This study investigated the perception of Mandarin tonal alternations in disyllabic words. In Mandarin, a low-dipping Tone3 is converted to a high-rising Tone2 when followed by another Tone3, known as third tone sandhi. Although previous studies showed statistically significant differences in F0 between a high-rising Sandhi-Tone3 and a Tone2, native Mandarin listeners failed to correctly categorize these two tones in perception tasks. The current study utilized the visual-world paradigm in eye-tracking to further examine whether acoustic details in lexical tone aid (...) lexical access in Mandarin. Results showed that Mandarin listeners tend to process Tone2 as Tone2 whereas they tend to first process Sandhi-T3 as both Tone3 and Tone2, then later detect the acoustic differences between the two tones revealed by the sandhi context, and finally activate the target word during lexical access. The eye-tracking results suggest that subtle acoustic details of F0 may facilitate lexical access in automatic fashion in a tone language. (shrink)

This study is intended to create an innovative contextual English learning environment making use of the widely used communication software, LINE ChatBot, based on the Artificial Intelligence Markup Language, in order to improve speaking and listening ability among learners. A total of 73 students were invited to participate in learning activities involving a 4-week English conversation exercise including both speaking and listening. Additionally, in order to explore the influence of competition on language acquisition, we added competition characteristics to the learning (...) activities in the experimental group to enhance learning motivation and learning outcomes. The results showed that with the help of the LINE ChatBot contextual learning environment, the performance of both groups of students was slightly enhanced, but no significant differences were found. Meanwhile, extrinsic motivation in both the experimental and control group was improved if they spoke anonymously. That is, the contextual learning environment based on the LINE ChatBot significantly improved the learners’ English speaking and listening ability. In addition, the results showed that the addition of a competition element effectively enhanced the learners’ intrinsic motivation to learn English on the LINE ChatBot. (shrink)

This essay compares Aristotle's conception of virtue with Confucius' key notion of ren (which has also been interpreted as "virtue") against the background of the revival of Aristotelian virtue ethics in the West and of Confucianism in the East. It argues that while Aristotle's virtue hinges on practical wisdom, Confucius' ren focuses on filial love, and on this basis interprets the respective theoretical merits and weaknesses of these two philosophers. The study is intended to show how Confucius can contribute to (...) contemporary virtue ethics. (shrink)

This paper focuses on Confucian formulations of personhood and the implications they may have for bioethics and medical practice. We discuss how an appreciation of the Confucian concept of personhood can provide insights into the practice of informed consent and, in particular, the role of family members and physicians in medical decision-making in societies influenced by Confucian culture. We suggest that Western notions of informed consent appear ethically misguided when viewed from a Confucian perspective.

Though more connected today than ever before, the Far East and the West are still divided by an issue which first arose more than 400 years ago: the complaint of the West that its ideology has never been fully adopted by China. To provide a useful conceptual framework for a discussion of this intriguing situation, this essay invokes the instructive give-and-take of market exchange on the famed Silk Road in the long ancient past and takes a careful and close look (...) at the analogous enactment of the same principle in the quiet but consequential transplantation of Chinese horticultural and related philosophical ideas to England and continental Europe in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries and in the initially skeptical but eventually appreciative reception of many Western political and technological ideas in China in the last two centuries. (shrink)

Scholars of Shaftesbury generally consider his notion of disinterestedness as the beginning of modern aesthetics while connecting it questionably with a view of modernity as defined in terms of the segregation of truth, beauty, and goodness. To read Shaftesbury differently, it is necessary to look into the textual circumstances of his key aesthetic ideas. In particular, it is important to recognize his implicit use of Sir William Temple's discussion of the Chinese garden immediately before the few justly famous passages about (...) the beauty of the ocean, the vale, and the fruit trees and about the free and spontaneous response of the human character which constitutes the aesthetic experience. As well as a useful illumination for his new understanding of disinterestedness, this unusual involvement of a radically different artistic and philosophical tradition may also be his momentary revelation and acknowledgement of an otherwise hidden metaphysical inspiration for his revolutionary aesthetics. (shrink)

