Theoretical Account Research Articles

Pedunculopontine-induced cortical decoupling as the neurophysiological locus of dissociation.

Mounting evidence suggests an association between aberrant sleep phenomena and dissociative experiences. However, no wake-sleep boundary theory provides a compelling explanation of dissociation or specifies its physiological substrates. We present a theoretical account of dissociation that integrates theories and empirical results from multiple lines of research concerning the domain of dissociation and the regulation of rapid eye movement (REM) sleep. This theory posits that individual differences in the circuitry governing the REM sleep promoting Pedunculopontine Nucleus and Laterodorsal Tegmental Nucleus determine the degree of similarity in the cortical connectivity profiles of wakefulness and REM sleep. We propose that a latent trait characterized by elevated dissociative experiences emerges from the decoupling of frontal executive regions due to a REM sleep-like aminergic/cholinergic balance. The Pedunculopontine-Induced Cortical Decoupling Account of Dissociation (PICDAD) suggests multiple fruitful lines of inquiry and provides novel insights. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2023 APA, all rights reserved).

A Class Functionalist Theory of Race

AbstractThis article makes a case for weak class reductionism. In particular, we advance a theoretical account that largely “reduces” a social construct called race to another social construct called class. Once you acknowledge that race is not itself a prime mover, but rather something to be explained, class as an explanans turns out to be a strong candidate. Before making this case, we distinguish our account from three alternative forms of class reductionism, which we reject: the notions that (1) class is a more fundamental form of identity than race; (2) class is of greater normative importance than race; and (3) race is an epiphenomenon of class, without independent effects. We then argue for one form of class reduction that establishes race as causally dependent on class. In particular, we provide a general defense of functional explanations, argue that capitalist class relations can functionally explain the persistence of race, and finally, delineate the limits of that explanation. Because the nature of functional explanation requires the explanandum to have important effects in the world, this argument puts race at the center of any discussion of capitalist class relations in racialized societies and explains it on the basis of its effects rather than its causes. Nonetheless, as we show in our conclusion, none of these arguments imply that race or racism is inherent to capitalist class relations. Racism may be explained by capitalism, even if it is not necessary for it.

남녀 간 권위주의 태도의 차이는 청년세대와 장년세대에서 다른가?: 불안정 고용상태가 끼치는 영향력에 관한 이론적 논의 및 2021년과 2022년 한국 설문자료를 활용한 경험적 검증

이 연구는 남녀 간 권위주의 태도 차이가 청년세대와 장년세대에서 다른지를 2021년과 2022년에 한국에서 수집된 설문자료들을 통하여 살펴본다. 분석 결과는 여성 대비 남성의 상대적 권위주의 태도가 (1) 장년세대에 비해서 청년세대에서 더 강하고, (2) 불안정 고용상태에 있는 장년세대에 비해서 불안정 고용상태에 있는 청년세대에서 더 강하며, (3) 비불안정 고용상태에 있는 청년세대에 비해서 불안정 고용상태에 있는 청년세대에서 더 강하다는 것을 보여준다. 이러한 결과들은 선행연구들의 주장과는 달리 남녀 간 정치적 태도가 청년세대에서 변화하고 있음을 시사할 뿐만 아니라 그 변화가 경제적 요인과 관련되어 있음을 보여준다.

The “golden” voice of “green” employees: The effect of private environmental orientation on suggestions for improvement in firms’ economic value creation

This study examines whether employees’ private environmental orientation matters for the economic performance of their firms. It argues that employees’ private environmental orientation affects not only their pro-environmental and pro-social behavior (PEPSB) in the workplace but also their inclination to make suggestions for improvements (i.e., their voice behavior). It also contends that their voice behavior is not limited to suggestions rooted in PEPSB but includes suggestions for other economically attractive improvements besides pro-environmental and pro-social improvements. This study further maintains that firms can support the transformation of employees’ private environmental orientation into voice behavior at work by influencing employees’ perception of the firm. Specifically, it posits that an employee’s private environmental orientation leads to more suggestions for economically attractive improvements at work, the more she or he perceives the company to emphasize sustainability. An analysis of 283 employees in the hospitality industry provides strong support for our theoretical account.

