The Mosaic Test as a Diagnostic Instrument and as a Technique for Illustrating Intellectual Disorganization

The present study presents a new, unit-weight scoring system for the Depressive Experiences Questionnaire (DEQ). One hundred thirty-one college students completed the DEQ, the Bem Sex-Role Inventory (BSRI), and the Beck Depression Inventory (BDI). The revised DEQ scales were shown to have substantial levels of internal consistency. The three subscales, of the revised DEQ were significantly correlated with the BSRI masculinity and femininity scales but not with gender. Significant correlations were also obtained between DEQ anaclitic. DEQ introjective scales and the BDI.     

The Turing Test as Interactive Proof

In 1950, Alan Turing proposed his eponymous test based on indistinguishability of verbal behavior as a replacement for the question “Can machines think?” Since then, two mutually contradictory but well‐founded attitudes towards the Turing Test have arisen in the philosophical literature. On the one hand is the attitude that has become philosophical conventional wisdom, viz., that the Turing Test is hopelessly flawed as a sufficient condition for intelligence, while on the other hand is the overwhelming sense that were a machine to pass a real live full‐fledged Turing Test, it would be a sign of nothing but our orneriness to deny it the attribution of intelligence. The arguments against the sufficiency of the Turing Test for determining intelligence rely on showing that some extra conditions are logically necessary for intelligence beyond the behavioral properties exhibited by an agent under a Turing Test. Therefore, it cannot follow logically from passing a Turing Test that the agent is intelligent. I argue that these extra conditions can be revealed by the Turing Test, so long as we allow a very slight weakening of the criterion from one of logical proof to one of statistical proof under weak realizability assumptions. The argument depends on the notion of interactive proof developed in theoretical computer science, along with some simple physical facts that constrain the information capacity of agents. Crucially, the weakening is so slight as to make no conceivable difference from a practical standpoint. Thus, the Gordian knot between the two opposing views of the sufficiency of the Turing Test can be cut.     

Coherence as a Test for Truth

This paper sets out to demonstrate that a contrast can be drawn between coherentism as an account of the structure of justification, and coherentism as a method of inquiry. Whereas the former position aims to offer an answer to the 'regress of justification' problem, the latter position claims that coherence plays a vital and indispensable role as a criterion of truth, given the fallibility of cognitive methods such as perception and memory. It is argued that 'early' coherentists like Bradley and Blanshard were coherentists of the latter kind, and that this sort of coherentism is not open to certain sorts of standard objection that can be raised against justificatory coherentism.     

The Affective Ratio in Rorschach's Test as a Function of Age

Divergent values for the Affective Ratio score of Rorschach's test have been reported by Exner and Beck. The results of computation of the scores of 119 school children supported Beck's findings.     

The House-Tree-Person Test as a measure of intelligence and creativity.

The House-Tree-Person test and a verbal test of mental ability, the Basic Word Vocabulary Test, were administered to 23 male and 27 female, university undergraduates and to 27 boys and 38 girls in Grades 3 to 8. The drawings were given three separate and independent scorings by judges who computed intelligence scores according to the House-Person manual; rated them impressionistically on intelligence, using a forced-distribution method; or rated them impressionistically on creativity, using the same forced-distribution method. The three House-Tree-Person measures were highly intercorrelated for all groups of subjects. All three House-Tree-Person scores also correlated positively and significantly with vocabulary test scores for female university students, as did both Impressionistically derived House-Tree-Person scores for grade-school girls. Male students' and boys' vocabulary scores were unrelated to any of the House-Tree-Person scores. Results suggest that competence in graphic expression operates independently of verbal intelligence in males but validity as a nonverbal test of mental ability and that it can be scored efficiently and reliably by using a global, impressionistic method.     

The Bible among Lutherans in America: The ELCA as a Test Case

Abstract: This article describes the biblical hermeneutics that inform the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America by comparing the ELCA's tradition of biblical interpretation with that of the Lutheran Church‐Missouri Synod. It sets both against the great social and intellectual challenges of the early twentieth century, including the modernist/fundamentalist controversy. One commonality that surfaces is that both church bodies appropriated pre‐modern hermeneutical impulses for “counter modern” biblical apologetics. In this process the LC‐MS privileged the period of Lutheran Orthodoxy (17^th century) while the ELCA constructed its hermeneutical paradigm through a recovery of the early Reformation (Luther). This observation suggests that both interpretive trajectories need further historical as well as theological review and revision.     

Decision Development in Small Groups V Test of a Contingency Model

This study tested a model of the factors that influence groups to follow various paths as they make decisions. Three panels of contingency variables, which indexed the nature of the group's task and group structure, were used to predict properties of the group's developmental path. The decision path properties included type of decision path, the complexity of the path, the amount of disorganized behavior the group engaged in, and the relative emphasis on various types of decision activity, such as orientation, problem analysis, and solution development. The contingency variables were quite effective in predicting decision paths and their properties. Group structure variables were stronger predictors than were task variables. Results suggested that significant revisions in the original contingency model were necessary. Most notably, the groups appeared to be much more rational in adapting their paths to the contingencies than we had originally supposed they would be.     

An Acquaintanceship Questionnaire as a Test of Sociability

Abstract

Symbolic racism and social dominance theories were compared by reanalysis of data from a national probability sample of 234 White Americans and by using observed-variables, structural equation models. Contrary to the conclusions reached by Jessor (1989), the results did not support the major contentions of symbolic racism theory; rather, they seemed more consistent with the assumptions of social dominance theory. The possibility that symbolic racism serves as an important legitimizing myth in American society is discussed.     

