Background : An enhancement in recall of simple instructions is found when actions are performed in comparison to when they are verbally presented – the subject-performed task effect. This enhancement has also been found with older adults. However, the reason why older adults, known to present a deficit in episodic memory, have a better performance for this type of information remains unclear. In this article, we explored this effect by comparing the performance on the SPT task with the performance on (...) other tasks, in order to understand the underlying mechanisms that may explain this effect. Objective : We hypothesized that both young and older adult groups should show higher recall in SPT compared with the verbal learning condition, and that the differences between age groups should be lower in the SPT condition. We aimed to explore the correlations between these tasks and known neuropsychological tests, and we also measured source memory for the encoding condition. Design : A mixed design was used with 30 healthy older adults, comparing their performance with 30 healthy younger adults. Each participant was asked to perform 16 simple instructions and to only read the other 16 instructions. The test phase included a free recall task. Participants were also tested with a set of neuropsychological measures. Results : The SPT effect was found for both age groups; but even for SPT materials, group differences in recall persisted. Source memory was found to be preserved for the two groups. Simple correlations suggested differences in correlates of SPT performance between the two groups. However, when controlling for age, the SPT and VT tasks correlate with each other, and a measure of episodic memory correlated moderately with both SPT and VT performance. Conclusions : A strong effect of SPT was observed for all but one, which still displayed the expected aging deficit. The correlations and source memory data suggest that the SPT and VT are possibly related in respect to their underlying processes, and SPT, instead of being an isolated process, is in connection with both the episodic memory and executive function processes. Under these circumstances, the SPT seems to contribute to an enhancement of the episodic memory trace, presumably from the multimodality it provides, without involving a separated set of cognitive mechanisms. Future research using more pure measures of other cognitive processes that could be related to SPT is necessary. Keywords : aging; subject performed task; memory for actions; episodic memory Responsible Editor: Mathieu Hainselin, Université de Picardie Jules Verne, France. (shrink)

Plagiarism and other transgressions of the norms of academic integrity appear to be a persistent problem among upper secondary students. Numerous surveys have revealed high levels of infringement of what appear to be clearly stated rules. Less attention has been given to students’ understanding of academic integrity, and to the potential misconceptions and false beliefs that may make it difficult for them to comply with existing rules and handle complex real-life situations.In this paper we report findings from a survey of (...) European upper secondary students’ views on issues relating to academic integrity. We relate these findings to the students’ training about academic integrity, self-reported level of questionable behavior and country of study.A total of 1654 students at 51 institutions located in 6 European countries participated in the study. The participants generally believed they had a good understanding of the rules applying to them and knew how to behave in compliance with norms of academic integrity. The results indicate, however, that often, in practice, this belief was mistaken. Many students had an inadequate understanding of core elements of academic integrity. They were uncertain about how to act, and they struggled in the handling of complex situations that require context-sensitive judgement. While some differences between countries were identified, they were modest and exhibited no clear pattern. Our results also suggest that reducing students’ level of uncertainty and, to a lesser degree, improving their level of knowledge could lead them to engage less in certain types of questionable behaviours. Surprisingly, the effect of academic training is modest and ambiguous. The study also confirms that perception of peer behaviour has the strongest association with student engagement in questionable behaviours. Thus, academic integrity at the upper secondary level cannot be explained simply in terms of individual ethics or knowledge. (shrink)

Good academic practice is more than the avoidance of clear-cut cheating. It also involves navigation of the gray zones between cheating and good practice. The existing literature has left students’ understanding of gray zone practices largely unexplored. To begin filling in this gap, we present results from a questionnaire study involving N = 1639 undergraduate students from seven European countries representing all major disciplines. We show that large numbers of these students are unable to identify gray area issues and lack (...) sensitivity to the context dependence of these. We also show that a considerable proportion of students have a poor understanding of concepts like plagiarism and falsification, not only in gray zone scenarios, but also in cases of relatively clear-cut cheating. Our results are similar across the faculties and countries of study, and even for students who have attended academic integrity training. We discuss the implications of this for academic integrity training. (shrink)