Negation In Nepali Complex Predicates

This paper aims to discuss some properties and characteristics of complex predicates with reference to negation in Nepali. The paper will analyze how negation works with compound verb and serial verb constructions in Nepali. It will also discuss compound verbs like N+V along with V+V structure and analyze the conjunctive participle marker in certain construction. We will also look into the agreement system of negative compound verbs where certain agreement feature gets attached to the negation marker. In this paper we will enquire the condition of negation marker occurring as both prefix and suffix in Nepali serial verbs. We will also try to show how negative polarity items occur in Nepali complex predicate configuration. This paper is a descriptive account of the negative constructions in Nepali complex predicates. Theoretical account is outside the scope of this paper.

Syllabus Concepts, Approaches and Types: A Theoretical Account

Language syllabus is a crucial element in the educational process. It is based on a decision about the "units" of classroom activity and the "sequence" in which they are to be performed. However, the researchers see that syllabus design is neglected nowadays, and it needs more light shading on. So, in this study, the researchers present the concepts of the syllabus, then, the most influential approaches to the syllabus are accounted for. Last, the researchers shed light on the basic types of syllabi be applied in the classroom. After stating and observing the theoretical account, the researchers conclude that the syllabus concepts are very crucial area needs to focus on as it represents a guide for both the teacher and the student in the classroom setting. Moreover, there are many syllabus types with a set of concepts; each leads to a specific type of syllabus. Last, according to the approaches stated, there are six syllabus types that most educationalists agreed upon. However, in real practice, more than one type of syllabus is applied. Key Words: Syllabus, Concepts, Approaches, Types

A tripartite view of the posterior cingulate cortex.

The posterior cingulate cortex (PCC) is one of the least understood regions of the cerebral cortex. By contrast, the anterior cingulate cortex has been the subject of intensive investigation in humans and model animal systems, leading to detailed behavioural and computational theoretical accounts of its function. The time is right for similar progress to be made in the PCC given its unique anatomical and physiological properties and demonstrably important contributions to higher cognitive functions and brain diseases. Here, we describe recent progress in understanding the PCC, with a focus on convergent findings across species and techniques that lay a foundation for establishing a formal theoretical account of its functions. Based on this converging evidence, we propose that the broader PCC region contains three major subregions - the dorsal PCC, ventral PCC and retrosplenial cortex - that respectively support the integration of executive, mnemonic and spatial processing systems. This tripartite subregional view reconciles inconsistencies in prior unitary theories of PCC function and offers promising new avenues for progress.

The social alignment theory of power: Predicting associative and dissociative behavior in hierarchies

Evolutionary social psychologists have demonstrated that powerholders generally attain and maintain rank in social hierarchies through two distinct types of behaviors: associative (prestige-based) strategies or dissociative (dominance-based) strategies. However, the dual-strategies literature lacks a theoretical account of when and why people adopt one approach over the other. We provide a theoretical model of power to address this question and also expand the focus to include low-power versions of associative (persuasion-based) and dissociative (passivity-based) strategies. To develop our framework, we build on the distinction between power (i.e., asymmetric control over valued resources) and volitional influence (i.e., the ability to produce willful changes in others). We posit that individuals who perceive high volitional influence with regard to another party are in a state of social alignment, because their interests and those of the other party are, or can easily become, aligned. As a result, they pursue associative strategies (prestige for high-power actors, or persuasion for low-power actors). In contrast, individuals with low perceived volitional influence are in a state of social misalignment, because their interests and those of the other party are misaligned. As a result, they pursue dissociative strategies (dominance for high-power actors, or passivity for low-power actors). To help distinguish between power and volitional influence, we offer a new capital-based typology of power and outline key antecedents of volitional influence. We conclude by outlining future directions for research on power and key topics in organizational behavior.

Ideological resistance to veg*n advocacy: An identity-based motivational account.

