More Aboutness in Imagination

Journal of Philosophical Logic - In Berto’s logic for aboutness in imagination, the output content of an imaginative episode must be part of the initial content of the episode (Berto, Philos...     

The concept of placebo

This paper attempts to define the concept of placebo as it is used in the clinical context The author claims that X is a placebo if and only if X has such a property d_p, that whenever in a therapeutic situation T a stimulus S appears, then in attending conditions A, it will cause a beneficial reaction R in the patient. Formally, the same structure may be used to define any pharmacologically active drug. The main difference between the drug and a placebo is in the range of possible substitutions for X and the property d. For the active drug there is only one possible substitution for X and property d and it can be scientifically explained why, and how the drug works. In the case of a placebo a set of possible substitutions for X and d is open, and so far it is impossible to offer any scientifically valid explanation of the action mechanism of placebo.     

A Program Intervention for Pediatric Bipolar Disorder: Preliminary Results

The effectiveness of a behaviorally based day treatment program for young children diagnosed with Pediatric Bipolar Disorder (PBD) was evaluated using pretreatment and posttreatment mean scores from the Child Behavior Checklist (CBCL). Data were evaluated in aggregate and using the clinically significant change method for children diagnosed with PBD, Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder (ADHD), Oppositional Defiant Disorder (ODD), Adjustment Disorder, and no diagnosis/clinical and subclinical groups. Significant effects were found for all groups except the no diagnosis/subclinical group on the Internalizing scale and for all groups on the Externalizing scale. Clinically significant change was supported for the PBD, ADHD, ODD, and Adjustment Disorder groups. Implications and limitations of the study are discussed.     

Truth in Fiction,Impossible Worlds,and Belief Revision

We present a theory of truth in fiction that improves on Lewis's [1978] ‘Analysis 2’ in two ways. First, we expand Lewis's possible worlds apparatus by adding non-normal or impossible worlds. Second, we model truth in fiction as (make-believed) belief revision via ideas from dynamic epistemic logic. We explain the major objections raised against Lewis's original view and show that our theory overcomes them.     

Wynikanie semantyczne a wynikanie formalne

Allatum est die 3 Martii 1959     

Sensation-seeking and preference for emotional visual stimuli

The Zuckerman Sensation-seeking Scale (SSS) was administered to 190 men and 197 women, who were also asked to choose 5 pictures out of a group of 21. Seven of these pictures had been rated as emotionally positive, 7 as emotionally neutral and 7 as emotionally negative. Choices of the high and low sensation-seeking groups were compared, and it was found that the high sensation-seekers had a stronger preference for the hegative stimuli than the lows, and the low sensation-seekers had a stronger preference for the positive stimuli than the highs. The results are discussed in terms of optimum level of arousal.     

Neuroticism and marital satisfaction

Thirty happily married and thirty unhappily married couples were examined by means of the MPI questionnaire to test the hypothesis that emotional instability impaired satisfaction in marriage. Unhappily married partners were very significantly higher on neuroticism than happily married partners, but there were no differences in extraversion/introversion. The data suggest that the high neuroticism of the unhappily married partners antedates their marriage.