Visiting historical places can give important impulses regarding education of history, society, and politics. While there does exist extensive research on visitors' experiences at memorial sites, little is known about the impact of everyday places holding dark history. Two experimental studies took place in a research institute, a former women's clinic, where in the time of National Socialist dictatorship in Germany hundreds of forced sterilizations took place. Historical awareness was manipulated via systematic variation of prior information. We found partial evidence (...) that historical awareness had a negative effect on personal mood. Awareness of the site's NS history had a negative effect on the perceived valence of related photos but did not influence their qualitative description. Also, there was partial evidence that the site itself was perceived less positively and evoked more arousal when participants were aware of its NS history. Possible reasons are discussed. (shrink)

While COVID-19 spreads aggressively and rapidly across the globe, many societies have also witnessed the spread of other viral phenomena like misinformation, conspiracy theories, and general mass suspicions about what is really going on. This study investigates how exposure to and trust in information sources, and anxiety and depression, are associated with conspiracy and misinformation beliefs in eight countries/regions during the COVID-19 pandemic. Data were collected in an online survey fielded from May 29, 2020 to June 12, 2020, resulting in (...) a multinational representative sample of 8,806 adult respondents. Results indicate that greater exposure to traditional media is associated with lower conspiracy and misinformation beliefs, while exposure to politicians and digital media and personal contacts are associated with greater conspiracy and misinformation beliefs. Exposure to health experts is associated with lower conspiracy beliefs only. Higher feelings of depression are also associated with greater conspiracy and misinformation beliefs. We also found relevant group- and country differences. We discuss the implications of these results. (shrink)

Successful behavior requires actively acquiring and representing information about the environment and people, and manipulating and using those acquired representations flexibly to optimally act in and on the world. The frontal lobes have figured prominently in most accounts of flexible or goal-directed behavior, as evidenced by often-reported behavioral inflexibility in individuals with frontal lobe dysfunction. Here, we propose that the hippocampus also plays a critical role by forming and reconstructing relational memory representations that underlie flexible cognition and social behavior. There (...) is mounting evidence that damage to the hippocampus can produce inflexible and maladaptive behavior when such behavior places high demands on the generation, recombination, and flexible use of information. This is seen in abilities as diverse as memory, navigation, exploration, imagination, creativity, decision-making, character judgments, establishing and maintaining social bonds, empathy, social discourse, and language use. Thus, the hippocampus, together with its extensive interconnections with other neural systems, supports the flexible use of information in general. Further, we suggest that this understanding has important clinical implications. Hippocampal abnormalities can produce profound deficits in real-world situations, which typically place high demands on the flexible use of information, but are not always obvious on diagnostic tools tuned to frontal lobe function. This review documents the role of the hippocampus in supporting flexible representations and aims to expand our understanding of the dynamic networks that operate as we move through and create meaning of our world. (shrink)

The advent of ChatGPT by OpenAI has prompted extensive discourse on its potential implications for science and higher education. While the impact on education has been a primary focus, there is limited empirical research on the effects of large language models (LLMs) and LLM-based chatbots on science and scientific practice. To investigate this further, we conducted a Delphi study involving 72 researchers specializing in AI and digitization. The study focused on applications and limitations of LLMs, their effects on the science (...) system, ethical and legal considerations, and the required competencies for their effective use. Our findings highlight the transformative potential of LLMs in science, particularly in administrative, creative, and analytical tasks. However, risks related to bias, misinformation, and quality assurance need to be addressed through proactive regulation and science education. This research contributes to informed discussions on the impact of generative AI in science and helps identify areas for future action. (shrink)

In two eye-tracking studies we investigated the influence of Mandarin numeral classifiers – a grammatical category in the language – on online overt attention. Mandarin speakers were presented with simple sentences through headphones while their eye-movements to objects presented on a computer screen were monitored. The crucial question is what participants look at while listening to a pre-specified target noun. If classifier categories influence Mandarin speakers' general conceptual processing, then on hearing the target noun they should look at objects that (...) are members of the same classifier category – even when the classifier is not explicitly present. The data show that when participants heard a classifier they shifted overt attention significantly more to classifiermatch objects than to distractor objects, but when the classifier was not explicitly presented in speech, overt attention to classifier-match objects and distractor objects did not differ. This suggests that although classifier distinctions do influence eye-gaze behavior, they do so only during linguistic processing of that distinction and not in moment-to-moment general conceptual processing. (shrink)

