The American Psychological Association’s (APA’s) stance on the psychological maturity of adolescents has been criticized as inconsistent. In its Supreme Court amicus brief in Roper v. Simmons (2005), which abolished the juvenile death penalty, APA described adolescents as developmentally immature. In its amicus brief in Hodgson v. Minnesota (1990), however, which upheld adolescents’ right to se...

Neuroscience is increasingly poised to play a role in legal proceedings. One persistent concern, however, is the intuition that brain images may bias, mislead, or confuse jurors. Initially, empirical research seemed to support this intuition. New findings contradict those expectations, prompting a rethinking of the 'threat' of neuroscience in the courtroom.

Deliberative models have dominated democratic theory far the past ten years. This chapter argues that, in some prominent versions at least these models are funda­ mentally fla'wed. Criticism of the deliberative model is not new; ho\vever, few critics challenge the most basic assumptions of that model. preferring to argue on the ground set out by the deliberationists themselves. 1',,1y aim is to...

The idea that hunter-gatherer societies experience more frequent famine than societies with other modes of subsistence is pervasive in the literature on human evolution. This idea underpins, for example, the 'thrifty genotype hypothesis'. This hypothesis proposes that our hunter-gatherer ancestors were adapted to frequent famines, and that these once adaptive 'thrifty genotypes' are now respons...

Many of the recent expert rule-based systems [Dendra l , Mycin, AM, Pecos] have architectures that d i f fe r s igni f icant ly f rom the simple domainindependent archi tectures of "pure" product ion systems. The purpose of this paper is to explore, somewhat more systematically than has been done be fo re , the various ways in which the simplicity const ra in ts can be relaxed, and the benefits...

Effects of degree of obesity on basal concentrations of insulin, glucose, thyroxine (T4), triiodothyronine (T3), estradiol-17 beta (E) and progesterone (P) were measured in serum from 50 estrous and 73 diestrous Holstein heifers and the insulin response to glucose infusion was assessed in diestrous obese (n = 7) and lean (n = 7) heifers. Basal concentrations of glucose, T4, T3, E and P were not...

Symmetry is a ubiquitous feature in the visual environment and can be detected by a variety of species, ranging from insects through to humans [1,2]. Here we show it can also bias estimates of basic scene properties. Mirror (reflective) symmetry can be detected in as little as 50 ms, in both natural and artificial visual scenes, and even when embedded within cluttered backgrounds [1]. In terms ...

[1] We find that slow seismic events have smaller fault slips compared to ordinary earthquakes with similar dimensions. For ordinary earthquakes, the ratio of slip to fault length is largely consistent, yet the physical controls on this ratio are unknown. Recently discovered slow slip or creep events in which faults move quasi-statically over periods of days to years shed new light on this old ...

Immediately before they underwent femoral angiography, 45 patients were given one of three types of audiotapes: a relaxation response tape recorded for this study, a tape of contemporary instrumental music, or a blank tape. All patients were instructed to listen to their audiotape during the entire angiographic procedure. Each audiotape was played through earphones. Radiologists were not told t...