Two classes of account have been proposed to explain the memory processes subserving the processing of reflexive-antecedent dependencies. Structure-based accounts assume that the retrieval of the antecedent is guided by syntactic tree-configurational information without considering other kinds of information such as gender marking in the case of English reflexives. By contrast, unconstrained cue-based retrieval assumes that all available information is used for retrieving the antecedent. Similarity-based interference effects from structurally illicit distractors which match a non-structural retrieval cue have been interpreted (...) as evidence favoring the unconstrained cue-based retrieval account since cue-based retrieval interference from structurally illicit distractors is incompatible with the structure-based account. However, it has been argued that the observed effects do not necessarily reflect interference occurring at the moment of retrieval but might equally well be accounted for by interference occurring already at the stage of encoding or maintaining the antecedent in memory, in which case they cannot be taken as evidence against the structure-based account. We present three experiments (self-paced reading and eye-tracking) on German reflexives and Swedish reflexive and pronominal possessives in which we pit the predictions of encoding interference and cue-based retrieval interference against each other. We could not find any indication that encoding interference affects the processing ease of the reflexive-antecedent dependency formation. Thus, there is no evidence that encoding interference might be the explanation for the interference effects observed in previous work. We therefore conclude that invoking encoding interference may not be a plausible way to reconcile interference effects with a structure-based account of reflexive processing. (shrink)

We present a comprehensive empirical evaluation of the ACT‐R–based model of sentence processing developed by Lewis and Vasishth (2005) (LV05). The predictions of the model are compared with the results of a recent meta‐analysis of published reading studies on retrieval interference in reflexive‐/reciprocal‐antecedent and subject–verb dependencies (Jäger, Engelmann, & Vasishth, 2017). The comparison shows that the model has only partial success in explaining the data; and we propose that its prediction space is restricted by oversimplifying assumptions. We then implement (...) a revised model that takes into account differences between individual experimental designs in terms of the prominence of the target and the distractor in memory‐ and context‐dependent cue‐feature associations. The predictions of the original and the revised model are quantitatively compared with the results of the meta‐analysis. Our simulations show that, compared to the original LV05 model, the revised model accounts for the data better. The results suggest that effects of prominence and variable cue‐feature associations need to be considered in the interpretation of existing empirical results and in the design and planning of future experiments. With regard to retrieval interference in sentence processing and to the broader field of psycholinguistic studies, we conclude that well‐specified models in tandem with high‐powered experiments are needed in order to uncover the underlying cognitive processes. (shrink)

Hermeneutics and narration: a way to deal with qualitative data This article focuses a hermeneutic approach on the interpretation of narratives. It is based on the French philosopher Paul Ricoeur's theory of interpretation but modified and used within a caring science paradigm. The article begins with a presentation of the theoretical underpinnings of hermeneutic philosophy and narration, as well as Ricoeur's theory of interpretation, before going on to describe the interpretation process as modified by the authors. The interpretation process, which (...) consists of several stages, is exemplified and discussed using a single case from a larger study on suffering. The results of that study indicate that the struggle of suffering is perceived as a struggle formed between shame and dignity, and that nurses must engage in the process of preserving and restoring the dignity of their suffering patients. The authors suggest that Ricoeur's theory of interpretation is useful when trying to understand narrative data if the researcher realises that the process of distanciation, although central in Ricoeur's thinking, is not the goal of the process but rather a means to deal with the researcher's pre‐understandings. According to Ricoeur, distanciation is accomplished by putting the context aside and dealing with the text ‘as text’ and thereby explaining its meaning. Explanation thus becomes the dialectic counterpart to understanding in the interpretation process. The researchers further argue that distanciation must be followed by reflection, where the interpretations are linked back to the empirical context. (shrink)

In the 1980s, philosophical, historical and social studies of science underwent a change which later evolved into a turn to practice. Analysts of science were asked to pay attention to scientific practices in meticulous detail and along multiple dimensions, including the material, social and psychological. Following this turn, the interest in scientific practices continued to increase and had an indelible influence in the various fields of science studies. No doubt, the practice turn changed our conceptions and approaches of science, but (...) what did it really teach us? What does it mean to study scientific practices? What are the general lessons, implications, and new challenges? This volume explores questions about the practice turn using both case studies and theoretical analysis. The case studies examine empirical and mathematical sciences, including the engineering sciences. The volume promotes interactions between acknowledged experts from different, often thought of as conflicting, orientations. It presents contributions in conjunction with critical commentaries that put the theses and assumptions of the former in perspective. Overall, the book offers a unique and diverse range of perspectives on the meanings, methods, lessons, and challenges associated with the practice turn. (shrink)