The current investigation assessed linguistic and narrative abilities in a cohort of children with Autism Spectrum Disorder (ASD). The linguistic assessment was performed with both traditional tests and a multilevel procedure for discourse analysis. The results showed difficulties at different stages of message planning, organization, and microlinguistic processing (i.e., lexical selection and grammatical processing). Their macrolinguistic impairments were likely related to more general difficulties in the prelinguistic conceptual phase of message planning and mental model generation. Such weaknesses included a difficulty (...) in the non-verbal conceptualization of the story and the generation of an internal representation of the addressee’s mental model. (shrink)

Concern is growing as research continues to find evidence of academic misconduct among medical students. There is, however, paucity of information on this issue among medical students and medical graduates in Africa. We determined the perceptions and attitude of house officers on academic misconduct within Nigerian medical schools. We conducted 7 focus group discussions among pre-registration house-officers working in a Nigerian Teaching hospital between October and November 2013. A FGD guide containing 7 broad questions related to their perception and attitude (...) on academic misconduct was employed. Ethnographic content analysis and manual coding were adopted in identifying themes, issues and representative quotations. A total of 58 participants out of an eligible pool of 76 PRHOs were recruited. All the groups associated academic misconduct chiefly with cheating in examinations, and perceived it as a commonplace problem. “It is a part of school life”, admitted one PRHO. Copying during exam appeared to be the commonest form of cheating. Another respondent opined that “The lecturers should be more concerned with helping students understand better. They should not make passing an exam a do-or-die affair.” The perception and attitudes towards academic misconduct may be a reflection of the prevailing moral decline in the contemporary Nigerian society. Underlying the reasons adduced by the participants for getting involved in academic misconduct is the fear of failure in examinations. Apart from consolidating formal and informal medical ethics education, the medical schools should ensure that the opportunities and pressures to indulge in academic misconduct are minimized. (shrink)

Motivated by controversies surrounding the continued employment of poverty porn in humanitarian business, we initiated two 2 × 2 × 2 experiments to examine the extent to which humanitarian ads that utilize poverty porn images weaponize fundraising. Informed by negative state relief and Affect Intensity Theory, the two investigations explored the effects on study participants of the inclusion within ad appeals of images of starving children, ad spokespeople of disparate gender and ethnicity, and different types of message frame. A 2 (...) (protest emotive vs. informative message) × 2 (male vs. female announcer) × 2 (White British or Black African ethnicity) between-subjects eye track experiment ( n = 236) revealed that an informative message with a White female announcer attracted the most attention. Next, a survey ( n = 667) was completed, which recorded participants’ levels of affect intensity, advertising skepticism, and donation intention. The results suggested that a White British female announcer was more likely to engage potential donors than a male and/or non-White spokesperson. The implications of the findings are discussed in light of how poverty porn might work in practice. (shrink)

We investigate the relationship of corporate social responsibility (CSR) (often assumed to reflect corporate voluntarism) and government (often assumed to reflect coercion). We distinguish two broad perspectives on the CSR and government relationship: thedichotomous(i.e., government and CSR are / should be independent of one another) and therelated(i.e., government and CSR are / should be interconnected). Using typologies of CSR public policy and of CSR and the law, we present an integrated framework for corporate discretion for engagement with public policy for (...) CSR. We make four related contributions. First, we explain the dichotomous and the related perspectives with reference to their various assumptions and analyses. Second, we demonstrate that public policy for CSR and corporate discretion coexist and interact. Specifically, we show, third, that public policy for CSR can inform and stimulate corporate discretion and, fourth, that corporations have discretion for CSR, particularly as to how corporations engage with such policy. (shrink)

