A closer look at the three areas of action in communication permits us to conclude that the discipline faces a serious crisis. First, an epistemological review shows a fragmented body of theories. Secondly, there is a plurality of separate traditions within academia. Third, the professional field is technology-centered and lacks expertise since there is little connection between theory and practice. Our goal is to analyze the three-fold state of the discipline and to propose a conciliatory model. The Interactive Communication Process (...) is based on an interactive process in which a human subsystem, conditioned by his or her psychological and social and cultural state, interacts with another communicative subsystem to elaborate or process a message conveyed through some space in a certain time. (shrink)

In the remainder of this article, we will disarm an important motivation for epistemic contextualism and interest-relative invariantism. We will accomplish this by presenting a stringent test of whether there is a stakes effect on ordinary knowledge ascription. Having shown that, even on a stringent way of testing, stakes fail to impact ordinary knowledge ascription, we will conclude that we should take another look at classical invariantism. Here is how we will proceed. Section 1 lays out some limitations of previous (...) research on stakes. Section 2 presents our study and concludes that there is little evidence for a substantial stakes effect. Section 3 responds to objections. The conclusion clears the way for classical invariantism. (shrink)

This article examines whether people share the Gettier intuition (viz. that someone who has a true justified belief that p may nonetheless fail to know that p) in 24 sites, located in 23 countries (counting Hong-Kong as a distinct country) and across 17 languages. We also consider the possible influence of gender and personality on this intuition with a very large sample size. Finally, we examine whether the Gettier intuition varies across people as a function of their disposition to engage (...) in “reflective” thinking. (shrink)

Does the Ship of Theseus present a genuine puzzle about persistence due to conflicting intuitions based on “continuity of form” and “continuity of matter” pulling in opposite directions? Philosophers are divided. Some claim that it presents a genuine puzzle but disagree over whether there is a solution. Others claim that there is no puzzle at all since the case has an obvious solution. To assess these proposals, we conducted a cross-cultural study involving nearly 3,000 people across twenty-two countries, speaking eighteen (...) different languages. Our results speak against the proposal that there is no puzzle at all and against the proposal that there is a puzzle but one that has no solution. Our results suggest that there are two criteria—“continuity of form” and “continuity of matter”— that constitute our concept of persistence and these two criteria receive different weightings in settling matters concerning persistence. (shrink)

According to Susan Wolf's hybrid view about meaning in life, a life is meaningful in virtue of subjective attraction to objectively valuable pursuits. Recently, several philosophers have presented counterexamples to the subjective element in Wolf's view. We argue that these examples are not clearly successful and present a modified version which is even stronger in the face of them. Finally, we offer some positive reasons for accepting a subjective condition on a meaningful life.

Introspection, or metacognition, is the capacity to reflect on our own thoughts and behaviours. Here, we investigated how one specific metacognitive ability develops in adolescence, a period of life associated with the emergence of self-concept and enhanced self-awareness. We employed a task that dissociates objective performance on a visual task from metacognitive ability in a group of 56 participants aged between 11 and 41 years. Metacognitive ability improved significantly with age during adolescence, was highest in late adolescence and plateaued going (...) into adulthood. Our results suggest that awareness of one’s own perceptual decisions shows a prolonged developmental trajectory during adolescence. (shrink)

This paper investigates experimentally the effects of communication in distinct games with complete information. We design four games resulting from the interaction between two incentive elements: strategic complementarity and coordination. These incentive elements allow to analyse the use of cheap talk as an efficiency-enhancing and coordinating device. We implement a restricted communication protocol in repeated settings with fixed partners. Our findings provide robust evidence about how cheap talk interacts with incentives to explain strategic behaviour in a dynamic way. As expected, (...) cheap talk increases efficiency under complementarity incentives, and the coordination level under coordination incentives. As novelty, the use of limited communication in repeated interactions has led to identify specific time-varying message profiles as the most effective messages in the coordination games. While the content of messages is explained by the complementarity incentives, faithfulness to credible messages is determined by the coordination incentives. (shrink)

En este trabajo se plantea la situación que actualmente tienen que afrontar los funcionarios dependientes del Ministerio de Cultura para poder desarrollar las labores de investigación propias de los centros en los que se desarrollan su trabajo.

