The Ethics of Supervision and Consultation: Practical Guidance for Mental Health Professionals

Studies of academic dishonesty typically rely on potentially inaccurate self-reports or on actual behavior during less realistic tasks. Eliminating the drawbacks of such approaches, we assessed cheating during completion of actual coursework via electronic records of online behavior. Thirty-six college students completed unproctored, online quizzes. The majority of students responding to a follow-up questionnaire reported that they never considered consulting online sources during the quizzes. Computer logs reveal that although some students accessed relevant online information during the quizzes, many did not: 6 instances over 72 quiz attempts are attributable to 3 or 4 individuals. Although online environments may offer more opportunities for academic dishonesty, electronic records of online activity provide a valuable and objective means of detecting such dishonesty.     

Analogical Reasoning in Handling Emerging Technologies: The Case of Umbilical Cord Blood Biobanking

How are we individually and as a society to handle new and emerging technologies? This challenging question underlies much of the bioethical debates of modern times. To address this question we need suitable conceptions of the new technology and ways of identifying its proper management and regulation. To establish conceptions and to find ways to handle emerging technologies we tend to use analogies extensively. The aim of this article is to investigate the role that analogies play or may play in the processes of understanding and managing new technology. More precisely we aim to unveil the role of analogies as analytical devices in exploring the “being” of the new technology as well the normative function of analogies in conceptualizing the characteristics and applications of new technology. Umbilical cord blood biobanking will be used as a case to investigate these roles and functions.     

Implications of Technology for Social and Emotional Communication

Abstract

Communication technologies are transforming school psychology training and professional practices. To determine the effect of various communication technologies, this exploratory study contrasted three different communication modalities, including the receipt of messages via video, audio, and text. School psychology students were randomly assigned to those three conditions and asked to interpret the emotional intensity of a message conveyed in a case study concerning sexual and psychological abuse. Results showed different response patterns under the various conditions. Members of the group reading a text of the case study rated the emotional intensity as more extreme than did the members of the video and audio groups, both of whom had nonverbal affective information available to them. Practical implications for training and practice are discussed.     

Selective attention as a protagonist in contemporary workplace stress: implications for the interruption age

Background and Objectives: The ubiquity of instant messages and email notifications in contemporary work environments has opened a Pandora's Box. This box is filled with countless interruptions coming from laptops, smartphones, and other devices, all of which constantly call for employees’ attention. In this interruption era, workplace stress is a pervasive problem. To examine this problem, the present study hypothesizes that the three-way interaction among the frequency with which interrupting stimuli appear, their salience, and employees’ deficits in inhibiting attentional responses to them impacts mental workload perceptions, ultimately leading to stress. The study, further, probes a related form of self-efficacy as a potential suppressor of interruption-based stress. Design: The study used a 2 (low vs. high frequency) × 2 (low vs. high salience) mixed model design. Methods: The 128 subjects completed a test of their inhibitory deficits and rated their mental workload perceptions and experiences of stress following a computer-based task. Results: Inhibitory deficits and increased interruption salience can alter the perception of mental workload in contemporary work environments for the worse, but interruption self-efficacy can help offset any resulting interruption-based stress. Conclusions: This study extends the literatures on work interruptions as well as on stress and coping in the workplace.     

Designing and evaluating an intelligent augmented reality system for assisting older adults’ medication management

Intelligent Assistive Systems (IASs) provide personalised support to individuals to increase their autonomy and competence in performing activities. The personalisation of such technology represents a particular challenge, for the individuals abilities typically change over time. The aim of this research was to explore a theory-based, activity-centred framework for the development of IASs that both facilitate the active involvement of caregivers and target users and allow for adaptation to the individual over time.Medication management was focused on as a case study. Three older adults and two caregivers were involved in a co-design process of an IAS prototype system, the MED-AR, which uses projection-based augmented reality as the user interface technology. The theoretical framework for the design and evaluation of the MED-AR was activity theory. For the decision-making process of the MED-AR, formal argumentation theory was used. The major contributions of the study are (i) a formal framework for understanding the level of independence in activities and the way an IAS can tailor support to an individual and a situation, including caregivers; and (ii) a model for involving older adults and caregivers in a co-design process in the first phases of developing IASs.     

Parallel interactive retrieval of item and associative information from event memory

Memory contains information about individual events (items) and combinations of events (associations). Despite the fundamental importance of this distinction, it remains unclear exactly how these two kinds of information are stored and whether different processes are used to retrieve them. We use both model-independent qualitative properties of response dynamics and quantitative modeling of individuals to address these issues. Item and associative information are not independent and they are retrieved concurrently via interacting processes. During retrieval, matching item and associative information mutually facilitate one another to yield an amplified holistic signal. Modeling of individuals suggests that this kind of facilitation between item and associative retrieval is a ubiquitous feature of human memory.     

完善单身女性“冻卵”规范浅析——基于传统伦理与生育自主决定权博弈的视角

“冻卵”作为人类辅助生殖技术的重要组成部分已经愈发成熟和规范,但目前我国的人类辅助生殖技术规范却并不允许为单身女性实施冻卵技术。冻卵是女性行使生育决定权以实现生育权的方式,而生育权作为一项基本权利,具有明显的人格属性,它与女性对身体的自由决定和人格的自由发展紧密相关,不应以特定的婚姻身份为前提。允许在一定条件下适当放开单身女性利用此项技术具有重要的意义。相应的法律规范也需要作出调整,以避免生育市场化风险和高近亲结婚率。     

供精助孕技术的社会伦理问题

供精助孕技术作为人类辅助生殖技术之一,是实现不育症家庭生育后代的重要手段。通过对人类精子库的发展历程和相关政策的介绍,探讨全球不同社会环境下供精助孕技术所面临的对个人、家庭、社会等方面的伦理问题。讨论供精过程对捐精者的心理社会影响、供精助孕技术后代的知情权及其与供精者的关系界定、供精助孕后代近亲婚配及社会地位和心理状况、实施供精助孕技术对社会学父亲心理社会的影响等问题。如何充分发挥供精助孕技术在辅助生育上的优势并协调社会家庭结构将是未来辅助生殖技术政策调整的方向。

     

对医学技术的控制何以可能——兼谈应对医学技术主体化的策略

医学科技的价值负载、医学技术的主体化趋势以及医学技术应用的不确定性要求人们必须对医学科技的发展进行控制,技术控制主义思潮为此提供了可资借鉴的宝贵思想资源;而技术的社会形成论与技术独立性的限度确证了对技术进行控制的可能性。对医学技术进行控制主要有技术手段和社会手段,采取技术手段必须防止盲目乐观主义陷阱;采取社会手段则必须妥善应对斯诺难题,实现医学技术和医学人文的有机融合。同时,要充分发挥政府调控在医学技术控制中的作用。     

从技术哲学的角度看医学影像学的发展

医学影像学是医学的一个重要组成部分, 通过阐述医学影像学与两次科技革命的发展历程, 明确医学影像学的发展与两次科技革命密不可分, 并在此基础上, 运用技术哲学的观点, 从哲学的角度分析医学影像学的发展阶段, 医学影像学经历了从技术工具化医学影像发展阶段到技术主体化医学影像发展阶段的过程, 并据此推测, 未来的发展方向将是以人文关怀为指导的技术人文化医学影像, 以求指导未来医学影像新技术的开发与应用。