Riassunto: Nell’ultimo decennio il p -value è stato sottoposto a notevoli critiche soprattutto per l’uso che se ne fa per raggiungere una conclusione dicotomica circa la significatività del risultato sperimentale. Pertanto, da una parte il p -value è stato sostituito con approcci differenti, dall’altra è stato affiancato da alcune procedure diagnostiche, tra le quali figurano la fragilità e la credibilità, che hanno il compito di rafforzare o meno la conclusione. La fragilità e l’indice che la misura presentano (...) aspetti di debolezza metodologica. D’altro canto, l’indice di credibilità sembra idoneo per dare o meno supporto alla conclusione e per rafforzare o sostituire l’indice di fragilità, dato che misura la credibilità del risultato osservato quantificando l’informazione a priori necessaria per ribaltare il risultato stesso. Il particolare meccanismo delle due procedure, che si fonda su quanto dovrebbe accadere per cambiare la conclusione, suggerisce di inserire le medesime nella prospettiva controfattuale considerandole come nuovi strumenti per la sua misura quantitativa. In questo contributo si presenta questa prospettiva, con particolare riferimento al campo applicativo delle scienze psicologiche. Parole chiave: p- value; Indice di fragilità; Distribuzioni a priori; Indice di credibilità; Prospettiva controfattuale Fragility, credibility and counterfactuality: In the last decade, scientific reliance on p -values, especially when used to determine in a dichotomic manner whether a scientific result is significant or not, has been strongly criticized. As a consequence, p -values are sometimes replaced by other statistical tools, or supplemented by complementary procedures such as tests for fragility and credibility, which lend further support or challenge the conclusion. The fragility index presents some methodological weaknesses of its own. The credibility index proposed in the literature seems to provide a particularly useful supplement for p -values as well as for the fragility index, considering that it assesses the reliability of the result obtained by quantifying the a priori information needed to overturn the result. Both procedures rely on what would need to happen in order to modify the conclusion. This suggests that they can be considered as valuable new tools for quantitative measurement within a counterfactual framework. In our contribution we present this perspective, with reference to the psychological sciences. Keywords: p -value; Fragility Index; Priors/Posteriors; Credibility Index; Counterfactual Perspective. (shrink)

Study on being with the reference of Indic philosophy and modern perspective.

The enactive approach provides a perspective on human bodies in their organic, sensorimotor, social, and linguistic dimensions, but many fundamental issues still remain unaddressed. A crucial desideratum for a theory of human bodies is that it be able to account for concrete human becoming. In this article I show that enactive theory possesses resources to achieve this goal. Being an existential structure, human becoming is best approached by a series of progressive formal indications. I discuss three standpoints on human becoming (...) as open, indeterminate, and therefore historical using the voices of Pico della Mirandola, Gordon W. Allport, and Paulo Freire. Drawing on Gilbert Simondon’s philosophy of individuation we move from an existential to an ontological register in looking at modes of embodied becoming. His scheme of interpretation of the relation between modes of individuation allows us to understand human becoming in terms of a tendency to neotenization. I compare this ontology with an enactive theoretical account of the dimensions of embodiment, finding several compatibilities and complementarities. Various forms of bodily unfinishedness in enaction fit the Simondonian ontology and the existential analysis, where transindividuality corresponds to participatory sense-making and Freire’s joint becoming of individuals and communities correlates with the open tensions in linguistic bodies between incorporation and incarnation of linguistic acts. I test some of this ideas by considering the plausibility of artificial bodies and personal becoming from an enactive perspective, using the case of replicants in the film Blade Runner. The conclusion is that any kind of personhood, replicants included, requires living through an actual history of concrete becoming. (shrink)

Social factors have so far been neglected in embodied theories of perception despite the wealth of phenomenological insights and empirical evidence indicating their importance. I examine evidence from developmental psychology and neuroscience and attempt an initial classification according to whether social factors play a contextual, enabling, or constitutive role in the ability to perceive objects in a detached manner, i.e. beyond their immediate instrumental use. While evidence of cross-cultural variations in perceptual styles and the influence of social cues on visual (...) attention could not be said to play more than a contextual role, other factors such as the intricate developmental links between dyadic and triadic interactions in infancy, as well as episodes of peer-learning in children, play enabling roles. A common element in these factors is the presence and resolution of interpersonal conflict. Detached object perception could not develop without these social factors. I argue, in addition, that social skills such as managing partial social acts which are addressed to and completed by others, linguistic mediation, makebelieve play, and the ability to control perspectival switches are constitutive -- i.e. are of the essence -- of the ability to see objects as present with a detached attitude. I discuss the prospects of incorporating such social elements into dynamical interpretations of the sensorimotor approach through the enactive notion of participatory sense-making. (shrink)

Drawing on recent developments in media entertainment research, this study examined the relationship between social question and answer (Q&A) websites use and users’ perceived enjoyment with the goal of expanding the line of research on the enjoyment of new and interactive forms of media entertainment. Special attention was paid to meaningfulness, self-presentation, and social presence, which were introduced as mediators. An online survey of users of a social Q&A website was carried out (N = 150). Results indicated an indirect effect (...) of social Q&A websites usage on enjoyment through users’ meaningfulness, self-presentation success, and social presence. Theoretical implications and further directions were discussed in detail. (shrink)

