Background Biobank participants often do not understand much of the information they are provided as part of the informed consent process, despite numerous attempts at simplifying consent forms and improving their readability. We report the first assessment of biobank enrollees’ comprehension under an "integrated consent” process, where patients were asked to enroll in a research biobank as part of their normal healthcare experience. A number of healthcare systems have implemented similar integrated consent processes for biobanking, but it is unknown how (...) much patients understand after enrolling under these conditions. Methods: We recruited patients who enrolled in a biobank while in a healthcare setting when receiving ordinary care. We assessed knowledge of consent materials using 11 true/false questions drawn from a well-known biobank knowledge test. After reviewing the results from 114 participants, we revised the consent form and repeated the knowledge assessment with 144 different participants. Results: Participants scored poorly on the knowledge test in both rounds, with no significant differences in overall scores or individual items between the rounds. In Phase 1, participants answered 53% of the questions correctly, 25% incorrectly, and 22% “I don’t know.” In Phase 2, participants answered 53% of questions correctly, 24% incorrectly, and 23% “I don’t know.” Participants scored particularly poorly on questions about data sharing and accessing medical records. Conclusions: Enrollees under an integrated consent model had significant misunderstandings that persisted despite an attempt to improve information specifically about those topics in a consent form. These results raise challenges for current approaches that attribute misunderstanding to overly complex consent forms. They also suggest that the pressures of the clinic may compound other problems with patient understanding of biobank consent. As health systems increasingly blend research and care, they may need to rethink their approach to educating patients about participation in a biobank. (shrink)

Faces are complex stimuli that can be described via intuitive facial features like the eyes, nose, and mouth, “configural” features like the distances between facial landmarks, and features that correspond to computations performed in the early visual system (e.g. oriented edges). With regard to this latter category of descriptors, adult face recognition relies disproportionately on information in specific spatial frequency and orientation bands: Many recognition tasks are performed more accurately when adults have access to mid-range spatial frequencies (8-16 cycles/face) and (...) horizontal orientations (Dakin & Watt, 2009). In the current study, we examined how this information bias develops in middle childhood. We recruited children between the ages of 5-10 years old to participate in a simple categorization task that required them to label images according to whether they depicted a face or a house. Critically, children were presented with face and house images comprised either of primarily horizontal orientation energy, primarily vertical orientation energy, or both horizontal and vertical orientation energy. We predicted that any bias favoring horizontal information over vertical should be more evident in faces than in houses, and also that older children would be more likely to show such a bias than younger children. We designed our categorization task to be sufficiently easy that children would perform at near-ceiling accuracy levels, but with variation in response times that would reflect how they rely on different orientations as a function of age and object category. We found that horizontal bias for face detection (but not house detection) correlated significantly with age, suggesting an emergent category-specific bias for horizontal orientation energy that develops during middle childhood. These results thus suggest that the tuning of high-level recognition to specific low-level visual features takes take place over several years of visual development. (shrink)

The pull to coordinate with other individuals is fundamental, serving as the basis for our social connectedness to others. Discussed is a dynamical and ecological perspective to joint action, an approach that embeds the individual’s mind in a body and the body in a niche, a physical and social environment. Research on uninstructed coordination of simple incidental rhythmic movement, along with research on goal‐directed, embodied cooperation, is reviewed. Finally, recent research is discussed that extends the coordination and cooperation studies, examining (...) how synchronizing with another, and how emergent social units of perceiving and acting are reflected in people’s feelings of connection to others. (shrink)

In this illuminating work, Dennis J. Schmidt examines tragedy as one of the highest forms of human expression for both the ancients and the moderns.

Siegfried J. Schmidt is closely associated in Germany with the cross-disciplinary research programme of Radical Constructivism. In Histories & Discourses he carries out a change of perspective from media and communication studies to studies of culture and the philosophy of language.His ‘rewriting’ of constructivism shows that classical constructivism shares some fundamental assumptions with realism, and he creates a new vocabulary which allows us to understand how we construct truth, identity, ethics, etc., without using any point of reference which lies (...) beyond our culture. (shrink)

Focusing on Heidegger and the work of Paul Klee, Schmidt pursues larger issues in the relationship between word, image, and truth.

A wide-ranging attempt to develop a theory of ethical life from a hermeneutic understanding of language.

Context: Philosophical debates in recent decades have developed new ways of dealing with old philosophical problems such as reality, truth, knowledge, language, communication, and action. These new approaches deserve serious consideration because they can improve the discourse of radical constructivism. Problem: This paper discusses the following problem: How can we overcome dualistic and ontological approaches to basic philosophical problems – problems that are relevant to all scientific domains? Method: The method applied here can be roughly described as a transition from (...) entities/substantives/identities to actions and processes, the actions and processes from which so-called entities result. Action-orientation – or an actor-based process – is necessarily combined with sense-orientation as provided by culture and society. Results: The paper demonstrates how the problems mentioned above can be reformulated in a non-dualistic and non-ontological way. Implications: Opening up constructivist thinking to insights provided by neighbouring philosophical approaches facilitates interdisciplinary cooperation and helps overcome dualistic remnants – as well as the cognitive one-sidedness of traditional constructivism. (shrink)

Political theorist Wendy Brown has argued recently that contemporary neoliberalism, with its relentless obsession on the economy, has all but undone the tenets of democracy. This book suggests one way of thinking out of the current moment, and it does so by looking to a perhaps unlikely figure: Niccolo Machiavelli. Ronald J. Schmidt, Jr. argues that if we imitate Machiavelli's interpretive method in reading The Prince and Discourses of Livy, we can find in them solutions to the neoliberal problems (...) Brown warns about. (shrink)

A revised translation of Heidegger's most important work.

Purpose: The paper provides an overview of Ernst von Glasersfeld's life and theory, concentrating on subjects such as the acquisition of knowledge, language and communication, ethical questions, and aspects of teaching and learning. Conclusion: Ernst von Glasersfeld interests cover a wide range of disciplines. Therefore his work is genuinely rooted in interdisciplinarity.

Ernst Bloch, one of the most original and influential of contemporary European thinkers and a founder of the Frankfurt School, has left his mark on a range of fields from philosophy and social theory to aesthetics and theology. Natural Law and Human Dignity, the first of his major works to appear in English is unique in its attempt to get beyond the usual oppositions between the natural law and social utopian traditions, providing basic insights on the question of human rights (...) in a socialist society. Natural Law and Human Dignity is a sweeping yet synthetic work that critically reviews the great legal philosophies, from Plato to the present, in order to uncover and clarify the normative features of true socialism. Along the way it offers thoughtful reflections on topics as diverse as the abolition of poverty and degradation, the nature of the state, and the installation of freedom and dignity.Taking the idea of natural law as his guiding thread, Bloch argues that revolution and right, rather than being antagonistic, are fundamentally interconnected. With their emphasis on human dignity, the traditions of natural law have an irreplaceable contribution to make to the socialist vision of a more humane society. In his effort to wed the demands of law and right to the agenda of social revolution, Bloch offers a radical restructuring of our understanding of the social world. This rethinking of the fundamental principles of political philosophy is the product of a long personal and philosophical odyssey. Bloch lived as a writer in Munich, Bern, and Berlin until he was forced to emigrate to Czechoslovakia and then to the United States during World War 11. After the war he returned to East Germany, where he held a chair in philosophy at the University of Leipzig. He emigrated to the west as the Berlin Wall was being built, and he taught at the University of Tübingen until his death. Natural Law and Human Dignity is included in the series Studies in Contemporary German Social Thought, edited by Thomas McCarthy. (shrink)