If Bill Clinton Were a Woman: The Effectiveness of Male and Female Politicians' Account Strategies Following Alleged Transgressions

As persons whose careers depend upon the support of the public, politicians by definition are required to be concerned with the management of their public impressions. This research considers the impact of a politician's sex on citizens' evaluations following alleged transgressions. The study uses an experimental design to test how the sex of the politician affects the acceptability of various accounts following transgressions. The interaction of sex with the nature of the offense and the type of account offered is examined. Analysis suggests that sex, type of account, and type of transgression affect citizens' evaluations although not always in obvious or direct ways. Most significantly, the analysis shows that women are not judged more harshly than men when involved in a transgression.     

论分子生物学时代的生理学探索——微观与宏观的统一

20世纪中期,随着蛋白质空间结构的解析和DNA双螺旋结构的发现,形成了核酸和蛋白质为主要研究对象的分子生物学时代,然而随着科学研究的不断深入微观,越来越多的科学家意识到认为将复杂的生物现象还原称简单的组成部分(细胞或分子)就能充分解释生物现象的观点有失偏颇。分子与整体,微观与宏观必须结合与统一,这一点已显得日益重要和紧迫。由此,生理学作为一门相对古老的研究结构与功能关系,尤其是整体功能的生命学科,在这一时期获得了新的契机。     

The contribution of category‐based and contextual suppression towards retrieval‐induced forgetting1

Abstract: This study examines whether both context‐related and category‐related memory impairment can be found using a retrieval‐induced forgetting procedure. One group of participants was tested using a standard retrieval‐practice paradigm, whereas for the no‐practice group the retrieval practice was replaced by irrelevant filler activity. The results showed that the within‐participant baseline items were recalled more poorly by the practice group than by the no‐practice group, whereas the practice group showed the standard retrieval‐induced forgetting effect. Thus, retrieval practice impaired recall for both within‐category and baseline items, although it impaired the former to a greater extent. This finding suggests that it is necessary to consider not only categorical relationships between items, but also context information shared by items when exploring retrieval‐induced forgetting.     

幼儿对所有权权利的理解

对物品的所有权意味着所有者对所有物具有多重权利, 如触碰、使用、更改、追踪和转移等。研究发现, 3岁幼儿就能理解, 所有者对自己的物品具有触碰权和使用权, 而他人不具有。但是, 他们理解所有物的更改权、追踪权和转移权, 却相对滞后。这提示对不同所有权权利表征的发展可能是分化的。此外, 3岁幼儿还理解所有者具有赋予他人使用所有物的权利, 还会积极维护这种权利, 并对阻止权利实施的行为表示抗议, 说明他们也能理解二级所有权权利。为什么幼儿对不同所有权权利的表征会出现分化, 其背后的机制需要未来研究的探索。此外, 某些公共物品(如公共汽车)本身存在着所有权权利相分离的情况, 幼儿是如何表征的, 也值得我们进行研究。不同文化对所有权权利的侧重不同, 提示我们有必要对所有权权利认知的发展进行跨文化检验。     

A non‐normative account of assertion

Many contemporary philosophers argue that assertion is governed by an epistemic norm. In particular, many defend the knowledge account of assertion, which says that one should assert only what one knows. Here, I defend a non‐normative alternative to the knowledge account that I call the repK account of assertion. According to the repK account, assertion represents knowledge, but it is not governed by a constitutive epistemic rule. I show that the repK account offers a more straightforward interpretation of the conversational patterns and intuitions that motivate the knowledge account. It does so in terms of ordinary normative principles that philosophers already accept, none of which are constitutive to assertion. I then contend that the repK account is preferable to the knowledge account because it is simpler, its implications are less contentious, and it avoids a problem for normative accounts of assertion recently raised by Peter Pagin. I also argue that the repK account offers a satisfying explanation of selfless assertion, a counterexample to the knowledge account posed by Jennifer Lackey.     