L’emploi est au cœur du bien-être d’un individu. Les attentes liées au travail des personnes ayant une déficience intellectuelle ont été comparées à celles des coordonnateurs de services. Les variables comprenaient le type de travail attendu, le nombre d’heures de travail prévu, les préoccupations liées à l’emploi, les mesures de soutien souhaitées sur le lieu de travail et l’influence de la gravité de la déficience intellectuelle et de l’expérience de travail du coordonnateur de services sur les attentes en matière de (...) travail. Les données ont été recueillies auprès de 46 personnes ayant une déficience intellectuelle par le biais d’entretiens et de 46 coordonnateurs au moyen d’un sondage en ligne. Les résultats indiquaient des attentes professionnelles positives globales. Le travail le plus courant attendu était le service et le commerce. L’emploi concurrentiel était attendu plus fréquemment que les ateliers protégés. Alors que les attentes des coordonnateurs de services et des personnes ayant une déficience intellectuelle légère étaient étroitement alignées, il existait une distinction plus grande entre les attentes des coordonnateurs et celles ayant une déficience intellectuelle modérée ou grave. Ces résultats ont des implications importantes pour faciliter le placement des adultes ayant une déficience intellectuelle. (shrink)

To promote ethical practices, healthcare managers must understand the ethical challenges encountered by key stakeholders. To characterize ethical challenges in Veterans Administration (VA) facilities from the perspectives of managers, clinicians, patients, and ethics consultants. We conducted focus groups with patients (n = 32) and managers (n = 38); semi-structured interviews with managers (n = 31), clinicians (n = 55), and ethics committee chairpersons (n = 21). Data were analyzed using content analysis. Managers reported that the greatest ethical challenge was fairly (...) distributing resources across programs and services, whereas clinicians identified the effect of resource constraints on patient care. Ethics committee chairpersons identified end-of-life care as the greatest ethical challenge, whereas patients identified obtaining fair, respectful, and caring treatment. Perspectives on ethical challenges varied depending on the respondent's role. Understanding these differences can help managers take practical steps to address these challenges. Further, ethics committees seemingly, are not addressing the range of ethical challenges within their institutions. (shrink)

Human Infection Studies have emerged as an important research approach with the potential to fast track the global development of vaccines and treatments for infectious diseases, including in low resource settings. Given the high level of burdens involved in many HIS, particularly prolonged residency and biological sampling requirements, it can be challenging to identify levels of study payments that provide adequate compensation but avoid ‘undue’ levels of inducement to participate. Through this embedded ethics study, involving 97 healthy volunteers and other (...) research stakeholders in a malaria HIS programme in Kenya, and using in-depth interviews, focus group discussions and observations during and after a malaria HIS, we give a grounded account of ethical issues emerging in relation to study payments in this setting. While careful community, national, international scientific and ethics review processes meant that risks of serious harm were highly unlikely, the levels of motivation to join HIS seen could raise concerns about study payments being too high. Particular value was placed on the reliability, rather than level, of study payment in this setting, where subsistence livelihoods are common. Study volunteers were generally clear about the study aims at the point of recruitment, and this knowledge was retained over a year later, although most reported experiencing more burdens than anticipated at enrolment. Strict study screening procedures, regular clinical and laboratory monitoring of volunteers, with prompt treatment with antimalarial at predetermined endpoints suggested that the risks of serious harm were highly unlikely. Ethical concerns emerged in relation to volunteers’ attempts to conceal symptoms, hoping to prolong residency periods and increase study payments; and volunteers making decisions that compromised important family relationships and personal values. Our findings support an interpretation that, although study volunteers were keen to join the study to access cash payments, they also paid attention to other features of the study and the general clinical research landscape, including levels of risk associated with study participation. Overall, our analysis shows that the ethical concerns emerging from the study payments can be addressed through practical measures, hinged on reducing burdens and strengthening communication, raising important issues for research policy and planning. (shrink)

