负性情绪对不同语义、空间关系联结记忆的影响

以负性项目-中性场景以及中性项目-中性场景组成的图片对为材料,通过操控项目-场景之间的语义联系和空间距离,考察了负性情绪对不同语义、空间关系联结记忆的影响。结果显示,当项目-场景空间距离较近时,无论项目-场景之间的语义是否相关,负性情绪始终不会影响项目-场景联结记忆;当项目-场景空间距离较远且语义不相关时,负性情绪会削弱项目-场景联结记忆;而当项目-场景空间距离较远且语义相关时,负性情绪会促进项目-场景联结记忆。结果表明,负性情绪对项目-场景联结记忆的影响会受到项目与场景之间语义关系和空间关系的调节,且语义关系在项目-场景空间距离较远时的作用更为突出。     

一体化促进联结记忆的作用机制：熟悉性和回想加工

当两个或两个以上项目进行一体化编码时, 熟悉性也能够支持联结再认, 这一观点已经得到大量研究证据的支持。然而, 关于一体化如何影响联结再认和构成联结的单个项目再认仍存在分歧。通过回顾现有研究发现：(1)一体化一致性是调节一体化与联结再认关系的重要因素; (2)认知资源有限和新/旧词语义相关性是影响一体化对项目再认作用的重要因素; (3)一体化的发生机制存在“项目假说”、“图式假说”以及“精细加工假说”三种可能的理论解释。未来研究不仅需要控制一体化一致性, 还可以比较不同一体化方式的作用大小以及探索一体化效应的毕生发展规律。     

When is a cause the “same”? Incoherent generalization across contexts

A theory or model of cause such as Cheng's power (p) allows people to predict the effectiveness of a cause in a different causal context from the one in which they observed its actions. Liljeholm and Cheng demonstrated that people could detect differences in the effectiveness of the cause when causal power varied across contexts of different outcome base rates, but that they did not detect similar changes when only the cause–outcome contingency, ?p, but not power, varied. However, their procedure allowed participants to simplify the causal scenarios and consider only a subsample of observations with a base rate of zero. This confounds p, ?p, and the probability of an outcome (O) given a cause (C), P(O|C). Furthermore, the contingencies that they used confounded p and P(O|C) in the overall sample. Following the work of Liljeholm and Cheng, we examined whether causal induction in a wider range of situations follows the principles suggested by Cheng. Experiments 1a and 1b compared the procedure used by Liljeholm and Cheng with one that did not allow the sample of observations to be simplified. Experiments 2a and 2b compared the same two procedures using contingencies that controlled for P(O|C). The results indicated that, if the possibility of converting all contexts to a zero base rate situation was avoided, people were sensitive to changes in P(O|C), p, and ?p when each of these was varied. This is inconsistent with Liljeholm and Cheng's conclusion that people detect only changes in p. These results question the idea that people naturally extract the metric or model of cause from their observation of stochastic events and then, reasonably exclusively, use this theory of a causal mechanism, or for that matter any simple normative theory, to generalize their experience to alternative contexts.     

Local Dialogue Heard Around the World

The authors of this article examine deliberative democracy and the value of dialogue in promoting the engagement of communities in deliberation and involvement in public issues. Focusing on the Texas Forum (TF), a member of the National Issues Forum (NIF), the authors discuss how diverse individuals are brought together with the purpose of cultivating public dialogue and discourse about significant policy issues, with a focus on the public's participation in the democratic process. The article addresses changes in civic engagement, dialogue, and the use of technology to mediate civic discourse and create virtual civic communities. The TF and NIF provide practical examples of the work needed in promoting deliberative democracy and civic engagement.     

THE END OF NEO-LIBERALISM AND THE BEGINNINGS OF INTEGRAL ECONOMICS

A burgeoning policy shift from neo-liberal economics is underway, with leadership by presidential candidate Dennis Kucinich (D-Ohio). His platform positions stem in part from his negative experiences with neo-liberalism when he was Mayor of Cleveland more than 30 years ago. Although his response as Mayor was based on confrontation politics, examples of community-based economies built on collaborative planning, ownership, and management have since become more widely known. We can now show that the successful Grameen Bank and the Mondragon Cooperatives were constructed on principles consistent with Integral Science.     

A more democratic and therefore more peaceful world

Democracies, while not more peaceful than other kinds of states in most respects, nevertheless almost never fight each other. The apparent reason is a recognition by the people of such states that other democratically‐governed states share a commitment to individual rights and peaceful conflict resolution within their systems, and the consequent assumption that similar norms can make possible the peaceful settlement of conflicts of interests between such states. Movement toward greater democracy has been occurring in most of the third world and many communist countries; this movement has important implications for the prospect of peace between at least somewhat democratized states, and especially important implications for U.S.‐Soviet relations. Democratization can be assisted by a combination of diplomacy, promotion of international communication, and normative concern for human rights.     

Fiat's cultural revolution: TQM as functional integration

The opening decade of this millennium witnessed genome scientists, policy makers, critical race theorists and world leaders standing together to pronounce the anti-racist democratic potential of human genomics. Understanding and assessing this rise of ‘anti-racist, democratic genomics’ requires distinguishing between two problems of power and science: the first characterized by what Michel Foucault labeled states of domination; the second by what he described as relations of power. When states of domination exist, as in the case of Nazi science, liberal efforts to extend new powers of participation and autonomy to research subjects may play important roles in redressing power imbalances between researchers and their subjects. However, when distinctions between scientist and research subject blur, as in the case of much human genomics, efforts to extend liberal rights to subjects of genomic studies—or genomic liberalism—may produce novel problems, including: (1) human genome scientists' loss of capacity to describe their objects of study; (2) disruption of research subjects' abilities to define themselves; and (3) lack of accountability for the unintended effects of efforts to democratize genomics. In these ways genomic liberalism may foster, at the same that it impedes, the co-constitution of knowledge and democratic subjects. It may create new forms of racism at the very moment that it explicitly seeks anti-racist ends. Addressing the problems created by this paradoxical position will require more sustained attention to and critique of the anti-racist and democratic imaginaries that increasingly animate technoscience.     

Contours for a Public Lutheran Theology in the Face of Empire

Abstract : Three themes structure Lutheranism's interpretation of the biblical narrative as it intersects with the present challenges of Empire: justification by faith as a declaration of inclusiveness; God's threefold‐multidimensional action creating and sustaining democratic practices (two kingdoms); and the cross as the critical ‘weapon’ against the ‘glory’ of Empire. This implies placing our theology within the present cultural and religious debate in a way consistent with the methodology of the cross: a theology done from the bowels of Empire, revealing its true face behind its alleged ‘benevolent’ mask.     

Public justification versus public deliberation: the case for divorce

I drive a wedge between public deliberation and public justification, concepts tightly associated in public reason liberalism. Properly understood, the ideal of public justification imposes no restraint on citizen deliberation but requires that those who have a substantial impact on the use of coercive power, political officials, advance proposals each person has sufficient reason to accept. I formulate this idea as the Principle of Convergent Restraint and apply it to legislators to illustrate the general reorientation I propose for the public reason project.