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The “Tower of London” puzzle was adapted to tablet PCs to be used as a clinical bedside test. “Iso-problems”, a specific class of problems, require identical moves but ball colours are permuted. Thus difficulty is the same even if the appearance is different. We wanted to determine the impact of these as yet little-studied tasks and hypothesised that there may be a learning effect specific to them (the “iso-effect”). We interspersed a set of six iso-problems within one selection of 22 (...) tasks and analysed problem solving by 81 healthy adults (mean age 41.6 years). Participants showed learning across iso-problems (less time, fewer moves, increasingly efficient solutions). This effect was distinct from general learning, as was obvious from comparison with a series of non-isomorphic tasks. However, participants seem not to be aware of solving such problems. This “iso-effect” may be related to implicit memory, a domain that so far has not been assessed using the Tower of London. (shrink)

Falsafat wa-ḥayāt Abī Hāshim al-Jubbāʼī wa-madrasatuh -- al-Tawallud ʻinda al-Muʻtazilah.

The message of the present article is, first, that, besides and below the strictly linguistic aspects of communication through language, of which speakers are in principle fully aware, a great deal of knowledge not carried in virtue of the system of the language in question but rather transmitted by the form of the intended message, is imparted to listeners or readers, without either being in the least aware of this happening. For example, listeners quickly register the social status, regional origin (...) or emotional attitude of speakers and they react to those kinds of ‘paralinguistic’ information, mostly totally unawares. When speaker and listener have a positive attitude with regard to each other, the reaction consists, among other things, in mutual alignment or accommodation of pronunciation features, lexical selections and style of speaking. When the mutual attitude is negative, the opposite happens: speakers accentuate their differences. Then, when this happens not between individual interlocutors but between groups of speakers, such accommodation or divergence phenomena may lead to language change. The main theoretical question raised, but not answered, in this article is how and at what point forms of behaviour, including linguistic behaviour, achieve the status of being ‘standard’ or ‘accepted’ in any given community and what it means to say that they are ‘standard’ or ‘accepted’. It is argued that frequency of occurrence is not the main explanatory factor, and that a causal explanation is to be sought rather in the, often unconscious, attitudes of individuals, in particular their desire or need to be integrated members of a community or social group, thus ensuring their safety and asserting their group identity. The question thus belongs to the province of social psychology. Qualms about analyses of this kind being ‘unscientific’ dissipate when it is realized that consciousness phenomena are part of the real world and must therefore be considered to be valid objects of scientific theory formation. Like so many other ill-understood elements in scientific theories, consciousness, though itself unexplained, can be given a place in causal chains of events. (shrink)

The connection between health and human rights continues to play a prominent role within global health law. In particular, a number of theorists rely on the claim that there is a relation of interdependence between health and human rights. The nature and extent of this relation, however, is rarely defined, developed or defended in a conceptually robust way. This paper seeks to explore the source, scope and strength of this putative relation and what role it might play in developing a (...) global health law framework. (shrink)

Recent work has shown that memory for various types of information associated with social targets (impressions based on behaviours and political ideology) influences decisions to approach or avoid those same targets. The current study was intended to better understand the extent that memory for other types of details associated with targets (beliefs and behaviours) affects subsequent approach/avoidance decisions. In this investigation, participants formed impressions of social targets represented by a picture and a sentence (a belief in Experiment 1; either a (...) belief or behaviour in Experiment 2). Later, memory for the impressions and sentences associated with each target was tested. Finally, participants decided whether they would want to approach or avoid each target. Results demonstrated that accurate memory strongly influenced approach/avoidance decisions for targets associated with different types of information (beliefs; behaviours), although there was no difference in the effect of memory between beliefs and behaviours. Overall, results suggest an important role of memory in decisions to approach or avoid others. (shrink)

Médecins Sans Frontières is not morally required to continue providing the same therapeutic and preventative interventions for lead poisoning in Nigeria in the face of conditions that negatively impact on the achievement of their objectives. Nevertheless, Médecins Sans Frontières may have reasons to revise their objectives and adopt different interventions or methods.