I will investigate the auditory illusion of continuity, which is the phenomenon of auditory occlusion in which we are able to hear a sound as continuous even though it has been masked by another sound. This phenomenon seems to have a perceptual nature when it occurs in the context of everyday sounds, while it seems to have a cognitive nature when it occurs in the context of speech sounds. This difference has the following consequences: (1) We need to have a (...) differentiated approach to the study of this phenomenon; (2) the perceptual explanation of the phenomenon involving everyday sounds indicates that everyday sounds can be auditorily perceived; and (3) the cognitive explanation of the phenomenon involving speech sounds suggests, instead, that semantic properties cannot be auditorily perceived. From (2) and (3) it follows that while we have a good argument for the rich view when focusing on everyday sounds, we seem to lack an analogous argument to support the rich view in the context of speech sounds. Thus, I will suggest a new argument for the view that we do not hear semantic properties, as language understanding seems to be primarily a cognitive ability. (shrink)

Peer interaction has been found to be conducive to learning in many settings. Knowledge co-construction has been proposed as one explanatory mechanism. However, KCC is a theoretical construct that is too abstract to guide the development of instructional software that can support peer interaction. In this study, we present an extensive analysis of a corpus of peer dialogs that we collected in the domain of introductory Computer Science. We show that the notion of task initiative shifts correlates with both KCC (...) and learning. Speakers take task initiative when they contribute new content that advances problem solving and that is not invited by their partner; if initiative shifts between the partners, it indicates they both contribute to problem solving. We found that task initiative shifts occur more frequently within KCC episodes than outside. In addition, task initiative shifts within KCC episodes correlate with learning for low pre-testers, and total task initiative shifts correlate with learning for high pre-testers. As recognizing task initiative shifts does not require as much deep knowledge as recognizing KCC, task initiative shifts as an indicator of productive collaboration are potentially easier to model in instructional software that simulates a peer. (shrink)

This study investigated how young Italian people experienced the period of peak spread of COVID-19 in their country by probing their emotions, thoughts, events, and actions related to interpersonal and community bonds. This approach to the pandemic will highlight social dimensions that characterized contextual interactions from the specific perspective of Community Psychology. The aim was to investigate young people's experiences because they are the most fragile group due to their difficulty staying home and apart from their peers and because they (...) are, at the same time, the most potentially dangerous people due to their urge to gather in groups. The research involved 568 university students, 475 females, and 93 males, with an average age of 21.82 years. The collected data were analyzed with the Grounded Theory Methodology, using the Atlas 8.0 software. From the textual data, representative codes were defined and grouped into 10 categories, which reflect the individuals' prosocial attitudes, behaviors, and values. These categories formed three macro-categories, called: “Collective Dimensions,” which includes Connectedness, Solidarity, Italian-ness, Social Problems, and Collective Mourning; “Prosocial Orientation,” which includes Trust and Hope; and “Collective Values,” which includes Values of Freedom, Respect of Social Rules, and Civic-Mindedness. All these macro-categories are indicative of the shared feelings experienced by Italians during the first time of the pandemic. Further practical implications of these results will be discussed, including a consideration of the risk of developing distress and improving well-being, as well as promoting preventive behaviors. (shrink)

The 21st century is characterized by an unpredictable and challenging work environment, and the Intrapreneurial Self-Capital (ISC) career and life construct can be seen as a core of individual intrapreneurial resources that enables people to cope with ongoing challenges, changes, and transitions founding innovative solutions when confronted with the constraints imposed by such an environment. The ISC is a challenging construct since it can enhance behavior and attitudes through specific training, unlike personality traits, which are considered substantially stable in the (...) literature. Against this background, the present study examined the relationship between ISC and well-being (hedonic well-being and eudaimonic well-being) controlling for the effects of personality traits. The Big Five Questionnaire (BFQ), the Intrapreneurial Self-Capital Scale (ISCS), the Satisfaction With Life Scale (SWLS), and the Flourishing Scale (FS) were administered to 258 Italian workers. Hierarchical regression analyses showed that ISC explained a percentage of incremental variance beyond that explained by personality traits in relation to both life satisfaction and flourishing. These results indicate that ISC is a key resource for hedonic well-being and eudaimonic well-being and that it offers new research and intervention opportunities. (shrink)

A simple line drawing can reproduce a vast collection of phenomenal discontinuities: optical, material, chromatic, and also of density, dimension, resistance. All these discontinuities correspond to physical realities quite different from each other. This fact leads us to consider that our brain can retrieve from a pencil stroke a broad and amazing lot information at several levels, from the physical to the phenomenological, from the logical to the cognitive. Drawing demonstrates the existence in our brain of a complex communication web (...) between the visual and action cortical areas and the zones of the paleo encephalon, indicating the biological necessity of establishing a continuity between vision and action, between representation and abstraction. Thus, drawing is a natural language, and represents a biological and expressive invariant; it is also a cultural language, the result of technical and symbolic development of a civilization; and it is, finally, an universal language, indeed the main communication system between different cultures. (shrink)

Although trust and reciprocity are ubiquitous in social exchange, their neurobiological substrate remains largely unknown. Here, we investigated the effect of damage to the ventromedial prefrontal cortex (vmPFC)—a brain region critical for valuing social information—on individuals’ decisions in a trust game and in a risk game. In the trust game, one player, the investor, is endowed with a sum of money, which she can keep or invest. The amount she decides to invest is tripled and sent to the other player, (...) the trustee, who then decides what fraction to return to the investor. In separate runs, ten patients with focal bilateral damage to the vmPFC and control participants made decision while playing in the role of either investor or trustee with different anonymous counterparts in each run. A risk game was also included in which the investor faced exactly the same decisions as in the trust game, but a random device (i.e., a computer), not another player, determined the final payoffs. Results showed that vmPFC patients’ investments were not modulated by the type of opponent player (e.g., human vs. computer) present in the environment. Thus, vmPFC patients showed comparable risk-taking preferences both in social (trust game) and nonsocial (risk game) contexts. In stark contrast, control participants were less willing to take risk and invest when they believed that they were interacting with people than a computer. Furthermore, when acted as trustee, vmPFC patients made lower back transfers toward investors, thereby showing less reciprocity behavior. Taken together, these results indicate that social valuation and emotion subserved by vmPFC have a critical role in trusting and reciprocity decisions. The present findings support the hypothesis that vmPFC damage may impair affective systems specifically designed for mediating social transaction with other individuals. (shrink)

