Volume 20, Issue 5, June 2020, Page 38-40.

I challenge Mehr et al.'s contention that ancestral mothers were reluctant to provide all the attention demanded by their infants. The societies in which music emerged likely involved foraging mothers who engaged in extensive infant carrying, feeding, and soothing. Accordingly, their singing was multimodal, its rhythms aligned with maternal movements, with arousal regulatory consequences for singers and listeners.

ABSTRACT A patient whose case notes had been used, without her permission, during a disciplinary inquiry on the conduct of Wendy Savage (her obstetrician) complained that this was a breach of confidentiality. Her complaint cannot be understood as based on a concern about the possible adverse consequences of this use of the notes: rather, her concern was just with the fact that medical information about her had been made known to others. My concern is with the meaning and status of (...) the right to privacy, to which the Savage patient appealed. Such a right cannot be reduced to a property right, since this cannot capture what concerned the Savage patient. A proper understanding of what lies behind her complaint requires us to recognise the way in which facts about oneself—in this case facts about one's body—are intimately bound up with one's self, with one's identity, and thus with one's autonomy. What kinds of fact, and thus what conception of the self, are involved in such a conception of privacy need not everywhere be the same; the crucial point is that privacy and the self are concepts which, whatever their particular content, are internally related [1]. (shrink)

I review two recent books on music, both inspired by cognitive neuroscience but differing in most other respects. Isabelle Peretz, an expert in the cognitive neuroscience of music, describes how we perceive and produce music, as reflected in neural and behavioral re­sponsiveness. Her book is intended for general readers who are interested in music and curious about the science behind our musical nature-brains that are prepared for music and changed by active musical engagement. Lynn Helding, an expert in vocal perfor­mance (...) and pedagogy, draws on findings from psychology and neuroscience to inform her approach to music learning and teaching. Aimed at musicians, aspiring musicians, and those who teach them, her book focuses largely on the means of optimizing learning and skilled performance. (shrink)

Patients suffering from the behavioral variant of Frontotemporal Dementia (FTD-b) often exaggerate their abilities. Are those errors in judgment limited to domains in which patients under-perform, or do FTD-b patients overestimate their abilities in other domains? Is overconfidence in FTD-b patients domain-specific or domain-general? To address this question, we asked patients at early stages of FTD-b to judge their performance in two domains (attention, perception) in which they exhibit relatively spared abilities. In both domains, FTD-b patients overestimated their performance relative (...) to patients with Dementia of Alzheimer Type (DAT) and healthy elderly subjects. Results are consistent with a domaingeneral deficit in metacognitive judgment. We discuss these findings in relation to “regression to the mean” accounts of overconfidence and the role of emotions in metacognitive judgments. (shrink)

The objective of this investigation is to initiate the development of a design-specific methodology for synaesthetic research, which will provide insight into synaesthesia from a designer's point of view. In addition, it aims to explore the possible advantages that the awareness of the phenomenon may have, specifically in the field of design education. The following question will be addressed: Can transdisciplinary studies of visual communication and neuropsychology help designers explore different practical approaches and theoretical views about synaesthesia?

By combining a flanker task and a cuing task into a single paradigm, the authors assessed the effects of orienting and alerting on conflict resolution and explored how normal aging and Alzheimer’s disease (AD) modulate these attentional functions. Orienting failed to enhance conflict resolution; alerting was most beneficial for trials without conflict, as if acting on response criterion rather than on information processing. Alerting cues were most effective in the older groups— healthy aging and AD. Conflict resolution was impaired only (...) in AD. Orienting remained unchanged across groups. These findings provide evidence of different life span developmental and clinical trajectories for each attentional network. (shrink)