Improving working conditions at the bottom of global value chains has become a central issue in our global economy. In this battle, trade unionism has been presented as a way for workers to make their voices heard. Therefore, it is strongly promoted by most social standards. However, establishing a well-functioning trade union is not as obvious as it may seem. Using a comparative case study approach, we examine impediments to farm-level unionism in the cut flower industry in Ethiopia. For this (...) purpose, we propose an integrated framework combining two lenses, namely a vertical one and a horizontal one. We identify 10 impediments that point to three major dimensions contributing to unionisation. These three dimensions include awareness of and interest from workers, legitimacy of trade unions, and capacity of trade unions to act. Furthermore, our results suggest that private social standards may, in certain cases, be counterproductive for the efficient functioning of trade unions. Although we argue that there is no ‘quick fix’ solution to weak workplace unionism at the bottom of global value chains, we stress the importance of considering the dynamics of, and interactions between, the impediments when designing potential support measures that mitigate negative impacts. (shrink)

Après le scientisme triomphant du 19ème siècle, le 20ème siècle est marqué par la prise de conscience progressive de l'absence de coïncidence entre progrès scientifique et progrès humain. Depuis le début des années 90, dans la continuité du développement des préoccupations environnementales, se précise une nouvelle configuration des implications des savoirs scientifiques dans la société, en liaison avec la notion de risque : suite à une série de catastrophes technologiques -dont Tchernobyl, l'affaire du sang contaminé ou la crise de la (...) vache folle n'ont été que les plus médiatisées-, les sciences et techniques sont mises en cause en tant que sources d'innovations ; cependant, elles apparaissent plus que jamais indispensables pour faire face à ces risques. L'expertise scientifique à destination politique , consistant à solliciter, dans un processus de décision publique, les capacités de la science à diagnostiquer et à réguler les risques, apparaît donc comme un point clef de cette nouvelle configuration. Notre objectif sera d'une part, sans prétendre aucunement à l'exhaustivité, de reconstituer, depuis les années 60, quelques éléments importants de la filiation de la problématique de l'expertise, conçue au sens large comme l'intégration de savoirs scientifiques dans un processus de décision politique ; d'autre part, de préciser les principaux angles d'approche et enjeux de cet objet qui donne actuellement lieu à une multiplication de réflexions et de travaux, dans un champ pluridisciplinaire. (shrink)

The ethical matrix is a participatory tool designed to structure ethical reflection about the design, the introduction, the development or the use of technologies. Its collective implementation, in the context of participatory decision-making, has shown its potential usefulness. On the contrary, its implementation by a single researcher has not been thoroughly analyzed. The aim of this paper is precisely to assess the strength of ethical matrixes implemented by a single researcher as a tool for conceptual normative analysis related to technological (...) choices. Therefore, the ethical matrix framework is applied to the management of high-level radioactive waste, more specifically to retrievable and non-retrievable geological disposal. The results of this analysis show that the usefulness of ethical matrixes is twofold and that they provide a valuable input for further decision-making. Indeed, by using ethical matrixes, implicit ethically relevant issues were revealed—namely issues of equity associated with health impacts and differences between close and remote future generations regarding ethical impacts. Moreover, the ethical matrix framework was helpful in synthesizing and comparing systematically the ethical impacts of the technologies under scrutiny, and hence in highlighting the potential ethical conflicts. (shrink)

In this timely and highly original merging of theory and practice, conflict photographer and critical theorist Rita Leistner applies Marshall McLuhan's semiotic theories of language, media, and technology to iPhone photographs taken during a military embed in Afghanistan. In a series of what Leistner calls iProbes—a portmanteau of iPhone and probe—Leistner reveals the face of war through the extensions of man. As digital photography becomes more ubiquitous, and as the phones we carry with us become more advanced, the process (...) of capturing images becomes more democratic and more spontaneous. Leistner's photos result from both access and impulse. Looking for Marshall McLuhan in Afghanistan will appeal anyone with an interest in the conflicts in the Middle East, the seminal communications theorist, or iPhone apps and photography. (shrink)

