In 1976 an interdisciplinary study on risks and risk evaluations was inaugurated in Sweden and was sponsored by the Committee for Future-oriented Research. One of the basic assumptions of the Swedish risk project was that modern society has created “new, increasingly complicated and large-scale technical systems.” It also assumed that “large systems are economically efficient, but vulnerable and therefore create risks.” A third assumption was that “the ever rising standard of living is purchased at the cost of certain additional risks.” (...) The perspective of the project was thus markedly historically oriented. (shrink)

Willensfreiheit wird bestritten, weil sich der Begriff nicht logisch konsistent definieren lässt und weil inzwischen auch neurobiologische Anhaltspunkte gegen ihre Existenz sprechen. Anders als in der biblisch-reformatorischen Tradition gehört die Willensfreiheit aber zum Kern des aufgeklärten Menschenbildes. Und auch in der Theologie scheint die Bestreitung der Willensfreiheit unweigerlich auf die Lehre von der doppelten Prädestination hinauszulaufen, so dass seit Pietismus und Aufklärung auch die evangelische Theologie ihrem Ursprung untreu wurde. In dem Buch werden die Perspektiven der Philosophie, Neurobiologie und Theologie (...) zum Thema Willensfreiheit zusammengeführt. Die Argumente und Befunde gegen Willensfreiheit sind weit stärker als die zu ihren Gunsten. Deswegen existieren bislang nur Positionen, die den Determinismus akzeptieren, oder solche, die aus der Negation des Determinismus doch noch eine Möglichkeit für Willensfreiheit im menschlichen Gehirn zu finden hoffen. Die Studie geht einen völlig neuen Weg, indem sie den Determinismus der Aussenwelt bestreitet, und dies im Anschluss an die erkenntnistheoretischen Debatten über das Wesen des Quantenindeterminismus. Dabei wird aber gerade kein freier Wille postuliert, sondern ein Konzept aktiver Lebensführung entwickelt, in dem Bildung zur Verwirklichung von vorgenommenen Zielen eine besondere Rolle spielt."-- Back cover. (shrink)

In the original publication, the article title has been published incorrectly. Now the same has been corrected in this correction.

This is a response to a short communication on our research presented in Solbrække et al. :89–103, 2017), which raises a series of serious allegations. Our article explored the rise of ‘the breast cancer gene’ as a field of medical, cultural and personal knowledge. We used the concept biological citizenship to elucidate representations of, and experiences with, hereditary breast cancer in a Norwegian context, addressing a research deficit. In our response to Møller and Hovig’s :239–242, 2018a) opinionated piece, we start (...) by questioning on which scientific grounds they base their knowledge claims and situate their criticism in a pre-determined positivist script, which exposes their incompetency when it comes to establishing a useful critique of our research. We tie this to an attitude of scientific supremacy, which reduces the complexity and specificity of different knowledges into a clichéd divide between ‘hard evidence’ and ‘fiction’—presented in a predictable narrative which seeks to establish research protagonists and antagonists. We elaborate on the rationale of our qualitative approach to analyzing and interpreting situated and mediated aspects of BRCA 1/2. We counter claims that our research does harm to patients. We refer to a medical scandal emerging from Norway where 21 women were wrongfully diagnosed and surgically treated for a mis-interpreted cancer gene mutation. In conclusion, we stand by the integrity of our research as reported in the original paper. Scientific supremacy and pre-scripted criticism impose considerable obstacles for the possibility of establishing interdisciplinary dialogue across knowledge paradigms in health care and medicine. We therefore urge readers to reflect on how we can establish and sustain ethically careful and truthful dialogue—without doing violence to epistemological differences—to protect and advance the interdisciplinarity that constitutes the journal’s scope. (shrink)

On childhood, childhood culture and child perspective in a cross-cultural frame of reference.

