We examined maternal competition, an unexplored form of competition between women. Given women’s high investment in offspring and mothers’ key role in shaping their reproductive, social, and cultural success as adults, we might expect to see maternal competition between women as well as mate competition. Predictions about the effect of maternal characteristics (age, relationship status, educational background, number of children, investment in the mothering role) and child variables (age, sex) were drawn from evolutionary theory and sociological research. Mothers of primary (...) school children (in two samples: N = 210 and 169) completed a series of questionnaires. A novel nine-item measure of maternal competitive behavior (MCQ) and two subscales assessing Covert (MCQ-C) and Face-to-Face (MCQ-FF) forms of competition were developed using confirmatory factor analysis. Competitiveness (MCQ score) was predicted by maternal investment, single motherhood, fewer children, and (marginally) child’s older age. The effect of single motherhood (but not other predictors) was partially mediated by greater maternal investment. In response to a scenario of their child underperforming relative to their peers, a mother’s competitive distress was a positive function of the importance she ascribed to their success and her estimation of her child’s ability. Her competitive distress was highly correlated with the distress she attributed to a female friend, hinting at bidirectional dyadic effects. Qualitative responses indicated that nonspecific bragging and boasting about academic achievements were the most common irritants. Although 40% of women were angered or annoyed by such comments, less than 5% endorsed a direct hostile response. Instead, competitive mothers were conversationally shunned and rejected as friends. We suggest that the interdependence of mothers based on reciprocal childcare has supported a culture of egalitarianism that is violated by explicit competitiveness. (shrink)

This article brings together two case studies that examine how nontransgender people, “gender normals,” interact with transgender people to highlight the connections between doing gender and heteronormativity. By contrasting public and private interactions that range from nonsexual to sexualized to sexual, the authors show how gender and sexuality are inextricably tied together. The authors demonstrate that the criteria for membership in a gender category are significantly different in social versus sexual circumstances. While gender is presumed to reflect biological sex in (...) all social interactions, the importance of doing gender in a way that represents the shape of one's genitals is heightened in sexual and sexualized situations. Responses to perceived failures to fulfill gender criteria in sexual and sexualized relationships are themselves gendered; men and women select different targets for and utilize gendered tactics to accomplish the policing of supposedly natural gender boundaries and to repair breaches to heteronormativity. (shrink)

Laurel Schneider takes the reader on a vivid journey from the origins of "the logic of the One" - only recently dubbed monotheism - through to the modern day, where monotheism has increasingly failed to adequately address spiritual, scientific, and ethical experiences in the changing world. In Part I, Schneider traces a trajectory from the ancient history of monotheism and multiplicity in Greece, Israel, and Africa through the Constantinian valorization of the logic of the One, to medieval and modern (...) challenges to that logic in poetry and science. She pursues an alternative and constructive approach in Part II: a "logic of multiplicity" already resident in Christian traditions in which the complexity of life and the presence of God may be better articulated. Part III takes up the open-ended question of ethics from within that multiplicity, exploring the implications of this radical and realistic new theology for the questions that lie underneath theological construction: questions of belonging and nationalism, of the possibility of love, and of unity. In this groundbreaking work of contemporary theology, Schneider shows that the One is not lost in divine multiplicity, and that in spite of its abstractions, divine multiplicity is realistic and worldly, impossible ultimately to abstract. (shrink)

Significant criticisms have been raised regarding the ethical and psychological basis of living wills. Various solutions to address these criticisms have been advanced, such as the use of surrogate decision makers alone or data science‐driven algorithms. These proposals share a fundamental weakness: they focus on resolving the problems of living wills, and, in the process, lose sight of the underlying ethical principle of advance care planning, autonomy. By suggesting that the same sweeping solutions, without opportunities for choice, be applied to (...) all, individual patients are treated as population‐level groups—as a theoretical patient who represents a population, not the specific patient crafting his or her individualized future care plans. Instead, advance care planning can be improved through a multimodal approach that both mitigates cognitive biases and allows for customization of the decision‐making process by allowing for the incorporation of a variety of methods of advance care planning. (shrink)

Cognitive Science, Volume 46, Issue 2, February 2022.