The shift from a welfarist to a retributivist perspective on crime, which is one of the themes of David Garland?s book, has brought with it a renewed emphasis on the victims of crime and their rights. This shift in emphasis, I suggest, raises questions about the way we think of the relationship between individual citizens and between citizens and the state. Different political theories will produce different accounts of this relationship and hence different ways of characterising the status and role (...) of victims in the criminal process. In this paper then I sketch a roughly communitarian view of the citizen relationship as a context for an account of the status of victims. Thus, I argue, we need to consider not just the expectations that victims rightly have that they have rights which should to be recognised in the criminal process but also their duties as participants. Duties which require them to bear witness in calling offenders to account. This gives victims an active role in the criminal process but one that may come at a price since it might require victims to be subjected to greater scrutiny in the process of a criminal trial than they might find bearable. (shrink)

Deliberate practice and experience may suffice as predictors of expertise, but they cannot account for spectacular achievements. Highly variable environmental and biological factors provide facilitating as well as constraining conditions for development, generating relative plasticity rather than absolute plasticity. The skills of virtuosos and idiots savants are more consistent with the talent account than with the deliberate-practice account.

Instead of the discrete emotions approach adopted by Juslin & Vll (J&V), the present perspective considers musical signals as functioning primarily to influence listeners in ways that are favorable to the signaler. Viewing music through the lens of social-emotional regulation fits with typical uses of music in everyday contexts and with the cross-cultural use of music for infant affect regulation.

Since I do not disagree with the line of argument taken by Kramer and the distinctions he draws between the different ways rules can be ‘mind-independent’, my comments focus on some of the complexities involved in the application of his distinctions. I suggest that law, properly understood as a system of rules/conventions is both existentially and observationally weakly mind independent, but nonetheless objective.

The idea that there are some things which we should not talk about is most commonly dealt with in the context of debates about rights to free speech, and other contexts in which the value of talking is typically understood in instrumental terms. This paper explores ways of grounding that idea which do not depend upon instrumental values, in particular in the context of self-revelatory and confessional talk.

The available evidence indicates that the music of a culture reflects the speech rhythm of the prevailing language. The normalized pairwise variability index (nPVI) is a measure of durational contrast between successive events that can be applied to vowels in speech and to notes in music. Music–language parallels may have implications for the acquisition of language and music, but it is unclear whether native-language rhythms are reflected in children's songs. In general, children's songs exhibit greater rhythmic regularity than adults' songs, (...) in line with their caregiving goals and frequent coordination with rhythmic movement. Accordingly, one might expect lower nPVI values (i.e., lower variability) for such songs regardless of culture. In addition to their caregiving goals, children's songs may serve an intuitive didactic function by modeling culturally relevant content and structure for music and language. One might therefore expect pronounced rhythmic parallels between children's songs and language of origin. To evaluate these predictions, we analyzed a corpus of 269 English and French songs from folk and children's music anthologies. As in prior work, nPVI values were significantly higher for English than for French children's songs. For folk songs (i.e., songs not for children), the difference in nPVI for English and French songs was small and in the expected direction but non-significant. We subsequently collected ratings from American and French monolingual and bilingual adults, who rated their familiarity with each song, how much they liked it, and whether or not they thought it was a children's song. Listeners gave higher familiarity and liking ratings to songs from their own culture, and they gave higher familiarity and preference ratings to children's songs than to other songs. Although higher child-directedness ratings were given to children's than to folk songs, French listeners drove this effect, and their ratings were uniquely predicted by nPVI. Together, these findings suggest that language-based rhythmic structures are evident in children's songs, and that listeners expect exaggerated language-based rhythms in children's songs. The implications of these findings for enculturation processes and for the acquisition of music and language are discussed. (shrink)

Recent calls to address racism in bioethics reflect a sense of urgency to mitigate the lethal effects of a lack of action. While the field was catalyzed largely in response to pivotal events deeply rooted in racism and other structures of oppression embedded in research and health care, it has failed to center racial justice in its scholarship, pedagogy, advocacy, and practice, and neglected to integrate anti-racism as a central consideration. Academic bioethics programs play a key role in determining the (...) field’s norms and practices, including methodologies, funding priorities, and professional networks that bear on equity, inclusion, and epistemic justice. This article describes recommendations from the Racial Equity, Diversity, and Inclusion (REDI) Task Force commissioned by the Association of Bioethics Program Directors to prioritize and strengthen anti-racist practices in bioethics programmatic endeavors and to evaluate and develop specific goals to advance REDI. (shrink)