In response to concerns with existing procedures for measuring strategic control over implicit knowledge in artificial grammar learning , we introduce a more stringent measurement procedure. After two separate training blocks which each consisted of letter strings derived from a different grammar, participants either judged the grammaticality of novel letter strings with respect to only one of these two grammars , or had the target grammar varying randomly from trial to trial which required a higher degree of conscious flexible control. (...) Random variation in the colour and font of letters was introduced to disguise the nature of the rule and reduce explicit learning. Strategic control was observed both in the pure-block and mixed-block conditions, and even among participants who did not realise the rule was based on letter identity. This indicated detailed strategic control in the absence of explicit learning. (shrink)

The goal of perception is to infer the most plausible source of sensory stimulation. Unisensory perception of temporal order, however, appears to require no inference, since the order of events can be uniquely determined from the order in which sensory signals arrive. Here we demonstrate a novel perceptual illusion that casts doubt on this intuition: in three studies (N=607) the experienced event timings are determined by causality in real-time. Adult observers viewed a simple three-item sequence ACB, which is typically remembered (...) as ABC (Bechlivanidis & Lagnado, 2016), in line with principles of causality. When asked to indicate the time at which events B and C occurred, points of subjective simultaneity shifted so that the assumed cause B appeared earlier and the assumed effect C later, despite full attention and repeated viewings. This first demonstration of causality reversing perceived temporal order cannot be explained by post-perceptual distortion, lapsed attention, or saccades. (shrink)

Recently, John Doe, an undocumented immigrant who was detained by United States Immigration and Customs Enforcement, was admitted to a hospital off-site from a detention facility. Custodial officers accompanied Mr. Doe into the exam room and refused to leave as physicians examined him. In this analysis, we examine the ethical dilemmas this case brings to light concerning the treatment of patients in immigration detention and their rights to privacy. We analyze what US law and immigration detention standards allow regarding immigration (...) enforcement or custodial officers’ presence in medical exams and documentation of detainee health information. We describe the ethical implications of the presence of officers in medical exam rooms, including its effects on the quality of the patient-provider relationship, patient privacy and confidentiality, and provider's ability to provide ethical care. We conclude that the presence of immigration enforcement or custodial officers during medical examination of detainees is a breach of the right to privacy of detainees who are not an obvious threat to the public. We urge ICE and the US Department of Homeland Security to clarify standards for and tighten enforcement around when officers are legally allowed to be stationed in medical exam rooms and document detainees’ information. (shrink)

It is a cliché of self-help advice that there are no problems, only opportunities. The rationale and actions of the BSHS in creating its Global Digital History of Science Festival may be a rare genuine confirmation of this mantra. The global COVID-19 pandemic of 2020 meant that the society's usual annual conference – like everyone else's – had to be cancelled. Once the society decided to go digital, we had a hundred days to organize and deliver our first online festival. (...) In the hope that this will help, inspire and warn colleagues around the world who are also trying to move online, we here detail the considerations, conversations and thinking behind the organizing team's decisions. (shrink)

Contemporary public discourse is saturated with speech that vilifies and incites hatred or violence against vulnerable groups. The term “hate speech” has emerged in legal circles and in ordinary language to refer to these communicative acts. But legal theorists and philosophers disagree over how to define this term. This paper makes the case for, and subsequently develops, the first corpus-based analysis of the ordinary meaning of “hate speech.” We begin by demonstrating that key interpretive and moral disputes surrounding hate speech (...) laws—in particular, surrounding their compatibility with the rule of law, democracy, and free speech—depend crucially on the ordinary meaning of “hate speech.” Next, we argue, drawing on recent developments in legal philosophy, that corpus linguistics constitutes a distinctively promising tool for ascertaining the ordinary meaning of “hate speech.” Finally, we offer a proof of concept, by outlining, and analyzing the interpretive and moral implications of, the first such study. (shrink)