The Rabkin Test as a Means of Detecting and Analyzing Defective Color Vision

This study investigated the attentional and mental-set conditions which determine the acquisition and use of memory schema cues. Ninety male and female undergraduate Ss listened to and shadowed the Bransford-Johnson “washing clothes” paragraph under a variety of conditions defined by cue placement (before or during shadowing), attentional mental set (told of relation of cue to passage, or not told), and modality of cue (given visually or auditorily). It was found that cue placement and cue modality had no effect on subsequent recall of the passage, but that attentional mental set did. It was argued that the data supported a model of the mind that emphasized conscious intention in both attention and schema activation, a position associated with Wilhelm Wundt.     

Parts function as perceptual organizational entities in infancy

Both objects and parts function as organizational entities in adult perception. Prior research has indicated that objects affect organization early in life: Infants grouped elements located within object boundaries and segregated them from those located on different objects. Here, we examined whether parts also induce grouping in infancy. Five- and 6.5-month-olds were habituated to two-part objects containing element pairs. In a subsequent test, infants treated groupings of elements that crossed part boundaries as novel, in comparison with groupings that had shared a common part during habituation. In contrast, the same arrangement of elements failed to elicit evidence of grouping in control conditions in which the elements were not surrounded by closed part boundaries. Thus, infants grouped and segregated elements on the basis of part structure. Part-based processing is a key aspect of many theories of perception. The present research adds to this literature by indicating that parts function as organizational entities early in life.     

汉语作为第二语言的初学者口语能力结构初探

根据口语表达及汉语初学者口语能力的发展特点,拟构了初学者口语能力模型。该模型从语言的成分、情帚特征以及它们相互作用的角度来定义构想,把口语表达分为听一说模式和独白模式两种表达模式,并分别从短语、句子和语段三个层面来考查口语能力。以来华学习汉语半年至一年的留学生共275人为样本,使用探索性因素分析和验证性因素分析研究了初学者口语能力模型与实测数据的拟合程度,结果表明拟合程度良好,模型得到了验证。     

The Validity of the Role Construct Repertory Test as a Measure of Sexual Identification

Although the majority of research on Therapeutic Assessment (TA) discusses the application of TA in research or private practice settings, we found that the model could be applied in a community mental health setting. We argue that when implementing this model with racially diverse, low socioeconomic status children, it is essential to integrate issues of class, privilege, and race into the assessment process. A case is presented that illuminates the specific concerns and struggles of adapting this model to a community psychology population. This analysis includes the interface with systems, placement stability, and consideration of culturally responsible treatment. We also demonstrate how the support of a treatment team helps the individual clinician process and integrate the levels of trauma and pain with which these families present.     

Structural Universals as Structural Parts: Toward a General Theory of Parthood and Composition

David Lewis famously argued against structural universals since they allegedly required what he called a composition “sui generis” that differed from standard mereological composition. In this paper it is shown that, although traditional Boolean mereology does not describe parthood and composition in its full generality, a better and more comprehensive theory is provided by the foundational theory of categories. In this category-theoretical framework a theory of structural universals can be formulated that overcomes the conceptual difficulties that Lewis and his followers regarded as unsurmountable. As a concrete example of structural universals groups are considered in some detail.     

Structural Equation Modeling with Small Samples: Test Statistics

Structural equation modeling is a well-known technique for studying relationships among multivariate data. In practice, high dimensional nonnormal data with small to medium sample sizes are very common, and large sample theory, on which almost all modeling statistics are based, cannot be invoked for model evaluation with test statistics. The most natural method for nonnormal data, the asymptotically distribution free procedure, is not defined when the sample size is less than the number of nonduplicated elements in the sample covariance. Since normal theory maximum likelihood estimation remains defined for intermediate to small sample size, it may be invoked but with the probable consequence of distorted performance in model evaluation. This article studies the small sample behavior of several test statistics that are based on maximum likelihood estimator, but are designed to perform better with nonnormal data. We aim to identify statistics that work reasonably well for a range of small sample sizes and distribution conditions. Monte Carlo results indicate that Yuan and Bentler's recently proposed F-statistic performs satisfactorily.     

The validity of the Comprehensive Test of Nonverbal Intelligence as a measure of fluid intelligence

The current investigation examined the validity of the Comprehensive Test of Nonverbal Intelligence (CTONI), an intelligence test that is purported to measure fluid intelligence. The CTONI was evaluated in comparison with the Kaufman Adolescent and Adult Intelligence Test (KAIT), an established measure of fluid and crystallized intelligence. Ninety-seven adults were administered these instruments in counterbalanced order. Results indicated that the sample's mean CTONI Nonverbal IQ (NIQ) deviated significantly from the mean KAIT Crystallized, Fluid, and Composite IQs. The CTONI mean NIQ underestimated KAIT Fluid and Composite IQs when individual participants were subdivided into existing KAIT ability categories and mean score comparisons were made. Results also indicated that the CTONI NIQ correlated strongly and positively with the KAIT Composite and Fluid IQs. Furthermore, the CTONI Geometric NIQ scale clearly demonstrated discriminant and convergent validity, whereas, the CTONI Pictorial NIQ (PNIQ) did not.