Luc B. Tremblay

Practice does not diminish the role of visual information in on-line control of a precision walking task: Support for the specificity of practice hypothesis

It has been proposed that motor learning is specific to the sources of afferent information available during practice (Proteau, 1992). That hypothesis has obtained support from studies of aiming but not from studies of gross motor skills. The many procedural differences between the two sets of studies might have caused the conflicting results. In the present investigation of a precision walking task, the validity of the specificity of practice hypothesis was tested. Thirty-two participants were asked to walk for 20 m on a 2.5-cm-wide line. Subjects practiced the task for either 20 or 100 trials under normal visual conditions or while blindfolded. Following acquisition, all subjects performed the task for 20 additional trials while blindfolded and without knowledge of results. Practice improved the performance of blindfolded participants. Withdrawing vision in transfer resulted in a large and significant increase in error, however, a finding that supports the specificity of practice hypothesis.

Deliberative Democracy and Liberal Rights

Many liberals cannot help distrusting deliberative democracy theory. In their view, the theory offers no sufficient guarantee that the outcomes of democratic deliberation will be respectful of individual interests generating what they conceive as basic moral rights. The purpose of this text is to provide one argument showing that liberal rights are sufficiently protected within deliberative democracy theory. The argument does not rest on the idea of moral rights or material justice. It rests on the conditions of legitimate law deliberative democracy theory presupposes, namely, the conditions that make concrete the idea of legitimacy as “actual public justification.”

Two models of constitutionalism and the legitimacy of law : Dicey or Marshall ?

In this paper, I compare two models of constitutionalism. The first model can be associated with the main tradition of American constitutionalism, at least since Chief Justice Marshall’s reasoning in Marbury v Madison.1 I shall characterize it as the ‘American’ or ‘Marshallian’ model. The second model can be associated with the main tradition of British constitutionalism, at least since Albert V Dicey’s theory expounded in his Introduction to the Study of the Law of the Constitution.2 I shall characterize it as the ‘British’ or ‘Diceyan’ model.3 The distinction I wish to emphasize is the following: while the first model entails that the basic rules and principles of constitutional law should be conceived as the source of (what should be accepted as) legitimate governmental action and decision, the second model entails that they should be conceived as the consequence of (what should be accepted as) legitimate governmental action and decision. My purpose is to give some reasons to accept not only that the British or Diceyan model makes sense from a descriptive and from a normative point of view, but that it makes better sense than the American or Marshallian model from both points of view. If the argument is sound, it may contribute both to the rehabilitation of Dicey’s constitutionalism and to a better understanding of contemporary practice of constitutional adjudication, especially in those countries that share a British constitutional heritage.4