A critical account of the relationship between institutional trust, risk perception, and technology acceptance with an application to genetically modified foods

This article critically reflects on the widely held view of a causal chain with trust in public authorities impacting technology acceptance via perceived risk. It first puts forward conceptual reason against this view, as the presence of risk is a precondition for trust playing a role in decision making. Second, results from consumer surveys in Italy and Germany are presented that support the associationist model as counter hypothesis. In that view, trust and risk judgments are driven by and thus simply indicators of higher order attitudes toward a certain technology which determine acceptance instead. The implications of these findings are discussed.

Elephants in pyjamas: testing the weak central coherence account of autism spectrum disorders using a syntactic disambiguation task

According to the weak central coherence (CC) account individuals with autism spectrum disorders (ASD) exhibit enhanced local processing and weak part-whole integration. CC was investigated in the verbal domain. Adolescents, recruited using a 2 (ASD status) by 2 (language impairment status) design, completed an aural forced choice comprehension task involving syntactically ambiguous sentences. Half the picture targets depicted the least plausible interpretation, resulting in longer RTs across groups. These were assumed to reflect local processing. There was no ASD by plausibility interaction and consequently little evidence for weak CC in the verbal domain when conceptualised as enhanced local processing. Furthermore, there was little evidence that the processing of syntactically ambiguous sentences differed as a function of ASD or language-impairment status.

Dating WF16: exploring the chronology of a Pre-Pottery Neolithic A settlement in the Southern Levant

A pre-requisite for understanding the transition to the Neolithic in the Levant is the establishment of a robust chronology, most notably for the late Epi-Palaeolithic and Pre-Pottery Neolithic A (PPNA) periods. In this contribution we undertake a dating analysis of the Pre-Pottery Neolithic site of WF16, southern Jordan, drawing on a sample of 46 AMS 14C dates. We utilise Bayesian methods to quantify an old wood effect to provide an offset that we factor into chronological models for a number of individual structures at WF16 and for the settlement as a whole. In doing so we address the influence of slope variations in the calibration curve and expose the significance of sediment and sample redeposition within sites of this nature. We conclude that for the excavated deposits at WF16 human activity is likely to have started by c. 11.84 ka cal bp and lasted for at least c. 1590 years, ceasing by c. 10.24 ka cal bp. This is marked by a particularly intensive period of activity lasting for c. 350 years centred on 11.25 ka cal bp followed by less intensive activity lasting a further c. 880 years. The study reveals the potential of WF16 as a laboratory to explore methodological issues concerning 14C dating of early Neolithic sites in arid, erosional environments.

The buck passing account of value: assessing the negative thesis

The buck-passing account of value involves a positive and a negative claim. The positive claim is that to be good is to have reasons for a pro-attitude. The negative claim is that goodness itself is not a reason for a pro-attitude. Unlike Scanlon, Parfit rejects the negative claim. He maintains that goodness is reason-providing, but that the reason provided is not an additional reason, additional, that is, to the reason provided by the good-making property. I consider various ways in which this may be understood and reject all of them. So I conclude that buck-passers cannot reject the negative claim.

A Romano-British settlement with ovens and field system at Theobalds Road, Wivelsfield, East Sussex

Excavation west of Wivelsfield, East Sussex, revealed part of an early Romano-British settlement. One of the round-houses may have had a non-domestic, possibly ritual, function. The settlement appears to have been subsequently incorporated within a rectilinear arrangement of field/enclosure ditches. Along the edge of one of these ditches were built a series of features interpreted as ovens, of varying form and likely use, from which charred waste from cereal processing and charcoal from coppiced woodland were recovered.