Laurel Schneider takes the reader on a vivid journey from the origins of "the logic of the One" - only recently dubbed monotheism - through to the modern day, where monotheism has increasingly failed to adequately address spiritual, scientific, and ethical experiences in the changing world. In Part I, Schneider traces a trajectory from the ancient history of monotheism and multiplicity in Greece, Israel, and Africa through the Constantinian valorization of the logic of the One, to medieval and modern (...) challenges to that logic in poetry and science. She pursues an alternative and constructive approach in Part II: a "logic of multiplicity" already resident in Christian traditions in which the complexity of life and the presence of God may be better articulated. Part III takes up the open-ended question of ethics from within that multiplicity, exploring the implications of this radical and realistic new theology for the questions that lie underneath theological construction: questions of belonging and nationalism, of the possibility of love, and of unity. In this groundbreaking work of contemporary theology, Schneider shows that the One is not lost in divine multiplicity, and that in spite of its abstractions, divine multiplicity is realistic and worldly, impossible ultimately to abstract. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Have We Been Careless with Socrates' Last Words?:A Rereading of the PhaedoLaurel A. Madison (bio)In section 340 of The Gay Science, Nietzsche offers what he believes will be received as a scandalous interpretation of Socrates' last words. "Whether it was death or the poison or piety or malice—something loosened his tongue at that moment and he said: 'O Crito, I owe Asclepius a rooster.' This ridiculous and terrible 'last (...) word' means for those who have ears: 'O Crito, life is a disease.'"1 Nietzsche might be surprised, however, to discover just how many readers "have ears" to hear the pessimism and resentment in Socrates' voice as he bids farewell to his life. Indeed, this interpretation has become standard among both Plato scholars and non-scholars, taking on the air of orthodoxy.2Not only is this "Nietzschean" reading widespread, it also has a significant impact on how we understand Plato's project in general and, ultimately, whether or [End Page 421] not we believe that Plato still has something to teach us. This commonly accepted interpretation reinforces the view that Socrates and Plato were ascetics of the worst kind, hostile to life and the body in particular. As a consequence, significant portions of Plato's thought are treated as woefully unenlightened. Indeed, how can we take seriously the views of such a dualist who denigrates our earthly existence and urges us to deny and repress our passions, instincts, desires, and drives—i.e., to live for death?It is assumed correctly, I think, that Socrates' last words speak volumes about both his and Plato's view of the nature and task of human existence. However, the meaning of these words, I will argue, has been seriously misinterpreted and their intended significance fundamentally obscured. Thus it is time to take another, closer look at what is arguably Socrates' most important statement—a statement uttered with his last breath:Crito, we owe a cock to Asclepius; make this offering to him and do not forget.3How are we, as readers of this dialogue, to interpret Socrates' last words? What is the meaning of his final thought, his dying wish and command? According to the standard reading of this passage, Socrates awaits the termination of his life with gratitude and relief. As death closes in on him, he asks Crito to make an offering to Asclepius, the god of healing. By invoking this god, Socrates appears to be calling attention to the recovery from an illness. But what is the illness and what is the cure? At the moment these words are uttered, Socrates is on the brink of death and it is assumed that he views his death as the cure to the illness of life. This reading is substantiated by an earlier passage where Socrates argues that "the one aim of those who practice philosophy in the proper manner is to practice for dying and death" (64a3-4). The body, Socrates argues, obscures our pursuit of the truth and the sooner we can separate our soul from this hindrance (i.e., in death) the better off we will be, for "as long as we have a body and our soul is fused with such an evil we shall never adequately attain what we desire, which we affirm to be the truth" (66b3-5). From the philosopher's perspective, then, the body is something to "disdain" (, 65d1) and "despise" (, 68c11)—indeed, to "flee" from (, 65d1). Thus given the disparagement of our bodily existence in this earlier passage, how else can we interpret Socrates' final statement?4Because this "Nietzschean" reading of Socrates' last words appears to be based in large part upon the discussion of philosophy as preparation for death, any examination of it must include an analysis of the earlier passage as well.5 However, [End Page 422] to adequately interpret the discussion of philosophy as preparation for death (or any passage in the dialogues, for that matter), we must first place it in its context within the drama of the dialogue, the philosophical significance of which has been argued at length elsewhere.6 Let us then turn to the opening scene of the dialogue, for... (shrink)

