The paper aims to put certain basic mathematical elements and operations into an empirical perspective, evaluate the empirical status of various analytic operations widely used within psychology and suggest alternatives to procedures criticized as inadequate. Experimentation shows the "manyness" of items to be a perceptual quality for both young children and animals and that natural operations are performed by naive children analogous to those performed by persons tutored in arithmetic. Number, counting, arithmetic operations therefore can make distinctions that are not (...) inevitably arbitrary, and conceptual operations can obviously have a status as natural events with psychology. If the elements and conceptual operations involved in mathematical systems were not inherent in physiological process, various primitive discriminations could not be possible. Also, since some calculi have a natural status in a given empirical circumstance, the axioms of others can not be satisfied. Therefore the psychologist when acting as an empirical scientist seeks a calculus having a structure whose elements are isomorphic with natural units of stimulus and response and whose operations are isomorphic with whatever natural processes are involved. Measurement poses a special problem for the empirical scientist. It concerns but a single class of natural qualities and this only in a limited way. The concept of quantity has a natural counterpart but quantity and measurement are not wholly analogous. Measurement is defined, as H. S. Leonard suggests, as a theoretical activity. Measurement theory has a formal structure but empirical end. Measurement hypothesizes about the position of a particular quality within a definite range of qualities. It therefore is beholden to definite empirical restrictions. Some hypotheses-making systems use terms and relations per se as the context and starting point for dealing with discriminable events. Such procedures are 'transcendent." In empirical science, questions are part of problem-solving activity and their reference is naturally restricted. In providing description and explanation, psychological researchers frequently use calculi in a transcendent way. This results in theories that are only quasi-empirical and "half" true. The roles measurement plays in psychology are discussed. Of particular concern are those cases in which the results of measuring or a theory of measurement are used to define the "real" units, or the "real" relations involved in problematic psychological events, and thence to describe and explain behaviors of interest. Metaphysical or ontological usages of measurement sometimes occur. The implication of these arguments with regard to a view of empirical science is discussed. (shrink)

Studies of learning in marine invertebrates have yielded new information, implicating protein kinase C and calmodulin‐dependent protein kinase as critical components in pathways for learning and memory that are shared with higher vertebrates. Recent advances correlating in vitro biochemical and biophysical measurements with in vivo learning have begun to elaborate the roles in memory storage for these two kinases, their substrates, and signaling proteins such as calexcitin and calmodulin. Other studies have implicated transcription factors associated with kinases such as the (...) cyclic AMP response element binding protein (CREB). These experiments have resulted in a greater understanding of the role of second messengers, principally calcium and cyclic AMP (cAMP), as vehicles for transforming memory‐specific effects occurring at the membrane into permanent DNA‐mediated cellular and structural changes. (shrink)

Investigations of metacognition – and also the application of the storehouse and correspondence metaphors – seem as appropriate for laboratory research as for naturalistic research. In terms of measurement, the only quantitative difference between the “input-bound percent correct” and “output-bound percent correct” is the inclusion versus exclusion (respectively) of omission errors in the denominator of the percentages.

Several conclusions depend on a version of signal detection theory that assumes performance is based on underlying equal-variance normal distributions of trace strength. Such conclusions are questionable without empirical justification for that assumption. A thought experiment is presented to show how the assumption is probably invalid, and empirical evidence is cited for the assumption's invalidity in research on human memory.

Changes in several distinct types of neuronal proteins are now known to be associated with learning. In this review, we will summarize the properties of these proteins and relate these properties to prominent theories of the biochemical basis of memory.

This paper seeks to shed fresh light on the aesthetic and stylistic affiliations of Lycophron'sAlexandra, approaching the poem from two distinct but complementary angles. First, it explores what can be gained by reading Lycophron's poem against the backdrop of Callimachus’ poetry. It contends that theAlexandrapresents a radical and polemical departure from the Alexandrian's poetic programme, pointedly appropriating key Callimachean images while also countering Callimachus’ apparent dismissal of the ‘noisy’ tragic genre. Previous scholarship has noted links between the openings of theAetiaand (...) of theAlexandra, but this article demonstrates that this relationship is only one part of a larger aesthetic divide between the two poets: by embracing the raucous acoustics of tragedy, Lycophron's poem offers a self-conscious and agonistic departure from Callimachus’ aesthetic preferences. Second, this article considers another way of conceiving the aesthetics of the poem beyond a Callimachean frame, highlighting how Lycophron pointedly engages with and evokes earlier Aristotelian literary criticism concerning the ‘frigid’ style: theAlexandraconstructs its own independent literary history centred around the alleged name of its author, ‘Lycophron’. The article proposes that this traditional attribution is best understood as a pen name that signposts the poem's stylistic affiliations, aligning it not so much with the Ptolemaic playwright Lycophron of Chalcis but rather with Lycophron the sophist and a larger rhetorical tradition of stylistic frigidity. Ultimately, through these two approaches, the article highlights further aspects of theAlexandra's aesthetic diversity. (shrink)

The foundation of bioethics is the dignity of the human person. The concept of personhood developed from Christian Revelation. The marks of personhood include individuality, substantiality, rationality, incommunicability, and relatedness. Relevant issues for bioethics include the reality of personhood, the inseparability of human nature from human personhood, and the import of personhood for the inviolability of every human being. The recent bioethical instruction, Dignitas personae, reasserts that the embryo should be treated as a person and contains a latent philosophical argument (...) for defining the embryo as a person. The struggle to conceptualize personhood is the effort to value every human being as the image and likeness of God, who is ineffably Triune in his Personhood. National Catholic Bioethics Quarterly 9.4 (Winter 2009): 725–736. (shrink)