The purpose of this study was to illuminate the ethically difficult situations experienced by care providers working in a nursing home. Individual interviews using a narrative approach were conducted. A phenomenological-hermeneutic method developed for researching life experience was applied in the analysis. The findings showed that care providers experience ethical challenges in their everyday work. The informants in this study found the balance between the ideal, autonomy and dignity to be a daily problem. They defined the culture they work in (...) as not supportive. They also thought they were not being seen and heard in situations where they disagree with the basic values of the organization. The results are discussed in terms of Habermas’s understanding of modern society. Care settings for elderly people obviously present ethical challenges, particularly in the case of those suffering from dementia. The care provider participants in this study expressed frustration and feelings of powerlessness. It is possible to understand their experiences in terms of Habermas’s theory of modern society and the concept of the system’s colonization of the life world. (shrink)

We present a one per cent measurement of the cosmic distance scale from the detections of the baryon acoustic oscillations in the clustering of galaxies from the Baryon Oscillation Spectroscopic Survey, which is part of the Sloan Digital Sky Survey III. Our results come from the Data Release 11 sample, containing nearly one million galaxies and covering approximately 8500 square degrees and the redshift range 0.2 < z < 0.7. We also compare these results with those from the publicly released (...) DR9 and DR10 samples. Assuming a concordance Λ cold dark matter cosmological model, the DR11 sample covers a volume of 13 Gpc3 and is the largest region of the Universe ever surveyed at this density. We measure the correlation function and power spectrum, including density-field reconstruction of the BAO feature. The acoustic features are detected at a significance of over 7σ in both the correlation function and power spectrum. Fitting for the position of the acoustic features measures the distance relative to the sound horizon at the drag epoch, rd, which has a value of rd,fid = 149.28 Mpc in our fiducial cosmology. We find DV = at z = 0.32 and DV = at z = 0.57. At 1.0 per cent, this latter measure is the most precise distance constraint ever obtained from a galaxy survey. Separating the clustering along and transverse to the line of sight yields measurements at z = 0.57 of DA = and H =. Our measurements of the distance scale are in good agreement with previous BAO measurements and with the predictions from cosmic microwave background data for a spatially flat CDM model with a cosmological constant. © 2014 The Author Published by Oxford University Press on behalf of the Royal Astronomical Society. (shrink)

We adapted the Bubbles procedure [Vis. Res. 41 (2001) 2261] to examine the effective use of information during the first 282 ms of face identification. Ten participants each viewed a total of 5100 faces sub-sampled in space–time. We obtained a clear pattern of effective use of information: the eye on the left side of the image became diagnostic between 47 and 94 ms after the onset of the stimulus; after 94 ms, both eyes were used effectively. This preference for the (...) eyes increased with practice, and was not solely due to the informativeness of the eyes for the task at hand. The bias for the eye on the left side of the image is explained in terms of hemispheric specialization. Although there were individual differences, most participants exhibited this pattern of effective use of information. An intriguing finding is that most participants displayed a clear sinusoidal modulation of effective use of attention through time with a frequency of about 10.6 Hz. (shrink)

The purpose of this paper is to investigate the legitimacy-building processes of Social Rating Organizations (SRO) and the role of objects in these processes. SROs have played a key role in the development of SRI in Europe by providing social and environmental rating to financial investors. However, little is known about the processes through which they have acquired their legitimacy, i.e. their ‘right-to-rate’ corporations. We provide here an in-depth empirical analysis of the legitimacy-building process of two European SROs and demonstrate (...) the role played by objects in these processes of legitimacy construction. (shrink)

If our sense of the past is inevitably shaped by the explanatory logic of narrative, then the stories that we create in turn reveal the inescapable presence and ...

Ethics, Policy & Environment, Volume 14, Issue 3, Page 279-283, October 2011.