The Element reconstructs, analyses and compares different derivational routes to a grounding of the Arrow of Time in entropy. It also evaluates the link between entropy and visible disorder, and the related claim of an alignment of the Arrow of Time with a development from order to visible disorder. The Element identifies three different entropy-groundings for the Arrow of Time: (i) the Empirical Arrow of Time, (ii) the Universal Statistical Arrow of Time, and (iii) the Local Statistical Arrow of Time. (...) The Element will also demonstrate that it is unlikely that high entropy states will always coincide with visible disorder. Therefore, it will dispute that there is a strong link between the Arrow of Time and visible disorder. (shrink)

Hayek and the Efficient Market Hypothesis are often seen as proposing a similar theory of prices. Hayek is seen as proposing to understand prices as information conveyer, incorporating inform...

A growing body of work approaches the current environmental devastation from the perspective of a “crisis of sensitivity”: our inability to care for the living around us is said to be a failure of perception and feeling. The article explores several versions of the narrative of modern insensitivity through a study of Günther Anders and Jane Bennett, highlighting the limitations of such approaches. I suggest the notion of a desensitization apparatus to specify and politicize the diagnosis of a “crisis of (...) sensitivity”. (shrink)

The paper introduces precise definitions of the inevitabilist and contingentist positions. On this basis, it reveals the analytical structure and some inherent difficulties of the contingentist/inevitabilist issue. It then discusses some of these difficulties, relying on the thought-experiment of a ‘divided physics’. Along the way, it investigates the kinds of differences that two alternative physics should present, if they are to give rise to non-benign forms of contingentism.Keywords: Contingency; Inevitabilism; Incommensurability; Theory-comparison; Scientific realism; Constructivism.

Emotional AI is an emerging technology used to make probabilistic predictions about the emotional states of people using data sources, such as facial (micro)-movements, body language, vocal tone or the choice of words. The performance of such systems is heavily debated and so are the underlying scientific methods that serve as the basis for many such technologies. In this article I will engage with this new technology, and with the debates and literature that surround it. Working at the intersection of (...) criminology, policing, surveillance and the study of emotional AI this paper explores and offers a framework of understanding the various issues that these technologies present particularly to liberal democracies. I argue that these technologies should not be deployed within public spaces because there is only a very weak evidence-base as to their effectiveness in a policing and security context, and even more importantly represent a major intrusion to people’s private lives and also represent a worrying extension of policing power because of the possibility that intentions and attitudes may be inferred. Further to this, the danger in the use of such invasive surveillance for the purpose of policing and crime prevention in urban spaces is that it potentially leads to a highly regulated and control-oriented society. I argue that emotion recognition has severe impacts on the right to the city by not only undertaking surveillance of existing situations but also making inferences and probabilistic predictions about future events as well as emotions and intentions. (shrink)

Cities and local governments loom large on the sustainability agenda. Networks such as Fair Trade Towns International (FTT) and the Organic Cities Network aim to bring about global policy change from below. Given the new enthusiasm for local approaches, it seems relevant to ask to what extent local groups exercise power and in what form. City networks present their members as “ethical places” exercising _power with_, rather than _power over_ others. The article provides an empirical analysis of the power of (...) FTT and Organic Cities in Germany. In both cases, we found cities that are eager to emphasize their inclusive potential. Their willingness to compromise is demonstrated most illustratively by the fact that several cities are members of both networks: While the FTT campaign aims to address problems of international trade but does not abandon it, Organic Cities advocate for a new localism based on food supply from farmers in the same region. In both cases, city networks use their purchasing power to increase the share of certified products. By doing so, the city networks reproduce privileged positions of consumers benefitting from the global capitalist order (_power over_). However, our analysis revealed that networks also make citizens reflect upon agri-food challenges and allow developing alternatives for more sustainable systems (_power with_). (shrink)

First published in 1984, this is a study of categorization practices: how people categorize each other and their actions; how they describe, infer, and judge. The book presents a sociological analysis and description of practical activities and makes a cogent contribution to the study of how the moral order actually works in practical communicative contexts. Among the issues dealt with are: collectivity categorizations, the organization of lists and descriptions, moral attribution and inferences, and the relationship between standards of morality and (...) standards of rationality. (shrink)