Organizational changes are common in elder care today. Such changes affect caregivers, who are essential to providing good quality care. The aim of the present study was to illuminate caregivers’ experiences of working in elder care while under threat of organizational change and termination notice. Qualitative content analysis was used to examine interview data from 11 caregivers. Interviews were conducted at three occasions during a two‐year period. The findings show a transition in their experiences from ‘having a professional identity and (...) self‐confidence’, to ‘being a professional in a threatening situation caused by someone else’ and to ‘struggling to adapt to a changed working environment as a person and a professional’. The caregivers experienced a loss of pride and satisfaction. Previous literature indicates that this may have consequences for the quality of care and that employees may be at risk of negative health effects. However, the caregivers continued to struggle, doing their best to complete their duties. The study has implications for high‐level decision‐makers, managers and caregivers in similar work–life situations in that it deals with factors that facilitate or impede similar transitions. (shrink)

In this discussion, Steve Fuller’s book Dissent over Descent is criticized mainly because he draws conclusions from wishful thinking and uses ancient and medieval scientists as well as theologians in his efforts to invalidate the theory of evolution. He is also criticized for drawing universal conclusions from a Eurocentric version of history. If science and technology studies is to regain its reputation, its representatives have to use relevant statements and argue more rationally.

Ethics committees in Catholic health care are responsible for con­sultation, education, and policy development and review. Historically, ethics committees were reactive and had no articulated goals. This article argues that the essential goals of Catholic ethics committees are (1) to promote the human dignity of patients and staff; (2) to promote the common good; (3) to promote institutional identity, integrity, and ethical climate; and (4) to improve quality of care. These goals are most effectively met when ethics committees are proactive (...) and integrated in the institution, embrace systems thinking, and utilize professional ethicists locally or regionally. (shrink)

Luminance and color are strong and self-sufficient cues to pictorial depth in visual scenes and images. The present study investigates the conditions Under which luminance or color either strengthens or overrides geometric depth cues. We investigated how luminance contrasts associated with color contrast interact with relative height in the visual field, partial occlusion, and interposition in determining the probability that a given figure is perceived as ‘‘nearer’’ than another. Latencies of ‘‘near’’ responses were analyzed to test for effects of attentional (...) selection. Figures in a pair were supported by luminance contrast or isoluminant color contrast and combined with one of the three geometric cues. The results of Experiment 1 show that luminance contrasts associated with hue, when it does not interact with other hues, produces the same effects as achromatic luminance contrasts: The probability of‘‘near’’ increases with luminance contrast while the latencies for ‘‘near’’ responses decrease. Partial occlusion is found to be a strong enough pictorial cue to support a weaker red luminance contrast. Interposition cues lose out against cues of spatial position and partial occlusion. The results of Experiment 2, with isoluminant displays of varying color contrast, reveal that red color contrast on a light background supported by any of the three geometric cues wins over green or white supported by any of the three geometric cues. On a dark background, red color contrast supported by the interposition cue loses out against green or white color contrast supported by partial occlusion. These findings reveal that color is not an independent depth cue, but is strongly influenced by luminance contrast and stimulus geometry. Systematically shorter response latencies for stronger ‘‘near’’ percepts demonstrate that selective visual attention reliably detects the most likely depth cue combination in a given configuration. (shrink)

In this collection, philosophers, social psychologists, and social scientists approach contemporary social reality from the viewpoint of solidarity. They examine the nature of solidarity and explore its normative and explanatory potential.