L’image des femmes dans les séries télévisées aux États-Unis a tellement été marquée par la sexualité libérée, le langage cru, les solidarités féminines et les introspections existentielles de Sex and the City et, dans une moindre mesure, d’Ally McBeal, que les séries antérieures pourraient, par un effet d’écrasement, apparaître comme une simple protohistoire de ces productions télévisuelles, et les séries suivantes comme des queues de comète. Pourtant, dès les années 1950, des politiques antisexistes affleurent, qui ne sont pas seulement les (...) germes annonciateurs des futures héroïnes, mais qui sont à la fois des médiatrices des agencements politiques de leur époque et de puissantes matrices des héroïnes libérées (mais angoissées) des années 1990. Critiques des politiques du care, du plafond de verre, des doubles standards d’un côté, mais aussi métaphores sexuelles, solidarités féminines et troubles dans le genre de l’autre, forment les nœuds narratifs de ces séries que seule une perspective anachronique pourrait disqualifier. (shrink)

Cette contribution tentera de cerner les enjeux de l’interprétation contrastée de la philosophie des Lumières proposée par Charles Taylor. Pourquoi le déisme et le matérialisme sont-ils perçus par Taylor comme des fourvoiements de la modernité? Pourquoi considère-t-il que les Lumières ont méconnu la manière dont la subjectivité pouvait fonder ses aspirations morales et politiques? Nous verrons que la philosophie des Lumières « radicales », selon Taylor, produit une morale et une politique incohérentes : elle postule que l’harmonie sociale procède de (...) l’intérêt bien compris grâce à une ingénierie législative et éducative ; mais elle n’explique pas pourquoi l’idéal d’une société harmonieuse mérite d’être poursuivi. L’auteur des Sources du moi entérine de la sorte l’idée répandue d’une incohérence des philosophes matérialistes : leur psychologie hédoniste et égoïste est incompatible avec leur éthique, qui vise le plus grand bonheur du plus grand nombre. Les Lumières sont donc rendues responsables d’une vision contradictoire de la morale et d’une vision appauvrie de la subjectivité. (shrink)

Background: In modern society, death has become ‘forbidden’ fed by the medical technology to conquer death. The technological paradigm is challenged by a social-liberal political ideology in postmodern Western societies. The question raised in this study was as follows: Which arguments, attitudes, values and paradoxes between modern and postmodern tendencies concerning treatment and care of older persons with an implantable cardioverter defibrillator appear in the literature? Aims: The aim of this study was to describe and interpret how the field of (...) tension concerning older persons with an implantable cardioverter defibrillator – especially end-of-life issues – has been expressed in the literature throughout the last decade. Methods: Paul Ricoeur’s reflexive interpretive approach was used to extract the meaningful content of the literature involving qualitative, quantitative and normative literature. Analysis and interpretation involved naive reading, structural analysis and critical interpretation. Ethical considerations: The investigation complied with the principles outlined in the Declaration of Helsinki. Findings and discussions: The unifying theme was ‘Normativity under change’. The sub-themes were ‘Death has become legitimate’, ‘The technological imperative is challenged’ and ‘Patients and healthcare professionals need to talk about end-of-life issues’. There seems to be a considerable distance between the normative approach of how practice ought to be and findings in empirical studies. Conclusion: Modern as well as postmodern attitudes and perceptions illustrate contradictory tendencies regarding deactivation of the implantable cardioverter defibrillator and replacement of the implantable cardioverter defibrillator in older persons nearing the end of life. The tendencies challenge each other in a struggle to gain position. On the other hand, they can also complement each other because professionalism and health professional expertise cannot stand alone when the patient’s life is at stake but must be unfolded in an alliance with the patient who needs to be understood and accepted in his vulnerability. (shrink)

