Reasoning and Explaining

When regimented in a certain natural way, the concepts of explanation and justification manifest a pattern of interrelations connected more or less systematically to their object. Besides its intrinsic interest, this pattern may give us some insight into the nature, source, and limits of the concept of argument.     

Infinite barbarians

This paper discusses an infinite regress that looms behind a certain kind of historical explanation. The movement of one barbarian group is often explained by the movement of others, but those movements in turn call for an explanation. While their explanation can again be the movement of yet another group of barbarians, if this sort of explanation does not stop somewhere we are left with an infinite regress of barbarians. While that regress would be vicious, it cannot be accommodated by several general views about what viciousness in infinite regresses amounts to. This example is additional evidence that we should prefer a pluralist approach to infinite regresses.     

Personal and parents’ life stories in patients with borderline personality disorder

Patients with borderline personality disorder (BPD) display disturbances in understanding self and others. We examined whether these disturbances extended to how patients described their personal and parents’ life stories and to measures of identity, alexithymia, empathy, and emotional intelligence. Thirty BPD patients and 30 matched control participants described personal and parents’ life stories and completed measures of identity disturbance, alexithymia, empathy, and emotional intelligence. Compared to the controls, patients with BPD described their personal and their parents’ life stories more negatively and with fewer themes of agency and communion fulfillment. Patients and controls showed equally complex reasoning about their personal life stories, but patients displayed less complexity and more self‐other confusion, when reasoning about their parents’ stories. Patients also differed from controls on identity disturbance, alexithymia, and empathy. The results suggest that patients’ storied understanding of themselves and others are disturbed and should be taken into account to better understand BPD.     

The impact of hedged testimony on judgments of credibility

We tested whether people are attuned to critical memory factors, such as age at the timing of encoding and hedge words when judging the credibility of testimony. In two experiments, participants read a 19‐year‐old's testimony regarding a sexual assault. We manipulated whether participants learned that the assault occurred 4 years ago (when the claimant was 15 years old) or 15 years ago (when the claimant was 4 years old) and whether the claimant used hedge words in her testimony. In Experiment 2, we included a cross‐examination. Without the cross‐examination, participants rated the testimony as more credible when the assault had occurred 15 years ago. However, with the inclusion of a cross‐examination, participants rated the testimony more reliable when the event occurred 4 years ago and the claimant did not use hedge words. We discuss the implications our results have, particularly for historical cases, where memory is a key factor.     

主人公的动机水平对句子理解中心理模拟的影响

通过两个实验, 考察了主人公的动机水平对句子理解中读者的心理模拟的影响。实验1采用移动窗口技术, 记录读者阅读句子中目的地词语的时间; 实验2采用视觉情景眼动范式, 主试播放描述运动的句子, 同时呈现相应的情境图片, 记录读者扫描图片中主人公、路径和目的地的时间。实验结果表明：(1)主人公的动机水平影响读者对目的地词语的阅读时间, 主人公的动机水平越高, 读者的阅读时间就越短; (2)读者对情景图片的扫描受主人公的动机水平影响, 主人公的动机水平越高, 读者对路径区域的扫描时间就越短, 对目的地区域的扫描时间就越长。两个实验均表明, 在句子的实时加工中, 读者可以通过再入情境, 遵循先内后外的顺序, 先模拟主人公的动机水平, 继而模拟主人公的动作, 从而影响对句子的注视和理解。研究结果支持语言加工的具身认知观。     

小学儿童羞耻情绪理解能力的发展

先通过收集和验证羞耻情境故事和情绪词来编制考察小学儿童羞耻情绪理解能力的测量材料,然后对300名1-6年级小学儿童的羞耻情绪理解能力的发展特点进行测查。结果表明：（1）小学儿童的羞耻情绪理解能力随年级增长而发展,并且在2-3年级有一个快速发展阶段。（2）4种羞耻情境中,小学儿童在公德情境中的羞耻情绪理解能力最高,其次是当众出丑情境和欺骗情境,最低是学习情境。（3）小学儿童的羞耻情绪理解能力无显著性别差异;4种羞耻情境中,只有在公德情境中的羞耻情绪理解能力有显著性别差异,即男生高于女生。     

Changing the Academic Integrity Climate on Campus Using a Technology-Based Intervention

This article focuses on the use of a technology-based intervention to change academic integrity (AI) knowledge and attitudes. Using a sample of more than 5,000 freshman students drawn from two major midwestern universities in the United States over a 3-year period, an online intervention was used to determine whether AI knowledge and attitudes could be changed. Based the results of this study, AI knowledge and attitudes can be improved using an online intervention. These results contribute to a better understanding of the AI climate on campus and suggest that technology-based interventions can be used to enhance knowledge and change attitudes toward AI on campus.     

Hawking Says that Discovering Intelligent Life Elsewhere Would Spark Greater Compassion and Humility among Us … But Why Wait?

It matters how we talk to each other about METI and about contact, and Hawking could set a better example.