This paper reports a study of planning processes in the five-disc Tower of London (TOL) task in 20 younger and 20 older adult participants. A concurrent direct ''think-aloud'' method was used to obtain data on planning processes prior to moving discs in the TOL. A check was made of the effects of verbalising by comparing performance data from the experimental groups with data from control groups who did not verbalise during planning or moving. Verbalising slowed down planning and moving but (...) did not appear to distort the participants' approaches to the task. Older and younger participants did not differ in average moves taken to solve the tasks. However, older participants' planning was less complete and more error-prone than that of younger participants. The planning processes were characterised as showing a means-ends ''goal selection'' strategy. In this strategy participants (1) identify a single active goal disc at the start, (2) select moves and move sequences to enable the placing of the current goal disc in its target position, and (3) continue in this way until all discs are in their target positions. Age differences were found in the planning stage, during which there was no stimulus support and hence a substantial working memory load. During the move phase there was stimulus support and hence little loading of working memory. Age differences in moves required were not found in the move phase. As older participants tend to have depleted working memory capacity the present results suggest that working memory is heavily loaded in TOL planning but less so in the move phase of TOL. (shrink)

This article examines what happens when local gender rights activism is taken up by international allies and appropriators, using case studies of activism in Saudi Arabia and India. The relationship between local and transnational activists is shaped by histories of Euro-Americans writing about the gendered organisation of Eastern societies. In an economic system where nongovernmental activist groups compete for donor support, political causes are commodities with value, and value is generated through representations (e.g. of patriarchal oppression). These representations of the (...) sexuality and gender organisation of other societies are fetishes in the Marxian sense, essential to the commodity-cause that generates value in circulation. These representations gain value through the accretion of cultural images and texts that adhere to the cause, e.g. the stereotype of the violent brown man and oppressed woman. Such images in the cultural repository allow transnational consumers to make sense of issues they are called to support. But such images also reify stereotypes that activists seek to undermine, even at the same time that these representations generate an international audience. We analyse this process and identify strategies for how transnational allies can show solidarity without overshadowing or devaluing the voices of local activists, with primary focus on the case of activism against male guardianship laws in Saudi Arabia. (shrink)

This essay explores the nature and neurological basis of creativity in technical production. After presenting a model of expert technical cognition based in cognitive anthropology and cognitive psychology, the authors propose that craft production has three inherent sources of novelty — procedural drift, serendipitous error and fiddling. However, these are quite limited in their creative potential, which may help explain the virtual absence of innovation over the long millennia of the Palaeolithic. Innovation can be far more rapid and effective via (...) invention, which requires folk theories of causation and adequate working memory capacity, all fairly recent evolutionary developments. The neurological basis of expert technical cognition lies in well-known cortical and sub-cortical structures, but recent research has established a provocative role for the cerebellum in the formulation of novel arrangements. (shrink)

The prevailing view that there is significant cognitive continuity between humans and other animals is a result of misinterpretations of the role of evolution, combined with anthropomorphism. This combination has often resulted in an over-interpretation of data from animal experiments. Comparative psychology should do what the name indicates: study the cognitive capacities of different species empirically, without naive evolutionary presuppositions.

We praise Arbib et al.'s Neural organization for its support of the integration of different levels of analysis, while noting that it does not always achieve what it advocates. We extend this approach into an area of neuropsychological activity in need of the structure offered by Organization at the intersection of the conflated fields of executive function and frontal lobe function.

We examine crime that emerges from the global restructuring of agriculture and food systems by employing the case of the Australian “Ship of Death,” whereby nearly 58,000 sheep were stranded at sea for almost 3 months in 2003, violating the Western Australia Animal Welfare Act of 2002. This case demonstrates that the acceleration of transnational trade networks, in the context of agri-food globalization, victimizes animals and constitutes a crime. Herein, we examine this case in depth and show how economic restructuring, (...) driven by a “logic of capital” orientation, can exert pressure on the state causing it to fail to enforce its own regulations and in this way engage in criminal actions. (shrink)