Hunger striking is a form of nonviolent action of last resort. It is a tactic used by powerless individuals to challenge those in power and achieve change. Many authors have emphasized that hunger strikers are not suicidal, but when oppressed people run out of other ways to protest or demand sociopolitical change, some of them are willing to place their health and life at risk to achieve their goals. Hunger strikes have a long, widely diffused history, and studies reveal that (...) they are typically small, brief, and often successful. Some well-known examples are the fasts of the suffragettes in the UK, of IRA... (shrink)

This research applies the notion of sustainability (Barney, 1991; Braa, Monteiro, & Sahay, 2004) to the mechanisms used by socially responsible investment(SRI) firms with respect to their stakeholders (investors and target firms). A contrast is developed between US and UK SRI firms. It is noted that screens, while maintaining a strong investor base, are less sustainable from the perspective of the firms targeted by SRI funds, whereas advocacy has stronger elements of sustainability with respect to the relations with corporations.

Anthropology combines two quite different enterprises: the ethnographic study of particular people in particular places and the theorizing about the human species. As such, anthropology is part of cognitive science in that it contributes to the unitary theoretical aim of understanding and explaining the behavior of the animal species Homo sapiens. This article draws on our own research experience to illustrate that cooperation between anthropology and the other sub-disciplines of cognitive science is possible and fruitful, but it must proceed from (...) the recognition of anthropology’s unique epistemology and methodology. (shrink)

What does it mean to get hooked by a work, whether a bestseller or a classic, a TV series or a painting in a museum? What is this aesthetic experience that makes us feel captivated? What do works of art do, and how, in particular, do they bind us to them? In "Hooked," Rita Felski builds an aesthetics premised on our attachments rather than our free agency and challenges the ethos of critical aloofness that is so much a part (...) of modern intellectuals' self-image. The result is sure to be as widely read, and as controversial, as Felski's 2015 book, "The Limits of Critique." Felski looks at several "attachment devices." One of these is "attunement"--those affinities and stirrings that often fall below the threshold of consciousness. Why, for example, are we drawn to a painting or piece of music in ways we struggle to explain, while being left cold by others whose merits we duly acknowledge? Another attachment device is "identification"--a widespread response to fiction that is often invoked by critics but usually treated as synonymous with either identity or empathy. But Felski shows that identifying has no neat fit with identity categories, and it can trigger ethical, political, or intellectual affinities that have little to do with co-feeling. What people most commonly identify with, Felski argues, are characters who are alluring, arresting, or alive, not in spite of their aesthetic qualities but because of them. This kind of identification is not limited to naïve readers or over-invested viewers, but is also a defining aspect of what scholars in the humanities do. Relatedly, academic "interpretation" emerges here as another circuit of connection: critics forge ties to the works they explicate, the methods they use, the disciplinary identities they inhabit. "Hooked" returns us to the fundamentals of aesthetic experience, showing that the social meanings of artworks do not lie encrypted in their depths, within reach only of expert critics, but are generated within the embrace of captivated audiences. (shrink)

This article aims to draw a portrait of the influence of cybernetics on soft science. To this end, structuralism, post-structuralism and postmodern philosophy will be successively analyzed in a perspective based on importing concepts stemming from the cybernetic paradigm (information, feedback, entropy, complexity, etc.). By focusing more specifically on the American postwar context, we intend to remind the audience that many soft science specialists were involved in the elaboration of this ‘new science’. We will then retrace the influence of the (...) cybernetic paradigm on structuralism. Starting with the historic meeting between Roman Jakobson and Claude Lévi-Strauss, we will illustrate that structural phonology is directly inspired by discoveries stemming from the informational model. In the same perspective, the conceptual borrowings of psychoanalyst Jacques Lacan from cybernetics will be identified and analyzed. Then, we will address the matter of the relationship between postmodern theories and the cybernetic paradigm. The philosophical movement towards deconstruction, as well as Deleuze and Guattari’s philosophy, will be analyzed based on how they relate to this paradigm. We will also insist on the fact that the philosophy of Jean- François Lyotard’s La Condition postmoderne is fully in line with the epistemological revolution launched by cybernetics. (shrink)