A methodological argument against scientific realism

Synthese - First, I identify a methodological thesis associated with scientific realism. This has different variants, but each concerns the reliability of scientific methods in connection with...     

Prevention of nonadherence to nonsteroidal anti-inflammatory medications for newly diagnosed patients with juvenile rheumatoid arthritis.

Adherence to medications for chronic pediatric diseases decreases overtime. This randomized controlled trial evaluated a clinic-based, nurse-administered educational and behavioral intervention to prevent the anticipated drop in adherence to nonsteroidal medications among newly diagnosed patients with juvenile rheumatoid arthritis. Thirty-four participants completed the study (mean age = 8.44 years, SD = 3.96), including 19 in the experimental group and 15 in the standard-treatment (education) control group. There were significant group and Group x Time effects for adherence (assessed with an electronic monitor over a 13-month period) favoring the experimental group. In contrast, the groups did not differ significantly in disease activity or functional limitations. Factors that may have prevented detection of differences in these health parameters are dicussed.     

Processing resources and age differences in working memory

This study investigated the performance of young and old subjects on a modified version of the working memory task developed by Baddeley and Hitch (1974). Subjects were required to verify a set of sentences of varying complexity while they repeated aloud zero, two, or four words. The older subjects took longer to verify the sentences, especially when the sentences were grammatically complex, but the effect of concurrent memory load on verification latency was the same in both groups. These results cast doubt on the notion that there is an age-related decline in one general pool of processing resources. They also suggest that older people have greater difficulty with the active processing aspects, rather than with the passive holding aspects, of working memory tasks.     

Perception of translational heading from optical flow

Radial patterns of optical flow produced by observer translation could be used to perceive the direction of self-movement during locomotion, and a number of formal analyses of such patterns have recently appeared. However, there is comparatively little empirical research on the perception of heading from optical flow, and what data there are indicate surprisingly poor performance, with heading errors on the order of 5 degrees-10 degrees. We examined heading judgments during translation parallel, perpendicular, and at oblique angles to a random-dot plane, varying observer speed and dot density. Using a discrimination task, we found that heading accuracy improved by an order of magnitude, with 75%-correct thresholds of 0.66 degrees in the highest speed and density condition and 1.2 degrees generally. Performance remained high with displays of 63-10 dots, but it dropped significantly with only 2 dots; there was no consistent speed effect and no effect of angle of approach to the surface. The results are inconsistent with theories based on the local focus of outflow, local motion parallax, multiple fixations, differential motion parallax, and the local maximum of divergence. But they are consistent with Gibson's (1950) original global radial outflow hypothesis for perception of heading during translation.     

Selection of software in the instructional laboratory

In this paper, I discuss a number of issues concerning software selection in instructional laboratories. First, I describe several taxonomies of instructional software and argue that the most important dimension of instructional software is that it must be an efficient tool. Second, I discuss some elements of the context of the instructional lab, including sophistication of users. Third, I explore design features, especially those related to ease of learning to use packages. Several other issues are also considered, such as where to find software reviews.     

A critical evaluation of software for experiment development in research and teaching

This paper compares several software packages that allow users to create new computer-run experiments, but do not require that users be able to program. Three dimensions are considered: package requirements, ease of learning, and power and flexibility.