A psychological model that integrates ethics in engineering education

Ethics has become an increasingly important issue within engineering as the profession has become progressively more complex. The need to integrate ethics into an engineering curriculum is well documented, as education does not often sufficiently prepare engineers for the ethical conflicts they experience. Recent research indicates that there is great diversity in the way institutions approach the problem of teaching ethics to undergraduate engineering students; some schools require students to take general ethics courses from philosophical or religious perspectives, while others integrate ethics in existing engineering courses. The purpose of this paper is to propose a method to implement the integration of ethics in engineering education that is pedagogically based on Kohlberg’s stage theory of moral development.     

Something from nothing: exploring dimensions of children's knowing through the repeated reading of favourite books

Witte‐Townsend and DiGiulio explore some of the dimensions of knowing that children, teachers and parents may engage together during story‐time. They reflect on some of their own long‐term relationships with children and children's books, especially Phoebe Gilman's Gilman P 1992 Something from nothing (New York, NY, Scholastic Inc)  [Google Scholar] Something from nothing (published in 1992) and Simms Taback's Taback S 1999 Joseph had a little overcoat (New York, NY, Viking‐Penguin)  [Google Scholar] Joseph had a little overcoat, published in 1999. The authors probe issues such as why children ask to hear a favourite story over and over and why they suddenly abandon all interest and move on to a new book. They explore the meaning of the silences that sometimes arise during story‐time, pooling around the young listeners as the last words of the book are read. Witte‐Townsend and DiGiulio remind us of the value of literature in the lives of children and they affirm that the reading and re‐reading of favourite stories enables the understanding of complex human issues and contributes significantly to social, emotional and spiritual growth.     

Exposure with response prevention versus habit reversal in Tourettes's syndrome: a controlled study

The intentional nature of tics provides the opportunity to apply behavioural interventions aimed at tic reduction through interruption of stimulus-response sequences. The aim of this study has been to evaluate the effect of exposure and response prevention (ER) versus habit reversal (HR) in 43 Tourette's syndrome (TS) patients. The three outcome measures were: the Yale Global Tic Severity Scale (YGTSS), 15-min tic frequency registrations monitored at the institute and 15-min home tic frequency registrations. Both treatment conditions resulted in statistically significant improvements on all outcome measures (p < 0.001). No significant differences were found between the treatment conditions on any of the outcome measures, although there was a tendency in favour of ER on the YGTSS (p = 0.05). These results suggest that, at least in the short term, TS tic symptoms can be treated effectively with both types of treatment.     

Reducing conflicts between motor vehicles and pedestrians: the separate and combined effects of pavement markings and a sign prompt

The effects of a symbolic "yield here to pedestrians" sign and advance yield pavement markings on pedestrian/motor vehicle conflicts, motorists' yielding behavior, and the distance motorists' yield in advance of crosswalks were evaluated at multilane crosswalks at uncontrolled T intersections. In Experiment 1, the sign, when used alone, reduced pedestrian/motor vehicle conflicts and increased motorist yielding distance. The use of fluorescent yellow-green sheeting as the background of the sign did not increase the effectiveness of the sign. Further reductions in pedestrian/motor vehicle conflicts and further increases in yielding distance were associated with the addition of advance yield pavement markings. In Experiment 2, advance yield pavement markings, when used alone, were as effective in reducing pedestrian/motor vehicle conflicts and increasing yielding distance as the sign combined with pavement markings. These data suggest that the pavement markings were the essential component for reducing conflicts and increasing yielding distance.     

On defining words, some scenarios and vectors in the 'autobiography' of C. G. Jung

Having first considered recent research into the circumstances surrounding the production and publication of the 'autobiography' of Jung, the author concludes that in spite of its being the work of several authors, it nevertheless constitutes a whole. Taken from whichever angle, they all point to Jung's particular inquiry into the unconscious, as it emerges through Jung's own words. The author goes on to suggest both a lateral and a structural reading of MDR (Memories, Dreams, Reflections) which in turn reveals, on the basis of the several dreams reported, the central 'fantasy' which inspired Jung's research and his oeuvre. Finally, he discusses the idea of the collective or impersonal unconscious and highlights the emphasis Jung places on processes which unfold according to rhythms which are associated with distinct scales, depending on whether they are those of the individual, the clan or the culture.     