Cet article comporte, outre l'élaboration d'un système de notation des gestes, un inventaire descriptif des gestes et des mimiques utilisés par les artistes lyriques, une définition des différents paramètres gestuels ainsi qu'une étude des rapports geste/parole et geste/mimique. Les gestes et les mimiques sont classés selon leurs fonctions. On distingue deux catégories de gestes : les gestes à valeur de signal, autrement dit les gestes faits avec intention de communiquer et qui ne sont pas spécifiques aux chanteurs d'opéra puisqu'on les (...) retrouve dans le théâtre parlé, et les gestes à valeur d'indice, c.à.d. des gestes faits sans intention de communiquer : ce sont les gestes idiolectaux, (c.à.d. des gestes spécifiques au chanteur et qui sont conditionnés par de multiples facteurs : origine sociale ou géographique, sexe, morphologie, psychologie, etc...), les gestes esthétiques qui sont des accompagnements purement plastiques du texte chanté, les gestes imposés par les contraintes théâtrales (costumes, accessoires) et les gestes inhérents à la technique vocale. En ce qui concerne les mimiques, on peut les classer également en deux catégories : les mimiques à valeur expressive, qui ne présentent pas d'intérêt particulier et les mimiques sans valeur expressive regroupant les mimiques d'accompagnement (crispations musculaires, grimaces ou rides qui correspondent à un effort vocal et n'ont aucune raison d'être particulière) et les mimiques fonctionnelles, c.à.d. les mimiques liées à la technique vocale. L'application des méthodes linguistiques et notamment de la commutation, permet de dégager des traits pertinents aussi bien au niveau des gestes qu'à celui des mimiques. (shrink)

It is a curious feature of Hegelian studies in English that its practitioners seem incapable of tackling their subject without first disclaiming any adherence to the more metaphysical side of Hegel's thought, be it called “speculative metaphysics,” “dialectical logic” or whatever. I say “curious” because I doubt that the same scholars would feel obliged to enter an equivalent disclaimer at the head of a study on, say, Aristotle, Descartes, Spinoza or even Newton—even though all of these classics have a metaphysical (...) side at least as abstruse as any of Hegel's worse romantic excesses. Hegel himself, if he could witness the practice, would be flattered by it. He would not see it as an indication that “the problems of [his] logic remain alien and artificial to us in ways that the problems of Cartesian and Kantian philosophy do not” but, on the contrary, as a hidden acknowledgement that, whether for good or bad, his philosophy is still alive, still so close to our culture that we instinctively feel the need of exorcizing it ritually, like a demon capable of frightening us. (shrink)

In this article I analyze the dispute that Hannah Arendt engages with her former mentor on the activity of thinking. In this way, although it is possible to recognize different periods in the intellectual relationship between both philosophers, I show that the problem of thinking is a thread that allows us to articulate and clarify some of its oscillations. In this sense, although the lecture that Arendt pronounced in 1969 on the occasion of the 80th anniversary of Heidegger´s birth, tends (...) to be understood as a laudatio or celebration, contains a critical indication in regard of the persistence of certain proximity of Heideggerian philosophy with the main tradition of philosophy. From this point the controversy around the task of thinking that remains veiled but is fundamental can be reconstructed. (shrink)

The aim of this essay is to present a model of ethical technology management which assumes that elites who make the system design and development decisions should minimize the risks to stakeholders rather than maximize gains for their organizations. Given the unsettled state in ethical theory a familiar substantive Social, Economic, Environmental and Rights value set or ‘SEER’ ethic is presented. To enable foresight of the negative SEER effects of innovations a technology life cycle is introduced. A cognate issue life (...) cycle is presented to facilitate the ethical resolution of SEER issues associated with such effects. The resultant problem of increased front end load delays and costs, due to ongoing system redesign and stakeholder discussions is found to preferable to high ‘rear end load’ crisis costs, e.g., ofthe Ford Pinto, Exxon Valdez, Dalkon lUD Shield, and the Union Carbide Bhopal plant. Furthermore the model promises improved returns on the capital investments involved, indications for further research in ethics, economics and organizational theory are noted. (shrink)

The life–mind continuity thesis holds that mind is prefigured in life and that mind belongs to life. The biggest challenge faced by proponents of this thesis is to show how an explanatory framework that accounts for basic biological processes can be systematically extended to incorporate the highest reaches of human cognition. We suggest that this apparent ‘cognitive gap’ between minimal and human forms of life appears insurmountable largely because of the methodological individualism that is prevalent in cognitive science. Accordingly, a (...) twofold strategy is used to show how a consideration of sociality can address both sides of the cognitive gap: (1) it is argued from a systemic perspective that inter-agent interactions can extend the behavioral domain of even the simplest agents and (2) it is argued from a phenomenological perspective that the cognitive attitude characteristic of adult human beings is essentially intersubjectively constituted, in particular with respect to the possibility of perceiving objects as detached from our own immediate concerns. These two complementary considerations of the constitutive role of inter-agent interactions for mind and cognition indicate that sociality is an indispensable element of the life–mind continuity thesis and of cognitive science more generally. (shrink)

