Possessive pronouns: Why are plurals harder?

Twenty-four children between the ages of 2 1/2 and 5 years were given paint boxes such that they either shared one box between two or owned one box each. They were then asked to point to the boxes as specified by possessive pronouns: either plural possessive pronouns or pairs of singular possessive pronouns. The use of plural possessive pronouns adversely affected performance in all groups, but the type of ownership of the paint boxes did not. The results also suggest that the third-person pronouns cause fewest problems for children while second-person pronouns cause most. The findings are discussed in terms of the order of acquisition of plural pronouns, and the reasons that plural pronouns should cause more problems than singular possessive pronouns.     

Who wants to learn harder? The relationship between conservatism and liberalism,desirable difficulties,and academic learning

Social Psychology of Education - Previous work has shown that challenging learning strategies like desirable difficulties improve long-term learning. Nonetheless, because they might be regarded as...     

Phenomenal concepts as bare recognitional concepts: harder to debunk than you thought, …but still possible

A popular defense of physicalist theories of consciousness against anti-physicalist arguments invokes the existence of ‘phenomenal concepts’. These are concepts that designate conscious experiences from a first person perspective, and hence differ from physicalistic concepts; but not in a way that precludes co-referentiality with them. On one version of this strategy phenomenal concepts are seen as (1) type demonstratives that have (2) no mode of presentation. However, 2 is possible without 1-call this the ‘bare recognitional concept’ view-and I will argue that this avoids certain recent criticisms while retaining the virtue of finessing the ‘mode of presentation’ problem for phenomenal concepts. But construing phenomenal concepts this way seems to not do justice to the phenomenology of conscious experience. In this paper I examine whether or not this impression can be borne out by a good argument. As it turns out, it is harder to do so than one might think. It can be done, but it involves somewhat more convoluted reasoning than one might have supposed necessary. Having shown that, I will end with a few brief remarks on what my argument means for attempts to preserve a physicalist account of consciousness.     

Does dividing attention become harder with age? findings from the divided attention questionnaire

Abstract

We developed a self-assessment scale, the Divided Attention Questionnaire (DAQ), to investigate whether adults report that dividing attention between two activities becomes more difficult with increasing age, as would be predicted by a model of age-related reductions in inhibition (Hasher & Zacks, 1988). the DAQ difficulty rating scale produced satisfactory estimates of internal consistency and test-retest stability. Older adults, relative to young adults, rated most combinations of activities as more difficult, and also reported that most combinations had become more difficult over time. However, self-perceptions of ability in old age varied with task domain, such that activities that involved monitoring of novel information became increasingly difficult with advanced age, while routine activities and those involving speech processing showed little change across the older groups studied. We suggest that belieft about self-efficacy under conditions of divided attention can have important consequences for the behavior of the elderly.     

‘Knowing all this just makes it harder’: Psychodynamic Ideas on the Frontline

This paper was given as the fifth Annual Ellen Noonan Counselling Lecture on 12 July 2011 and retains some of the spoken style of the lecture. The theme pursues an aspect of Ellen Noonan’s thinking, in that she always valued equipping students with learning they could take back into the workplace rather than purely training clinicians. The paper addresses both the usefulness and potential difficulties of providing front-line workers with psychodynamic insight. It might appear self-evidently worthwhile to offer staff in the caring and educational professions greater understanding of the roots and meaning of the difficulties faced by their clients and of the dynamics involved in working with them. This paper, while stressing the immense value of such awareness, looks at what can be problematic about it, both for staff and their employing agencies. It also describes ways of addressing such issues, both at an individual and organisational level.     

Is agoraphobia harder to treat? A comparison of agoraphobics' and simple phobics' response to treatment

Agoraphobia is reputed to be more difficult to treat than simple phobia. In a test of this supposition, 38 agoraphobics and 19 simple phobics were each given 10 sessions of graduated in vivo exposure. They were assessed before and after therapy using a behavioral avoidance test, behavioral diaries, and self-report measures. Analysis of covariance revealed unequivocal posttest differences only on self-assessed disability level; agoraphobics had changed less in their report of global disability immediately following treatment but not at follow-up. Sixty-eight percent of the simple phobics showed clinically significant improvement on avoidance of the Main Phobia, compared with 34% of the agoraphobics. On three other outcome measures, including more precise behavioral measures of phobia, agoraphobics and simple phobics responded equivalently to treatment. Given clinicians' impression about the comparative difficulty in treating agoraphobic clients, fewer differences in treatment response were obtained than were expected. Several possible explanations for this discrepancy are discussed.     