This study explores the research paradigms of contemporary business ethics research in 2001–2008. With citation data from the top two business ethics journals included in the Social Sciences Citation Index, this study conducts citation and co-citation analysis to identify the most important publications, scholars, and research themes in the business ethics area and then maps the intellectual structure of business ethics studies between 2001 and 2008. The results show that current business ethics studies cluster around four major research themes, including (...) morality and social contract theory, ethical decision making, corporate social responsibility, and stakeholder theory. This study helps profile the invisible network of knowledge production in business ethics and provides important insights on current research paradigms of business ethics studies. (shrink)

Corporate social responsibility reporting is becoming mainstream, yet there is limited research on whether and how CSR reports communicate value relevant information. We examine the effects of CSR report readability and tone on future CSR performance and the market reaction around the release of CSR reports. Using a hand-collected dataset of Fortune 500 companies that published stand-alone CSR reports from 2002 to 2014, we find that 1-year-ahead CSR performance is positively associated with the changes in both CSR report readability and (...) tone, suggesting that more readable text and more optimistic tone in a firm’s CSR report are indicative of better future CSR performance. Furthermore, consistent with the view that CSR reports communicate important value relevant information to the market, we document significant market reactions to report readability and tone around the release of CSR reports. Additional analyses suggest that CSR report readability enhances the association between the abnormal returns and the change in CSR report tone, and that the market reaction to CSR report readability is more pronounced for firms with lower analyst following and higher financial opacity. Taken together, our results substantiate the important roles of CSR report readability and tone in communicating future CSR performance and imparting value relevant information to the market. (shrink)

Machery et al. presented data suggesting the existence of cross-cultural variation in judgments about the reference of proper names. In this paper, we examine a previously overlooked confound in the subsequent studies that attempt to replicate the results of Machery et al. using East Asian languages. Machery et al. and Sytsma et al. claim that they have successfully replicated the original finding with probes written in Chinese and Japanese, respectively. These studies, however, crucially rely on uses of articleless, ‘bare noun (...) phrases’ in Chinese and Japanese, which according to the linguistic literature are known to be multiply ambiguous. We argue that it becomes questionable whether the extant studies using East Asian languages revealed genuine cross-cultural variation when the probes are reevaluated based on a proper linguistic understanding of Chinese and Japanese bare noun phrases and English definite descriptions. We also present two experiments on native Japanese speakers that controlled the use of ambiguous bare noun phrases, the results of which suggest that the judgments of Japanese speakers concerning the reference of proper names may not diverge from those of English speakers. (shrink)

Lateral temporal measures of the auditory evoked potential including the T-complex, as well as an earlier negative peak index maturation of auditory/speech processing. Previous studies have shown that these measures distinguish neural processing in children with typical language development from those with disorders and monolingual from bilingual children. In this study, bilingual children with Turkish as L1 and German as L2 were compared with monolingual German-speaking children with developmental language disorder and monolingual German-speaking children with TD in order to disentangle (...) effects of limited language input vs. reduced perceptual abilities in the processing of speech and non-speech stimuli. Sensory processing reflected by the T-complex was compared in response to a German vowel and a sine-wave tone in the three groups of children, ages 5 through 6 years. Stimuli were presented while children watched a muted video. Auditory evoked potentials were time-locked to the vowels and tones. AEPs to the frequent stimuli within an oddball paradigm were analyzed at the left and right temporal electrode sites.The results revealed language status, stimulus, and language test measures all influenced the T-complex amplitudes. Particularly, the peak amplitude of Ta was modulated by language status and stimulus type. Bilingual children had significantly more negative Ta responses than the monolingual children with TD for both vowels and tones while DLD children differed from TD children only for the vowel stimulus. The amplitude of the T-complex was overall more negative at the left than at the right site. The Na peak latency was longer for the bilingual group than that observed for the two monolingual groups. The Tb latency was shorter for DLD and bilingual groups than that for TD children in the vowel condition, but no such latency difference between DLD and bilingual children was found. We suggest that the attenuated T-complex for bilingual children indicates continued plasticity of the auditory cortex to allow for learning of novel, second-language speech sounds. (shrink)

This essay was contributed to the celebration of Father Mclean’s 75th birth day in a volume To the Mountain—essay in honor of Professor George F. Mclean (Fu Jen Catholic University Press, Taiwan, 2004.) In this essay I recalled what I knew of him by personal contact. As I wrote this essay, I was moved myself by his personality. Just as it says on the preface of the volume, “Over the past 40 years, George Mclean has helped to establish contacts and (...) build relations with philosophers in most of the countries of the world, and hundreds—indeed, thousands—of scholars are in his debt”, I am one of those hundreds, or thousands scholars in his debt. I am sure people may tell their own story about Professor George Mclean as they know themselves. (shrink)