Water quality prediction is the basis of water environmental planning, evaluation, and management. In this work, a novel intelligent prediction model based on the fuzzy wavelet neural network including the neural network, the fuzzy logic, the wavelet transform, and the genetic algorithm was proposed to simulate the nonlinearity of water quality parameters and water quality predictions. A self-adapted fuzzy c-means clustering was used to determine the number of fuzzy rules. A hybrid learning algorithm based on a genetic algorithm and gradient (...) descent algorithm was employed to optimize the network parameters. Comparisons were made between the proposed FWNN model and the fuzzy neural network, the wavelet neural network, and the neural network. The results indicate that the FWNN made effective use of the self-adaptability of NN, the uncertainty capacity of FL, and the partial analysis ability of WT, so it could handle the fluctuation and the nonseasonal time series data of water quality, while exhibiting higher estimation accuracy and better robustness and achieving better performances for predicting water quality with high determination coefficients R2 over 0.90. The FWNN is feasible and reliable for simulating and predicting water quality in river. (shrink)

Some research indicates that women professionals—when compared to men—may be more ethical in the workplace. Existing literature that discusses gender and ethics is confined to the for-profit business sector and primarily to a US context. In particular, there is little attention paid to gender and ethics in science professions in a global context. This represents a significant gap, as science is a rapidly growing and global professional sector, as well as one with ethically ambiguous areas. Adopting an international comparative perspective, (...) this paper relies on 121 semi-structured interviews with US and UK academic physicists to examine how physicists perceive the impact of gender on science ethics. Findings indicate that some US and UK physicists believe that female scientists handle ethical issues within science in a feminine way whereas their male colleagues approach ethics in a masculine way. Some of these physicists further claim that these different approaches to science ethics lead to male and female scientists’ different levels of competitiveness in academic physics. In both the US and the UK, there are “gender-blind” physicists, who do not think gender is related to professional ethics. Relying on physicists’ nuanced descriptions this paper contributes to the current understanding of gender and science and engineering ethics. (shrink)

The phenomenological attitude allows us to grasp something that happens before the distinction between subject and object. The application to groups of human beings in a clinical and therapeutic context of the phenomenological setting allows us, in spite of its descriptive-contemplative aura, the extreme richness of potentialities, applicative and transformative, of one of the greatest intuitions of modern thought: the disappearance of the fracture between the subject, the others and the world-of-life, in the evidence of meaning that the mutual experience (...) of one's own presence or being-there opens up. The Mitsein doesn’t represent the only existential structure that makes the Dasein able to exist with others, but the relationship between the ‘originary temporality’ of the Dasein and the other as ‘you’. Dasein is that entity that is structurally “with” others. And it is in this relationship dynamic that unfolds the theme of the care. Care becomes for Heidegger the existential of the existentials, fundamental ontological structure, indicating the original opening of being. Being-with-in-loving could consist in the atmosphere, a kind of well-being which these flow-experiences, relatively rare in everyday life, are immersed in. (shrink)

This study examined potential sources of grammatical gender variability in heritage speakers of Italian with a focus on morphological markedness. Fifty-four adult Italian HSs living in Germany and 40 homeland Italian speakers completed an online Self-Paced Reading Task and an offline Grammaticality Judgment Task. Both tasks involved sentences with grammatical and ungrammatical noun-adjective agreement, manipulating markedness. In grammatical sentences, both groups showed a markedness effect: shorter reading times and higher accuracy for sentences containing masculine nouns as compared to sentences with (...) feminine nouns. In ungrammatical sentences, although both groups were sensitive to ungrammaticality, only HSs showed a markedness effect, that is, they had significantly longer RTs and higher accuracy when violations were realized on feminine adjectives. Proficiency in the HL was a significant predictor of accuracy and RTs at the individual level. Taken together, results indicate that HSs acquire and process gender in a qualitatively similar way to homeland native speakers. However, RT evidence seems to suggest that at least under particular experimental methods, markedness considerations are more prevalent for HSs resulting in a speed-accuracy tradeoff. (shrink)

Terms, with explanatory notes, used in works in Indic philosophy.

_Background:_ Breast Cancer susceptibility genes 1 and 2 are implicated in hereditary breast and ovarian cancer and women can test for the presence of these genes prior to developing cancer. The goal of this study is to examine psychological distress, quality of life, and active coping mechanisms in a sample of women during the pre-test stage of the genetic counseling process, considering that pre-test distress can be an indicator of post-test distress. We also wanted to identify if subgroups of women, (...) defined based on their health status, were more vulnerable to developing distress during the genetic counseling process. _Methods:_ This study included 181 female participants who accessed a Cancer Genetic Counseling Clinic. The participants were subdivided into three groups on the basis of the presence of a cancer diagnosis: Affected patients, Ex-patients, and Unaffected participants. Following a self-report questionnaire, a battery of tests was administered to examine psychological symptomatology, quality of life, and coping mechanisms. _Results:_ The results confirm that the genetic counseling procedure is not a source of psychological distress. Certain participants were identified as being more vulnerable than others; in the pre-test phase, they reported on average higher levels of distress and lower quality of life. These participants were predominantly Ex-patients and Affected patients, who may be at risk of distress during the counseling process. _Conclusions:_ These findings highlight that individuals who take part in the genetic counseling process are not all the same regarding pre-test psychological distress. Attention should be paid particularly to Ex-patients and Affected patients by the multidisciplinary treating team. (shrink)