Rigidity in children's drawings and its relation with representational change

Four studies tested the application of to the drawing domain. In particular, we tested her claim that young children are inhibited in their attempts at changing their graphic representations (representational change) due to being constrained by the order in which the elements of the representation are drawn (procedural rigidity). The first study required 60 children (4- to 6-year-olds and an older comparison group of 8-year-olds) to make three drawings of a familiar and novel topic. From these drawings each child was measured for procedural rigidity. In a further drawing the child was asked to modify their usual representation of each topic. Regression analyses revealed procedural rigidity levels were not predictive of manipulation performance. A second study, testing 75 4- to 6-year-olds and a third study, testing 30 3- to 4-year-olds, revealed that when young children were specifically asked to manipulate rigid sub-procedures on a familiar topic they were indeed able to do so. Finally, a fourth study (testing 40 5-year-olds and 40 8-year-olds) removed the notational trace in drawing (a possible aid for procedural interruption) but this still produced no evidence of a relation between procedural rigidity and representational change. We suggest how the concept of procedural rigidity might be re-interpreted for the drawing domain so that the RR model can remain as a domain-general theory of cognitive development. We also suggest the development of information processing may be crucial for flexibility in drawing.     

Does the right hemisphere take over after damage to Broca's area? the Barlow case of 1877 and its history

In 1877 Thomas Barlow, a London physician, published a remarkable case of functional recovery of speech following brain damage. It involved a 10-year-old boy who had lost his speech, regained it, and lost it again before he died from a disorder that affected his heart and produced embolisms that subsequently affected other organs, including his brain. Examination of the boy's brain revealed two focal regions of softening; one that affected Broca's area and the left facial-motor area, and another, which occurred weeks later, in the homologous regions of the right hemisphere. Although Barlow was most concerned with motor deficits, others at the turn of the century began to cite this case as strong evidence that the corresponding region of the right hemisphere can take over speech functions for Broca's area on the left. Whether this case really provides good support for functional takeover or vicariation theory is critically evaluated in the light of contemporary research, including PET scan studies involving damage to Broca's speech region.     

Distributed cortical networks for syntax processing: Broca's area as the common denominator

Different types of syntactic information (word category, grammatical gender) are processed at different times during word recognition. However, it is an open issue which brain systems support these processes. In the present event-related fMRI study, subjects performed either a syntactic gender decision task on German nouns (GEN), a word category decision task (WC, nouns vs. prepositions), or a physical baseline task (BASE). Reaction times in WC were faster than in GEN, supporting earlier electrophysiological results. Relative to BASE, both syntactic tasks activated the inferior tip of BA 44. In addition, BA 45 showed activation in GEN, whereas BA 47 was activated in WC. The imaging data indicate that the inferior portion of BA 44 together with type-specific prefrontal areas supports both initial word category related and later syntactic processes.     

Pragmatic communication skills in patients with Parkinson's disease

BACKGROUND: Pragmatic communication abilities may depend on intact frontal lobe systems. Independent evidence suggests that some persons with Parkinson's disease (PD) are impaired on measures of frontal lobe function. HYPOTHESIS: We therefore hypothesized in Study 1 that pragmatic communication skills would be impaired in some persons with PD and would be linked to frontal dysfunction in these patients. In Study 2 we hypothesized that PD patients would be unaware of their pragmatic communication deficits. METHODS: In Study 1 we administered tests of pragmatic abilities and frontal lobe functioning to twenty-two persons with Parkinson's disease (PD) and 10 healthy controls. In Study 2 we obtained self-ratings of pragmatic abilities from 11 PD patients and then checked these self-ratings against ratings of these same abilities by the patient's spouses. RESULTS: We found in Study 1 that patients with PD were: (a) significantly impaired on measures of pragmatic communication abilities, especially in the areas of conversational appropriateness, turn-taking, prosodics and proxemics, and that this impairment was significantly related to measures of frontal lobe function. In study 2 we found that PD patients overestimated their own abilities relative to spousal ratings of those abilities and thus were unaware of the extent of their problems with pragmatic social communication skills. CONCLUSION: We conclude that pragmatic social communication skills are impaired in PD and that this impairment may be related to frontal lobe dysfunction.     

Responsible engineering: the importance of character and imagination

Engineering Ethics literature tends to emphasize wrongdoing, its avoidance, or its prevention. It also tends to focus on identifiable events, especially those that involve unfortunate, sometimes disastrous consequences. This paper shifts attention to the positive in engineering practice; and, as a result, the need for addressing questions of character and imagination becomes apparent.