Les questions de communication sont au coeur des «perceptions du risque» car la grande majorité des risques ne seraient connus que de ceux qui l'expérimentent n'eut été les médias. Le champ historiquement individualiste de la «perception du risque» a manifesté peu d'intérêt pour le contenu des mass media et leur rôle dans la construction d'une pensée sur le risque. Bien au contraire, le processus de «l'information» sur le risque était situé dans la pensée individuelle, la question centrale étant: pourquoi certains (...) risques sont-ils grossis par les individus tandis que d'autres sont minimisés? Les médias jouent un rôle essentiel dans l'amplification de certains risques et les récepteurs de l'information sont considérés comme passifs devant les stimuli médiatiques. Il faut en fait nuancer l'approche pour saisir la dimension profonde de l'appréhension du risque. En passant de la notion de «perception du risque» à celle de «représentation du risque», on peut davantage cerner les liens entre médias et pensée profonde.Issues of communication lie at the heart of "risk perception" since the vast majority of risks would be known to only those who experience them were it not for the mass media. The historically individualist field of "risk perception" has tended to pay little attention to the contents of the mass media and the role these played in constructing risk-related thinking. Rather, the processing of risk "information" was situated within individual’s minds with the central question being: why are some risks overplayed by certain individuals while others more serious risks are underplayed? The media are seen to play a major role in the amplification of certain risks with those who receive such information being viewed as rather passive followers of media signals. The starting point of this paper is the need for a more nuanced approach to the lay dimension of the apprehension of risks. The paper outlines how a shift from "risk perception" to "risk representation" highlights the links between media and lay thinking. (shrink)

Le mouvement skinhead se compose de deux entités : les skinheads racistes-nationalistes et les skinheads antiracistes. S’inspirant des théories psychosociologiques relatives aux représentations sociales et aux minorités actives proposées par Serge Moscovici , il décrit les styles de comportement précis de chaque groupe skin, leurs divergences et leurs ressemblances, et analyse la façon dont la société, aidée par les media, ne retient qu’une seule représentation sociale, celle des skinheads nationalistes. Malgré l’univocité de la représentation, ce qui ressort de 19 entretiens (...) avec les skinheads, c’est l’idée de pluralité identitaire combinée à un ancrage urbain très important.The skinhead movement is divided into two groups : the racist-nationalist skinheads and the antiracist skinheads. Taking into account the social-psychological theories of social representations and active minorities, proposed by Serge Moscovici , it describes the styles of behavior of each skin group, their divergences and resemblances and analyses how society, with the help of the media, has built only one social representation of the nationalist skinheads. In spite of this univocal representation, what is underlined through the nineteen interviews with skinheads is a form of plural identity linked to a strong urban anchoring. (shrink)

Les fondements théoriques d'une analyse des activités dans les discours professionnels illustrée par des données issues de rencontres en conseil génétique sont présentés ici. En prenant l'activité comme unité de base de l'action, je me réfère rapidement à «l'activité théorique» proposée par Leontyev, rajoutant les notions de «jeux de langage» de Wittgenstein et de «types d'activités» de Levinson. L'activité d'analyse dans les discours professionnels doit aller au-delà du seul codage des instances de l'usage du langage et doit s'orienter vers la (...) compréhension d'une écologie spécifique de l'activité, incluant les dimensions relationnelles et de rôles des participants présents ou absents. Cette interprétation peut s'analyser en considérant le cadre thématique et interactionnel d'une situation donnée grâce à la prise en compte des propriétés structurelles et relationnelles dans l'usage du langage.In this paper I present a theoretical basis for activity analysis in professional discourse settings followed by an illustration of data from the genetic counseling encounters. By taking activity as the basic unit of action, I briefly draw on "activity theory" as proposed by Leontyev, supplemented by Wittgenstein's notion of "language games" and Levinson's notion of "activity types". I argue that activity analysis in the professional discourse settings has to go beyond mere coding of instances of language use towards an interpretive understanding of the activity-specific ecology, including the role-relational dimensions of co-present and absent participants. Such an interpretive task can be achieved through thematic and interactional mapping of a given encounter by taking into consideration the structural and relational properties situated language use. (shrink)

The major theoretical framework relative to the perception of illusory figures is reviewed and discussed in the attempt to provide a unifying explanatory account for these phenomena.

This is an introduction to a collection of essays on solidarity. It maps the most important meanings of solidarity at the micro- and macrolevels.