A growing body of research has focused on the relationship between board diversity and firm performance. A series of empirical literatures have also examined a significant positive correlation between the two. But these results only demonstrate the relationship between the input of ‘diversity’ and the output of ‘firm performance’. Such research is more of a black box because board diversity must act on certain strategies or decisions to affect firm performance. Some scholars try theoretical analysis with the purpose of opening (...) the black box. In order to verify the relevant theoretical analysis results, this study uses the mediating effect analysis model in the field of psychology, through multiple regression, impulse analysis, variance decomposition and other methods, to thus empirically test the mediating effect of technological innovation in the process of board diversification promoting corporate performance. We found that board diversity can improve firm performance by enhancing the level of technological innovation. Among them, technological innovation has played a complete mediating role in the diversity of board members’ functional and occupational background, and played a partial mediating role in the diversification of directors’ part-time jobs. Technological innovation is a key indicator bridging board diversity and firm performance. This study can explore and explain the inner workings of the significant relationship between board diversity and firm performance, and link research findings on similar phenomena. The research results may make the existing board governance theories more systematic, expand the extension of theoretical research, and provide some empirical research references for academics and practitioners. (shrink)

What is the difference between hermeneutics and deconstruction? This essay provides an answer by following the guiding thread of understanding that was already brought to the fore in Paris during the "improbable debate" between Gadamer and Derrida. Maybe there was and still is a "dialogue" between the two most important currents of continental philosophy, as Derrida suggests in his talk commemorating Gadamer at Heidelberg in 2002. It is a dialogue that passes through poetry, and above all the poems of Celan. (...) In this way, the distance or the proximity between hermeneutics and deconstruction rests in the meaning of understanding: the one beginning from the uninterrupted dialogue, the other from the difference of interruption. Through a phenomenology of saying and of understanding, this essay asks at the same time how the differences of deconstruction are the stars necessary for the constellation of hermeneutics, and how the constellation is nevertheless necessary for every new star. It is perhaps the Schibboleth of Celan that indicates the point of orientation. (shrink)

Previous studies have highlighted that temporal source memory can be influenced by factors such as the individual’s age and the emotional valence of the event to be remembered. In this study, we investigated how the different points of view (POVs) from which an event is presented could interact with the relationship between age-related differences and emotional valence on temporal source memory. One hundred and forty-one younger adults (aged 18–30) and 90 older adults (aged 65–74) were presented with a series of (...) emotional videos shot from different POVs (first vs. third-person) in three sessions. In the fourth session, participants were asked to indicate in which session (1, 2, or 3) they viewed each video. The results indicated that the first-person POV amplified the effects of the emotional valence on temporal source memory. Only in this experimental condition, older adults “pushed away” negative stimuli by perceiving them as more distant in time, and “kept closer” positive stimuli by perceiving them as more recent. In comparison, younger adults “kept closer” positive stimuli. These findings add to the existing literature on the positivity effect on temporal source memory and highlighted the importance of considering the POV in relation to the emotional valence. (shrink)

Several previous studies have reported atypicality in resting-state functional connectivity in autism spectrum disorder, yet the relatively small effect sizes prevent us from using these characteristics for diagnostic purposes. Here, canonical correlation analysis and hierarchical clustering were used to partition the high-functioning ASD group into subgroups. A support vector machine model was trained through the 10-fold strategy to predict Autism Diagnostic Observation Schedule scores within the ASD discovery group, which was further validated in an independent sample. The neuroimage-based partition derived (...) two subgroups representing severe versus mild autistic patients. We identified FCs that show graded changes in strength from ASD-severe, through ASD-mild, to controls, while the same pattern cannot be observed in partitions based on ADOS score. We also identified FCs that are specific for ASD-mild, similar to a partition based on ADOS score. The current study provided multiple pieces of evidence with replication to show that resting-state functional magnetic resonance imaging FCs could serve as neural biomarkers in partitioning high-functioning autistic individuals based on their symptom severity and showing advantages over traditional partition based on ADOS score. Our results also indicate a compensatory role for a frontocortical network in patients with mild ASD, indicating potential targets for future clinical treatments. (shrink)

A vast body of research shows largely positive associations between religiosity/spirituality (R/S) and positive well‐being outcomes. Such research has examined religious communities and general populations, but little is known about the relationship between R/S and well‐being among scientists, who typically tend to be less religious than the general public. Drawing on nationally representative survey data on physicists and biologists in India, Italy, the United Kingdom, and the United States (N = 3442), this study examines whether the relationship between R/S and (...) mental health holds for scientists, particularly during the COVID‐19 pandemic. We find that net of statistical controls, higher levels of religious and spiritual commitment are associated with significantly higher levels of well‐being and lower levels of psychological distress. Overall, the results indicate that a positive relationship between R/S and mental health holds even for scientists. The study's findings have implications for future analysis of the relationship between R/S and the well‐being of people working in other professions. (shrink)

RésuméLes oeuvres existantes d’Avicenne préservent-elles une trace de sa première production philosophique, aujourd’hui perdue? Cet article examine un texte jusqu’ici négligé, à savoir le chapitre « Sur les propositions hypothétiques » du « Traité concis sur les principes de la logique d’Avicenne » (Risāla mūǧaza fī uṣūl al-manṭiq, ci-après RM). Les nouveaux éléments offerts par le chapitre du RM en question conduiront à une lecture différente d’un autre passage bien connu de la réélaboration avicennienne des Analytiques premiers (Qiyās) d’Aristote dans (...) le « Livre de la guérison » (Kitāb al-šifāʾ). Les indices recueillis à partir de l’analyse de ces deux ouvrages nous amèneront finalement à réfléchir à la possibilité qu’Avicenne ait en fait composé un ouvrage (désormais perdu) sur les propositions et les syllogismes hypothétiques. Le RM d’Avicenne n’étant à ce jour pas édité, une édition, ainsi qu’une traduction anglaise du chapitre concerné, sont également fournies en annexe de cet article. (shrink)

