Should the behavioral sciences become more pragmatic? The case for functional contextualism in research on human behavior

Although societal need for behavioral science research is enormous, current research practices seem to be inefficient vehicles for producing knowledge that guides practical action. Many of our most popular theories provide little direct guidance for application. They focus on the development of models of the relationships among organismic events such as attitudes, self-efficacy expectations, and behavior, but pay little or no attention to the contextual influences on behavior. Such research is in keeping with a long-standing mechanistic tradition in psychology. We propose a version of contextualism as an alternative paradigm for the behavioral sciences. According to this paradigm, theories and research are evaluated in terms of their contribution to the prediction and influence of behavior. Basic research organized to pursue this goal has a direct bearing on how behavioral phenomena can be changed for practical purposes. Conversely, applied research contributes to basic understanding of the determinants of psychological phenomena.     

The Role of Apparent Constraints in Normative Reasoning: a Methodological Statement and Application to Global Justice

The assumptions that are made about the features of the world that are relatively changeable by agents and those that are not (constraints) play a central role in determining normative conclusions. In this way, normative reasoning is deeply dependent on accounts of the empirical world. Successful normative reasoning must avoid the naturalization of constraints and seek to attribute correctly to agents what is and is not in their power to change. Recent discourse on global justice has often come to unjustified conclusions about agents obligations due to a narrow view of what is changeable and by whom.I would like to thank for their helpful comments Christian Barry, Rudiger Bittner, Darrel Moellendorf and Thomas Pogge.     

Dopamine regulation of human speech and bird song: a critical review

To understand the neural basis of human speech control, extensive research has been done using a variety of methodologies in a range of experimental models. Nevertheless, several critical questions about learned vocal motor control still remain open. One of them is the mechanism(s) by which neurotransmitters, such as dopamine, modulate speech and song production. In this review, we bring together the two fields of investigations of dopamine action on voice control in humans and songbirds, who share similar behavioral and neural mechanisms for speech and song production. While human studies investigating the role of dopamine in speech control are limited to reports in neurological patients, research on dopaminergic modulation of bird song control has recently expanded our views on how this system might be organized. We discuss the parallels between bird song and human speech from the perspective of dopaminergic control as well as outline important differences between these species.     

Two-step communication for the interaction between automated vehicles and pedestrians

An important challenge of automated vehicles (AV) will be the cooperative interaction with surrounding road users such as pedestrians. One solution to compensate for the missing driver-pedestrian interaction might be explicit communication via external human machine interfaces (eHMIs). Additionally, implicit communication such as a vehicle pitch motion might support AVs when interacting with pedestrians. While previous work explored various explicit and implicit communication cues, these concepts communicated the intention of the AV at one single time point. Currently, empirical findings on two-step communication lack so far. In this study, we empirically test the effect of a two-step AV communication that uses an implicit cue at a long distance and subsequently provides an implicit or explicit cues at a short distance. We compared its efficiency to single-step communication concepts providing implicit or explicit cues at the shorter distance only. To explore whether the right communication cue is used at the right distance, we analyzed pedestrians’ fixations while approaching an AV using an eye tracking device.We conducted a virtual reality study (N = 30) with AV communication concept that provided an active pitch motion or an eHMI and compared them with a two-step AV communication concept that provided an additional active pitch motion at a long distance when approaching the pedestrian. Furthermore, we recorded pedestrians’ fixation behavior while the AV approached.Consistently to previous work, single-step AV communication showed a beneficial effect on crossing behavior. Pedestrians initiated their crossing earlier while approaching an AV with an active pitch motion or an eHMI compared to the baseline condition. While active pitch motion reduced subjective safety feeling, eHMI increased it. However, the two-step communication concept did not further improve pedestrians’ crossing initiation times and their safety feeling. The pattern of fixation behavior differed as a function of AV distance. When the approaching AV was far away, pedestrians exclusively looked at the environment. During the approach, pedestrians gradually fixated the bumper and the hood and only then the windshield of the AV. Hence, it seems to be useful to present an AV intent communication at a certain distance from the pedestrian. These findings posit the importance of considering pedestrians’ fixation behavior when developing communication concepts between AVs and pedestrians.     

“Do I Know You?” Altering hairstyle affects facial recognition

Background: Research has demonstrated that both internal features (e.g., eyes) and external features (e.g., hair) are important for recognizing unfamiliar faces; however, the impact of altering hairstyle on the recognition of unfamiliar faces has yet to be isolated and investigated in the absence of deep processing. Objectives: We sought to examine the extent to which altering hair impacts the recognition of a previously viewed face. Methods: Participants were presented with a series of face images followed by a recognition probe of either a new face or a face that was among the previously presented images with either the same hairstyle (identical face) or a different hairstyle (disguised face). Results: Participants showed significantly less accuracy in the disguised condition compared to the identical condition. Conclusions: Our results provide evidence that hairstyle plays a role in recognizing unfamiliar faces. This appears to hold true across race and sex, as well as across deep and shallow processing.     

死亡心理:外部防御还是内在成长?

对西方主要的死亡心理研究进行了回顾和比较分析,不同的死亡心理研究在研究传统、研究对象和研究方法方面存在差异。但是根据研究的侧重点,可以总结出死亡心理的核心内涵:外部防御和内在成长。对死亡的抽象认知产生死亡焦虑,死亡焦虑产生死亡恐惧、自我保护、外在价值导向等外部防御反应;对死亡的具体认知产生死亡反省,死亡反省产生死亡接受、亲社会动机和行为、内在价值导向等内在成长反应。作者以死亡心理的两类反应为框架,综述了近5年来新的研究证据,并对该领域当前研究的局限和未来研究方向进行了分析。     

Who’s afraid of the big bad wolf? The interweaving of values and science

The role of values in the scientific process is widely debated. But evidence and values cannot be neatly separated. Instead, values infuse the entire scientific process, starting with the choice of research questions. Research avenues are selected based on prior beliefs about the workings of the world. In fact, informally assigned prior probabilities and normalizing constants play an essential role in distinguishing causes from correlations and ignoring irrelevant associations that would otherwise be suggested by raw data. But since these initial probabilities often have a heterogeneous pedigree – often not all that went into their formation is known or knowable – it becomes difficult to cleanly separate evidence from values. At the same time, this reality does not undermine science’s unique status in generating knowledge. This is because it is not the evidence per se generated by science, but rather the method by which science generates it, that justifies science’s privileged role.     

Out of nothingness: rhythm and the making of words

Abstract: This contribution describes some aspects of the work with a four‐year‐old autistic child who was treated for many years with four times weekly sessions of psychotherapy. The fluctuations between the symbolic and non‐symbolic use of external objects are described, as well as the ever changing quality of the child's object relations. The rhythmical element in the analysand‐analyst interplay is of great importance: the construction of the temporal shapes (Alvarez) and the modulation of presence and absence are relevant as regards the progressive capacity to name aspects of external reality and subjective experience. From a theoretical point of view, the contributions of both the post‐Jungian, including Michael Fordham, and the post‐Kleinian traditions are outlined. The notions of pre‐conception (Bion) and of archetype (Jung) are immensely helpful in working with autistic children as they actually help the analyst in assuming that some proto‐trace of representational potential is always present in the individual.     

影响研究生自我实现的因素及实现途径探析

自我实现是学校教育的重要目标之一,也是研究生自身的人生追求。本文主要从研究生自身、环境因素、文化因素三个层面分析研究生自我实现的影响因素,并从充分活跃地体验生活、适应人格市场、学会选择等方面探讨促使研究生达到自我实现的途径。