This book explores three interrelated roots of scholarly work that have a supportive and elaborative affinity to authentic and engaging classroom inquiry: ecological consciousness, Buddhist epistemologies, philosophies and practices, and interpretive inquiry or «hermeneutics». Although these three roots originate outside of and extend far beyond most educational literature, understanding them can be of immense practical importance to the conduct of rich, rigorous, practicable, sustainable, and adventurous classroom work for students and teachers alike. The authors collectively bring to these reflections decades (...) of classroom experience in grades K-12 and the experience of supervising hundreds of student teachers in such settings as well as working regularly with schools and classroom teachers in their day-to-day work. The authors demonstrate, through several classroom examples, how ecology, Buddhism, and hermeneutics provide ways to re-invigorate the often-moribund discourse of education and bring a sense of beauty and rigorous joy to classroom life for teachers and students alike. (shrink)

Dieses Buch versucht, die institutionelle Wirkung der Schuler K. C. F. Krauses grosstenteils anhand unveroffentlichter Handschriften zu rekonstruieren und den philosophie- und padagogikgeschichtlichen Kontext zu erhellen. Eingehend behandelt werden die ersten deutschen Philosophiekongresse, die von theistischen (I. H. Fichte) bzw. linkshegelianischen (L. Noack, K. Nauwerck) Richtungen und von Krauseanhangern veranstaltet wurden. Die Untersuchung widmet der engen Beziehung zwischen Frobel und Krause und dem daraus entspringenden 'Krause-Frobelianismus' besondere Aufmerksamkeit: Sie zeigt, inwiefern Krauses Philosophie mit ihren Tendenzen zum Praktischwerden und zum 'menschheitlichen' (...) Europaismus das Fundament der damals einflussreichen Frobel'schen Padagogik bildet. - Nach der bereits vorliegenden Biographie K. C. F. Krauses (SuE II,22) ist dies der zweite Band, den Urena zu diesem wichtigen Philosophen vorlegt.'Urena verwertet fur seine Arbeit eine Fulle bisher unveroffentlichten Materials aus dem Nachlass Frobels und Krauses sowie einiger Krause-Schuler. Sein solide gearbeitetes Werk ist ein ausserst wertvoller Beitrag zur deutschen Padagogikgeschichte des 19. Jahrhunderts.'K. Seidel, Geschichte, Politik und ihre Didaktik'Ein beeindruckendes Stuck Wissenschaftsgeschichte [.] Urenas bedeutende wissenschaftshistorische Studie ist von stupender Belesenheit und beeindruckender Materialfulle und verliert doch nie die Hauptlinien der Untersuchung aus dem Auge. [.] Allen an Philosophie und Padagogik des 19. Jahrhunderts und den in ihm zum Teil erst entwickelten Verbreitungsmedien [.] Interessierten sei die vorliegende Studie eindringlich empfohlen.' Alfred Langewand, Zeitschrift fur padagogische Historiographie'Urena gelingt es in seiner Arbeit in ausgezeichneter Weise, diese [.] interessante Biographie Krauses herauszuarbeiten und jene charakteristischen Momente hervorzuheben, die fur das Verstandnis der Philosophie Krauses wesentlich sind.'Heinz Krumpel, Ius Commune. Zeitschrift fur Europaische Rechtsgeschichte'Krause [.] a trouve en Espagne [.] un biographe a sa mesure [.] Son influence en Europe fut important et il faudrait peut etre reediter quelques textes afin que Krause [.] retrouve aujourd'hui une partie de l'echo qu'il merite. Ce tres bon ouvrage y contribuera grandement.' Dominique Bourel, Dix-Huitieme Siecle, 'Urena has performed a massiv task [.] A valuable contribution both to the subsequent reception of Kantian philosophy and to the international ramifications of German philosophy of the Classical period.' The Year's Work in Modern Language Studie. (shrink)