Geschichtliche Welten und Orientierungen haben als modale Sonderformen der Existenz zwar einen im gewissen Sinne perspektivischen Charakter; die geschichtliche Wirklichkeit, die sie tragt, jedoch nicht. Die Herausforderung der historischen Ontologie ist, durch solche Welten und Orientierungen hindurch den Sinn fur die tragende Wirklichkeit aufrechtzuerhalten. In diesem ersten Band der neuen Reihe 'Beitrage zur historischen Ontologie' wird die Tragweite dieser Konzeption aus philosophischer, philologischer, historischer und kulturwissenschaftlicher Sicht beleuchtet, um so den Bereich der historischen Ontologie fur weitere Studien zu erschliessen. Die (...) Beitrage auf Deutsch, Englisch und Franzosisch gliedern sich in sechs Abteilungen: 1) Historische Ontologie und metaphysische Tradition, 2) Personliche Historizitat, 3) Kausalitat und Wirkungsgeschichte, 4) Inhalt und Ereignis, 5) Diversitat und Dominanz und 6) Hermeneutik und Semiotik. (shrink)

The medieval computus was intended primarily for literate and numerate ecclesiastical users; reading the Latin computus required a good knowledge of technical Latin, while understanding its calculations presupposed some formal education in arithmetic and astronomy. By the mid-thirteenth century, users would have included a small group of literate and numerate laymen; by the mid-fifteenth century, users would have included the less educated and even semiliterate, as a consequence of a more extensive range of computus material made available for the purpose (...) in the vernacular. (shrink)

We report an experiment investigating the “special-process” theory of insight problem solving, which claims that insight arises from non-conscious, non-reportable processes that enable problem re-structuring. We predicted that reducing opportunities for speech-based processing during insight problem solving should permit special processes to function more effectively and gain conscious awareness, thereby facilitating insight. We distracted speech-based processing by using either articulatory suppression or irrelevant speech, with findings for these conditions supporting the predicted insight facilitation effect relative to silent working or thinking (...) aloud. The latter condition was included to investigate the currently contested effect of “verbal overshadowing” on insight, whereby thinking aloud is claimed to hinder the operation of special, non-reportable processes. Whilst verbal overshadowing was not evident in final solution rates, there was nevertheless support for verbal overshadowing up to and beyond.. (shrink)

The Planteome project provides a suite of reference and species-specific ontologies for plants and annotations to genes and phenotypes. Ontologies serve as common standards for semantic integration of a large and growing corpus of plant genomics, phenomics and genetics data. The reference ontologies include the Plant Ontology, Plant Trait Ontology, and the Plant Experimental Conditions Ontology developed by the Planteome project, along with the Gene Ontology, Chemical Entities of Biological Interest, Phenotype and Attribute Ontology, and others. The project also provides (...) access to species-specific Crop Ontologies developed by various plant breeding and research communities from around the world. We provide integrated data on plant traits, phenotypes, and gene function and expression from 95 plant taxa, annotated with reference ontology terms. (shrink)

An experiment is reported examining dual-process models of belief bias in syllogistic reasoning using a problem complexity manipulation and an inspection-time method to monitor processing latencies for premises and conclusions. Endorsement rates indicated increased belief bias on complex problems, a finding that runs counter to the “belief-first” selective scrutiny model, but which is consistent with other theories, including “reasoning-first” and “parallel-process” models. Inspection-time data revealed a number of effects that, again, arbitrated against the selective scrutiny model. The most striking inspection-time (...) result was an interaction between logic and belief on premise-processing times, whereby belief - logic conflict problems promoted increased latencies relative to non-conflict problems. This finding challenges belief-first and reasoning-first models, but is directly predicted by parallel-process models, which assume that the outputs of simultaneous heuristic and analytic processing streams lead to an awareness of belief - logic conflicts than then require time-consuming resolution. (shrink)