The present study examined the effects of mindfulness training on attention regulation in university students and whether the potential benefits of implementation are influenced by the yoga component of mindfulness-based interventions (MBIs) and/or by MBI homework practice. In a non-randomized trial with pre- and post-assessments, n = 180 university students were allocated to either mindfulness training (experimental groups), awareness activities (active control group), or no training (passive control group). Mindfulness was taught through two MBIs, one including yoga and the other (...) excluding yoga. Attention regulation was operationalized via behavioral indicators, namely sustained attention, cognitive flexibility, cognitive inhibition, and data-driven information processing. With the exception of speed in a cognitive flexibility task, the results indicated no systematic or differential advantage arising from mindfulness training, with or without yoga, regarding the aspects of attention regulation. There was no consistent influence of homework quantity or quality. The implications for mindfulness training in academic contexts are discussed. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Philosophy, Psychiatry, & Psychology 10.3 (2003) 227-231 [Access article in PDF] World Traveling as a Clinical Methodology for Psychiatric Care Suzanne M. Jaeger Keywords embodiment, dialogical consciousness, interpersonal communication, epistemic responsibility, self-knowledge, understanding IN HER ARTICLE "Moral Tourists and World Travelers," Nancy Potter suggests a way in which psychiatrists and psychologists could gain a better understanding of their mentally ill patients' experiences. Rather than assuming that hallucinations and incoherent (...) speech and behavior are merely senseless disconnections from reality, Potter argues that mental health care clinicians ought to spend time engaging patients on their own terms. Even when mental illness is a result of brain disease, much can be learned about the patient's experiences of their disease by temporarily setting aside the scientific frameworks of diagnosis and medical treatment. Potter uses Maria Lugones' concept of world traveling and recommends playfully accepting, and even entering into the patient's world (Lugones 1990). She calls world traveling a methodology and explains it in some detail. Moreover, at the close of her essay, Potter suggests that clinicians have a moral obligation to understand the mentally ill patient's world from the patient's perspective. This obligation is based on an appeal to our sense of what it is to be a responsible knower who attends to issues of trust and truth. Relying on arguments made by Lorraine Code (1987), Potter asserts that to try to understand the other's perspective is the responsible thing to do.My discussion focuses on the notion of play to which Potter appeals, as well as on what she sees as the moral obligation of clinicians to communicate with their mentally ill patients in extra-professional ways. This moral obligation arises because (a) the theoretical and professional frameworks of medical science are seen as inadequate, and (b) playfulness opens up mutually respectful, authentic interaction between persons. I generally agree with Potter's claims, and I want to situate them in the wider framework of an epistemological debate about the status of our knowledge of others. A broader context will help to elucidate the strengths of Potter's analysis as well as some points for critical discussion. I begin with the relationship of trust between clinicians and patients.Few people would disagree with the claim that patients need to be able to trust that their physicians are not harming them, but helping them to get better. If patients feel misunderstood, they will not trust their caretakers. This is probably even truer for psychiatric patients, whose conditions and loss of autonomy make establishing trust even more challenging. Psychiatric patients [End Page 227] often have their own ways of compensating for the symptoms of their mental illness. If either their will to survive or their compensatory strategies go unrecognized or misinterpreted, patients may respond by rejecting the well-intentioned efforts of caretakers to restore them to a degree of ease, measured as it must be by the standards of the professionals under whose care the patient remains. 1 Despite the fact that these standards are established through scientific testing procedures for the treatment of diseases, they may be experienced by patients as indifferent to the particular and unique features of their condition. Nestled within the issue of trust is thus a question of truth.Although current scientific knowledge of the human brain, and of human behavior, has made available a range of sophisticated therapies and psychotropic drugs, there are still many mental illnesses that leave families and clinicians wondering whether the treatment plans are providing any help. Alzheimer's disease and schizophrenia are two examples. There is a difference between, on the one hand, containing the patient's behavior by admitting the patient to a psychiatric ward and managing symptoms with psychotropic medications, and, on the other hand, understanding what is happening for the patient, from his or her perspective. Although psychiatric patients may not have a realistic sense of either their abilities or the extent and nature of their disease, there may be much about their experiences that ought to be known and understood by the professionals caring for them... (shrink)