Following the pioneering studies of the receptive field (RF), the concept gained further significance for visual perception by the discovery of input effects from beyond the classical RF. These studies demonstrated that neuronal responses could be modulated by stimuli outside their RFs, consistent with the perception of induced brightness, color, orientation, and motion. Lesion scotomata are similarly modulated perceptually from the surround by RFs that have migrated from the interior to the outer edge of the scotoma and in this way (...) provide filling-in of the void. Large RFs are advantageous to this task. In higher visual areas, such as the middle temporal and inferotemporal lobe, RFs increase in size and lose most of their retinotopic organization while encoding increasingly complex features. Whereas lowerlevel RFs mediate perceptual filling-in, contour integration, and figure–ground segregation, RFs at higher levels serve the perception of grouping by common fate, biological motion, and other biologically relevant stimuli, such as faces. Studies in alert monkeys while freely viewing natural scenes showed that classical and nonclassical RFs cooperate in forming representations of the visual world. Today, our understanding of the mechanisms underlying the RF is undergoing a quantum leap. What had started out as a hierarchical feedforward concept for simple stimuli, such as spots, lines, and bars, now refers to mechanisms involving ascending, descending, and lateral signal flow. By extension of the bottom-up paradigm, RFs are nowadays understood as adaptive processors, enabling the predictive coding of complex scenes. Top-down effects guiding attention and tuned to task-relevant information complement the bottom-up analysis. (shrink)

This article discusses the reasons why illusory contours are likely to result from adaptive perceptual mechanisms that have evolved across species to promote behavioral success.

Positive spillover occurs when changes in one behaviour influence changes in subsequent behaviours. Evidence for such spillover and an understanding of when and how it may occur is still limited. This paper presents findings of a one year longitudinal behaviour change project led by a commercial retailer in the UK & Ireland to examine behaviour change and potential spillover of pro-environmental behaviour, and how this may be associated with changes in environmental identity and perceptions of ease and affordability as well (...) as perceptions of how participation in the project has helped support behaviour change. We draw on both quantitative and qualitative. Study 1 examines quantitative data from the experimental and a matched control group. Study 2 reports qualitative findings from a follow up interview study with participants of the experimental group. As expected, we found significant changes in reported pro-environmental behaviour and identity in the experimental group as well as some indications of behavioural spillover. These changes were not significantly associated with changes in environmental identity. The interviews suggested that group dynamics played an important role in facilitating a sense of efficacy and promote sustained behaviour change and spillover. Moreover, the support by a trusted entity was deemed to be of crucial importance. (shrink)

The experiments reported herein probe the visual cortical mechanisms that control near–far percepts in response to two-dimensional stimuli. Figural contrast is found to be a principal factor for the emergence of percepts of near versus far in pictorial stimuli, especially when stimulus duration is brief. Pictorial factors such as interposition (Experiment 1) and partial occlusion Experiments 2 and 3) may cooperate, as generally predicted by cue combination models, or compete with contrast factors in the manner predicted by the FACADE model. (...) In particular, if the geometrical conŽ guration of an image favors activation of cortical bipole grouping cells, as at the top of a T-junction, then this advantage can cooperate with the contrast of the conŽ guration to facilitate a near–far percept at a lower contrast than at an X-junction. Varying the exposure duration of the stimuli shows that the more balanced bipole competition in the X-junction case takes longer exposure times to resolve than the bipole competition in the T-junction case (Experiment 3). (shrink)