In deciding whether to forgive, we often focus on the wrongdoer, looking for an apology or a change of ways. However, to fully consider whether to forgive, we need to expand our focus from the wrongdoer and their wrongdoing, and we need to consider who we are, what we care about, and what we want to care about. The difference between blame and forgiveness is, at bottom, a difference in priorities. When we blame, we prioritize the wrong, and when we (...) forgive, we shift our priorities away from the wrong. Recognizing this essential role for priorities in forgiveness allows us to address a thorny puzzle in thinking about forgiveness: how is it that forgiveness can be both principled and elective? If there is sufficient reason to forgive, as will sometimes be the case because forgiveness is principled, how can it be reasonable to withhold forgiveness? Recognizing that forgiveness is a shift in our priorities dissolves this apparent tension between forgiveness being principled and forgiveness being elective. (shrink)

For many philosophers, bad-history wrongdoers are primarily interesting because of what their cases might tell us about the interaction of moral responsibility and history. However, philosophers focusing on blameworthiness have overlooked important questions about blame itself. These bad-history cases are complicated because blame and sympathy are both fitting. When we are careful to consider the rich natures of those two reactions, we see that they conflict in several important ways. We should see bad-history cases as cases about whether and how (...) we should blame, rather than as cases giving us ready insight into the nature of moral responsibility. (shrink)

R K Elliott; Versions of Creativity, Journal of Philosophy of Education, Volume 5, Issue 2, 30 May 2006, Pages 139–152, https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1467-9752.1971.

This book is the only contemporary, systematic study of the relationship of time and conscious experience. Peter K. Mclnerney examines three tightly interconnected issues: how we are able to be conscious of time and temporal entities, whether time exists independently of conscious experience, and whether the conscious experiencer exists in time in the same way that ordinary natural objects are thought to exist in time. Insight is drawn from the views of major phenomenological and existential thinkers on these issues. Building (...) on a detailed explication and critique of the views of Kant, Husserl, Heidegger, and Sartre, Mclnerney develops and defends his own positions. He argues that a revised version of Husserl’s three-feature theory of time-consciousness provides the best explanation of our awareness of temporal features, but that an independently real time is necessary to explain our experience of temporal passage. He also shows that human existence has some special temporal features in addition to those it shares with other entities. Time-consciousness, the conscious exercise of powers, and personal identity through time require that any temporal part of human existence be defined by and "reach across" to earlier and later parts. (shrink)

Julie K. Ward examines Aristotle's thought regarding how language informs our views of what is real. First she places Aristotle's theory in its historical and philosophical contexts in relation to Plato and Speusippus. Ward then explores Aristotle's theory of language as it is deployed in several works, including Ethics, Topics, Physics, and Metaphysics, so as to consider its relation to dialectical practice and scientific explanation as Aristotle conceived it.

Over the past two decades, Victor and Cullen's (Adm Sci Q 33:101-125, 1988) typology of ethical climates has been employed by many academics in research on issues of ethical climates. However, little is known about how managerial practices such as communication and empowerment influence ethical climates, especially from a functional perspective. The current study used a survey of employees from Taiwan's top 100 patent-owning companies to examine how communication and empowerment affect organizational ethical climates. The results confirm the relationship between (...) these two managerial practices and organizational ethical climates. We discuss our results and their implications for both future academic research and practice. (shrink)

Decision making in health care contexts is often deeply challenging for the patients, their close ones, and those who care for them. All of them have and perceive different forms of responsibilitie...