Giving money to others feels good. It is now standard to use the label ‘warm glow feelings’ to refer to the pleasure people take from giving. But what exactly are warm glow feelings? And why do people experience them? To answer these questions, we ran two studies: a recall task in which participants were asked to remember a donation they made, and a donation task in which participants were given the opportunity to make a donation before reporting their affective states. (...) Correlational and experimental results converge towards the conclusion that, if the nature of the warm glow is straightforward, its source is multifaceted. Regarding the nature of the ‘warm glow’, the pleasure people took in giving was mainly predicted by one particular type of positive emotion and was indeed described by participants as ‘warm’. Regarding the underlying psychological mechanisms, warm glow feelings were elicited by positive appraisals regarding the donor’s moral character, positive appraisals regarding the actual impact of the donor’s donation on the welfare of others and a feeling of communion with others. We discuss the theoretical implications of our findings. (shrink)

Minimal Semantics asks what a theory of literal linguistic meaning is for - if you were to be given a working theory of meaning for a language right now, what would you be able to do with it? Emma Borg sets out to defend a formal approach to semantic theorising from a relatively new type of opponent - advocates of what she call 'dual pragmatics'. According to dual pragmatists, rich pragmatic processes play two distinct roles in linguistic comprehension: as (...) well as operating in a post-semantic capacity to determine the implicatures of an utterance, they also operate prior to the determination of truth-conditional content for a sentence. That is to say, they have an integral role to play within what is usually thought of as the semantic realm. Borg believes dual pragmatic accounts constitute the strongest contemporary challenge to standard formal approaches to semantics since they challenge the formal theorist to show not merely that there is some role for formal processes on route to determination of semantic content, but that such processes are sufficient for determining content. Minimal Semantics provides a detailed examination of this school of thought, introducing readers who are unfamiliar with the topic to key ideas like relevance theory and contextualism, and looking in detail at where these accounts diverge from the formal approach. Borg's defence of formal semantics has two main parts: first, she argues that the formal approach is most naturally compatible with an important and well-grounded psychological theory, namely the Fodorian modular picture of the mind. Then she argues that the main arguments adduced by dual pragmatists against formal semantics - concerning apparent contextual intrusions into semantic content - can in fact be countered by a formal theory. The defence holds, however, only if we are sensitive to the proper conditions of success for a semantic theory. Specifically, we should reject a range of onerous constraints on semantic theorizing (e.g., that it answer epistemic or metaphysical questions, or that it explain our communicative skills) and instead adopt a quite minimal picture of semantics. (shrink)

The article explores the rich and varied experiences of a collective writing project, unfolding through an anecdote involving Charlie, a young boy who creatively disrupted conventional photography methods. This incident, during an evening promenade by the sea in Ericeira (Portugal), epitomizes the project's embrace of playfulness and exploration of diverse perspectives–materialized through Charlie's playful insistence on experimenting with different angles. The event embodied the group’s approach to writing, leading to a collective inquiry into the interplay of ages, angles, and other (...) themes like waves, threads, shadows, and liminal spaces. The project, driven by the Between Ages Collective, began with informal gatherings in Plymouth, UK, and expanded into a year-long online reading group. Participants, spanning different generations and academic stages, shared various materials, including films, picture books, and scholarly texts, which inspired individual contributions. Influenced by the Collective's collaborative spirit, these contributions explore the concept of 'between ages' – a metaphorical and literal space of transition and fluidity. Contributors were invited to craft pieces that delve into the 'between ages' theme, often exploring serendipitous moments that transform interactions and experiences. The writing tries to capture a sense of openness and curiosity, embracing the uncertainties and ambiguities inherent in the process. The works do not strictly adhere to conventional academic or narrative forms but rather emerge from the collective's shared experiences, including cooking, eating, swimming and walking together. The article suggests that these writings are not meant to be definitive or conclusive but are explorations that invite readers to engage with the mundane and profound textures of everyday life. The stories and themes explored are marked by their diversity in style, rhythm, and imagery, ranging from reflections on the philosophy of shadows to the profound implications of intergenerational and interspecies relationships. The Collective’s work is presented as an ongoing experiment in thinking and writing together, with each piece offering unique insights into the fluid and often blurred boundaries between different states of being. This openness to the in-between spaces brings into question the notion of fixed identities and experiences, inviting a more nuanced understanding of the relational dynamics that shape existence. The article allows the readers to delve into these narratives and engage with the myriad ways they resonate with broader themes of being, storying, and connecting. (shrink)

