The role of specific consequences in the maintenance of three types of questions

This research replicated and extended a study by Williams, Donley, and Keller (2000). In that study, children with autism received a box with an object inside and learned to ask “What's that?,” “Can I see it?,” and “Can I have it?” to have the name of the object, to see the object, and to get the object, respectively. The purpose of the present research was to determine if the three questions (a) were three independent repertoires of behavior, (b) constituted three instances of a single functional response class, or (c) belonged to a chain of behavior. The 3 boys with autism who participated responded independently to each question when the consequences for each question were altered. This indicates that the three target responses were three independent repertoires of behavior, each one reinforced and maintained with its specific consequences. Thus, this procedure serves to teach children with autism to ask questions with flexibility according to a variable context.     

On matters of mind and body: regarding Descartes

In this paper the author considers Descartes’ place in current thinking about the mind‐body dilemma. The premise here is that in the history of ideas, the questions posed can be as significant as the answers acquired. Descartes’ paramount question was ‘How do we determine certainty?’ and his pursuit of an answer led to cogito ergo sum. His discovery simultaneously raised the question whether mind is separate from or unified with the body. Some who currently hold that brain and subjectivity are unified contend that the philosopher ‘split’ mind from body and refer to ‘Descartes’ error’. This paper puts forward that Descartes’ detractors fail to recognise Descartes’ contribution to Western thought, which was to introduce the Enlightenment and to give a place to human subjectivity. Added to this, evidence from Descartes’ correspondence with Princess Elisabeth of Bohemia supports the conclusion that Descartes did in fact believe in the unity of mind and body although he could not reconcile this rationally with the certainty from personal experience that they were separate substances. In this Descartes was engaged in just the same dilemma as that of current thinkers and researchers, a conflict which still is yet to be resolved.     

Other‐Centric Reasoning

This article considers question‐begging's opposite fallacy. Instead of relying on my beliefs for my premises when I should be using my adversary's beliefs, I rely on my adversary's beliefs when I should rely on my own. Just as question‐begging emerges from egocentrism, its opposite emerges from other‐centrism. Stepping into the other person's shoes is an effective strategy for understanding him. But you must return to your own shoes when forming your beliefs. Evidence is agent centered. Other‐centric reasoning is most striking when both parties partake simultaneously. We are then treated to the spectacle of each side using the other's premises to establish its conclusion. These remarkable debates arise regularly when there is open disagreement about whether a right‐conferring relationship has ended. Those who contend the relationship is abrogated will be tempted to stand on the rights persistently credited to them by their adversary.     

WHY I AM AN ACCOMMODATIONIST AND PROUD OF IT

There is a strong need of a reasoned defense of what was known as the “independence” position of the science–religion relationship but that more recently has been denigrated as the “accommodationist” position, namely that while there are parts of religion—fundamentalist Christianity in particular—that clash with modern science, the essential parts of religion (Christianity) do not and could not clash with science. A case for this position is made on the grounds of the essentially metaphorical nature of science. Modern science functions because of its root metaphor of the machine: the world is seen in mechanical terms. As Thomas Kuhn insisted, metaphors function in part by ruling some questions outside their domain. In the case of modern science, four questions go unasked and hence unanswered: Why is there something rather than nothing? What is the foundation of morality? What is mind and its relationship to matter? What is the meaning of it all? You can remain a nonreligious skeptic on these questions, but it is open for the Christian to offer his or her answers, so long as they are not scientific answers. Here then is a way that science and religion can coexist.     

ACQUISITION OF INTRAVERBAL BEHAVIOR: TEACHING CHILDREN WITH AUTISM TO MAND FOR ANSWERS TO QUESTIONS

Four boys with autism were taught via echoic prompting and constant prompt delay to mand for answers to questions by saying “I don't know please tell me” (IDKPTM). This intervention resulted in acquisition of the IDKPTM response for all 4 participants and in acquisition of correct answers to most of the previously unknown questions for 2 participants. For 1 participant, tangible reinforcement resulted in increased frequency of correct answers, and direct prompting of correct answers was eventually conducted for the final participant. The IDKPTM response generalized to untargeted unknown questions with 3 participants. Results of person and setting generalization probes varied, but some generalization eventually occurred for all participants following additional training or interspersal of probe trials with training trials.     

How do ordered questions bias eyewitnesses?