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Introduction to the Special Issue on Pediatric Decision-MakingErica K. SalterUnlike in the traditional decisional dyad in adult-based care, pediatric decision-making typically involves a triadic relationship among the patient, their parents, and the health-care providers. This complex relationship raises questions and concerns regarding each party’s expectations, obligations, and authority. For example, should a parent be allowed to withhold a poor diagnosis from an adolescent patient? Should an HLA-matched six-year-old sister (...) be permitted to serve as a bone marrow donor for her older sibling with lysosomal storage disease? Or, should parents be given decisional authority to consent to gender-affirming care for an adolescent with gender dysphoria? Cases like these are among the most ethically challenging decisions faced by parents and health-care providers because they present competing interests and values, and it’s not always clear what is in the best interests of the child.In the context of American medicine, the best interest standard has been identified as the primary ethical and legal guide for decision-making. In its most prominent form, the best interest standard requires parents and pediatric practitioners to choose the medical treatment that maximizes benefits and minimizes harms to the particular child in question. However, over the past few decades, the standard has come under significant scrutiny, with discussions and debate in the academic bioethics literature asking whether the standard is able to serve the [End Page 181] purposes it is thought to serve and whether alternative standards might be better suited to the task(s). Despite vigorous interest in these issues, the academic literature did not seem to generate any sense of identifiable consensus about how others ought to make health-care decisions on behalf of children.Thus, in June 2022, 17 scholar-experts on pediatric decision-making standards gathered in St. Louis, MO, for a three-day symposium of discussion and consensus-building. The participating authors represented different disciplinary perspectives and different viewpoints in the debate about guidance principles that underlie pediatrics. Despite apparent disagreement about such standards in the literature, the group was able to generate a set of six consensus-based recommendations (see Table 1) for pediatric decision-making. These recommendations, as well as their application, justification, and limitations, were published as a special article in Pediatrics in August 2023 (Salter et al. 2023), which was composed with the primary goals of accessibility, teachability, and implementability for practicing pediatric clinicians. Click for larger view View full resolutionTable 1.Six consensus recommendations for pediatric decision-makingWhile the group was able to find agreement about these six central principles of pediatric decision-making, there remained several related issues that were outside of the scope of the symposium aims. For example, should these recommendations apply to neonates, children in state custody, or adolescents, and if so, how would their application be operationalized? What specific conditions should justify state intervention on parental authority? How should parents and health-care providers think about obligations to siblings in health-care decisions? This [End Page 182] special issue of Perspectives in Biology and Medicine provides a forum for our authors and collaborators to further explore these, and other, important questions.The issue opens with a piece by the symposium organizers and editors of this special issue, Erica Salter, Lainie Friedman Ross, and D. Micah Hester, describing the symposium’s inspiration and design, its execution, and the implications it might have for pediatric ethics. This contribution compares the six symposium recommendations with existing statements about pediatric decision-making, in particular the statements developed by the American Academy of Pediatrics (AAP). In “How We Found Consensus on Pediatric Decision-Making and Why It Matters,” readers will find a detailed account of the process engaged to develop the six consensus-based recommendations, as well as a discussion of the value and limitations of such a process, which may serve as a model of consensus-building useful for other unsettled topics of interest in the bioethics community.The issue’s second article, “Childhood Interests: What They Are, and Why It Matters,” by Johan Bester and Jeffrey Blustein, dives into the conceptual foundation of the symposium’s first two recommendations. This... (shrink)

Many accounts of the morality of abortion assume that early fetuses must all have or lack moral status in virtue of developmental features that they share. Our actual attitudes toward early fetuses don’t reflect this all-or-nothing assumption: early fetuses can elicit feelings of joy, love, indifference, or distress. If we start with the assumption that our attitudes toward fetuses reflect a real difference in their moral status, then we need an account of fetal moral status that can explain that difference. (...) I argue that we can have or lack relational obligations to early fetuses in light of our own activities or choices, independent of the fetus’s own features or properties. Those relational obligations make the early fetus morally considerable to the persons who stand in a moral relation to it. Pregnant persons (and other participants in the procreative process) can come to have relational obligations to an early fetus just in virtue of their own decision to create a person, either by intentionally getting pregnant or by deciding to continue a pregnancy. That decision not only makes it appropriate for them to care about the fetus, but it also generates obligations to the fetus that they didn’t have before that decision. (shrink)