This study aims to contribute to the research on spatial metaphors for morality from the perspective of Chinese. It outlines the linguistic patterns in Chinese that manifest the putative underlying spatial subsystem of moral metaphors, which can be summarized by a central metaphor “MORALITY IS SPATIALITY.” In doing so, it focuses on 17 spatial words that instantiate in real-life discourses five pairs of moral–spatial metaphors in their positive and negative valence. The total of 10 metaphors under study forms a cluster (...) as the spatial metaphor subsystem operating in conjunction and connection with other metaphor subsystems in our moral cognition. It is suggested that the 10 conceptual metaphors emerge from four image schemas: UP-DOWN, BALANCE, PATH, and OBJECT. A unified schematic configuration is proposed to lay out the spatial elements and relations represented by the four image schemas in a single diagram. Based on its linguistic analysis, the study also provides a list of prototypical target as... (shrink)

In 1958, a group of New-Confucians issued “A Manifesto for a Re-Appraisal of Sinology and Reconstruction of Chinese Culture.” Equally in 1958, the British philosopher Elizabeth Anscombe published her classical paper “Modern Moral Philosophy.” These two papers have the same target — modern Western morality — and the solutions they proposed respectively. Yet Anscombe’s paper did not mention Confucianism, and the “Manifesto” ignored Aristotelian tradition of virtue. Furthermore, from 1960s to 1990s, the revival movement of Confucianism and the revival movement (...) of Aristotelian ethics have not had much dialogue. This paper seeks to explain this phenomenon by comparing these two historically important documents. In particular it tries to understand why the “Manifesto” fails to see the similarities between Aristotle and Confucius. (shrink)

This paper studies the epistemic failures to reach understanding in relation to scientific explanations. We make a distinction between genuine understanding and its negative phenomena—lack of understanding and misunderstanding. We define explanatory understanding as inclusive as possible, as the epistemic success that depends on abilities, skills, and correct explanations. This success, we add, is often supplemented by specific positive phenomenology which plays a part in forming epistemic inclinations—tendencies to receive an insight from familiar types of explanations. We define lack of (...) understanding as the epistemic failure that results from a lack of an explanation or from an incorrect one. This can occur due to insufficient abilities and skills, or to fallacious explanatory information. Finally, we characterize misunderstanding by cases where one’s epistemic inclinations do not align with an otherwise correct explanation. We suggest that it leads to potential debates about the explanatory power of different explanatory strategies. We further illustrate this idea with a short meta-philosophical study on the current debates about distinctively mathematical explanations. (shrink)

The article is devoted to social problems of modern science (as it were interpreted Max Weber) considered in the context of the system-communicative approach by N. Luhmann. In contrast to the modern work of art, the modern science, as M. Weber believes, is associated with the fundamental unattainability of “true being”, and, as a result, with the transitory character of any scientific achievement. The specialty of modern science, as Weber noted, is determinated, on the one hand by its self-understanding, due (...) to the “peculiarity of the current moment”, and, on the other, by its transformation into a kind of blind spot of scientific observation. As a result, Weber formulated the main problem of the meaning of modern science: he wondered why any scientist needs a science under (1) external alienation and (2) inaccessibility of a scientific object? Moreover, the category of truth not just acquires its special value, but also sets a special meaning to the purpose of scientific communication, that becomes an object but not a property of scientific search. The main content of the article is the study of the Weberian concepts of the external (science as a profession) and internal (science as vocation) social factors of modern science as they were interpreted by E. von Kahler, G. Rickert, M. Scheller, K. Loewit. The authors discuss their attempts to modernize the fundamental Weberian distinction of truth/value as a principle of inclusion in the scientific community, that was formulated as a response to the “Weber’s challenge”. The authors argue that von Kahler criticized the Weberian concept for the incompatibility of the spatial and temporal discreteness of science within the “organic understanding” of the unity of the world. At the same time Scheler and Rickert payed special attention to the problem of subject specification of science. K. Levit discussed the possibility of Weber’s substitution of objectivity as a key distinction of modern knowledge with some opposite attribute. In the final part, the authors summarize the inconsistency of predictions about the further internal differentiation of scientific disciplines and the rejection of research motive for “genuine being”. (shrink)