This paper reports a study of the roles of visuo-spatial and verbal working memory capacities in solving a planning task - the five-disc Tower of London (TOL) task. An individual differences approach was taken. Sixty adult participants were tested on 20 TOL tasks of varying difficulty. Total moves over the 20 TOL tasks was taken as a measure of performance. Participants were also assessed on measures of fluid intelligence (Raven's matrices), verbal short-term storage (Digit span), verbal working memory span (Silly (...) Sentence span), visuo-spatial short-term storage (Visual Pattern span and Corsi Block span), visuo-spatial working memory (Corsi Distance Estimation), visuo-spatial processing speed (Manikin test), and verbal speed (Rehearsal speed). Exploratory factor analysis using an oblique rotation method revealed three factors which were interpreted as (1) a visuo-spatial working memory factor, (2) an age-speed factor, and (3) a verbal working memory factor. The visuo-spatial and verbal factors were only moderately correlated. Performance on the TOL task loaded on the visuo-spatial factor but did not load on the other factors. It is concluded that the predominant goal-selection strategy adopted in solving the TOL relies on visuo-spatial working memory capacity and particularly involves the active ''inner scribe'' spatial rehearsal mechanism. These correlational analyses confirm and extend results previously obtained by use of dual task methods, (Phillips, Wynn, Gilhooly, Della Sala, & Logie, 1999). (shrink)

Carey leaves unaddressed an important evolutionary puzzle: In the absence of a numeral list, how could a concept of natural number ever have arisen in the first place? Here we suggest that the initial development of natural number must have bootstrapped on a material culture scaffold of some sort, and illustrate how this might have occurred using strings of beads.

Moral leadership matters. As world politics enters a new and dangerous era, judgment, constancy, moral purpose, and a willingness to overcome partisan politicking are essential for America's leaders. Tempered Strength finds the alternative standard of leadership that Americans are seeking in the classical philosophy of prudence. Ethan Fishman's new work brings together leading American political scientists—including Ronald Beiner, Kenneth L. Deutsch, and George Anastaplo—to discuss the evolution of a standard of prudential leadership both reasonable in nature and practical in scope. (...) Section One studies the meaning of prudence and its evolution in the history of political science from Aristotelian phronesis to Xenophon, Thomas Aquinas, Edmund Burke, and Michael Oakeshott. Section Two demonstrates how the theory of prudential leadership can be applied to practical political issues. (shrink)

This paper explores Jean‐Luc Nancy's philosophical reflection on surviving his own heart transplant. In ‘The Intruder’, he raises central questions concerning the relations between what he refers to as a ‘proper’ life, that is, a life that is thought to be one's own singular ‘lived experience’, and medical techniques, shaped at this particular historical juncture by cyclosporine or immuno‐suppresssion. He describes the temporal nature of an ever‐increasing sense of strangeness and fragmentation which accompanies his heart transplant. In doing so, Nancy (...) opens up the concealed of transplantation in terms of the problematic ‘gift’ of a ‘foreign’ organ, the unremitting suffering intrusiveness of the treatment regimen, and the living of life as ‘bare life’. He uncovers and exposes the relentless uncanniness that pervades the post‐transplant experience, which for him is an example of our humanistic, never‐ending impulse, to alter ourselves. Nevertheless, Nancy offers no answer to this dilemma, but instead calls us to think about the meaning or ‘sense’ of the prolonging of life and deferring of death, which currently drives our medical interventions. (shrink)

We study the class of l-groups of the form C with X an essential P-space. Many such l-groups are non-projectable and their elementary theories may often be reduced to that of an associated Boolean algebra with distinguished ideal. In this paper we establish the decidability of the theories of two classes of such l-groups via corresponding results for the associated structures.

Ce texte explore certaines implications de l'idée selon laquelle des pensées religieuses peuvent faire partie de l'apparence sensorielle des choses. Je commence par clarifier cette idée en utilisant des exemples exposés par Roger Scruton qui discute la phénoménologie de l'expérience architecturale. Ensuite, je considère, d'un point de vue pragmatique et épistémique, l'apport de cette idée pour l'argument pour les croyances religieuses. Plus précisément, j'explore comment l'idée d'une relation interne entre la pensée religieuse et les apparences sensorielles des choses peut être (...) utilisée i) pour formuler avec nuances l'argument de William James dans « La volonté de croire » et ii) pour présenter un argument épistémique pour les croyances religieuses dont l'importance des affirmations centrales est assez couramment reconnue par les croyants mais qui n'a pas été beaucoup discutée par les philosophes. (shrink)

Ethics education matters! Contrary to some common beliefs that ethical behavior is inborn, this study suggests that education does matter. This paper examines ethics education and its relationship with students’ ethical awareness and moral reasoning. Attitudes Towards Business Ethics Questionnaire and 10 vignettes were deployed as the major measurement instruments. It is hypothesized that students with ethics education will have both a greater ethical awareness and ability to make more ethical decisions. Hypotheses were tested in two undergraduate business courses at (...) a major research university where 707 students were sampled. Results suggest that ethics education improved students’ ethical awareness and moral reasoning. Interestingly, results also seem to show that students’ readiness moderated their learning outcomes. (shrink)