Sexual dimorphism, symmetry, and coloration in human faces putatively signal information relevant to mate selection and reproduction. Although the independent contributions of these characteristics to judgments of attractiveness are well established, relatively few studies have examined whether individuals prioritize certain features over others. Here, participants (N = 542, 315 female) ranked six sets of facial photographs (3 male, 3 female) by their preference for starting long- and short-term romantic relationships with each person depicted. Composite-based digital transformations were applied such that (...) each image set contained 11 different versions of the same identity. Each photograph in each image set had a unique combination of three traits: sexual dimorphism, symmetry, and color cues to health. Using conjoint analysis to evaluate participants’ ranking decisions, we found that participants prioritized cues to sexual dimorphism over symmetry and color cues to health. Sexual dimorphism was also found to be relatively more important for the evaluation of male faces than for female faces, whereas symmetry and color cues to health were relatively more important for the evaluation of female faces than for male faces. Symmetry and color cues to health were more important for long-term versus short-term evaluations for female faces, but not male faces. Analyses of utility estimates reveal that our data are consistent with research showing that preferences for facial masculinity and femininity in male and female faces vary according to relationship context. These findings are interpreted in the context of previous work examining the influence of these facial attributes on romantic partner perception. (shrink)

The term ‘environment’ is not uniformly defined in the public health sciences, which causes crucial inconsistencies in research, health policy, and practice. As we shall indicate, this is somewhat entangled with diverging pathogenic and salutogenic perspectives (research and policy priorities) concerning environmental health. We emphasise two distinct concepts of environment in use by the World Health Organisation. One significant way these concepts differ concerns whether the social environment is included. Divergence on this matter has profound consequences for the understanding of (...) health and disease, for measures derived from that understanding targeting health promotion and disease prevention, and consequently, for epistemic structures and concept development in scientific practice. We hope to improve the given situation in public health by uncovering these differences and by developing a fruitful way of thinking about environment. Firstly, we side with the salutogenic conception of environment as a _health resource_ (as well as a source of health risks). Secondly, we subdivide the concept of environment into four _health-oriented environmental categories_ (viz., natural, built-material, socio-cultural, and psychosocial) and we link these with other theoretical notions proposed in the health sciences literature. Thirdly, we propose that in public health ‘environment’ should be understood as consisting of all extrinsic factors that influence or are influenced by the health, well-being, and development of an individual. Consequently, none of the four categories should be excluded from the concept of environment. We point out the practical relevance and fruitfulness of the conception of environment as a health source and frame this in causal terms, representing _individual health environments_ as causal networks. Throughout, we side with the view that for the design of human health-promoting settings, increased attention and consideration of environmental resources of salutogenic potential is particularly pressing. (shrink)

This paper offers a review of the catalogue composed by Myriam Vogelaar of one of the largest and most important collections of Fight Books and fencing manuals in the field of Historical European Martial Arts Studies (HEMAS). The Mokken Collection is named after Wiebe Mokken, the man who meticulously built it up over the past decades in Amsterdam. The book also highlights the glaring lack of contemporary knowlegde about other major historical fencing-related collections, like Gotti’s spectacular private collection held at (...) the Museo dell Arte Marziale in Brescia, Italy. Others, such as the Corble collection at the KU Leuven Libraries, recently published their catalogue on line. This catalogue thus constitutes an important milestone for this exciting and still relatively new subdomain in the field of European cultural studies, by making accessible one of the most important collections of source materials dedicated to it. (shrink)

We examine the extent to which multiple social identities are associated with enhanced health and well-being in retirement because they provide a basis for giving and receiving social support. Results from a cross-sectional study show that retirees ( N = 171) who had multiple social identities following (but not prior to) retirement report being (a) more satisfied with retirement, (b) in better health, and (c) more satisfied with life in general. Furthermore, mediation analyses revealed an indirect path from multiple social (...) identities to greater satisfaction with retirement and better health through greater provision, but not receipt, of social support to others. These findings are the first to point to the value of multiple group membership post-retirement as a basis for increased opportunities to give meaningful support to others. We discuss the theoretical and practical implications for the management of multiple identities in the process of significant life transitions such as retirement. (shrink)