Animal-based diets in Western countries are increasingly regarded as unsustainable because of their impact on human health, environmental and animal welfare. Promoting shifts toward more plant-based diets seems an effective way to avoid these harms in practice. Nevertheless, claims against the consumption of animal products contradict the ideology of the omnivorous majority known as carnism. Carnism supports animal-product consumption as a cherished social habit that is harmless and unavoidable and invalidates minorities with plant-based diets: vegetarians and vegans (veg*ns). In this theoretical review, we integrate socio-psychological and empirical literature to provide an identity-based motivational account of ideological resistance to veg*n advocacy. Advocates who argue against the consumption of animal products often make claims that it is harmful, and avoidable by making dietary changes toward veg*n diets. In response, omnivores are likely to experience a simultaneous threat to their moral identity and their identity as consumer of animal products, which may arouse motivations to rationalize animal-product consumption and to obscure harms. If omnivores engage in such motivated reasoning and motivated ignorance, this may also inform negative stereotyping and stigmatization of veg*n advocates. These "pro-carnist" and "counter-veg*n" defenses can be linked with various personal and social motivations to eat animal products (e.g., meat attachment, gender, speciesism) and reinforce commitment to and ambivalence about eating animal products. This does not mean, however, that veg*n advocates cannot exert any influence. An apparent resistance may mask indirect and private acceptance of advocates' claims, priming commitment to change behavior toward veg*n diets often at a later point in time. Based on our theoretical account, we provide directions for future research.

DISCOURSE ANALYSIS OF “SINDBAD AND THE PIRATES’ PIT”

This Study sets out the author's view of discourse analysis and illustrates the approach with an analysis of discursive “Sindbad and the Pirates’ Pit” movies discourse in contemporary Britain, specifically in higher education. It includes a condensed theoretical account of critical discourse analysis, a framework for analysing discursive events, and a discussion of discursive practices, as well as analysis of samples of the discourse of higher education. The paper concludes with a discussion of the value of critical discourse analysis as a method in social scientific research, and as a resource for social struggle.

The Papua Conflict: The Different Perspectives of The Indonesian Government and International Communities—Review from The English School Theory

The West Papuan issue has become a flashpoint of conflict between Indonesia and the international community. However, studies on this subject have never been concerned about the causal root of differences between Indonesia and the international community over the West Papuan issue. There has not been a theoretical account of how this issue is framed in international politics. Existing literature tends to overlook the fundamental narrative, that is, the contrasting view between Indonesia and those who support West Papuan freedom. This paper aims to analyse the root cause of this debate. Using the English School approach in international relations, this paper argues that Indonesia frames this issue within the concept of ‘sovereignty’ and norms of ‘non-interference’, which represent the Pluralist strand. On the contrary, the international community represented by Pacific countries and civil societies frames this issue within the concept of ‘human rights’ and norms of ‘self-determination’, representing the Solidarist strand.

Universality and microstrain origin of the ramp reversal memory effect

The recently discovered ramp reversal memory (RRM) is a nonvolatile memory effect observed in correlated oxides with temperature-driven insulator--metal transitions (IMT). It appears as a resistance increase at predefined temperatures that are set or erased by simple heating--cooling (i.e., ramp reversal) protocols. Until now RRM was measured for two materials: ${\mathrm{VO}}_{2}$ and ${\mathrm{NdNiO}}_{3}$. A heuristic model suggests that the RRM is caused by a local transition temperature increase at boundaries of spatially separated metallic and insulating domains during ramp reversal. However, there is no experimental measure of the magnitude of the effect, which is crucial for the development of a theoretical account of the RRM. Here we show that ${\mathrm{V}}_{2}{\mathrm{O}}_{3}$ also shows RRM, including all related features, highlighting the generality of the effect. Moreover, an analysis of the RRM as an effective (average) increase of the critical temperature provides a quantitative measure of its magnitude as a function of temperature and ramp reversal protocols. We provide clear evidence that the RRM is the outcome of a local increase in transition temperature of the microscopic-scale phase boundaries that are created during temperature ramp reversal (from heating to cooling) within the insulator--metal phase coexistence regime.

