Velo-cardio-facial syndrome: a distinctive behavioral phenotype

Velo-cardio-facial syndrome (VCFS) is the most common contiguous gene disorder and one of the most common multiple anomaly syndromes in humans. Over 180 anomalies have been delineated in the syndrome; the most common of which are the behavioral manifestations. Learning disabilities, psychiatric illness, attention deficit disorder, and a variety of developmental disorders are nearly ubiquitous findings in VCFS and are not mutually exclusive, often overlapping to create a distinctive yet confusing phenotypic picture. In addition, standard treatments for each of these separate clinical findings may not be effective, and may even be potentially harmful in individuals with VCFS, such as the use of stimulants for hyperactivity. VCFS is caused by a small deletion of DNA from the long arm of chromosome 22. Researchers are currently studying the deletion located at 22q11.2 because of the possibility that a firm genetic link to psychiatric illness and learning disorders may be found. This report describes the behavioral manifestations of VCFS, emphasizing the overlap between the cognitive and psychiatric disorders that are so common in this syndrome. MRDD Research Reviews 2000;6:142-147.     

Loud versus quiet praise: A direct behavioral comparison in secondary classrooms

The purpose of the present study was to compare the effects of teacher public (i.e., loud) and private (i.e., quiet) praise on students' appropriately engaged behavior (AEB) and disruptive behaviors (DB). Employing a combined multiple-baseline withdrawal design, the effects of loud and quiet praise were assessed across two pairs of secondary classrooms. Each classroom's mean percentage of observed intervals of AEB and DB across loud and quiet praise intervention phases was assessed and compared. Overall, visual analysis of the data, multilevel modeling, and effect sizes showed that both loud and quiet praises were more effective than no treatment at increasing AEB and decreasing DB. In addition, there were no statistical or clinically significant differences between the loud and quiet praise interventions. The results are discussed in light of appropriate practices and controversies in the literature.     

Common and distinctive features in stimulus similarity: A modified version of the contrast model

Featural representations of similarity data assume that people represent stimuli in terms of a set of discrete properties. In this article, we consider the differences in featural representations that arise from making four different assumptions about how similarity is measured. Three of these similarity models— the common features model, the distinctive features model, and Tversky’s seminal contrast model—have been considered previously. The other model is new and modifies the contrast model by assuming that each individual feature only ever acts as a common or distinctive feature. Each of the four models is tested on previously examined similarity data, relating to kinship terms, and on a new data set, relating to faces. In fitting the models, we have used the geometric complexity criterion to balance the competing demands of data-fit and model complexity. The results show that both common and distinctive features are important for stimulus representation, and we argue that the modified contrast model combines these two components in a more effective and interpretable way than Tversky’s original formulation.     

On the logic of adverbs

In the paper I investigate aspects of adverbial modification as an operation applying an adverb or adverbial phrase to a predicate and thereby creating a new predicate. The logic of adverbial modification, on this view, belongs to the logic of predicate modifiers. The theory I present is intended to cover not only adverbial modification but also attributive modification, but problems concerning the latter will not be given any special attention.     

On the logic of theocracy

I identify the objectionable element in theocracy, not with reliance on God as such, nor with the idea that God might have something to do with morality, but with the anti-human propensity to issue orders without communicating good reasons for them. In medieval discussion prohibitions not based on good reasons attracted the labelmalum quia prohibitum, bad because forbidden and I take this to be the criterion of theocracy in its objectionable form. I examine, in part of the Vatican’s doctrine against contraception, a persistent tendency towards this approach, a tendency incompatible with the tradition of the Church and ultimately incompatible even with the thirteenth century discussion of such issues in the work of Thomas Aquinas.     

Language versus logic: Responses to misleading classificatory questions

In this study we examined responses to apparent forced-choice questions in which two choices were presented as options and both were correct. The responses suggested by these questions were in conflict with responses based on simple classificatory logic. The results showed that adults, as well as children, were easily misled by the implication of the questions and there was no consistent evidence for increases in the number of logical responses as a function of age. However, when children and adults were initially given set-breaking items designed to sensitize them to the misleading nature of questions, they answered the set-breaking items as well as subsequent test items correctly. The results are consistent with pragmatic theories of language that stress the role of context and intentionality as major determinants of meaning.     

Identification versus discrimination of distinctive features in speech perception

Dichotically presented CV syllables were presented to 24 normal subjects under two contrasting performance requirements: consonant identification and consonant discrimination. In the identification task, subjects made more errors identifying stimuli distinguished by two as opposed to one distinctive feature. Conversely, in the discrimination task, subjects made more errors for stimuli distinguished by one as opposed to two distinctive features. It was proposed that the results of the identification task reflect the degree of information load in short-term memory. The results of the discrimination task, on the other hand, reflect the degree of perceptual similarity between contrasting stimuli. Both results were accounted for within a distinctive feature framework. Analyses of the individual features which comprised one and two feature distinctions demonstrated the perceptual prominence of the feature [voice] in contrast to the two place features [compact] and [grave].     

On the logic of theory change: Safe contraction

This paper is concerned with formal aspects of the logic of theory change, and in particular with the process of shrinking or contracting a theory to eliminate a proposition. It continues work in the area by the authors and Peter Gärdenfors. The paper defines a notion of safe contraction of a set of propositions, shows that it satisfies the Gärdenfors postulates for contraction and thus can be represented as a partial meet contraction, and studies its properties both in general and under various natural constraints.     

On the logic of psychoanalytic theory

Psychoanalytic theory shows some specific features and problems. It exists in a number of variations, according to different schools as well as cultural and subcultural conditions, with different understandings even of core concepts. Instead of producing definite knowledge, results remain uncertain. They vary in use and imply a permanent reworking of ideas and conceptions. This is the effect of the kind of theory psychoanalysis has to use. Since psychodynamics are a special kind of heterogeneous, changing, always different, emergent-in a word, autopoietic-reality, psychoanalysis cannot use the methods of a denotative theory (algorithmic reduction leading to strictly defined and formulated calculations) but has to use connotative theories. Connotative theories use open concepts which provide an active and flexible access to autopoietic reality. They are able to cope with the difference between singularities as well as with the distance between general logic and empirical reality. Problems tied to this possibility are structural fuzziness, a dependence on forms of use, multiple paradigms and difficulties in legitimation and balance of theories. This causes problems of institutionalisation. These problems are not a sign of immaturity but the normal way in which connotative theories appear and develop. They can therefore not be eliminated but only be treated in a better way.     

On the logic of conscious belief

In this paper we are discussing a version of propositional belief logic, denoted by LB, in which so-called axioms of introspection (B BB and B B B) are added to the usual ones. LB is proved to be sound and complete with respect to Boolean algebras equipped with proper filters (Theorem 5). Interpretations in classical theories (Theorem 4) are also considered. A few modifications of LB are further dealt with, one of which turns out to be S5.