“亚当·斯密问题”的逻辑张力

“亚当·斯密问题”是指斯密的《国富论》与《道德情操论》之间存在着对立或不一致的问题,最初由十九世纪中叶的德国历史学派所提出。此后,随着现实与理论的发展,出现了不同的看法。学者们普遍认为,斯密的两大著作之间、经济学与伦理学之间存在着对立或者不存在对立,而是相互一致的。这些看法都具有各自的积极合理的内容,但缺乏辩证的观点,而没有看到“斯密问题”自身的逻辑张力,也就是说,“斯密问题”所指涉的是现实的经济与伦理之间及作为其理论表现的经济学与伦理学之间的关系。“斯密问题”所含的这些关系呈现出了一个动态的、由肯定到否定再到否定之否定的辩证过程。     

Presence and television.

Film and a number of emerging entertainment technologies offer media consumers an illusion of nonmediation known as presence. To investigate the possibility that television can evoke presence, 65 undergraduate students were shown brief examples of rapid point‐of‐view movement from commercially available videotapes on a television with either a small screen (12 inches [30.5 cm], measured diagonally) or a large screen (46 inches [116.8 cm]). Participants' responses were measured via a questionnaire and a computer‐based recording of arousal (electrodermal activity). Viewers of both televisions reported an enjoyable sense of physical movement, excitement, involvement, and a sense of participation. Furthermore, as predicted, participants who watched the large screen television thought the movement in the scenes was faster, experienced a greater sense of physical movement, enjoyed the movement to a greater extent, found the viewing experience more exciting, and were more physiologically aroused. Practical and theoretical implications are discussed.     

The role of axes of elongation and symmetry in rotated object naming

Many theorists have postulated that axes of elongation and/or symmetry play an important role in the recognition of objects. In this paper, evidence is presented that mitigates this claim from independent assessments of the effects of axes of elongation or symmetry on the time to name rotated line drawings of common objects. This conclusion was further supported in a stronger test in which both of these variables were orthogonally controlled, the aspect ratio of elongation was manipulated,and only objects that were completely geometrically symmetrical or asymmetrical were used. In all the experiments, objects were named for several blocks to determine the influence of these variables on effects of orientation with practice. Symmetry was found to diminish the effects of orientation after practice in naming the object set, and the effects of the most extreme orientation tested (120 degrees from upright) were diminished when both axes defined the same orientation, relative to when they defined different orientations. Contrary to many theories, these findings relegate the axes of symmetry and elongation to relatively minor roles during object identification.     

Surveying Families Accused of Childhood Sexual Abuse: A Comparison of British and New Zealand Results

Two independent surveys from opposite ends of the globe, the UK and New Zealand, completed by families which include a family member accused of sexually abusing a child, have produced remarkably similar results. The majority of accusations were made by well-educated white women about their biological fathers and/or their mothers, based upon memories often recovered within a therapeutic context, many years after the incidents were supposed to have taken place. Accusations included disproportionately high rates of rape, bizarre sexual behaviours and satanic ritual abuse in both surveys. © 1997 by John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

The Epidemiology of Homicide followed by Suicide: A Systematic and Quantitative Review

This systematic review of population based studies of homicide followed by suicide was conducted to examine the associations between rates of homicide‐suicide, rates of other homicides and rates of suicide. The review analysed 64 samples, including the case of an outlier (Greenland) that were reported in 49 studies. There was a significant association between the rates of homicide‐suicide and those of other homicides in studies from the U.S.A. Outside the U.S.A. there was no clear association between homicide‐suicide and other homicide but there was modest but significant association between rates of suicide and homicide‐suicide. Homicide‐suicide appears to be closer in epidemiological terms to homicide than suicide in regions with high rates of homicide and measures to reduce homicide in these regions may also reduce homicide‐suicide.     

Temporal coordination and adaptation to rate change in music performance

People often coordinate their actions with sequences that exhibit temporal variability and unfold at multiple periodicities. We compared oscillator- and timekeeper-based accounts of temporal coordination by examining musicians' coordination of rhythmic musical sequences with a metronome that gradually changed rate at the end of a musical phrase (Experiment 1) or at the beginning of a phrase (Experiment 2). The rhythms contained events that occurred at the same periodic rate as the metronome and at half the period. Rate change consisted of a linear increase or decrease in intervals between metronome onsets. Musicians coordinated their performances better with a metronome that decreased than increased in tempo (as predicted by an oscillator model), at both beginnings and ends of musical phrases. Model performance was tested with an oscillator period or timekeeper interval set to the same period as the metronome (1:1 coordination) or half the metronome period (2:1 coordination). Only the oscillator model was able to predict musicians' coordination at both periods. These findings suggest that coordination is based on internal neural oscillations that entrain to external sequences.