Syntactic and semantic mismatches in English number agreement

In English, it is possible for a morphologically singular collective noun like government to control both singular (syntactic) agreement and plural (semantic) agreement in the same sentence (e.g. The government has praised themselves). It has been claimed that sentences with the opposite pattern of agreeing elements are ungrammatical (e.g. *The government have praised itself), and there is a corresponding asymmetry in corpus frequencies of these two configurations. Across two acceptability judgement experiments, we show that the acceptability contrast is affected by the relative order of the two agreeing elements, with degraded acceptability in the case where the first agreeing element shows plural agreement and the second shows singular agreement, relative to the opposite configuration. This pattern is found both when the agreeing verb precedes the reflexive, and when the reflexive precedes the verb. Overall, the results suggest that the initial formation of a semantic agreement dependency between an agreement target and a collective controller makes subsequent morpho-syntactic agreement with the same controller less accessible. We argue that any theoretical account of these results would require an important role for incremental processing.  

Boundary effect of Ag/TiO2 on catalytic H2O splitting for H2 production: A theoretical account

Ag supported on TiO2 reveals advantages in photocatalytic H2O splitting due to its synergistic effects for promoting the e−/h+ separation. The structural and electronic characteristics of Ag/TiO2, as well as adsorption and splitting of H2O on different sites, were investigated employing the density functional theory calculations. The analysis of density of states and electrons densities evidenced the electron transfer and hybrid between Ag and TiO2. The boundary was especially reactive toward the target species being the most active site, and thus electrons could be transferred to the adsorbate through the supported Ag atoms, leading to the generation of Schottky barrier, which inhibited the recombination of photogenerated electron-hole pairs. The O–H bond cleavage with the Ea of 2.18 eV was the rate-determining step for H2 production on the Ag/TiO2 boundary. Fukui functions indicated the outermost Ag cluster site on Ag/TiO2 boundary exhibited high electron transferability and H2 production tendency.

The effects of mental fatigue on effort allocation: Modeling and estimation.

Mental fatigue is usually accompanied by drops in task performance and reduced willingness for further exertion. A value-based theoretical account may help to explain such negative effects. In this view, mental fatigue influences perceived costs and rewards of exerting effort. However, no formal mathematical framework has yet been proposed to model and quantitatively estimate the effects of mental fatigue on subjective evaluations of effort expenditure, under possibly imperfect self-perceptions of internal fatigue states. We proposed a mathematical framework to model human cognitive effort allocations, assuming mental fatigue states are partially observable with semi-Markov dynamics. We modeled effort allocation decisions as a means to the goal of maximizing cumulative subjective values over a given time horizon. We developed an estimation method to identify subjective values and the hidden dynamics of mental fatigue, which can in future work be applied to self-reports, psychophysiological indices, and behavioral outcomes associated with fatigue. The modeling and estimation method was tested using a simulated n-back task under a free-choice paradigm, with model parameters fine-tuned from past studies. The proposed approach was able to recapitulate task performance and task engagement patterns observed under mental fatigue. This work advances a reward/cost trade-off account for explaining the exertion of mental effort and suggests new avenues for both theoretically and empirically relevant understandings of how cognitive operations are affected by mental fatigue. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2022 APA, all rights reserved).

Under-resourced or overloaded? Rethinking working memory deficits in developmental language disorder.

Dominant theoretical accounts of developmental language disorder (DLD) commonly invoke working memory capacity limitations. In the current report, we present an alternative view: That working memory in DLD is not under-resourced but overloaded due to operating on speech representations with low discriminability. This account is developed through computational simulations involving deep convolutional neural networks trained on spoken word spectrograms in which information is either retained to mimic typical development or degraded to mimic the auditory processing deficits identified among some children with DLD. We assess not only spoken word recognition accuracy and predictive probability and entropy (i.e., predictive distribution spread), but also use mean-field-theory based manifold analysis to assess; (a) internal speech representation dimensionality and (b) classification capacity, a measure of the networks' ability to isolate any given internal speech representation that is used as a proxy for attentional control. We show that instantiating a low-level auditory processing deficit results in the formation of internal speech representations with atypically high dimensionality, and that classification capacity is exhausted due to low representation separability. These representation and control deficits underpin not only lower performance accuracy but also greater uncertainty even when making accurate predictions in a simulated spoken word recognition task (i.e., predictive distributions with low maximum probability and high entropy), which replicates the response delays and word finding difficulties often seen in DLD. Overall, these simulations demonstrate a theoretical account of speech representation and processing deficits in DLD in which working memory capacity limitations play no causal role. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2023 APA, all rights reserved).