ABSTRACTBesides physiological, behavioural, and affective effects, romantic love also has cognitive effects. In this study, we tested whether individual differences in infatuation and/or attachment level predict impaired interference control even in the absence of a love booster procedure, and whether individual differences in attachment level predict reduced adaptive cognitive control as measured by conflict adaptation and post-error slowing. Eighty-three young adults who had recently fallen in love completed a Stroop-like task, which yielded reliable indices of interference control and adaptive cognitive (...) control. We did not observe the predicted negative association between infatuation or attachment level and interference control. It might be that reduced interference control with love only happens when people are actively thinking about their beloved. In addition, we observed only weak evidence for the prediction t... (shrink)

The social organization of insect colonies has fascinated biologists and natural historians for centuries. Aristotle wrote in History of Animals about a division of labor among workers within the hive that is based on age. He observed that the field bees foraging for nectar and pollen have less “hair” on their bodies than the hive bees that care for young larvae and tend the nest. He concluded that the more pubescent hive bees must be older. We now know that, in (...) fact, the field bees are older and have less hair because the hairs break off as the bees age. The phenomenon of age related changes in behavior, age-polyethism, is now well documented for many social insects (Oster and Wilson 1978).Evidence of the ecological success of social insects is inescapable. Virtually everywhere you look you see them or the results of their activities. (shrink)

The Internet appears to offer psychologists doing research unrestricted access to infinite amounts and types of data. However, the ethical issues surrounding the use of data and data collection methods are challenging research review boards at many institutions. This article illuminates some of the obstacles facing researchers who wish to take advantage of the Internet's flexibility. The applications of the APA ethical codes for conducting research on human participants on the Internet are reviewed. The principle of beneficence, as well as (...) privacy and confidentiality, informed consent, deception, and avoiding harm are all illustrated through the use of a hypothetical online study. (shrink)

We are reporting on how involved the mentor was in promoting responsible research in cases of research misconduct. We reviewed the USPHS misconduct files of the Office of Research Integrity. These files are created by Institutions who prosecute a case of possible research misconduct; ORI has oversight review of these investigations. We explored the role of the mentor in the cases of trainee research misconduct on three specific behaviors that we believe mentors should perform with their trainee: (1) review source (...) data, (2) teach specific research standards and (3) minimize stressful work situations. We found that almost three quarters of the mentors had not reviewed the source data and two thirds had not set standards. These two behaviors are positively correlated. We did not see convincing evidence in the records that mentors were causing stress, but it was apparent in the convicted trainees’ confessions that over 50% experienced some kind of stress. Secondary data, while not created for this research purpose, allows us to look at concrete research behaviors that are otherwise not very researchable. We believe it is important for mentors and institutions to devote more attention to teaching mentors about the process of education and their responsibilities in educating the next generation of scientists. This becomes a critical issue for large research groups who need to determine who is in charge educating, supervising and assuring data integrity. (shrink)

The beneficial effects of physical exercise on physical health and cognitive functioning have been repeatedly shown. However, evidence of its effect on psychosocial functioning in healthy adults is still scarce or inconclusive. One limitation of many studies examining this link is their reliance on correlational approaches or specific subpopulations, such as clinical populations. The present study investigated the effects of a physical exercise intervention on key factors of psychosocial functioning, specifically well-being, stress, loneliness, and future time perspective. We used data (...) from healthy, previously sedentary older adults who participated in a 6-month at-home intervention, either engaging in aerobic exercise or as part of a control group who participated in foreign language-learning or reading of selected native-language literature. Before and after the intervention, comprehensive cardiovascular pulmonary testing and a psychosocial questionnaire were administered. The exercise group showed significantly increased fitness compared to the control group. Contrary to expectations, however, we did not find evidence for a beneficial effect of this fitness improvement on any of the four domains of psychosocial functioning we assessed. This may be due to pronounced stability of such psychological traits in older age, especially in older adults who show high levels of well-being initially. Alternatively, it may be that the well-documented beneficial effects of physical exercise on brain structure and function, as well as cognition differ markedly from beneficial effects on psychosocial functioning. While aerobic exercise may be the driving factor for the former, positive effects on the latter may only be invoked by other aspects of exercise, for example, experiences of mastery or a feeling of community. (shrink)

