Predication and Hume's Conceivability Principle

In this paper, I will make the case that an associative account of predication in Hume seems to allow for impossible predicative conceptions—that is, the conceiving of impossible states of affairs involving subjects instantiating properties or qualities—which violate his Conceivability Principle. The natural response is to argue that such conceptions are not clear and distinct, but substantive worries are raised about a number of attempted solutions along these lines. This poses a predicament for Hume scholars: either we must modify or abandon the Conceivability Principle, or reject an associative account of predication, or concede that Hume faces a difficulty he cannot solve.     

Visual attention shift to printed words during spoken word recognition in Chinese: The role of phonological information

The aim of this study was to investigate the extent to which phonological information mediates the visual attention shift to printed Chinese words in spoken word recognition by using an eye-movement technique with a printed-word paradigm. In this paradigm, participants are visually presented with four printed words on a computer screen, which include a target word, a phonological competitor, and two distractors. Participants are then required to select the target word using a computer mouse, and the eye movements are recorded. In Experiment 1, phonological information was manipulated at the full-phonological overlap; in Experiment 2, phonological information at the partial-phonological overlap was manipulated; and in Experiment 3, the phonological competitors were manipulated to share either fulloverlap or partial-overlap with targets directly. Results of the three experiments showed that the phonological competitor effects were observed at both the full-phonological overlap and partial-phonological overlap conditions. That is, phonological competitors attracted more fixations than distractors, which suggested that phonological information mediates the visual attention shift during spoken word recognition. More importantly, we found that the mediating role of phonological information varies as a function of the phonological similarity between target words and phonological competitors.     

流动儿童疏离感的特点及其与应对方式、学校态度的关系

采取整群抽样的方法,对成都及重庆两地591名流动儿童和272名城市儿童进行问卷调查,考察流动儿童疏离感的特点及其与应对方式和学校态度的关系。结果发现:(1)流动儿童疏离感各维度显著高于城市儿童;流动初中生的疏离感显著高于流动小学生,且男生的疏离感显著高于女生;(2)流动儿童疏离感的三个维度之间存在显著差异,其中社会疏离感最高,其次是环境疏离感,人际疏离感最低;(3)流动儿童疏离感对学校喜欢有显著的负向影响,而对学校回避有显著的正向影响;应对方式在流动儿童疏离感对学校态度的影响中起着部分中介作用。     

Electrodeposition,assisted by abrasive polishing,of crack-free hard chromium with compressive stress

Crack networks and residual tensile stresses are general characteristics of electrodeposited hard chromium coatings. In this paper, crack-free hard chromium coatings with compressive stresses have been obtained by an electrodeposition process assisted by abrasive polishing. The deposited coatings had mirror-like smooth surfaces, values of hardness in the range 800–1000 HV and compressive stresses between 1000 and 1600 MPa. A model involving hydrogen disentanglement from the lattice is proposed to explain the effects of abrasive polishing on the complete elimination of cracks and the generation of a compressive stress. This explanation is discussed in terms of the variations in properties of the coating with the rotation speed of the cathode.     

Hume's Epistemology: The State of the Question

This article surveys the state of the literature on Hume’s epistemology, focusing on treatments of what has come to be known as the “Kemp Smith problem,” that is, the problem of reconciling Hume’s skepticism with his naturalism. It first surveys the literature on this issue with regard to the Treatise, moving on to briefly compare the Treatise and the Enquiry in virtue of their epistemological frameworks, before finally examining the literature with regard to the first Enquiry.     

Should We Treat Depression with drugs or psychological interventions? A Reply to Ioannidis

We reply to the Ioannidis's paper "Effectiveness of antidepressants; an evidence based myth constructed from a thousand controlled trials." We disagree that antidepressants have no greater efficacy than placebo. We present the efficacy from hundreds of trials in terms of the percentage of patients with a substantial clinical response (a 50% improvement or more symptomatic reduction). This meta-analysis finds that 42-70% of depressed patients improve with drug and 21%-39% improve with placebo. The response benefit of antidepressant treatment is 33%-11% greater than placebo. Ioannidis argues that it would be vanishingly smaller because systematic biasing in these clinical trials would reduce the drug-placebo difference to zero. Ioannidis' argument that antidepressants have no benefit is eroded by his failures of logic because he does not present any evidence that there are a large number of studies where placebo is substantially more effective than drug. (To reduce to zero, one would also have to show that some of the unpublished studies find placebo better than drug and have substantial systematic or methodological bias). We also present the empirical evidence showing that these methodological concerns generally have the opposite effect of what Ioannidis argues, supporting our contention that the measured efficacy of antidepressants likely underestimates true efficacy. Our most important criticism is Ioannidis’ basic underlying argument about antidepressants that if the existing evidence is imperfect and methods can be criticized, then this proves that antidepressant are not efficacious. He presents no credible evidence that antidepressants have zero effect size. Valid arguments can point out difficulties with the data but do not prove that a given drug had no efficacy. Indeed better evidence might prove it was more efficacious that originally found. We find no empirical or ethical reason why psychiatrists should not try to help depressed patients with drugs and/or with psychotherapeutic/behavioral treatments given evidence of efficacy even though our treatment knowledge has limitations. The immense suffering of patients with major depression leads to ethical, moral, professional and legal obligations to treat patients with the best available tools at our disposal, while diligently and actively monitoring for adverse effects and actively revising treatment components as necessary.     

The role of form and meaning in the processing of written morphology: A priming study in French developing readers

Three visual priming experiments using three different prime durations (60 ms in Experiment 1, 250 ms in Experiment 2, and 800 ms in Experiment 3) were conducted to examine which properties of morphemes (form and/or meaning) drive developing readers’ processing of written morphology. French third, fifth, and seventh graders and adults (the latter as a control group) performed lexical decision tasks in which targets were preceded by morphological (e.g., tablette–TABLE, “little table–table”), pseudoderived (e.g., baguette–BAGUE, “little stick–ring”), orthographic control (e.g., abricot–ABRI, “apricot–shelter”), and semantic control (e.g., Tulipe–FLEUR, “tulip–flower”) primes. Across all groups, different patterns of priming were observed in both morphological and orthographic/semantic control conditions, suggesting that they all process morphemes as units when reading. In developing readers, the processing of written morphology is triggered by the form properties of morphemes, and their semantic properties are activated later in the time course of word recognition. In adults, patterns of priming were similar except that the activation of the form properties of morphemes decreased earlier in the time course of word recognition. Taken together, these findings indicate that French developing readers process both the form and meaning properties of morphemes when reading and support a progressive quantitative change in the development of morphological processing over the course of reading development.     

心理契约、工作满意度与组织承诺关系

深入研究心理契约、工作满意度与组织承诺关系,将对组织变革中的人力资源管理具有重要理论和实践价值。本文首先回顾心理契约、工作满意度和组织承诺的概念,其次对心理契约、工作满意度和组织承诺之间的关系做一简单总结,最后提出对人力资源管理实践的启示。