Grammatical error detection using HPSG grammars: Diagnosing common Mandarin Chinese grammatical errors

Computational Grammars can be adapted to detect ungrammatical sentences, effectively transforming them into error detection (or correction) systems. In this paper we provide a theoretical account of how to adapt implemented HPSG grammars for grammatical error detection. We discuss how a single ungrammatical input can be reconstructed in multiple ways and, in turn, be used to provide specific, high-quality feedback to language learners. We then move on to exemplify this with a few of the most common error classes made by learners of Mandarin Chinese. We conclude with some notes concerning the adaptation and implementation of the methods described here in ZHONG, an open-source HPSG grammar for Mandarin Chinese.

Public Nuisance is a Tort

Abstract In a well-known article, Thomas Merrill posed the question “Is Public Nuisance a Tort?”, ultimately answering the question in the negative: “public nuisance is not, and never was, a tort.” This article reaches a different answer to Merrill’s question. It argues that Merrill was wrong to conclude that the characterisation of public nuisance as tort was a recent invention and that public nuisance claims are not privately actionable by individual plaintiffs. The article presents a defence of the private action for public nuisance and concludes, on both an historical and a theoretical account, that public nuisance has long been understood as a tort at common law, and for good reason.

Rule bending on the frontlines of public service delivery: How and why caseworkers favor the strong

When facing a disobedient client, caseworkers are often required to impose sanctions. Even when sanctions are explicitly required by law, however, research shows that caseworkers may turn a blind eye. Why so? This study asks how certain clients can merit themselves to avoid sanctioning. Theorizing from the notion of client deservingness, we develop a theoretical account of how certain client attributes cause frontline workers to bend the rules. Drawing from a novel conjoint experiment among Danish unemployment caseworkers (n = 407 with 1,210 observations), we show how caseworkers tend to favor stronger clients when bending the rules in clients’ favor. Clients who appear motivated, who have not been sanctioned in the past, and who have more past job experience are all less likely to be sanctioned. Our findings reveal a paradox: Although welfare usually targets clients in need, avoiding welfare sanctions seems based on client resources. Consequently, caseworker rule-bending can have unintended distributional consequences since stronger clients are those who can get away with disobedience.

Mental Disorder, Meaning-making, and Religious Cognition

Meaning-making plays a central role in how we deal with experiences of suffering, including those due to mental disorder. And for many, religious beliefs, experiences, and practices (hereafter, religious engagement) play a central role in informing this meaning-making. However, a crucial facet of the relationship between experiences of mental disorder and religious engagement remains underexplored—namely the potentially positive effects of mental disorder on religious engagement (e.g. experiences of bipolar disorder increasing sense of God’s presence). In what follows, I will present empirical findings from two recent studies of mine which shed light on the extent to which participants experienced these positive effects, specific components of these effects, and how they fit into their understanding of their mental disorder and its relationship to their religious identity. In doing so, I will draw on and expand Tasia Scrutton’s Potentially Transformative view (2015a, 2015b, 2020) according to which mental disorders may provide opportunities for spiritual growth. My empirical results align with and help deepen an account according to which mental disorders are potentially spiritually transformative by providing further insight into such instances: specifically, which symptoms and internal and external factors are often involved, as well as which religious beliefs, experiences, and/or practices are often affected. After presenting these results and articulating their relevance for a potentially transformative view of mental disorder, I will then address some potential objections to the theoretical account as well as some limitations of the empirical work, before sketching possible promising directions for future research.