action (i.e., “action prediction task”). Evidence of dynamic updating was obtained after compatible effector priming (i.e., arms), whereas incompatible effector priming (i.e., legs) indicated static matching. Together, the results support action prediction as engaging two distinct processes, dynamic simulation and static matching, and indicate that their relative contributions depend on contextual factors like compatibility of body parts involved in performed and observed action.     

Paradoxes in Aulus Gellius

The noctes Atticae of Aulus Gellius contain almost all the ancient paradoxes. Nevertheless, in comparison with his philosophical sources, the author shows a shift in the perspective of his approach. He analyses the `master argument' of Diodorus Chronus only from an ethical point of view and, among the seven paradoxes attributed to Eubulides of Milet, he quotes the `heap' as an absurdity (absurdum), the `horned one' and the `not-someone' as a trap (captio), the `liar' as a sophism (sophisma). Following the advice of Cynics, Gellius mistrusts deceptive manoeuvres, which highlight gaps in binary logic. At the same time, however, he is interested in argumentative structures, which lead one of two opponents on to victory. The extensive report of the quarrel between Protagoras and Evathlus, and many observations of Gellius on convertible forms of reasoning in literary texts fall within this rhetorical field.     

Aggressive driving: the contribution of the drivers and the situation

Aggressive driving is defined in terms of the frustration–aggression model. In that context aggressive driving is a syndrome of frustration-driven behaviors, enabled by the driver's environment. These behaviors can either take the form of instrumental aggression—that allows the frustrated driver to move ahead at the cost of infringing on other road users’ rights (e.g., by weaving and running red lights)—or hostile aggression which is directed at the object of frustration (e.g., cursing other drivers). While these behaviors may be reflective of individual differences in aggression, it is argued that the exclusive focus on the characteristics of the aggressive drivers and how to control them is short-sighted. Instead, this paper proposes a multi-factor approach to the problem. Five studies conducted so far tend to support this approach, by showing that specific aggressive behaviors—such as honking and running red lights—are associated with cultural norms, actual and perceived delays in travel, and congestion. Ergonomics-oriented approaches that involve environmental modifications are proposed.     

Theology, Science, and Postmodernism: Responding to Stanley Grenz

This article responds to Stanley J. Grenz's Templeton Lecture, “Why Do Theologians Need to Be Scientists?” published in the June 2000 issue of Zygon (Grenz 2000). In the first part I outline my reasons for finding the kind of theological reflections in which Grenz engages worthy of attention by noting my disagreement with the view that a sufficient response to theological issues can be formulated on the basis of an examination of our biological nature. I assert, in that connection, the autonomy of reason as a way of investigating and understanding the world. In the second part I respond directly to Grenz by explaining my disagreement with the postmodern critique of science upon which he relies and his adherence to Christian eschatology as an answer to the conundrums into which, he posits, we are drawn as a result of that critique. I note that I agree with Grenz, however, that the activity of valuing is necessarily a forward‐looking Godlike endeavor that is not derivable from science. In the third part I suggest that we must be open to the investigation of the possible existence of an objective realm of value and that, in any case, rejection of the postmodern critique of science in many cases pro‐vides a sound basis for the disciplined resolution of factual questions that frequently lie at the base of disagreements about values.     

The ‘conjunction fallacy’ revisited: how intelligent inferences look like reasoning errors

Findings in recent research on the ‘conjunction fallacy’ have been taken as evidence that our minds are not designed to work by the rules of probability. This conclusion springs from the idea that norms should be content‐blind—in the present case, the assumption that sound reasoning requires following the conjunction rule of probability theory. But content‐blind norms overlook some of the intelligent ways in which humans deal with uncertainty, for instance, when drawing semantic and pragmatic inferences. In a series of studies, we first show that people infer nonmathematical meanings of the polysemous term ‘probability’ in the classic Linda conjunction problem. We then demonstrate that one can design contexts in which people infer mathematical meanings of the term and are therefore more likely to conform to the conjunction rule. Finally, we report evidence that the term ‘frequency’ narrows the spectrum of possible interpretations of ‘probability’ down to its mathematical meanings, and that this fact—rather than the presence or absence of ‘extensional cues’—accounts for the low proportion of violations of the conjunction rule when people are asked for frequency judgments. We conclude that a failure to recognize the human capacity for semantic and pragmatic inference can lead rational responses to be misclassified as fallacies. Copyright © 1999 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

电子媒体使用对睡眠的影响,机制及其干预

电子媒体设备日益流行的同时, 睡眠问题也日趋加重, 主客观研究均发现电子媒体使用会对睡眠产生消极影响.背后的加工机制涉及睡眠置换,唤醒,屏幕光和电磁辐射.可以通过睡眠卫生教育,限制电子媒体使用,屏蔽屏幕蓝光等方式进行干预.未来研究需要从理论机制的整合,因果关系的确定,测量方式的客观化和标准化,使用情况细化和本土化研究方面做努力.     

How Otto did not extend his mind,but might have: Dynamic systems theory and social-cultural group selection

Proponents of cognitive Situationism argue that the human mind is embodied, embedded in both natural and social-cultural environments and extended creating both extended and distributed cognition. Anti-situationists reject all or some of these claims. I argue that four major objections to extended cognition: (1) the mark of the cognitive, (2) the function-identity fallacy, (3) cognitive bloat, and (4) scientific irrelevance lose much of their sting in the case of distributed cognition, the extension of cognitive agency to a group of cognitive agents, such as a scientific research team. However, I claim that a crucial fifth challenge, that advocates of the extended mind commit the causal-constitution fallacy, has yet to be satisfactorily addressed. I focus on Spyridon Palermos’ use of dynamic systems theory to refute this charge and I argue that his appeal to dynamic systems theory as a way of understanding system-constitution fails. Instead, I suggest a social-cultural group selection hypothesis for understanding system-constitution. But, I leave it for another day to elaborate that hypothesis’ empirical plausibility.     

The illusion of replacement in research into the development of thinking biases: the case of the conjunction fallacy

The conjunction fallacy is a violation of a very basic rule of probability. Interestingly, although committing the fallacy seems irrational, adults are no less susceptible to the fallacy than young children. In Experiment 1, by employing tasks where the conjunctive response option involved two non-representative items, we found a large reduction in fallacy rates as compared to traditional conjunction fallacy problems. Nevertheless, fallacy rates remained relatively high in both adolescents and adults, although adults showed more consistency in their normative responses. In Experiment 2, we demonstrated that children’s relatively good performance on the task was not the consequence of their missing knowledge of social stereotypes. Additionally, children were more strongly affected by explicitly presented frequency information than adults. Indeed, adults only took frequency information into account when frequencies were made relevant by a training in probabilistic reasoning. Overall, the results suggest that whereas the potential for normative reasoning increases with development, this potential is often overshadowed by a pervasive tendency in adolescence and adulthood to rely on contextual information, knowledge, and beliefs, even when conflicting information is available. By contrast, children are more strongly influenced by explicitly presented information than relevant knowledge cued by the tasks.