Research on language processing has shown that the disruption of conceptual integration gives rise to specific patterns of event-related brain potentials —N400 and P600 effects. Here, we report similar ERP effects when adults performed cross-domain conceptual integration of analogous semantic and mathematical relations. In a problem-solving task, when participants generated labeled answers to semantically aligned and misaligned arithmetic problems, the second object label in misaligned problems yielded an N400 effect for addition problems. In a verification task, when participants judged arithmetically (...) correct but semantically misaligned problem sentences to be “unacceptable,” the second object label in misaligned sentences elicited a P600 effect. Thus, depending on task constraints, misaligned problems can show either of two ERP signatures of conceptual disruption. These results show that well-educated adults can integrate mathematical and semantic relations on the rapid timescale of within-domain ERP effects by a process akin to analogical mapping. (shrink)

The presence of fetal cells has been associated with both positive and negative effects on maternal health. These paradoxical effects may be due to the fact that maternal and offspring fitness interests are aligned in certain domains and conflicting in others, which may have led to the evolution of fetal microchimeric phenotypes that can manipulate maternal tissues. We use cooperation and conflict theory to generate testable predictions about domains in which fetal microchimerism may enhance maternal health and those in which (...) it may be detrimental. This framework suggests that fetal cells may function both to contribute to maternal somatic maintenance (e.g. wound healing) and to manipulate maternal physiology to enhance resource transmission to offspring (e.g. enhancing milk production). In this review, we use an evolutionary framework to make testable predictions about the role of fetal microchimerism in lactation, thyroid function, autoimmune disease, cancer and maternal emotional, and psychological health.Also watch the Video Abstract. (shrink)

How do children acquire beliefs from testimony? In this chapter, we discuss children's trust in testimony, their sensitivity to and use of defeaters, and their appeals to positive reasons for trusting what other people tell them. Empirical evidence shows that, from an early age, children have a tendency to trust testimony. However, this tendency to trust is accompanied by sensitivity to cues that suggest unreliability, including inaccuracy of the message and characteristics of the speaker. Not only are children sensitive to (...) evidence of unreliability, but they are also sensitive to the positive reasons a speaker may have for the reliability of their testimony. This evidence is discussed in relation to reductivist and non-reductivist viewpoints. (shrink)

There is widespread and growing concern among U.S. consumers about the treatment of farmed animals, and consumers are consequently paying attention to food product labels that indicate humane production practices. However, labels vary in their standards for animal welfare, and prior research suggests that consumers are confused by welfare-related labels: many shoppers cannot differentiate between labels that indicate changes in the way animals are raised and those that do not. We administered a survey to 1,000 American grocery shoppers to better (...) understand the extent to which consumers purchase and pay more for food with certain labels based on an assumption of welfare improvement. Results showed that 86% of shoppers reported purchasing at least one product with the following labels in the last year: “cage or crate-free”, “free-range”, “pasture-raised”, “natural”, “organic”, “no hormone”, “no antibiotic”, “no rBST”, “humane”, “vegetarian-fed”, “grass-fed”, “farm-raised”. Of those who purchased one of the aforementioned labels, 89% did so because they thought the label indicated higher-welfare production practices, and 79% consciously paid more for the product with the label because they thought that the label indicated better-than-standard animal welfare. However, many of these labels lack uniform standards for the production practices they represent, and some labels represent production practices that do not influence animal welfare, thus the degree of the animal welfare impact of a given label is highly variable. These results indicate that labels need to clearly and accurately specify their animal welfare benefits to improve the consumers’ ability to purchase products that align with their expectations. (shrink)

BackgroundAn editorial expression of concern (EEoC) is issued by editors or publishers to draw attention to potential problems in a publication, without itself constituting a retraction or correction.MethodsWe searched PubMed, PubMed Central (PMC), and Google Scholar to identify EEoCs issued for publications in PubMed and PMC up to 22 August 2016. We also searched the archives of the Retraction Watch blog, some journal and publisher websites, and studies of EEoCs. In addition, we searched for retractions of EEoCs and affected articles (...) in PubMed up to 8 December 2016. We analyzed overall historical trends, as well as reported reasons and subsequent editorial actions related to EEoCs issued between August 2014 and August 2016.ResultsAfter screening 5076 records, we identified 230 EEoCs that affect 300 publications indexed in PubMed, the earliest issued in 1985. Half of the primary EEoCs were issued between 2014 and 2016 (52%). We found evidence of some EEoCs that had been removed by the publisher without leaving a record, and some were not submitted for PubMed or PMC indexing. A minority of publications affected by EEoCs had been retracted by early December 2016 (25%). For the subset of 92 EEoCs issued between August 2014 and August 2016, affecting 99 publications, the rate of retraction was similar (29%). The majority of EEoCs were issued because of concerns with validity of data, methods, or interpretation of the publication (68%), and 31% of cases remained open. Issues with images were raised in 40% of affected publications. Ongoing monitoring after the study identified another 17 EEoCs to year’s end in 2016, increasing the number of EEoCs to 247 and publications in PubMed known to be affected by EEoCs to 320 at the end of 2016.ConclusionsEEoCs have been rare publishing events in the biomedical literature, but their use has been increasing. Most have not led to retractions, and many remain unresolved. Lack of prominence and inconsistencies in management of EEoCs reduce the ability of these notices to alert the scientific community to potentially serious problems in publications. EEoCs will be made identifiable in PubMed in 2017. (shrink)