This historical survey of Greek literature from 700 BC to 550 AD concentrates on the principal authors and quotes many passages from their work in translation, to allow the reader to form his own impression of its quality, including Homer, Plato, Aristophanes, and Euripides. Attention is drawn both to the elements in Greek literature and attitudes to life which are unfamiliar to us, and to the elements which appeal most powerfully to succeeding generations. Although it is recognized that this appeal (...) lies above all in the most creative and inventive period, an account is given of the eight hundred years which followed, which saw the impact of earlier inspirations. Poetry, tragedy, comedy, history, science, philosophy, and oratory are all examined through the available literature. This new edition has been revised to take account of recent scholarship, such as the influence of oriental traditions of Greek literature, and includes several new translations and a thoroughly updated bibliography. (shrink)

This article describes the process engaged by 17 expert scholars in the development of a set of six consensus recommendations about the normative foundations of pediatric decision-making. The process began with a robust pre-reading assignment, followed by three days of in-person symposium discussions that resulted in a publication in _Pediatrics_ entitled “Pediatric Decision-Making: Consensus Recommendations” (Salter et al. 2023). This article next compares the six recommendations to existing statements about pediatric decision-making (specifically those developed by the American Academy of Pediatrics), (...) highlighting similarities and differences. Finally, the article discusses the value of finding consensus in the field of pediatric bioethics. (shrink)

ÖZ “Tanzanya’da Leibzig Misyoner Cemiyeti Misyonerliği, Karşılaşılan Zorluklar ve Kullanılan Yöntemler” isimli makale “Tanzanya’da Misyonerlik Faaliyetler Lutheran Kilise Örneği” isimli yüksek lisans tezine dayanmaktadır. Makale, Lutheran misyonerliğinin Tanzanya’da faaliyetlerine nasıl başladıkları, ilerleme yöntemleri ve karşılaşılan güçlükleri anlama noktasında önem arz etmektedir. Makalede ana konuya odaklanmadan önce, Tanzanya hakkında genel bir bilgilendirme yapılmış, ardından Leibzig Misyon Cemiyeti’nin (LMS) faaliyetlerine nasıl başladığı, kronolojik bir şekilde açmış olduğu istasyonlar, bu istasyonlarda karşılaşmış olduğu zorluklar ve kullanılan yöntemler hakkında bilgi verilmiştir. Ayrıca, Tanzanya’da Lutheran misyoner (...) cemiyetlerinin, Tanzanya Evanjelik Lutheran Kilisesi (Tanzania Evangelical Lutheran Church in Tanzania) ELCT ile tek bir kilise çatı altında toplanması ele alınmıştır. Son olarak, ELCT’nin kabul etmiş olduğu ilkeler ve Martin Luther’in öğretilerinin Afrika’daki yansımaları üzerinde durulmuştur. Makale, sadece misyonerleri ve misyonerlik faaliyetlerini değil, ayrıca muhatap olunan ve yüzyıllardır sömürgeleştirilen Afrika halkını anlamamıza da yardımcı olmaktadır. Araştırma, Lutheran misyonerliğinin Tanzanya’da başlamış olduğu 19. yüzyıl sonu ve yoğunlaştığı 20. yüzyıl ile sınırlandırılmıştır. Otto von Bismarck’ın (1815-1898) katkılarıyla gerçekleşen Berlin Konferansı sayesinde, batılı ülkelerin bayrakları ile haçları da sömürge topraklarına girmiştir. Tanzanya'da Lutheran Misyon, Johann Ludwig Krapf (1810-1881) ve Johannes Rebmann'ın (1820-1876) CMS tarafından görevlendirilmeleri sonucu başlamıştır. LMS, CMS'den 1892 tarihinde görevi devralmıştır ve Machame, Mamba, Old Moshi, Pare, Meru'da faaliyet göstermiştir. Misyon faaliyetleri süresince, savaşlar, kıtlık ve salgın, çok eşlilik, sünnet uygulaması, tanrı anlayışı gibi birçok zorlukla karşılaşılmıştır. Zorluklar, onları ortadan kaldırmaya yardımcı olacak; eğitim, sağlık, bütüncül hizmet, ortak dil (lingua franca), Kutsal Kitap çevirileri, ev ziyaretleri, yerli yardımcılar ve yerlileştirme gibi yöntemleri de beraberinde getirmiştir. Tanzanya’da LMS dışında; Katolik Kutsal Ruh Babaları (Holy Ghost Father/ Spiritanlar), Katolik Beyaz Babalar (Peres Blancs), Katolik Benediktinler, Anglikan Kilise Misyon Topluluğu (Chuch Missionary Society) CMS, Anglikan Üniversitelerin Orta Afrika Misyonu (The Universities’ Mission to Central Africa) UMCA gibi misyon grupları mevcuttur. Tanzanya'da bulunan Lutheran Misyon toplulukları, Evanjelik Lüteriyen Kilisesi (ELCT) adı altında 1963 yılında tek bir çatı altında toplanmıştır. ELCT bugün 5,2 milyon üyesi ile Tanzanya nüfusu içinde hatırı sayılır bir yere sahiptir. Bu çalışmada, deskriptif yöntem kullanılmıştır. Ulaşılabilen tüm ilk kaynaklara inilerek Lutheran misyonerler ve Tanzanya hakkında bilgi verilmiştir. Çalışmada Türkçe kaynaklara yer verilmekle birlikte yabancı kaynak kullanımına ve misyon topluluklarının bilinen kısaltmalarının kullanılmasına önem gösterilmiştir. Anahtar Kelimeler; Tanzanya, Hıristiyanlık, Misyonerlik, Lutheranizm, Leipzig Misyon Cemiyeti. (shrink)

