Reliability of the performance-based measure of executive functions in people with schizophrenia

Background The Performance-based measure of Executive Functions (PEF) with four domains is designed to assess executive functions in people with schizophrenia. The purpose of this study was to examine the test-retest reliability of the PEF administered by the same rater (intra-rater agreement) and by different raters (inter-rater agreement) in people with schizophrenia and to estimate the values of minimal detectable change (MDC) and MDC%. Methods Two convenience samples (each sample, n = 60) with schizophrenia were conducted two assessments (two weeks apart). The intraclass correlation coefficient (ICC) was analyzed to examine intra-rater and inter-rater agreements of the test-retest reliability of the PEF. The MDC was calculated through standard error of measurement. Results For the intra-rater agreement study, the ICC values of the four domains were 0.88–0.92. The MDC (MDC%) of the four domains (volition, planning, purposive action, and perfromance effective) were 13.0 (13.0%), 12.2 (16.4%), 16.2 (16.2%), and 16.3 (18.8%), respectively. For the inter-rater agreement study, the ICC values of the four domains were 0.82–0.89. The MDC (MDC%) were 15.8 (15.8%), 17.4 (20.0%), 20.9 (20.9%), and 18.6 (18.6%) for the volition, planning, purposive action, and performance effective domains, respectively. Conclusions The PEF has good test-retest reliability, including intra-rater and inter-rater agreements, for people with schizophrenia. Clinicians and researchers can use the MDC values to verify whether an individual with schizophrenia shows any real change (improvement or deterioration) between repeated PEF assessments by the same or different raters.

Dao ist das Gegenteil Gottes

The term Dao originally means a Way or Course or Guide, something very close to purposive action as such – a prescribed course to attain a prescribed goal. It is precisely something that is selected out, valued, desired, kept to rather than discarded. The Daoist usage of the term “Dao” is thus an ironic usage: it is used deliberately in the opposite of its literal sense to make a point – the real way to attain value is through what we do not value, the real way is an anti-way, the real fulfilment of purpose lies in letting go of purpose. Purpose by definition excludes the purposeless. But this relationship is not symmetrical; purposelessness does not exclude purpose. On the contrary, it includes, allows, and even generates purpose. Not one purpose, however, but infinite purposes, all of which remain embedded in a larger purposelessness, but not contradicted or undermined by it. The structure of purpose is such as to either exclude or to subordinate the purposeless. But even if merely subordinated rather than excluded, purposelessness ceases tobe genuinely purposeless. It becomes instead instrumental to purpose, pervaded completely by purpose. So a monotheist cosmos is one that ultimately forecloses entirely purposelessness, and thereby also undermines all forms of inclusiveness, non-duality, and the non-personal. The relation of purpose to purposelessness is more tricky than it appears. This essay attempts a direct reconfiguring of this relation through the concept of wu-wei as effortless and purposeless action.

SSHA Presidential Address: The Pathways to Disadvantage

ABSTRACTMy presidential address identifies the pathways to disadvantage that complicate our understanding of purposive action. The article explains that (1) first, deception can deepen inequality; (2) disadvantages can emerge in midcourse, as new and unanticipated distributions of resources, sanctions, and opportunities unfold during the course of action; (3) the rules targeting one area of social life can disadvantage groups of people in other areas; and (4) disadvantaging policies can emerge through isomorphism (isomorphic disadvantage), sometimes by virtue of what other policy commissions across the globe are doing about the same social problem. Finally, (5) when there is an unlucky turn of events that leads to a deepening of disadvantage, its consequences depend on more than mere chance to make those disadvantages durable. My article concludes with a brief discussion of the implications for reparations and repair. While these pathways may not be exhaustive, they systematize the sociological intuition that things are not as they appear. And although my discussion of repair is brief, it gestures toward the possibilities that the past offers for understanding the process and the rules of remedy.

Joint Reference

This chapter argues that referring is a joint accomplishment of the interlocutors involved in a conversation. This argument is built around two assumptions. Firstly, it is not words that refer but people who refer by using words in appropriate contexts. Referring is a kind of purposive linguistic action. Secondly, it is possible to perform a purposive action jointly. Two or more agents in coordination can do their part to bring about a joint accomplishment that would not be brought about by any of the individuals acting alone. There are cases of joint referring, where two or more interlocutors do their part to produce an outcome (referring) that would not result from the efforts of any of the individuals acting alone. Furthermore, all referring is a joint accomplishment and talk of individuals as referring (either in conversation or in thought) is parasitic on the idea of joint referring.

Touch

Touch is the ability to perceive the world through physical contact. This article describes three principles underlying biological touch sensing and how these principles can result in biomimetic devices. First, that cutaneous touch is superresolved, in that the accuracy of perceiving fine stimulus detail is finer than the spacing between individual sensory mechanoreceptors. Second, that touch is active, in that animals actively select and refine sensations in a purposive manner. Third, that touch is exploratory, in that animals deploy purposive action patterns to encode properties of objects via a lexicon of exploratory procedures. Biomimetic tactile systems have utilized these principles to result in superior sensing capabilities, including systems that mimic the human fingertip and hand (cutaneous touch) and the rodent whisker system (vibrissal touch). Future biomimetic touch could rival human capabilities, enabling tactile sensors to have technological applications spanning across prosthetics, telehaptics, surgical robotics, wearable computing, medical probes, and manufacturing.

Why is Wrongdoing Unwilling?

Chapter 3 argues that Socrates’ claim ‘no one does wrong willingly’ is based not on psychological eudaemonism, but on the thesis that human nature seeks, and so we engage in purposive action in order to secure, our real good. Plato’s arguments for this thesis adopt and develop two sophistic ideas: (i) it is our nature to desire and pursue our real good, and (ii) that which we do or undergo contrary to our natural desires and pursuits we do or undergo unwillingly (akôn). The Gorgias uses (ii) to distinguish willingness and unwillingness in the case of instrumental actions; Socrates maintains that wrongdoing is unwilling because we undertake unjust actions for the sake of the happiness we naturally desire, but doing unjust things makes us unhappy. Across the dialogues, contrariety to our conative pro-attitude towards our actual good is what makes something (action, experience, character-state) unwilling.