Ethics education is an important goal in higher education overall. It is not clear how well psychology programs are meeting this goal. The American Psychology Association’s Guidelines for the Undergraduate Psychology Major (APA 2013) were created to support high-quality education in psychology. The Guidelines focus on five goals including Ethical and Social Responsibility in a Diverse World. This study is a review of ethics information available online from Franciscan Colleges and Universities. We accessed 24 Franciscan institutions and reviewed the available (...) information provided by 22 of them. We asked several questions: Whether the psychology department provided a mission statement and was ethics addressed in it? What courses focused on ethics or mentioned ethics in their description? Were there other institutional ethics courses required for psychology majors? Was ethics mentioned in the institution mission? The results of this study indicate a need for more intentional inclusion of ethics in university and program mission statements as well as specific courses for the undergraduate psychology major. (shrink)

This study aims at investigating vagueness in Security Council Resolutions by focussing on a selection of nouns and phrases used as the main casus belli for the Second Gulf War. Analysing a corpus of Security Council Resolutions relating to the conflict, the study leads a qualitative and quantitative analysis drawing upon Mellinkoff’s theories on “weasel words”, which are “words and expressions with a very flexible meaning, strictly dependent on context and interpretation”. Special attention is devoted to the historical/political consequences of (...) such vague and indeterminate expressions. The findings indicate that excessive vagueness might have led to biased or even strategically-motivated interpretations of the Resolutions, triggering the Iraqi conflict instead of a diplomatic solution. The analysis of the “weasel words” used in the Resolutions suggests the double-faced strength of such expressions: though they can guaranteed a wide degree of applicability of the Resolutions, their subjective interpretability might become a source of manipulation and elusiveness, with the overall legislative intent of using intentional vagueness as a political strategy. (shrink)

This essay shows how, in Shakespeare’s Antony and Cleopatra, the relation between the protagonists can be seen as an insurmountable contrast between two different cultures – on the one hand, the “diurnal” and “rational” culture of Rome and, on the other hand, the “nocturnal” and “passionate” culture of Egypt –, but also as an opposition between two different ways of understanding the relation between illusion and reality, appearance and truth, and thus between theatre and life. More specifically, what emerges is (...) the awareness that art, embodied in Cleopatra’s beauty, constantly reminds us of the unredeemable finitude and transience of the human being, who is inevitably immersed in time. In this light, if art is able to become a manifestation of truth, the fact remains that such truth, as final sense, is something that art can “show”, but only to indicate its perpetually elusive character. It is indeed a truth which, like the indecipherable secret kept in the Mausoleum, cannot be “told” or “represented” once and for all. (shrink)

This article examines the Heideggerian interpretation of intentionality as documented in some university lessons related to Being and Time. In his interpretation, Heidegger determines the phenomenological sense of intentionality as the universal structure of the lived experiences and in terms of the mutual correspondence of intentio and intentum. He also understands the concept of intentum as related to "entity in itself", in the strict phenomenological sense that refers to an "entity in its mode of being intended". Besides, he offers indications (...) wich allow us to understand the connection of the phenomenological concept of intentum with the ontological question about the mode of being of entities and with the origin of the ontological difference. (shrink)

This study presents the Italian adaptation of the Measure of Moral Orientation, second revision. Based on Carol Gilligan’s theory of the Ethics of Care, the MMO-2 was designed to measure two complementary moral stances, namely, Care and Justice. For this study, questionnaire responses from 683 university students were assessed against an Italian-adapted MMO-2 scale. Data were analyzed through exploratory structural equation modeling first as separate scenarios and then as a single model. The final model comprises 4 intercorrelated pairs of latent (...) variables and shows highly satisfactory goodness of fit indices with moderate construct validity and reliability. Strengths, limitations, and directions for the future developments of the MMO-2 are discussed. (shrink)

Use of videogames (VGs) is almost ubiquitous in preadolescents’ and adolescents’everyday life. One of the most intriguing research topic about positive effects of VG use is about the domain of visuospatial competencies. Previous research show that training with videogames enables children and adolescents to improve their scores in visuospatial tests (such as mental rotation of shapes and cubes), and that such training could overcome gender differences in these domains. Our study aimed at (1) verifying the positive effects of videogame use (...) in the visuospatial domain both for male and female adolescents and preadolescents and (2) verifying whether the visualization style (2D or isometric 3D) of the VG has an influence about the positive effects of gaming. Six measures of visuospatial competency were administered to 318 preadolescents (mean of age = 13.94 years, range 10-18) prior and after a 3-day training with 2D and 3D Tetris. Results indicate that (1) gaming on the whole has slight positive effects both for males and females in enhancing visuospatial competencies, at least in the short term, and (2) it seems that participants who used the videogame with 2D graphics obtained greater improvements in the mental rotation domain while the participants who used the videogame with 3D gobtained greater improvements in the spatial visualization domain. However, a general learning effect between T1 and T2 was measured, which was found regardless of Experimental condition, indicating that the effect of training with videogames can be less relevant than expected. (shrink)