ABSTRACT

Background: Suggestive techniques can distort eyewitness memory (Wells & Loftus, 2003, Eyewitness memory for people and events. In A. M. Goldstein (Ed.), Handbook of psychology: Forensic Psychology, Vol. 11 (pp. 149–160). Hoboken, NY: John Wiley & Sons Inc). Recently, we found that suggestion is unnecessary: Simply reversing the arrangement of questions put to eyewitnesses changed what they believed (Michael & Garry, 2016, Ordered questions bias eyewitnesses and jurors. Psychonomic Bulletin & Review, 23, 601–608. doi:10.3758/s13423-015-0933-1). But why? One explanation might be that early questions set an anchor that eyewitnesses then adjust away from insufficiently. Methods: We tracked how eyewitness beliefs changed over the course of questioning. We then investigated the influence of people’s need to engage in and enjoy effortful cognition. This factor, “Need for Cognition,” (NFC) affects the degree to which people adjust (Cacioppo, Petty, & Feng Kao, 1984, The efficient assessment of need for cognition. Journal of Personality Assessment, 48, 306–307. doi:10.1207/s15327752jpa4803_13; Epley & Gilovich, 2006, The anchoring-and-adjustment heuristic: Why the adjustments are insufficient. Psychological Science, 17, 311–318. doi:10.1111/j.1467-9280.2006.01704.x). Results: In our first two experiments we found results consistent with an anchoring-and-adjustment account. But in Experiments 3 and 4 we found that NFC provided only partial support for that account. Conclusions: Taken together, these findings have implications for understanding how people form beliefs about the accuracy of their memory.     

The im-possibility of secular critique: The future of religion's memory

The legacy of secular critique, with its Greek, Christian, Kantian, modernist traces, constitutes an aporetic law (or contradiction). That law is this: a critical legacy, if it is critical, can affirm and sustain itself only by trying to separate it from itself (from the very crisis that it is). The legacy or history of ‘religion’ is always a history of such critique. Such a legacy always anticipates critiquing itself, its memory (of whatever kind – racist, sexist, colonialist, nationalist). Such a legacy of critique is always a legacy of crisis. However, the crisis of such a legacy cannot be resolved, because critique, as kairos/krisis (critical/decisive moment), can admit of no resolution. Yet the (secular) history of religion, if it is ever historical, can only be a history of such aporetic critique. Such an aporetic critique will be the heritage of religion's im-possible ¹ ?1. I write the word impossible/impossibility with and without a hyphen. When I hyphenate im-possible, I do so to remain true to Derrida's use of it. The im-possible is irreducible to either possibility or impossibility. Sometimes Derrida also writes the word without hyphenating it, but he still implies such irreducibility. future. It is an im-possible future because it will always be a promise, a promise to separate it from itself, a promise that will remain always deferred, always to come. Today, the promise of this secular critique is (in) democracy with its sovereign ‘decisive’ politics. We can no longer simply critique the (future) legacy of religion, understood this way. To do so is to fulfil that legacy's own messianic wish. This is the aporetic limit of secular critique. To think at the limits of the legacy of the critique of religion is to think the very question of the (secular) history of ‘religion’ and its others, that is, ‘religions’.     

关于哲学的问题研究

“恰当地提出问题”对于哲学甚至比对于科学更为重要,它体现出哲学活动的特殊性质。提问开放新的视域。使我们超出习见,进入思考和对话。着重于提出问题而非构造理论,在今天可以被视为一种研究哲学的方式。当今时代给我们提出了大量需要研究的课题,也要求我们能够提出自己的问题。另一方面,20世纪哲学的自我批判,不仅使哲学的一些基本范畴被重新审视,它的探索方式乃至其功能与合法性根据也受到质询。对问题的研究已成为把握时代和探索哲学发展途径的入手处。     

Does It Matter Whether One Takes a Test on an iPad or a Desktop Computer?

To investigate possible iPad related mode effect, we tested 403 8th graders in Indiana, Maryland, and New Jersey under three mode conditions through random assignment: a desktop computer, an iPad alone, and an iPad with an external keyboard. All students had used an iPad or computer for six months or longer. The 2-hour test included reading, math, and writing items adapted from released NAEP 8th grade tests. Overall, no significant difference was found on the reading, math, or writing section scores or section response time among the three mode conditions. Further, roughly comparable numbers of students reportedly favored testing using an iPad or a desktop computer, but using a preferred mode did not lead to significantly higher section scores. These findings suggest that there is no noticeable disadvantage associated with taking a test on an iPad than on a desktop computer for experienced users of these two studied devices.