How do teachers’ gestures influence students’ learning? This article reviews research investigating the role of gestures in communication, focusing on teachers’ communication with their students, primarily in mathematics and science instruction. We first briefly consider gesture's role in communication more generally as a backdrop for considering teaching as a special context for communication. We then describe teachers’ spontaneous gesturing in teaching contexts, and we consider how teachers’ spontaneous gestures might influence students’ learning. We then consider experimental studies that provide causal (...) support for the effects of teachers’ gestures on students’ learning. We conclude by discussing future directions and implications for educational practice. (shrink)

This article traces the development and growth of health justice partnerships (HJPs) in three countries: the United States, Australia and the United Kingdom.

The dual-code proposal of number representation put forward by Cohen Kadosh & Walsh (CK&W) accounts for only a fraction of the many modes of numerical abstraction. Contrary to their proposal, robust data from human infants and nonhuman animals indicate that abstract numerical representations are psychologically primitive. Additionally, much of the behavioral and neural data cited to support CK&W's proposal is, in fact, neutral on the issue of numerical abstraction.

This book offers both the theoretical background behind the minority effect, teachers' personal experiences as they experienced being a minority, and their analyses and insights for teaching diverse learners. This book uses real-life experiences of diverse people to illustrate that, if not understood and addressed, situational minorities at school or work are unlikely to perform at their highest potentials.

The phone-hacking scandal that led to the closure of the News of the World newspaper in Britain has prompted international debate about media practices and regulation. It is timely to broaden the discussion about journalistic ethics and conduct to include consideration of the impact of media practices upon the population's health. Many commercial organisations cultivate relationships with journalists and news organisations with the aim of influencing the content of health-related news and information communicated through the media. Given the significant influence (...) of the media on the health of individuals and populations, we should be alert to the potential impact of industry–journalist relationships on health care, health policy and public health. The approach taken by the medical profession to its interactions with the pharmaceutical industry provides a useful model for management of industry influence. (shrink)

This article reports on a conversation convened by Quentin Skinner at the invitation of the Editors of The Journal of Political Philosophy and held in Cambridge on 13 February 2001.

Significant life events tend to cause transformational change, but most narratives in agriculture focus on how negative life events such as death, bankruptcy, and health problems have created change. International experiences can be positive, significant life events. Transformational tourism has been shown to change travelers’ behavior. Therefore, we propose to examine the perceived outcomes of international experiences by agricultural leadership alums. Unstructured interviews with 36 agricultural leadership alums from IFYE, Nuffield, and LEAD Nebraska with distinctive international experiences were interviewed. The (...) international experiences varied in purpose, time abroad, cultural immersion, structured travel, and independent study. This study answers the following questions: (1) How does international travel for producers lead to transformation? (2) How does international travel support behavior change? Data show the international experiences were impactful and transformative due to two processes that occurred during the international experience. First, agricultural leadership participants experienced disorienting events that forced them to reconsider and reject their current mental models of the agricultural system. Second, experiential learning through visiting farms, meeting producers, and spending time reflecting on what they were experiencing with their peers allowed the participants to rebuild their mental models and be inclusive of the broader agricultural system. During these two processes, the participants’ attitudes, subjective norms, and perceived behavior control of new agricultural practices, sustainable agriculture, and possible options within the agricultural system expanded. Short-term international experiences were an important gateway to further international experiences. Longer-term international experiences that involved independent study, cultural immersion, and global network development supported the adoption of sustainable agriculture through perceived attitudes, social norms, and behavioral control. To support transformational change in the agricultural system, we need as many tools as possible to support practitioners. International experiences provide a tool to support transformational change. (shrink)