The recently published ‘Scientific Review’ by the Canadian Centre for Ethics in Sport about transwomen’s participation in female sport doesn’t deserve its name; it is wholly unscientific. This publication follows a familiar pattern. The body is not important anymore when it comes to categorisation and eligibility in sport; instead, it’s all about a psychological phenomenon: gender identity. This side-lining of the body (which makes the side-lining of female athletes and the inclusion of male-born athletes possible) is now reinforced by an (...) attack on the bio-medical sciences. (shrink)

Emma Borg examines the relation between semantics and pragmatics, and assesses recent answers to fundamental questions of how and where to draw the divide between the two. She argues for a minimal account of the interrelation between them--a 'minimal semantics'--which holds that only rule-governed appeals to context can influence semantic content.

The article “Revive and Refuse: Capacity, Autonomy, and Refusal of Care After Opioid Overdose,” Marshall et al. (2024) highlights the critical issue of care after an opioid overdose. “Revive and Re...

The unbridled consumption of clothing threatens the environment. In fashion communities, a discussion is developing around the adoption of new materials and economic models to reduce the impacts of clothing production and use. We discuss these emergent technologies in the wider historical setting of the Anthropocene, a geologic term that denotes the global-scale environmental changes brought about by agricultural and industrial activity. The long history of human-environmental interactions is interwoven with the development of international garment economies that have shaped biological (...) and physical systems. This article provides an account of how changes in clothing manufacturing and consumption patterns have... (shrink)

Background: The prevalence of anxiety and depression in young students is associated with biosocial factors and scholastic stress. However, few studies have evaluated emotional-affective symptoms that are related to the immune system and antioxidant parameters in young individuals without diagnoses of affective disorders.Aim: This study aims to assess the relationship between emotional-affective symptoms and glutathione concentrations and CD4 and CD8 lymphocyte counts in college students.Methods: College students completed standardized psychometric instruments, including the Perceived Stress Scale, Hamilton Anxiety Scale, Beck Depression (...) Inventory, Familiar Social and Friends Support Scale, and Rosenberg Scale. Blood samples were biochemically analyzed. Analyses of variance were conducted between four groups according to symptom severity.Results: A considerable prevalence of stress, anxiety, and depression symptoms was observed and negatively correlated with self-esteem and socio-familiar support. Perceived stress was sexually dimorphic. Although biochemical parameters were within reference ranges, glutathione, CD4, and CD8 tended to be lower in participants with anxiety and depression symptoms, which may be of predictive value.Conclusion: The relationship between antioxidant/immune parameters and socio-affective scores is latent in undiagnosed college students who might develop affective disorders. The findings suggest that during the initial development of affective disorders, stress management strategies should be implemented to help college students cope with the academic load and monitor negative changes in their physiological state. (shrink)