Human and animal interests are often in conflict. In many situations, however, it is unclear how to evaluate and weigh competing human and animal interests, as the satisfaction of the interests of one group often inevitably occurs at the expense of those of the other group. Human-animal conflicts of this kind give rise to ethical questions. If animals count morally for their own sake, then we must ask in which cases the satisfaction or frustration of the interests of humans and (...) animals in conflict situations is justified or unjustified from an ethical perspective. In this article, we argue that limited aggregation accounts represent a promising means for resolving interspecies conflicts. The reason for this is that they can appropriately consider the qualitative relevance of interests, their relative importance to each other, and the number of individuals affected. For our argument, we start from the premise that animals count morally for their own sake, albeit to a lesser extent than humans. That is, we accept the view that animals may be used, for example, as a source of food or in animal research. However, as we will show, many basic interests of animals are sufficiently similar to human interests and can thus be compared to them. Hence, they ought to be aggregated in cases of conflict with human interests. We illustrate our account and its practical implications with the real-world example of a human-animal conflict during the outbreak of a zoonotic disease among farmed animals. We conclude that, in many cases, animal interests ought to be given more importance than they currently receive, which includes distributing the burdens and risks of farming practices more fairly. (shrink)

On April 3, 1995, the Fourth Circuit upheld the right of a Maryland hospital to terminate a surgeon who was HIV-positive ). A resident in the University of Maryland Neurosurgical Training Program was dismissed when hospital administrators learned of his infection with HIV. The resident, known as Dr. Doe, claimed that his termination violated federal laws protecting persons with disabilities. The court upheld the hospital's actions as lawful and affirmed the trial court's grant of summary judgment for the hospital.Dr. Doe (...) charged that his dismissal from the training program violated the Rehabilitation Act and the Americans with Disabilities Act. (shrink)

On October 31, 1994, it was announced that a confidential settlement had been reached in Doe v. Kohn, Nast & Graf, P.C., et al., 862F. Supp. 1310 ). The settlement in ths widely publicized AIDS discrimination case came three weeks after the trial began in the District Court for the Eastern District of Pennsylvania, Nov. 2, 1994, at 10).Plaintiff Doe, an associate employed at Kohn, Nast & Graf, a prominent law firm in Philadelphia, filed an AIDS discrimination case under the (...) Americans with Disabilities Act against his employer claiming that the firm fired him in March 1993 because he was HIV-positive. Doe's complaint also cited claims under ERISA and other Pennsylvania employment laws. (shrink)