Academic accrediting/standard-setting bodies and the accounting profession view the continued emergence of reputation-damaging ethical transgressions within the accounting profession as a failure of accounting education to effectively implement necessary reforms. Although accounting educators have proposed various frameworks and instructional methods for improving ethics education, accounting still lags behind other professions in the moral development of aspiring professionals. The purpose of this paper is to provide a model for an enhanced ethics course developed for an accounting curriculum. The model course was (...) designed to respond to identified deficiencies in accounting ethics education and improve the moral development of accounting students. The paper discusses course design, delivery methods, educational goals, topical coverage and assessment of learning. Assessment data indicated that accounting students’ levels of moral development improved to a level consistent with other professions upon successful completion of the course. (shrink)

This article presents a systematic review carried out around the development of technologies that have driven military communication, describing the evolution of communication equipment and protocols used throughout history. This work was carried out from the review of 80 articles related to the field of militarycommunications, from which the fundamentals of the different technologies, equipment and means of communication were extracted. It is concluded that technological progress has improved the speed of response in digital signals, has proposed.

The self-disorder model provides a phenomenological framework for understanding how the core symptoms of Schizophrenia Spectrum Disorders (SSDs) are rooted in an instability of minimal selfhood. This instability involves a range of “anomalous experiences”: transformations in an individual’s perceptual field and sense of being an agent of action. The explanatory value of this theoretical model can be summarized in two claims about the role of anomalous experiences in self-disorders: (1) anomalous experiences express a common trait-like disturbance that is characteristic of (...) SSDs, and (2) anomalous experiences contribute to explanations regarding how self-disorders progress into SSDs. While hypotheses consistent with the first claim have been substantiated in several studies, hypotheses consistent with the second claim remain underexamined. We argue that attending to this gap in the literature requires considering which methodological strategies are best suited for investigating if and how anomalous experiences contribute to the development of self-disorders into SSDs and psychotic states. Network modeling is discussed as one such strategy suitable for examining the role of anomalies of lived-world in the maintenance of paranoid delusions in SSDs. (shrink)

Written memoranda of conversations, or memcons, provide a near‐contemporaneous record of what was said in conversation, and offer important insights into the activities of high‐profile individuals. We assess the impact of writing a memcon on memory for conversation. Pairs of participants engaged in conversation and were asked to recall the contents of that conversation 1 week later. One participant in each pair memorialized the content of the interaction in a memcon shortly after the conversation. Participants who generated memcons recalled more (...) details of the conversations than participants who did not, but the content of recall was equally and largely accurate for both participants. Remarkably, only 4.7% of the details of the conversation were recalled by both of the partners after a week delay. Contemporaneous note‐taking appears to enhance memory for conversation by increasing the amount of information remembered but not the accuracy of that information. These findings have implications for evaluating the testimony of participants on conversations with major political or legal ramifications. (shrink)

Purpose-driven businesses have a stated objective to contribute to the welfare of society and the planet alongside generating shareholder value. As interest in purpose-driven businesses grows, an emerging “purpose ecosystem” of advisers, investors, and enablers offers different types of support for businesses wanting to transition to sustainability. This paper examines how the transition towards purpose-driven business in Australia and the United Kingdom requires addressing challenges facing this support ecosystem at three levels. First, at the individual level where support providers need (...) to build the capabilities of managers who are experiencing tensions around integrating societal and environmental purpose while facing pressure for maximizing shareholder value. Second, the support providers working within the purpose ecosystem offering professional advice and finance face their own tensions between environmental or social objectives and commercial pressures. Third, there are challenges facing actors in the ecosystems aiming to change the wider policy and institutional environment but facing lobbying from those wanting to keep “business as usual.” We identify practical implications for those parts of the purpose-driven business ecosystem providing support. This includes building capabilities to combine social, environmental, and commercial purpose; coordination among support providers; and creating an institutional environment to avoid “purpose wash.”. (shrink)

Medical-legal partnerships connect legal advocates to healthcare providers and settings. Maintaining effectiveness of medical-legal partnerships and consistently identifying opportunities for innovation and adaptation takes intentionality and effort. In this paper, we discuss ways in which our use of data and quality improvement methods have facilitated advocacy at both patient (client) and population levels as we collectively pursue better, more equitable outcomes.