The COVID-19 pandemic represents the most significant global challenge in a generation. Based on extant data from previous pandemics, demographic, occupational, and psychological factors have been linked to distress and for some vulnerable members of society. COVID-19 has added to the layers of grief and distress of existing trauma. Evidence-based frameworks exist to guide our individual and collective response to reduce the trauma associated with the experience of a pandemic. Pandemic and post-pandemic measures to ameliorate impacts require a multi-disciplined approach, (...) central to which is community connectedness, resilience, and access to support. We advocate for the acceptance and broader application of Dadirri, a healing practice held by the Ngan'gikurunggurr and Ngen'giwumirri Aboriginal people of the Daly River region in the Northern Territory, Australia. This modality engages therapeutic phases that are comparable with other practiced trauma therapies. The demonstrated therapeutic outcomes from Dadirri can be attained through an individualistic or in a relational engagement context. This practice is accessible to all ages, is non-specific to gender and is suitable for people constrained in their mobility or limited by resources, pertinent in pandemic affected settings. (shrink)

BackgroundJunior medical doctors have a key role in discussions and decisions about treatment and end-of-life care for people with dementia in hospital. Little is known about junior doctors’ decision-making processes when treating people with dementia who have advance care directives, or the factors that influence their decisions. To describe among junior doctors in relation to two hypothetical vignettes involving patients with dementia: their legal compliance and decision-making process related to treatment decisions; the factors influencing their clinical decision-making; and the factors (...) associated with accurate responses to one hypothetical vignette. MethodA cross-sectional survey of junior doctors, including trainees, interns, registrars and residents, on clinical rotation in five public hospitals located in one Australian state. The anonymous, investigator-developed survey was conducted between August 2018 and June 2019. Two hypothetical vignettes describing patients with dementia presenting to hospital with an ACD and either: bacterial pneumonia; or suspected stroke were presented in the survey. Participants were asked to indicate whether they would commence treatment, given the ACD instructions described in each vignette.ResultsOverall, 116 junior doctors responded. In Vignette 1, 58% of respondents selected the legally compliant option. Participants who chose the legally compliant option perceived ‘following patient wishes’ and ‘legal requirements to follow ACDs’ as equally important reasons for complying with the ACD. The most common reason for not selecting the legally compliant option in Vignette 1 was the ‘ACD is relevant in my decision-making process, but other factors are more relevant’. In Vignette 2, 72% of respondents indicated they would commence treatment and 18% selected they would not commence treatment.. Similar reasons influenced participant decision-making in Vignette 2, a less legally certain scenario.ConclusionsThere are critical gaps in junior doctors’ compliance with the law as it relates to the implementation of ACDs. Despite there being differences in relation to the legal answer and its certainty, clinical and ethical factors guided decision-making over and above the law in both vignettes. More education and training to guide junior doctors’ clinical decision-making and ensure compliance with the law is required. (shrink)

Aujourd’hui, il n’est pas possible de vivre autrement que par conspiration. Mais, aujourd’hui, il n’est pas non plus possible de vivre par complot. Pour vivre maintenant, pour créer des modes de vie, des formes de vie, nous devons chercher une conspiration sans complot, une conspiration qui soit sa propre fin, une conspiration qui soit en vue d’elle-même. Cet article déplie quelques implications de cette proposition, à travers les notions de sous-communs, d’étude, de police, de soin et de complicité.

Stress and mental ill-health carry considerable costs for both individuals and organizations. Although interventions targeting compassion and self-compassion have been shown to reduce stress and benefit mental health, related research in organizational settings is limited. We investigated the effects of a 6-week psychological intervention utilizing compassion training on stress, mental health, and self-compassion. Forty-nine employees of two organizations were randomly assigned to either the intervention or a physical exercise control condition. Multilevel growth models showed that stress and mental ill-health decreased (...) over 3 months in both groups, while self-compassion only increased in the intervention group. There were no significant effects on life satisfaction in any of the groups. The findings show promising results regarding the ability of compassion training within organizations to decrease stress and mental ill-health and increase self-compassion. (shrink)

Mentoring Away the Glass Ceiling in Academia: A Cultured Critique describes how women of diverse backgrounds perceive their mentoring experiences or the lack of mentoring experiences in the academy. This book provides a space for envisioning strategies and practices to improve mentoring practices and the collegiate environment.