With the development of artificial intelligence technologies, it is possible to use computer to read digital medical images. Because Alzheimer’s disease has the characteristics of high incidence and high disability, it has attracted the attention of many scholars, and its diagnosis and treatment have gradually become a hot topic. In this paper, a multimodal diagnosis method for AD based on three-dimensional shufflenet and principal component analysis network is proposed. First, the data on structural magnetic resonance imaging and functional magnetic resonance (...) imaging are preprocessed to remove the influence resulting from the differences in image size and shape of different individuals, head movement, noise, and so on. Then, the original two-dimensional ShuffleNet is developed three-dimensional, which is more suitable for 3D sMRI data to extract the features. In addition, the PCANet network is applied to the brain function connection analysis, and the features on fMRI data are obtained. Next, kernel canonical correlation analysis is used to fuse the features coming from sMRI and fMRI, respectively. Finally, a good classification effect is obtained through the support vector machines method classifier, which proves the feasibility and effectiveness of the proposed method. (shrink)

Developing World Bioethics, Volume 22, Issue 3, Page 170-178, September 2022.

Students often face difficulties and experience negative emotions toward second language learning. The affective tutoring system is a next-generation learning approach that can detect the affective status of learning to increase performance. Therefore, for the purposes of this study, an innovative affective mobile language tutoring system was designed to support Japanese language learning. The effects of AMLTS, along with asynchronous discussion, that were intended to improve performance, were examined using a triangulation method. To investigate the effect on emotion, the proposed (...) AMLTS provides a virtual emotion agent that can interact with users and record emotional events, learning assessments, and the results of the interaction into a database. Learning effectiveness evaluations were conducted via two experiments: prototype evaluation and final evaluation. Sixty-three students, all beginners, were invited to use the AMLTS to learn Japanese. The research results show that the proposed AMLTS affective interaction design significantly improves learner engagement and performance. In the emotion feedback analysis and learning process, AMLTS helped students deepen their understanding of the content, enabled them to clearly understand the content, and to engage in peer interaction and experience positive emotions. In the evaluation of system usability, AMLTS reveals good usability for foreign language acquisition. (shrink)

A growing body of research has started to examine how individuals from different countries may differ in their use of ethically questionable tactics during business negotiations. Whereas prior research focused on the main effect of the national culture or nationality of the negotiator, we add a new factor, which is the nationality of the counterpart. Looking at both these variables allows us to examine whether and how people may change their likelihood of using ethically questionable tactics in inter-cultural negotiations as (...) opposed to intra-cultural ones. Results of an experiment show that overall, American participants were less likely than Chinese participants to use ethically questionable tactics in negotiations. However, American participants were more likely to use ethically questionable tactics, particularly those related to false promises and inappropriate information gathering, in inter-cultural negotiations with Chinese counterparts, than in intra-cultural negotiations with American counterparts. By contrast, Chinese participants were less likely to use ethically questionable tactics, particularly those related to false promises and attacking opponent’s network, in inter-cultural negotiations with American counterparts, than in intra-cultural negotiations with Chinese counterparts. Implications and future directions are discussed. (shrink)

The challenge for alethic pluralists to maintain a standard, truth-functional account of the logical operators has received some attention. In this paper, I consider a related but more fundamental challenge, to maintain a compositional account of the logical operators, which has received much less attention. I argue that, given natural assumptions, pluralists cannot answer this challenge.

This study tested whether compassionate goals to support others and self-image goals to maintain and defend desired self-images: 1) are equivalent constructs across three cultures ; 2) overlap with interdependent self-construal; and 3) predict relationships and growth measures similarly in each country. We re-analyzed data from American and Japanese students, reported in Niiya et al., along with new data from Poland. Single and multiple group confirmatory analyses showed that the two-factor structure holds across the three cultures. Interdependence correlated with compassionate (...) and self-image goals only in Japan. In all three samples, compassionate goals correlated with non-zero-sum belief, feeling close, growth-seeking, self-compassion, and learning from failures, whereas self-image goals correlated with defensive responses to conflicts and validation-seeking. Our results suggest that compassionate and self-image goals may serve similar functions in relationships and growth across cultures. (shrink)