First published in 1984, this is a study of categorization practices: how people categorize each other and their actions; how they describe, infer, and judge. The book presents a sociological analysis and description of practical activities and makes a cogent contribution to the study of how the moral order actually works in practical communicative contexts. Among the issues dealt with are: collectivity categorizations, the organization of lists and descriptions, moral attribution and inferences, and the relationship between standards of morality and (...) standards of rationality. (shrink)

The transnational anti-gender movement often has a strong connection to conservative religious organisations. However, even if the anti-gender movement is easy to recognise in Sweden, it is impossible for it to propagate significant opposition to gender mainstreaming and gender studies by using the Church as a reference due to white Swedish people’s established and neo-colonial image of Sweden as exceptional, secular, modern, and a gender equal and tolerant nation. The aim of this article is to analyse how a transnational anti-gender (...) discourse transforms and produces fear in a Swedish context. In focus is the editorial writer for Svenska Dagbladet, one of Sweden’s most influential newspapers, Ivar Arpi and his critical articles and expressions in social media on gender studies and gender mainstreaming. The material shows that instead of connecting to religion in order to dismiss gender studies, gender studies is understood as the religion and conspiracy of our time, governing the state and its citizens. Drawing on Sara Ahmed, I argue that it is possible to follow how words and discourses act in affective ways and how gender studies, gender ideology and gender mainstreaming become a single body that inspires fear. (shrink)

This paper presents methodological reflections on power sharing and shifts of power in various interview situations. Narratives are said to be shaped by our attempts to position ourselves within social and cultural circumstances. In an interview situation, power can be seen as something that is created and that shifts between the interviewer and the interviewed. Reflexivity is involved when we as interviewers attempt to look at a situation or a concept from various perspectives. A modified form of discourse analysis inspired (...) by subject positioning was used to reflect on power relations in four different interview situations. The analyses indicate that reflection on the power relations can lead to other forms of understanding of the interviewee. The main conclusion that can be drawn from this study is that power relations are created within an interview situation and therefore it is important to be aware of dominant perspectives. Researchers and nurses face the challenge of constantly raising their level of consciousness about power relationships, and discursive reflexivity is one way of doing this. Thus, reflexivity is an important part of the qualitative research process. (shrink)

The Groningen Protocol aims at providing guidance in end-of-life decision-making for severely impaired newborns. Since its publication in 2005 many bioethicists and health care professionals have written articles in response. However, only very little is known about the opinion among the general population on this subject. The aim of this study was to present the general attitude towards neonatal euthanasia (NE) among the Austrian population and the factors associated with the respondents’ opinion.

This article explores morality and credibility struggles in connection to two officially sanctioned public Swedish experiments launched in the late 1960s to investigate the (ab)use of alcohol and illicit drugs, especially in relation to young people, and the subsequent decisions to terminate the experiments and research. We argue that these 1960s struggles on how to analyze the effects of increased availability of psychoactive substances must be understood in the light of a simultaneous development of modern (social) science studies. The public (...) display of conflicting expert views on how to investigate and interpret questions of alcohol and drugs in modern society played out in concordance with the growth of social science alcohol and drug research and expertise. The article focuses on the 1960s, a decade that was characterized by profound transformations in Swedish society. In so doing, the article contributes from the perspective of history to debates on the nexus between knowledge production and policy in modern societies. (shrink)

People typically remember emotionally negative words better than neutral words. Two experiments are reported that investigate whether emotionally enhanced memory for negatively arousing words is based on a storage or retrieval advantage. Participants studied non-word–word pairs that either involved negatively arousing or neutral target words. Memory for these target words was tested by means of a recognition test and a cued-recall test. Data were analysed with a multinomial model that allows the disentanglement of storage and retrieval processes in the present (...) recognition-then-cued-recall paradigm. In both experiments the multinomial analyses revealed no storage differences between negatively arousing and neutral words but a clear retrieval advantage for negatively arousing words in the cued-recall test. These findings suggest that EEM for negatively arousing words is driven by associative processes. (shrink)

Companies increasingly deploy artificial intelligence technologies in their personnel recruiting and selection process to streamline it, making it faster and more efficient. AI applications can be found in various stages of recruiting, such as writing job ads, screening of applicant resumes, and analyzing video interviews via face recognition software. As these new technologies significantly impact people’s lives and careers but often trigger ethical concerns, the ethicality of these AI applications needs to be comprehensively understood. However, given the novelty of AI (...) applications in recruiting practice, the subject is still an emerging topic in academic literature. To inform and strengthen the foundation for future research, this paper systematically reviews the extant literature on the ethicality of AI-enabled recruiting to date. We identify 51 articles dealing with the topic, which we synthesize by mapping the ethical opportunities, risks, and ambiguities, as well as the proposed ways to mitigate ethical risks in practice. Based on this review, we identify gaps in the extant literature and point out moral questions that call for deeper exploration in future research. (shrink)