Mixtecs and Zapotecs, originating from the Oaxaca area in Mexico, are among the largest indigenous groups of workers in California. Many adults in this community only access the health care system when sick and as a last resort. This article describes the development of a radionovela to inform the community about the importance of preventive health care. It was developed following the Sabido Method. The methodology to develop a radionovela may be of interest to other public health practitioners who want (...) to develop educational materials in an engaging format, especially for communities that rely on oral, not written information. (shrink)

Wealthy individuals stand to gain materially from economic inequality and, moreover, have shaped many organizational and societal practices that perpetuate economic inequality. Thus, they are unlikely allies in the effort to remedy economic inequality. In this article, however, we study the mobilization of a small group of wealthy activists who join underprivileged allies to expose and contest the root causes of wealth consolidation; they offer an instructive alternative to “philanthrocapitalism,” whereby the wealthy give after extreme accumulation. Our study contributes to (...) the growing literature on inequality and organizations by recognizing how inequality is reproduced through organizations, cognizant that efforts to halt this reproduction will likely be contested by the wealthy. Our study examines how advocacy by the wealthy may be challenging, but it may garner attention because it is unexpected. We derive the concept of “privilege work” from our observations of an often awkward and fraught process that enables the wealthy to engage with their own privilege, use their insider knowledge of wealth accumulation as a lever for change, and work respectfully with underprivileged allies rather than invoking superior status. (shrink)

Little attention has focused on the reporting of ethical research practices in journal articles. In Study 1, published articles in 2 psychopathology journals were reviewed to ascertain the types of ethical research information that were reported. In Study 2, a survey was sent to authors in Study 1 to determine which ethical practices they engaged in, if they reported this information, and reasons for not including this information in their article. In general, there is a great variability regarding the types (...) of ethical research practices reported in journal articles. Commonly cited reasons for not including ethical research practice information in the articles included the need for brevity, belief that it was common practice, and lack of relevance for the project. These results suggest that there is no standard practice for reporting research practices in journal articles and great variability in the implementation of procedures that are generally considered standard. (shrink)

Romantic love is associated with mind wandering about the beloved. We tested associations between mind wandering about the beloved and infatuation, attachment, self-reported distraction, task performance, and enjoyment. Participants who were in love completed self-report measures and a sustained attention response task with thought probes. Participants reported thinking about their beloved for 67% of the time in general and up to 42% of the time during task performance. Thinking about the beloved in general was positively associated with infatuation (passionate love) (...) but not with attachment (companionate love). The more time participants reported thinking about their beloved in general, the more distracting they found it and the less they could withhold a response to no go stimuli. The more participants thought about their beloved during the task, the slower their responses to go stimuli were. In contrast to the negative terminology typically used to describe frequent thoughts about the beloved, such as intrusive or obsessive thinking, participants overwhelmingly enjoyed thinking about their beloved. The findings suggest that romantic love impairs cognitive task performance because people are thinking about their beloved instead, which may negatively impact performance at school and work. Nevertheless, people seem to greatly enjoy thinking about their beloved. (shrink)

The ease with which genotyping technologies generate tremendous amounts of data on research participants has been well chronicled, a feat that continues to become both faster and cheaper to perform. In parallel to these advances come additional ethical considerations and debates, one of which centers on providing individual research results and incidental findings back to research participants taking part in genetic research efforts. In 2006 the Industry Pharmacogenomics Working Group offered some ‘Points-to-Consider’ on this topic within the context of the (...) drug development process from those who are affiliated to pharmaceutical companies. Today many of these points remain applicable to the discussion but will be expanded upon in this updated viewpoint from the I-PWG. The exploratory nature of pharmacogenomic work in the pharmaceutical industry is discussed to provide context for why these results typically are not best suited for return. Operational challenges unique to this industry which cause barriers to returning this information are also explained. (shrink)