Alors que la plupart des recherches sur la psychologie sociale des représentations soulignent les aspects symboliques et communicationnels de ces dernières, une tendance subsiste qui consiste à concevoir les processus représentationnels en termes uniquement cognitifs comme si l'essentiel d'une représentation était articulé à une tentative de re-présenter le monde environnant. L'accent mis sur cette fonction des représentations, qui décalquerait en quelque sorte le monde extérieur, a instillé un courant anti-représentationnel qui a desservi la notion de représentation elle-même. Sur ce point, (...) deux aspects sont lacunaires : on ne peut rendre compte de la capacité ontogénétique de la représentation et on ne peut saisir sa fonction symbolique. La genèse des représentations montre qu'elles sont organisées en triades dialogiques ego/alter/objet articulées à des constructions entre personnes, relations ego/alter et monde. En saisissant cette genèse dialogique, on peut consolider les fonctions expressives et dialogiques des représentations qui, conjuguées à sa fonction épistémique sont partie intégrante du processus de construction des savoirs.While current research on the social psychology of representations emphasizes the symbolic and communicative aspects of representation, there remains a tendency to conceive representational processes in purely cognitive terms, as if all that is involved in representation is an attempt to re-present the reality of the world outside. This accent on the representational function qua mental replica of the outside world has engendered an anti-representational stance whose most radical consequence has been the dismissal of the notion of representation. This paper argues that this view fails on two accounts: it cannot provide an ontogenetic account of representation and it is unable to engage with its symbolic function. The genesis of representation shows that its foundations are dialogical triads between self-other-object, which shape it as a symbolic construction of persons, self-other relations and world. Understanding this dialogical genesis consolidates the expressive and dialogical functions of representation which, in conjunction with the epistemic function, are integral to the process of construction of knowledge. (shrink)

The 18th-century Scottish ‘common sense’ philosopher Thomas Reid argued that perception can be distinguished on several dimensions from other categories of experience, such as sensation, illusion, hallucination, mental images, and what he called ‘fancy.’ We extend his approach to eleven mental categories, and discuss how these distinctions, often ignored in the empirical literature, bear on current research. We also score each category on five properties (ones abstracted from Reid) to form a 5 × 11 matrix, and thus can generate statistical (...) measures of their mutual dependencies, a procedure that may have general interest as illustrating what we can call ‘computational philosophy.’. (shrink)

The perceived strength of darkness enhancement in the centre of surfaces surrounded or not surrounded by illusory contours was investigated as a function of proximity of the constituent elements of the display and their angular size. Magnitude estimation was used to measure the perception of the darkness phenomenon in white-on-grey stimuli. Darkness enhancement was perceived in both types of the stimuli used, but more strongly in the presence of illusory contours. In both cases, perceived darkness enhancement increased with increasing proximity (...) of the constituent parts of the display and with their angular size. These results suggest that the occurrence of darkness (or brightness) enhancement phenomena in the centre of the displays is not directly related to illusory contours, which only reinforce the subjective surface brightness/darkness. (shrink)

Light increment thresholds were measured on either side of one of the illusory contours of a white-on-black Kanizsa square and on the illusory contour itself. The data show that thresholds are elevated when measured on either side of the illusory border. These elevations diminish with increasing distance of the target spot from the white elements which induce the illusory figure. The most striking result, however, is that threshold elevations are considerably lower or even absent when the target is located on (...) the illusory contour itself. At an equivalent position in a control figure where no illusory contour is visible, such a threshold decrease does not occur. The present observations add empirical support to neural theories of illusory form perception. (shrink)

Background:The foundation of all nursing practice is respect for human rights, ethical value and human dignity. In perioperative practice, challenging situations appear quickly and operating theatre nurses must be able to make different ethical judgements. Sometimes they must choose against their own professional principles, and this creates ethical conflicts in themselves.Objectives:This study describes operating theatre nurses’ experiences of ethical value conflicts in perioperative practice.Research design:Qualitative design, narratives from 15 operating theatre nurses and hermeneutic text interpretation.Ethical consideration:The study followed ethical principles (...) in accordance with the Helsinki Declaration and approval was granted by the local university ethics committee.Findings:The result showed that value conflicts arose in perioperative practice when operating theatre nurses were prevented from being present in the perioperative nursing process, because of current habits in perioperative practice. The patient’s care became uncaring when health professionals did not see and listen to each other and when collaboration in the surgical team was not available for the patient’s best. This occurred when operating theatre nurses’ competence was not taken seriously and was ignored in patient care.Conclusion:Value conflicts arose when operating theatre nurses experienced that continuity of patient care was lacking. They experienced compassion with the patient but still had the will and ability to be there and take responsibility for the patient. This led to feelings of despair, powerlessness and of having a bad conscience which could lead to dissatisfaction, and even resignations. (shrink)