Old Foundations for the Logic of Agency and Action

The paper presents an infinite hierarchy of sound and complete axiomatic systems for Two-Dimensional Modal Tense Logic with Historical Necessity, Agents and Acts. A main novelty of these logics is their capacity to represent formally (i) basic action-sentences asserting that such and such an act is performed/omitted by an agent, as well as (ii) causative action-sentences asserting that by performing/omitting a certain act, an agent causes that such and such a state-of-affairs is realized (e.g. comes about/ceases/remains/remains absent). We illustrate how the formal machinery of our systems can be used to reconstruct a number of interesting ideas in the Logic of Agency and Action that have been proposed by authors like von Wright, von Kutschera, Belnap and Segerberg.     

Subsumption and Relative Identity

This paper is a modification of Nicola Guarino and Christopher Welty's conception of the subsumption relation. Guarino and Welty require that that whether one property may subsume the other should depend on the modal metaproperties of those properties. I argue that the part of their account that concerns the metaproperty carrying a criterion of identity is essentially flawed. Subsequently, I propose to constrain the subsumption relation not, as Guarino and Welty require, by means of incompatible criteria of absolute identity but by means of incompatible criteria of relative identity. After discussing the benefits of applying relative identity in ontological investigations I provide a formal framework in which to prove a counterpart of the identity criteria constraint.This revised version was published online in October 2005 with corrections to the Cover Date.     

On relative universality and Q-universality

Adams and Dziobiak proved that any finite-to-finite universal quasivariety must be Q-universal, and then asked whether a somewhat weaker hypothesis could lead to the same conclusion. We show that their original hypothesis cannot be weakened to its naturally extreme form.To Professor Ale Pultr on his 65th birthdayThe authors gratefully acknowledge the support of the NSERC of Canada, of the project LN00A056 of the Czech Ministry of Education, and also of the Grant Agency of Czech Republic under the grant 201/02/0148.Special issue of Studia Logica: Algebraic Theory of Quasivarieties Presented by M. E. Adams, K. V. Adaricheva, W. Dziobiak, and A. V. Kravchenko     

个体相对剥夺感问卷在大学生群体的信效度检验

翻译与修订个体相对剥夺感问卷(Personal Relative Deprivation Scale,PRDS),并在大学生群体中进行了信效度检验。探索性因子分析结果显示,原问卷中两个反向计分的项目在主因子载荷很低,删除这两个项目后的PRDS-3各项目鉴别力良好; 探索性因子分析和验证性因子分析均显示PRDS-3符合单维度结构; PRDS-3重测信度为0.89,在不同样本间的内部一致性系数为0.77-0.81; PRDS-3得分与相对剥夺感、经济相对剥夺感、焦虑、压力、抑郁、攻击性等效标具有中高程度的相关关系(r>0.4,p<0.01)。PRDS-3得分与社会比较倾向的能力维度显著相关(r=0.46,p<0.01),且能部分地中介能力社会比较倾向对物质主义和生活满意度的影响。综上,可以认为,中文版PRDS-3信效度指标良好,符合测量学要求,可作为相对剥夺感的评估工具。     

Understanding subgroup differences with general mental ability tests in employment selection: Exploring socio-cultural factors across inter-generational groups

In employment selection, general mental ability (GMA) tests predict training and job performance but also lead to subgroup differences which in turn can produce adverse impact against minority groups. Although researchers have explored genetic, developmental, and environmental explanations for ethnic group differences, few studies have explored socio-cultural factors comparing immigrant and non-immigrant job applicants. Given that many ethnic job applicants may also be immigrants, understanding these factors can provide insight into GMA test score differences. The purpose of this paper is to explore the impact of individual and socio-cultural factors on GMA test scores with immigrant and non-immigrant bus driver applicants. This is the first study of its kind to our knowledge that has attempted to disentangle the effects of socio-cultural factors from race/ethnicity in the study of subgroup differences. Incorporating these variables between non-visible minority and minority groups accounted for considerable variance in GMA test scores across groups. The implications of focusing on socio-cultural variables to enhance our understanding of subgroup differences are discussed. Our results specifically suggest that practitioners attend to the issue of the intersecting grounds of potential discrimination when using GMA tests in personnel selection.     