This article argues that theorists of black/african diasporas should interrogate the specific ways in which ‘race’ is used to engage people in diasporic projects, and that such projects are intimately intertwined with specifically gendered, sexualized, and generational class relations and positionalities in specific national contexts and spaces. Attention to these intersections can help us better understand hierarchies of power between and among diasporic individuals and communities. This article focuses on historically specific Swedish meanings of racialized femininities and the different forms (...) of agency women use to negotiate the gendered processes of racialization they encounter in a variety of settings and sources. It draws on interviews and fieldnotes conducted between 1994 and 2007, together with analysis of popular culture (music and radio programmes) and ethnographic material collected by Swedish ethnologist Viveca Motsieloa, and maps out some of the complexities utilized by different generations of Swedish women of African heritage in a changing Swedish landscape of racial formations. Their negotiations show how tensions and differences between ‘second-generation’ migrants and those of the ‘first generation’ are expressed through gender, sexuality, and differing understandings of ‘race’ (and the place of ‘racial mixture’). (shrink)

For centuries, scholars have not doubted that Macrobio Ambrogio Teodosio was pagan. Recently, prof. Alan Cameron in his The Last Pagans of Rome clamied that the late antique writer was actually a Christian. This essay seeks to refute this assumption. --Translated from back cover.

The structuralist approach, as developed by Balzer et al. (1987) in An Architectonic for Science (abbreviated as Architectonic in the following), should be combined with a holistic semantics. A significant, but widely neglected intuition about the empirical claim of a theory appears to be representable only within a holistic framework. This intuition may be called the promise of a theory. It consists of the claim that the theory will, at least in the future, be able to describe all phenomena of (...) (an interpreted version of) its T-non-theoretical conceptual frame. The argument will be outlined within the semantics developed by Holger Andreas on the basis of Carnap’s dual-level conception. (shrink)

Background Healthcare leader support and facilitation for ethics work are of great importance for healthcare professionals’ handling of ethical issues, moral distress, and quality care provision. A digital tool for ethical reflection in long-term care was developed in response to the demand for appropriate tools. Research aim This study aimed to explore healthcare leaders’ expectations of using a digital tool for ethical reflection among their home nursing care staff. Research design A qualitative research design with vignettes and focus group interviews (...) was used. The data were analyzed using reflexive thematic analysis. Participants and Research Context The sample comprised ten healthcare leaders from municipal long-term care in Norway. Ethical Considerations Participation was voluntary and based on informed consent. The Norwegian Agency for Shared Services in Education and Research approved this study. Findings The analysis resulted in the development of three themes representing leaders’ expectations of the tool: (i) giving staff a voice, (ii) revealing ethics in practice, and (iii) keeping the pot boiling. Discussion Leaders must be informed about the ethical issues experienced to engage in supportive measures for their staff. Digital channels can increase the democratization, safety, and efficiency of communication between employees and leaders and increase awareness of ethical aspects in daily care work. The leaders had positive expectations of employees’ activities and benefits from using the tool for ethical reflection. However, they admitted that realizing the tool’s potential to ensure continuity in ethics work requires considerable organizational and leader involvement. Conclusions This study shows that healthcare leaders are open to digital solutions for managing ethics work in home nursing care. Both opportunities and important prerequisites for successfully implementing the digital tool were identified. (shrink)

This article examines the structural power of domestic finance in developing and emerging economies in the context of a shift toward increasingly activist financial development planning and financial sector reform. Focusing on efforts to create large, internationally competitive banks in Malaysia and Nigeria dating to the late 1990s and early 2000s, it highlights that banks have not played their envisaged role in financing structural transformation via industrial growth and economic development. Nonetheless, banks in DEEs have attained considerable structural power over (...) financial policy, supporting their ability to shape growth and investment strategies. Therefore, the article proposes a revised model of the structural power of finance, recognizing its contingent nature. States pursue various forms of financialization both as a substitute to, or in conjunction with, industrial policy. Financialized development strategies enhance the structural power of large banks in DEEs, notwithstanding their limited role in meeting the investment/development imperative. (shrink)