Giving money to others feels good. In the past years, this claim has received strong empirical support from psychology and neuroscience. It is now standard to use the label ‘warm glow feelings’ to refer to the pleasure people take from giving, and many explanations of apparently altruistic behavior appeal to these internal rewards. But what exactly are warm glow feelings? Why do people experience them? In order to further our understanding of the phenomenon, we ran two studies: a recall task (...) in which participants were asked to remember a donation they made, and a donation task in which participants were given the opportunity to make a donation before reporting their affective states. In both studies, correlational and experimental evidence converge towards the conclusion that, if the nature of the warm glow is straightforward, its source is multifaceted. Regarding the nature of ‘warm glow’, the pleasure people took in giving was mainly predicted by one particular positive emotion (‘joyful feelings’) and was indeed described by participants as a ‘warm’ sensation. Regarding the underlying psychological mechanisms, ‘warm glow’ feelings were elicited both by positive appraisals regarding the donor’s moral character and positive appraisals regarding the actual impact of the donor’s donation on the welfare of others. We discuss the implications of these findings for the role of positive emotions in explaining why people give. (shrink)

Other formats of this book available via https://openeducationalberta.ca/educationaltechnologyethics/.

Objectives“Attachment difficulties” is an umbrella term often used to describe various forms of non-secure attachment. Differentiating “attachment difficulties” from autism spectrum disorder and attention deficit hyperactivity disorder has been characterized as challenging. Few studies have explored how this happens in practice, from the perspective of professionals.DesignQualitative study.MethodsWe conducted in-depth semi-structured interviews with healthcare professionals from five NHS Foundation Trusts in the United Kingdom. Participants were recruited using a combination of snowballing, convenience and purposive sampling. Data were analyzed using a thematic (...) approach.ResultsWe identified six interrelated themes that might reflect difficulties with differential conceptualization. These include: a clinical lexicon of attachment; approaching attachment with caution; contextual factors; perceived characteristic behaviors; assessing attachment and adjacent supports; spotlighting intervention and dual conceptualization.ConclusionOur results indicate some of the ways suspicions around attachment are raised in practice. We advocate for more dialogue between research and practice communities on issues of differential conceptualization. We call for collaboration between a panel of experts consisting of attachment and neurodevelopmental orientated practitioners and researchers, to clarify issues around differentiating between attachment difficulties, ASD, and ADHD. (shrink)

In the United Kingdom, the question of how much information is required to be given to patients about the benefits and risks of proposed treatment remains extant. Issues about whether healthcare resources can accommodate extended shared decision-making processes are yet to be resolved. COVID-19 has now stepped into this arena of uncertainty, adding more complexity. U.K. public health responses to the pandemic raise important questions about professional standards regarding how the obtaining and recording of consent might change or be maintained (...) in such emergency conditions, particularly in settings where equipment, medicines, and appropriately trained or specialized staff are in short supply. Such conditions have important implications for the professional capacity and knowledge available to discuss the risks and benefits of and alternatives to proposed treatment with patients. The government’s drive to expedite the recruitment to wards of medical students nearing the end of their studies, as well as inviting retired practitioners back into practice, raises questions about the ability of such healthcare providers to engage fully in shared decision-making.This article explores whether the legal duty on healthcare practitioners to disclose the material risks of a proposed medical treatment to a patient should be upheld during pandemic conditions or whether the pre-eminence of patient autonomy should be partly sacrificed in such exceptional circumstances. We argue that measures to protect public health and to respect autonomous decision-making are not mutually exclusive and that there are good reasons to maintain professional standards in obtaining consent to treatment even during acute pressures on public health systems. (shrink)