Improving compliance with medical fitness to drive reviews: The role of behaviourally-optimised letters

To manage the increased crash risk posed by drivers with medical conditions and impairments, many licensing authorities ask high-risk drivers to undergo medical fitness to drive assessments. Maximising drivers’ compliance and satisfaction with these assessments is an ongoing challenge for these authorities. This study tested whether drivers’ compliance and satisfaction with a licensing authority’s request to provide a medical report could be improved by incorporating two applied behaviour change principles – simplified messaging and procedural fairness – into the authority’s request letter. Drivers undergoing medical review (N = 876) were assigned to receive either a standard request letter currently used by the authority, or a revised letter that incorporated simplified messaging and procedural fairness amendments. Drivers who received the revised letter were significantly more likely to submit a medical report by the due date. Additionally, of the drivers who submitted the report, those who received the revised letter submitted the report an average of four days faster than those who received the standard letter. These findings demonstrate that optimising letters using behavioural principles can improve compliance with licensing authorities’ requests, resulting in substantial time and cost savings for licensing authorities, possible road safety benefits, and potential reductions in the number of licences suspended for failure to provide a report.     

Enactivism and predictive processing: a non-representational view

This paper starts by considering an argument for thinking that predictive processing (PP) is representational. This argument suggests that the Kullback–Leibler (KL)-divergence provides an accessible measure of misrepresentation, and therefore, a measure of representational content in hierarchical Bayesian inference. The paper then argues that while the KL-divergence is a measure of information, it does not establish a sufficient measure of representational content. We argue that this follows from the fact that the KL-divergence is a measure of relative entropy, which can be shown to be the same as covariance (through a set of additional steps). It is well known that facts about covariance do not entail facts about representational content. So there is no reason to think that the KL-divergence is a measure of (mis-)representational content. This paper thus provides an enactive, non-representational account of Bayesian belief optimisation in hierarchical PP.     

Exploring Associations Among African American Youths' Perceptions of Racial Fairness and School Engagement: Does Gender Matter?

In addition to experiencing race as a unique social milieu within school, gender may also provide an important context for African American students. The authors explored gender differences in associations between African American youths' perceptions of racial fairness and school engagement (behavioral, emotional, and cognitive). One hundred thirty-nine (72 girls, 67 boys) African American high schoolers were recruited from the southeastern region of the United States. Gender differences were found for neither perceptions of racial fairness nor emotional and cognitive engagement. Girls reported higher behavior engagement relative to boys. Also, racial fairness was positively associated with emotional engagement among girls. For boys, racial fairness related positively to the three engagement dimensions. Implications and resources relevant for school psychology practice are discussed.     

The relative value of two options for pigeons depends on their context

It is well known that when humans are given a choice between two options, their preference is affected by the presence of a third. Generally, there is an increase in preference for the option closer to the third. We show that a shift in preference in the direction away from the third option can occur in animals. We gave pigeons a choice between A, reinforcement following 10 pecks and a 0.5‐s delay, and B, reinforcement following 5 pecks and a 1.5‐s delay. Once stable preferences were established, we introduced a third stimulus, less preferred than the other two: C, reinforcement following 20 pecks and a 0.5‐s delay or D, reinforcement following 5 pecks and a 4.5‐s delay. We found that pigeons presented with C showed an increased preference for B, whereas pigeons presented with D showed an increased preference for A. Our results were consistent with the similarity or attentional hypothesis, which suggests that the third option should interfere with the option more similar to it or would draw attention to the less preferred component of the third option and generalize to the option more similar to it. Possible accounts for the differences in outcomes are suggested.     

Non-Verbal Paradigm for Assessing Individuals for Absolute Pitch

Autistic individuals have been observed to demonstrate high intelligence through musical communication, leading to many empirical studies on this topic. Absolute Pitch (AP) has been a captivating phenomenon for researchers, although there has been disagreement regarding AP percentages among the population and appropriate testing methods for AP. This study analyzed data collected from 118 people, using a pitch matching paradigm designed specifically to be inclusive of those who are likely to have note-naming difficulty due to communication challenges. Thirty-eight participants were autistic individuals, 32% of which were considered to have severe language impairment. Twelve other participants had other developmental disorders. All but 1 of the 38 autistics (97%) demonstrated exceptional and instantaneous pitch matching abilities on piano. Ten of the 12 (83%) with other developmental disorders demonstrated this ability, and approximately half (53%) of neurotypicals were able to exhibit this ability. Our numbers indicate that with a more inclusive paradigm for assessing AP, it may be demonstratable in close to 50% of the population, and near 100% in the autistic population. This testing method represents a neurodiversity-friendly and fully inclusive, non-verbal paradigm for demonstrating AP.