Background Residual dried blood spots (rDBS) from newborn screening programmes represent a valuable resource for medical research, from basic sciences, through clinical to public health. In Hong Kong, there is no legislation for biobanking. Parents’ view on the retention and use of residual newborn blood samples could be cultural-specific and is important to consider for biobanking of rDBS. Objective To study the views and concerns on long-term storage and secondary use of rDBS from newborn screening programmes among Hong Kong Chinese (...) parents. Methods A mixed-method approach was used to study the views and concerns on long-term storage and secondary use of rDBS from newborn screening programmes among Hong Kong Chinese parents of children 0–3 years or expecting parents through focus groups (8 groups; 33 participants) and a survey (n = 1012, 85% mothers) designed with insights obtained from the focus groups. We used framework analysis to summarise the themes as supportive factors, concerns and critical arguments for retention and secondary use of rDBS from focus group discussion. We used multiple logistic regression to assess factors associated with support for retention and secondary use of rDBS in the survey. Results Both in focus groups and survey, majority of parents were not aware of the potential secondary use of rDBS. Overall secondary use of rDBS in medical research was well accepted by a large proportion of Hong Kong parents, even if all potential future research could not be specified in a broad consent. However parents were concerned about potential risks of biobanking rDBS including leaking of data and mis-use of genetic information. Parents wanted to be asked for permission before rDBS are stored and mainly did not accept an “opt-out” approach. The survey showed that parents born in mainland China, compared to Hong Kong born parents, had lower awareness of newborn screening but higher support in biobanking rDBS. Higher education was associated with support in rDBS biobanking only among fathers. Conclusion Long-term storage and secondary use of rDBS from newborn screening for biomedical research and a broad consent for biobanking of rDBS are generally acceptable to Hong Kong parents given their autonomy is respected and their privacy is protected, highlighting the importance of an accountable governance and a transparent access policy for rDBS biobanks. (shrink)

Misunderstanding Science? offers a challenging new perspective on the public understanding of science. In so doing, it also challenges existing ideas of the nature of science and its relationships with society. Its analysis and case presentation are highly relevant to current concerns over the uptake, authority, and effectiveness of science as expressed, for example, in areas such as education, medical/health practice, risk and the environment, technological innovation. Based on several in-depth case-studies, and informed theoretically by the sociology of scientific knowledge, (...) the book shows how the public understanding of science questions raises issues of the epistemic commitments and institutional structures which constitute modern science. It suggests that many of the inadequacies in the social integration and uptake of science might be overcome if modern scientific institutions were more reflexive and open about the implicit normative commitments embedded in scientific cultures. (shrink)

This paper provides a series of reflections on making the case to senior leaders for the introduction of clinical ethics support services within a UK hospital Trust at a time when clinical ethics committees are dwindling in the UK. The paper provides key considerations for those building a case for clinical ethics support within hospitals by drawing upon published academic literature, and key reports from governmental and professional bodies. We also include extracts from documents relating to, and annual reports of, (...) existing clinical ethics support within UK hospitals, as well as extracts from our own proposal submitted to the Trust Board. We aim for this paper to support other ethicists and/or health care staff contemplating introducing clinical ethics support into hospitals, to facilitate the process of making the case for clinical ethics support, and to contribute to the key debates in the literature around clinical ethics support. We conclude that there is a real need for investment in clinical ethics in the UK in order to build the evidence base required to support the wider introduction of clinical ethics support into UK hospitals. Furthermore, our perceptions of the purpose of, and perceived needs met through, clinical ethics support needs to shift to one of hospitals investing in their staff. Finally, we raise concerns over the optional nature of clinical ethics support available to practitioners within UK hospitals. (shrink)

In this paper, we examine the role of materiality in human cognition. We address issues such as the ways in which brain functions may change in response to interactions with material forms, the attributes of material forms that may cause change in brain functions, and the spans of time required for brain functions to reorganize when interacting with material forms. We then contrast thinking through materiality with thinking about it. We discuss these in terms of their evolutionary significance and history (...) as attested by stone tools and writing, material forms whose interaction endowed our lineage with conceptual thought and meta-awareness of conceptual domains. (shrink)