The Plant Ontology (PO; http://www.plantontology.org/) is a publicly-available, collaborative effort to develop and maintain a controlled, structured vocabulary (“ontology”) of terms to describe plant anatomy, morphology and the stages of plant development. The goals of the PO are to link (annotate) gene expression and phenotype data to plant structures and stages of plant development, using the data model adopted by the Gene Ontology. From its original design covering only rice, maize and Arabidopsis, the scope of the PO has been expanded (...) to include all green plants. The PO was the first multi-species anatomy ontology developed for the annotation of genes and phenotypes. Also, to our knowledge, it was one of the first biological ontologies that provides translations (via synonyms) in non-English languages such as Japanese and Spanish. There are about 2.2 million annotations linking PO terms to over 110,000 unique data objects representing genes or gene models, proteins, RNAs, germplasm and Quantitative Traits Loci (QTLs) from 22 plant species. In this paper, we focus on the plant anatomical entity branch of the PO, describing the organizing principles, resources available to users, and examples of how the PO is integrated into other plant genomics databases and web portals. We also provide two examples of comparative analyses, demonstrating how the ontology structure and PO-annotated data can be used to discover the patterns of expression of the LEAFY (LFY) and terpene synthase (TPS) gene homologs. (shrink)

Playing with correct intonation is one of the major challenges for a string player. A player must learn how to physically reproduce a target pitch, but before that, the player must learn what correct intonation is. This requires audiation- the aural equivalent of visualization- of every note along with self-assessment whether the pitch played matches the target, and if not, what action should be taken to correct it. A challenge for successful learning is that much of it occurs during practice, (...) typically without outside supervision. A student who has not yet learned to hear correct intonation may repeatedly practice out of tune, blithely normalising bad habits and bad intonation. The real-time reflective nature of intonation and its consistent demand on attention make it a ripe target for technological intervention. Using a violin augmented to combine fingerboard sensors with audio analysis for real-time pitch detection, we examine the efficacy of three methods of real-time feedback for improving intonation and pitch learning. The first, aural feedback in the form of an in-tune guide pitch following the student in real-time, is inspired by the tradition of students playing along with teachers. The second is visual feedback on intonation correctness using an algorithm optimised for use throughout normal practice. The third is a combination of the two methods, simultaneously providing aural and visual feedback. Twelve beginning violinists, including children and adults, were given four in-situ 20-30 minute lessons. Each lesson used one of the intonation feedback methods, along with a control lesson using no feedback. We collected data on intonation accuracy and conducted interviews on student experience and preference. The results varied by player, with evidence of some players being helped by the feedback methods but also cases where the feedback was distracting and intonation suffered. However interviews suggested a high level of interest and potential in having such tools to help during practice, and results also suggested that it takes time to learn to use the real-time aural and visual feedback. Both methods of feedback demonstrate potential for assisting self-reflection during individual practice. (shrink)

Both notional and grammatical number affect agreement during language production. To explore their workings, we investigated how semantic integration, a type of conceptual relatedness, produces variations in agreement (Solomon & Pearlmutter, 2004). These agreement variations are open to competing notional and lexical-grammatical number accounts. The notional hypothesis is that changes in number agreement reflect differences in referential coherence: More coherence yields more singularity. The lexical-grammatical hypothesis is that changes in agreement arise from competition between nouns differing in grammatical number: More (...) competition yields more plurality. These hypotheses make opposing predictions about semantic integration. On the notional hypothesis, semantic integration promotes singular agreement. On the lexical-grammatical hypothesis, semantic integration promotes plural agreement. We tested these hypotheses with agreement elicitation tasks in two experiments. Both experiments supported the notional hypothesis, with semantic integration creating faster and more frequent singular agreement. This implies that referential coherence mediates the effect of semantic integration on number agreement. (shrink)

Cognitive Science, Volume 46, Issue 1, January 2022.