High-performance work systems -performance research has dominated innovative human resource management studies for two decades. However, mainstream HPWS research has paid little attention to employees’ perceptions of HPWS, or to the relationship between HPWS and corporate social performance. The influence of CSP on employee outcomes such as organizational commitment and organizational citizenship behaviour has thus been similarly neglected. This paper seeks to investigate these missing links in literature using data collected from a sample of 700 employees in China. The findings (...) demonstrate that HPWS is positively related to HPWS satisfaction and employees’ perceptions of CSP. HPWS satisfaction fully mediates the relationship between HPWS and employees’ affective commitment. There are multiple mediators between HPWS and OCB, indicating more complicated mechanisms through which HPWS leads to desired HR outcomes. Employees’ perceived CSP has a significant influence on HPWS satisfaction, AC and OCB, suggesting firms should place a premium on achieving a reputation as being socially responsible. (shrink)

Market inefficiency is a latent concept, and it is difficult to be measured by means of a single indicator. In this paper, following both the adaptive market hypothesis and the fractal market hypothesis, we develop a new time-varying measure of stock market inefficiency. The proposed measure, called composite efficiency index, is estimated as the synthesis of the most common efficiency measures such as the returns’ autocorrelation, liquidity, volatility, and a new measure based on the Hurst exponent, called the Hurst efficiency (...) index. To empirically validate the indicator, we compare different European stock markets in terms of efficiency over time. (shrink)

This work investigates the relationship between goals and mitigation behaviors during the COVID-19 pandemic in Italy. Study 1 identified goals ascribed to following and violating mitigation-related indications. Study 2 investigated the structure of and link between COVID-related goals and behaviors in a large community sample. Our results showed substantial relationships between goals and behaviors. Goals were best described by a bi-dimensional structure, whereas behaviors clustered into a three-component structure. Hierarchical multiple regressions demonstrated the incremental validity of goals in the prediction (...) of behaviors. Network analysis suggested that goals imbued with social content were more directly related to both risky and preventive behaviors. Motivational aspects emerged as important contributors to the organization of behaviors in the context of the COVID-19 pandemic. (shrink)

My conclusion is that Mendel deliberately, though without any real falsification, tried to suggest to his audience and readers an unlikely and substantially wrong reconstruction of the first and most important phase of his research. In my book I offer many reasons for this strange and surprising behavior,53 but the main argument rests on the fact of linkage. Mendelian genetics cannot account for linkage because it was based on the idea of applying probability theory to the problem of species evolution. (...) Central to the theory is the law of probability according to which the chance occurrence of a combination of independent events is the product of their separate probabilities. This is the common basis of Mendel's first and second laws, but this is why Mendel's second law on independent assortment is enunciated in too general a way. From Morgan's work we now know that characters may not always be independent if their genes are located very close one to the other on the same chromosome. And this was also the basis of Mendel's personal drama: he surely observed the effects of linkage, but he had no theoretical tools with which to explain it. So he presented his results in a logical structure consistent with the central idea of his theory. Had he described the real course of his experiments he would have had to admit that his law worked for only a few of the hundreds of Pisum characters — and it would thus have been considered more of an exception than a rule. This is why he insisted on the necessity of testing the law on other plants, and this is why in his second letter to Carl Nägeli he admits that the publication of his data was untimely and dangerous.54.We can argue that already in 1866 Mendel was less confident that his so-called second law had the same general validity as the first — and that later he lost his confidence altogether. Contemporary testimony indicates that in the end he became as skeptical as all his contemporaries as to the scientific relevance of his theory.55 But he was wrong. His research is in no way the fruit of methodological mistakes or forgery, and it remains a landmark in the history of science. He was only the victim of a strange destiny in which the use of probability theory was responsible, at the same time, for the strength and for the weakness of his theory. We must still consider him the father and founder of genetics. (shrink)

This is an excellent little book. As the title of the series to which it belongs indicates, it is intended as an account of the results of past and present research on Schleiermacher. The book opens with a brief statement of the contemporary relevance of this Romantic philosopher-theologian and of the difficulties of interpretation that his work presents. It then goes on with a detailed history of its reception, from early in the eighteenth century to the present. The history falls, (...) roughly, into three periods. The first, which goes to the middle of the eighteenth century, is characterized by the fact that Idealism is still a living force in Europe. Schleiermacher’s work is then caught up in the general discussion between Hegelians and non-Hegelians—between those who considered his attempt at keeping faith and reason strictly separate as the product of an intellectual standpoint already superseded by history, and those others who thought instead that on the basis of Schleiermacher’s dichotomy, one could build a new and much more vital unity of tension. The second period is marked by a more historically detached attitude. Dilthey is the one who now set the tone. The life and the work of Schleiermacher are studied developmentally, and as examples of the spirit of an age. Dilthey called him the father of “Hermeneutics,” and it is precisely as a practitioner of this new discipline that in the third period he has finally acquired new relevance. (shrink)

Number processing abilities are important for academic and personal development. The course of initial specialization of ventral occipito-temporal cortex sensitivity to visual number processing is crucial for the acquisition of numeric and arithmetic skills. We examined the visual N1, the electrophysiological correlate of vOTC activation across five time points in kindergarten, middle and end of first grade, second grade, and fifth grade. A combination of cross-sectional and longitudinal EEG data of a total of 62 children at varying familial risk for (...) dyslexia were available to form groups of 23, 22, 27, 27, and 42 participants for each of the five time points. The children performed a target detection task which included visual presentation of single digits, false fonts, and letters to derive measures for coarse and fine digit sensitive processing across development. The N1 amplitude analyses indicated coarse and fine sensitivity characterized by a stronger N1 to digits than false fonts across all five time points, and stronger N1 to digits than letters at all but the second time point. In addition, lower arithmetic skills were associated with stronger coarse N1 digit sensitivity over the left hemisphere in second grade, possibly reflecting allocation of more attentional resources or stronger reliance on the verbal system in children with poorer arithmetic skills. To summarize, our results show persistent visual N1 sensitivity to digits that is already present early on in pre-school and remains stable until fifth grade. This pattern of digit sensitivity development clearly differs from the relatively sharp rise and fall of the visual N1 sensitivity to words or letters between kindergarten and middle of elementary school and suggests unique developmental trajectories for visual processing of written characters that are relevant to numeracy and literacy. (shrink)