人脑的奥秘能否由人脑自身揭示--浅谈神经科学现代研究方法

神经科学研究是学科、多层次的。神经科学的每一次飞跃几乎都与某种研究方法的出现有关。从形态学的束路追踪法、组织化学法、原位杂交法、其聚焦激光扫描显微镜,到生理学的脑内微透析术、脑片、微电泳及行为学方法;从电生理的电压钳、膜片和脑电波,到生物化学的层析法、放射免疫法、免疫印迹法等;从种类繁多的分子生物学方法到各种脑成像技术。每种新方法的出现都打开了一扇门,引入一个新领域。实践证明,人脑即使不能彻底了解人脑的奥秘,也可无限地逼近。     

The etiology of specific fears and phobias in children: a critique of the non-associative account

The non-associative account of phobic etiology assumes that a number of specific fears (e.g., fear of heights, water, spiders, strangers, and separation) have an evolutionary background and may occur in the absence of learning experiences (e.g., conditioning). By this view, these specific fears pertain to stimuli that once posed a challenge to the survival of our prehistoric ancestors. Accordingly, they would emerge spontaneously during the course of normal development and only in a minority of individuals, these specific fears would persist into adulthood. While the non-associative approach has generated interesting findings, several critical points can be raised. First, it capitalizes on negative findings, i.e., the failure to document learning experiences (e.g., conditioning, modeling) in the history of phobic children. Second, it largely ignores factors that have been found to be crucial for the acquisition of early childhood fears (e.g., the developmental level of the child, stimulus characteristics such as novelty, aversiveness, and unpredictability, and early experience with uncontrollable events). As an alternative to the non-associative account, we briefly describe a multifactorial model of childhood fears and phobias.     

Accounts for the N170 face-effect: a reply to Rossion,Curran, & Gauthier

In their commentary, Rossion, Curran, and Gauthier (Rossion, B., Curran, T., Gauthier, I. (2002). A defense of the subordinate-level expertise account for the N170 component. Cognition, 85, 197-202) (RC&G) raise a series of arguments against the domain-specificity account for the N170 face-effect (Carmel, D., & Bentin, S. (2002). Domain specificity versus expertise: factors influencing distinct processing of faces. Cognition, 83, 1-29). This effect consists of a large difference (always significant) observed in the amplitude of a negative component peaking at the lower posterior-temporal sites in response to human faces relative to many other stimulus categories. As an alternative to domain specificity, RC&G advocate a "subordinate-level expertise" account, by which the N170 effect can be obtained for any type of stimulus for the individual identification of which the perceiver is an expert. While considering some of their arguments well taken and interesting, we believe that, overall, RC&G's interpretation of our current data (as well as some of theirs) and of our position ignores several important aspects and, therefore, their critique is not persuasive.     

From molecular to molar: a paradigm shift in behavior analysis

A paradigm clash is occurring within behavior analysis. In the older paradigm, the molecular view, behavior consists of momentary or discrete responses that constitute instances of classes. Variation in response rate reflects variation in the strength or probability of the response class. The newer paradigm, the molar view, sees behavior as composed of activities that take up varying amounts of time. Whereas the molecular view takes response rate and choice to be "derived" measures and hence abstractions, the molar view takes response rate and choice to be concrete temporally extended behavioral allocations and regards momentary "responses" as abstractions. Research findings that point to variation in tempo, asymmetry in concurrent performance, and paradoxical resistance to change are readily interpretable when seen in the light of reinforcement and stimulus control of extended behavioral allocations or activities. Seen in the light of the ontological distinction between classes and individuals, extended behavioral allocations, like species in evolutionary taxonomy, constitute individuals, entities that change without changing their identity. Seeing allocations as individuals implies that less extended activities constitute parts of larger wholes rather than instances of classes. Both laboratory research and everyday behavior are explained plausibly in the light of concrete extended activities and their nesting. The molecular- view, because it requires discrete responses and contiguous events, relies on hypothetical stimuli and consequences to account for the same phenomena. One may prefer the molar view on grounds of elegance, integrative power, and plausibility.     

Whose DAM account? Attentional learning explains Booth and Waxman

Booth and Waxman (Cognition 84 (2002) B11) have recently shown that linguistic cues to animacy affect children's novel name extensions. They argue that this demonstration contradicts two central tenets of our attentional learning account of object naming, which Booth and Waxman characterize as the "dumb attentional mechanism" or "DAM" account. In the present article, we show that the first of these tenets has never been a feature of the attentional learning account, and that the second tenet, which is central to our account, is not addressed by Booth and Waxman's findings. We suggest that the debate about the nature of children's language and cognition would profit from an increased awareness of the different levels of analysis at which different researchers are working.