If it’s hard to read… try harder! Processing fluency as signal for effort adjustments

Experiencing difficulties during information processing can either be used as signal for the increased need of cognitive effort (“try harder”), or as avoidance signal for future action selection (“avoid and switch”). These alternative ideas are currently reflected in two seemingly opposing theories of anterior cingulate cortex function, namely the conflict monitoring versus the outcome evaluation account. Botvinick (2007) recently suggested that both positions might converge on the detection of aversive signals. Here, we will show that low perceptual fluency, which is known to evoke negative affective reactions, triggers the mobilization of cognitive effort even in the absence of response conflicts. More precisely, in three experiments effort adjustments in reaction to fluency manipulations as indicated by significant interactions of Fluency _N  × Fluency_N−1 were found. It follows that an aversive signal (here: low fluency) is not only used for effort prediction but also for effort adjustments.     

Why is 9+7 harder than 2+3? Strength and interference as explanations of the problem-size effect

In four experiments, the problem-size effect was investigated, using an alphabet-arithmetic task in which subjects verified such problems as A + 2 = C. Problem size was manipulated by varying the magnitude of the digit addend (e.g., A + 2, A + 3, and A + 4). The frequency and similarity of problems was also manipulated to determine the contribution of strength and interference, respectively. Experiment 1 manipulated frequency at low levels of practice and found that strength could account for the problem-size effect. Experiment 2 manipulated frequency at higher levels of practice, and found that strength alone could not account for the problem-size effect at asymptote. Experiment 3 manipulated frequency and similarity and found a substantial problem-size effect at asymptote, suggesting that both strength and interference contribute to the problem-size effect. Experiment 4 manipulated similarity, keeping frequency constant, and found no problem-size effect at asymptote, suggesting that interference alone is not responsible for the problem-size effect. The results are related to findings with number arithmetic.     

Who,What, When,Where, How,and Mostly Why?

SUMMARY

The death of a client by suicide was very emotionally destabilizing to this therapist. She worked hard to distance herself personally from the pain at first and at the same time she found herself overfocused on the “psychological autopsy.” She had difficulty accepting new clients and wanted to withdraw from a meaningful appointment to a state advisory committee. Only when she was able to identify with the client's pain and realize how that pain touched her own history of loss was she able to grieve productively. She realized that gender was relevant in her identification with the victim and in sorting out each of their histories of loss.     

Identität, Familie, Patienten, Olympier

The author deals with the tradition of mental patterns in psychoanalytic institutes shaping the character of training. He discusses several patterns which in his opinion have become dysfunctional and are already in change: the family model, the patient model, the conception of training analysts as Olympians, the psychoanalytic identity as the endpoint of training and the model of the closed society. He argues for further transformation of these institutionalized patterns in order to avoid stagnation and remain future oriented. For each pattern he proposes concrete measures, which can be helpful for change.     

学习科学,破除迷信,提高素质

二十年以前就有过一场争论,是关于"耳朵认字"的问题.当时一批科学家起来揭露它的虚伪性,但也有一批科学家却出来支持它,认为这是人体的特异功能.九十年代初,这种伪科学越演越烈,越说越神奇.这两年似乎不大听说了.但另一种歪门邪说却又泛滥起来,这就是法轮功.当然法轮功已成为残害人民、残害社会的邪教组织,与一般相信特异功能是两种不同性质的问题.但是究其思想基础却同出一源,即迷信二字.     

(Math, Science, ?)

In science as in mathematics, it is popular to know little and resent much about category theory. Less well known is how common it is to know little and like much about set theory. The set theory of almost all scientists, and even the average mathematician, is fundamentally different from the formal set theory that is contrasted against category theory. The latter two are often opposed by saying one emphasizes Substance, the other Form. However, in all known systems of mathematics throughout history, mathematicians have moved fluidly between ideas conceived of as thing-like, property-like, and process-like. On the other hand one way to advance science is to better distinguish between thing, property, and process. All this constitutes a distracting background for those interested in, or distressed by, the possible application of category theory to science, and to mathematics as well.     

附生性,因果性,还原性

一、引论在过去的 20多年里, 戴维森的反常一元论和附生性概念占据了心灵哲学讨论的中心领域。一方面, 戴维森的理论面临以金在权为代表的众多哲学家的尖锐批评; 另一方面, 大家似乎相信, 弄清楚附生性概念就意味着心物问题的解决。本文首先将论述戴维森的附生性概念及其非还原的物理主义学说, 然后将介绍金在权的批评意见, 随后将对戴维森的反常一元论作一个唯名论的诠释, 弄清戴维森的附生性概念到底是什么意思、它是一种什么样的共变关系, 以维护戴维森的反常一元论, 并抵御金在权的指控。最后还将论证, 附生性既不是一个因果关系, 也不…     

怒斥北约,保卫和平,普度众生

中华崛起外夷忧，使馆被轰蓄预谋。玩火自焚因嫉忌，惹来抗义震环球。遇难无辜魄未收，人神共怒泛洪流。严惩凶手循因果，不祭英魂誓不休。神州舜日固根基，团结精诚时世熙。北约当知停战火，炎黄亿万岂能欺。怒斥北约,保卫和平,普度众生@黄诚伦...