The purpose of this cross-sectional investigation was to examine the item characteristics, factor structure, reliability, convergent validity, and construct validity of the Psychobiosocial States in Physical Education (PBS-SPE) scale. In Study 1, a sample of 1,030 students (582 girls and 448 boys, 10 to 19-year-olds), drawn from middle or high schools, rated the intensity of the 20 items version of the PBS-SPE scale thinking about the feelings they had usually experienced in physical education classes. In Study 2, an additional sample (...) of 1,025 students (578 girls, 447 boys, 10 to 19-year-olds), rated the 16 items of the final version of the scale. Two subsamples also completed an affective-related measure (i.e., the Physical Activity Enjoyment Scale) and two motivation scales often used in the physical education domain (i.e., the Teacher-Initiated Motivational Climate in Physical Education Questionnaire and the Situational Motivation Scale). Exploratory structural equation modeling and confirmatory factor analyses of the data showed that a two-factor, 16-item solution (i.e., 8 pleasant/functional items and 8 unpleasant/dysfunctional items) of the PBS-SPE scale reached satisfactory fit indices. Multi-group comparisons provided support for measurement and structural invariance across samples, gender, and age. Convergent and construct validity was also upheld. Overall, the findings offer support for the use of a new instrument in the assessment of psychobiosocial states in physical education settings. (shrink)

The life–mind continuity thesis holds that mind is prefigured in life and that mind belongs to life. The biggest challenge faced by proponents of this thesis is to show how an explanatory framework that accounts for basic biological processes can be systematically extended to incorporate the highest reaches of human cognition. We suggest that this apparent ‘cognitive gap’ between minimal and human forms of life appears insurmountable largely because of the methodological individualism that is prevalent in cognitive science. Accordingly, a (...) twofold strategy is used to show how a consideration of sociality can address both sides of the cognitive gap: it is argued from a systemic perspective that inter-agent interactions can extend the behavioral domain of even the simplest agents and it is argued from a phenomenological perspective that the cognitive attitude characteristic of adult human beings is essentially intersubjectively constituted, in particular with respect to the possibility of perceiving objects as detached from our own immediate concerns. These two complementary considerations of the constitutive role of inter-agent interactions for mind and cognition indicate that sociality is an indispensable element of the life–mind continuity thesis and of cognitive science more generally. (shrink)

The psychological factors influencing a return to sport has gained increased research attention. In the current investigation, we explored professional basketball players’ perceptions of the psychological factors facilitating a return to performance equal to or exceeding previous performance standards. We also sought to describe athletes’ experiences – both positive and negative – of returning to sport following injury recovery. Ten Italian professional male basketball players (age range 22-36 years), were retrospectively interviewed in relation to three time-periods: (1) from the commencement (...) of rehabilitation to their first official competition, (2) the first official competition, and (3) the six-months following the initial competition. Hierarchical content analysis of the data revealed numerous themes across the three time periods. In regards to Period 1, participants indicated that social support, investment in rehabilitation and training programs, coping skills and motivation were fundamental in reaching pre-injury performance levels. During their first official game (i.e. Period 2), athletes reported that realistic performance expectations, focusing on the performance, positive emotions, motivation, arousal and social support facilitated their return to sport. Athletes however, also described a predominance of factors that hindered their return to pre- injury levels (i.e., low confidence in personal abilities, decrements in skill execution and dysfunctional physical sensations). Moreover, participants typically described a substandard level of performance during their first competition back following injury. In recounting experiences during the six months following their first official game, basketballers reported improvements in skill execution and highlighted the importance of coping skills, motivation and social support. The process of restoring self-confidence in one’s ability to successfully perform was perceived as crucial in enabling participants to move beyond a mere return to sport to a return to high performance ─ that is, to reach a level of proficiency equal to or exceeding previous performance standards. Findings support the relevance of cognitive, emotional and behavioral responses highlighted in the Integrated Model and suggest the importance of addressing psychological factors throughout the return-to-sport process. Finally, results from the present study hold a number of practical implications for athletes’ aiming to achieve a return to pre-injury levels. (shrink)

This study examines linguistic co-occurrence patterns in the discourse of individuals with communication impairments who use augmentative and alternative communication devices in the workplace by comparing them to those of non-AAC users in similar job settings. A typical workweek per focal participant was recorded and transcribed to create a specialized corpus of workplace discourse of approximately 464,000 words at the time of this analysis. A multidimensional analysis of co-occurrence patterns along functional linguistic dimensions, following Biber [Variation across Speech and Writing. (...) Cambridge: Cambridge University Press; Dimensions of Register Variation: A Cross-Linguistic Perspective. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press], reveals differences in the macro discourse characteristics of AAC vis-a-vis non-AAC texts. Results indicate that AAC texts make use of more informational, non-narrative, and explicit textual features of discourse than their non-AAC counterparts. Implications to improve the capabilities of AAC devices to produce speech that matches baseline expectations of co-workers in the workplace are discussed. (shrink)