In St. Francis Regional Medical Center v. Blue Cross & Blue Shield of Kansas ), the United States Court of Appeals for the Tenth Circuit upheld Blue Cross/Blue Shield of Kansas's anti-assignment requirement, on the grounds that the Employee Retirement Income Security Act preempted a hospital's claim against Blue Cross. The court also held that public policy supported anti-assignment requirements in health plans not covered under ERISA.When drafting ERISA, Congress did not explicitly address assignability of health care benefits. According to (...) the court of appeals, congressional silence constituted an intent to allow the parties to negotiate freely the assignment of health care benefits. Examining non-ERISA health plans, the court adopted a balancing test to determine the validity of anti-assignment clauses; it found that anti-assignment requirements promote freedom of contract and may include medical costs. (shrink)

This book discusses the profound philosophy and practical psychology behind yoga, beyond its popular body-culture aspect. It pays particular attention to the psychological principles involved and their implications for the consummate understanding of human nature. It explores the psychological aspects of yoga theory and practice and discusses the aphorisms in Patanjali's treatise on Yoga with necessary commentary in current psychological terminology to make them intelligible to students of psychology and other interested readers. Importantly, the author draws out the implications of (...) these aphorisms for future psychological study and research. The book discusses the author's concept of yoga of nonviolence which brings in Gandhian ideas into the framework of yoga. The author's own vast experience in creating interfaces of yoga research with practice also informs the discussions in this book. This authoritative and topical book by an eminent academic like Professor Ramakr ishna Rao is of interest to scholars and students of diverse disciplines, including but not limited to psychology, philosophy and wellbeing research. (shrink)

Cross-cultural research suggests that East Asians display a holistic attentional bias by paying attention to the entire field and to relationships between objects, whereas Westerners pay attention primarily to salient objects, displaying an analytic attentional bias. The assumption of a universal pan-Asian holistic attentional bias has recently been challenged in experimental research involving Japanese and Chinese participants, which suggests that linguistic factors may contribute to the formation of East Asians' holistic attentional patterns. The present experimental research explores differences in attention (...) and information processing styles between Korean and Chinese speakers, who have been assumed to display the same attentional bias due to cultural commonalities. We hypothesize that the specific structure of the Korean language predisposes speakers to pay more attention to ground information than to figure information, thus leading to a stronger holistic attentional bias compared to Chinese speakers. Findings of the present research comparing different groups of English, Chinese, and Korean speakers provide further evidence for differences in East Asians' holistic attentional bias, which may be due to the influence of language. Furthermore, we also extend prior theorizing by discussing the potential impact of other cultural factors. In line with critical voices calling for more research investigating differences between cultures that are assumed to be culturally similar, we highlight important avenues for future studies exploring the language-culture relationship. (shrink)

The key to action control is one’s ability to adequately predict the consequences of one’s actions. Predictive processing theories assume that forward models enable rapid “preplay” to assess the match between predicted and intended action effects. Here we propose the novel hypothesis that “reading” another’s action intentions requires a rich forward model of that agent’s action. Such a forward model can be obtained and enriched through learning by either practice or simulation. Based on this notion, we ran a series of (...) studies on soccer goalkeepers and novices, who predicted the intended direction of penalties being kicked at them in a computerized penalty-reading task. In line with hypotheses, extensive practice in penalty kicking improved performance in penalty reading among goalkeepers who had extensive prior experience in penalty blocking but not in penalty kicking. A robust benefit in penalty reading did not result from practice in kinesthetic motor imagery of penalty kicking in novice participants. To test whether goalkeepers actually use such penalty-kicking imagery in penalty reading, we trained a machine-learning classifier on multivariate fMRI activity patterns to distinguish motor-imagery-related from attention-related strategies during a penalty-imagery training task. We then applied that classifier to fMRI data related to a separate penalty-reading task and showed that 2/3 of all correctly read penalty kicks were classified as engaging the motor-imagery circuit rather than merely the attention circuit. This study provides initial evidence that, in order to read our opponent’s action intention, it helps to observe their action kinematics, and use our own forward model to predict the sensory consequences of “our” penalty kick if we were to produce these action kinematics ourselves. In sum, it takes practice as a penalty kicker to become a penalty killer. (shrink)