A study is reported which focused on the problem-solving strategies employed by expert electronics engineers pursuing a real-world task: integrated-circuit design. Verbal protocol data were analysed so as to reveal aspects of the organisation and sequencing of ongoing design activity. These analyses indicated that the designers were implementing a highly systematic solution-development strategy which deviated only a small degree from a normatively optimal top-down and breadth-first method. Although some of the observed deviation could be described as opportunistic in nature, much (...) of it reflected the rapid depth-first exploration of tentative solution ideas. We argue that switches from a predominantly breadth-first mode of problem solving to depth-first or opportunistic modes may be an important aspect of the expert's strategic knowledge about how to conduct the design process effectively when faced with difficulties, uncertainties, and design impasses. (shrink)

ABSTRACT Political scientist James Fishkin has devised “deliberative polling” as a means to better informed, more autonomous, and more reflective participant opinion. After a deliberative poll, this improved form of public opinion can be disseminated to the general public and to policy makers so as to influence public opinion (as it is normally construed) and public policy. Close examination of the results of deliberative polling, however, suggests no evidence of a normatively desirable gain in informed, autonomous, or considered opinion—as opposed (...) to minor gains in participants' general political knowledge and in ideological constraint, which is likely attributable to the pre-packaged “expert” views set forth in the briefing materials provided to the participants. (shrink)

This article examines the theoretical motivations underlying the conflicting beliefs in support of and against responsible investment and presents unique quantitative evidence to illustrate how such conflicting logics produce a curvilinear relationship between screening intensity and two measures of risk. First, I argue that, whereas limiting the investable universe by using RI screening criteria increases the risk specific to the portfolio, very high screening intensity can reduce this risk. This is due to the fact that information benefits enable fund managers (...) to be more selective, allowing them to select less risky firms. Second, by drawing on behavioral studies, I argue that this same curvilinear relationship occurs when examining the flow of money coming in and out of a fund. That is, high RI screening makes ethical investors “stickier” and less likely to pull money out of a fund because they are attracted to its ethical properties. I test my hypotheses using a data set of all known European RI screening equity mutual funds. I generally find strong support for both hypotheses. This has an important implication for investors: For high screening intensity and meaningful RI practices, RI is associated with a significant risk reduction. (shrink)

Philosophers often rely on sciences of their own time. This is especially true for scientists writing philosophical works. In the case of Ernst Mach, the scientific references are mainly to physics, physiology, evolutionary biology and—in a somewhat different manner—the new discipline of psychology. Like so many authors in the late 19th century, Mach had extreme confidence in the methods of the natural sciences. However, this trait, often called scientism or positivism, can easily be used in polemical accounts that obscure other (...) aspects of Mach’s thought. Mach is well-known for both his analysis of sensations and his evolutionary conception of perception and knowledge. The tension between the ambition to clarify the empirical basis of perception on the one hand and the focus on the natural origins of human perception on the other hand is, however, considerable. A comparison of these two perspectives can contribute to an ontological understanding of experience that sheds new light on the much-discussed topic of sense data and at the same time clarifies the difference between experience and observation and the role of experimental science in this context. In some respects, Mach seems closer to William James than to his followers in the Vienna circle. The accusation of idealism made by Lenin in his influential critique of positivism overlooks the implications of this naturalist approach but offers the occasion to dwell on the ontological implications of something that can be called natural historicity. Comparisons with Aristotle, Bacon, Descartes and Kant situate the empiricist theory of perception. (shrink)

Man’yōshū and the Imperial Imagination in Early Japan. By Torquil Duthie. Brill’s Japanese Studies Library, vol. 45. Leiden: Brill, 2014. Pp. xx + 444. €49, $63.