SUBCULTURAL DIFFERENCES IN CHILDREn'S LANGUAGE DEVELOPMENT1

Différences subculturelles dans le développement du langage. — Les associations verbales des enfants, une fois classées selon la fréquence des réponses paradigmatiques, fournissent un indice du développement linguistique. Divers groupes d'enfants, qui se trouvent, respectivement, au jardin d'enfants, en 1^re, 3^eet 5^e année d'école primaire, qui ont été appareillés du point de vue du QI, mais qui diffèrent par la classe sociale, le lieu d'habitation, l'appartenance subculturelle et la race, ont donné des associations à la même série de mots stimuli. A l'aide de l'indice fourni par les réponses paradigmatiques et en contrôlant le niveau intellectuel, on a pu ordonner grossièrement les différents groupes de i^re année, comme suit : — I. enfants blancs habitant la zone des taudis (slum); — 2. enfants noirs des taudis, enfants blancs d'ouvriers et enfants blancs de la classe moyenne; — 3. enfants blancs des régions agricoles du Maryland; — 4. enfants “Amish” vivant dans les régions agricoles de Pennsylvanie. En 3^e année, les enfants blancs et noirs, qui vivent dans la zone des taudis, se classent derrière les enfants banlieusards et sont proches des enfants campagnards. En 5^e année, tous les groupes, à l'exception des enfants “Amish”, semblent proches de l'asymptote. Les différences entre groupes sont plus marquées au cours de la 1^re année de scolarité, quand le niveau scolaire n'est pas encore très élevé; ce qui donne à penser que ce sont les conditions familiales, plus que la scolarisation, qui entraînent les différences. II est surprenant qu'en i^re année, les enfants des taudis dont le QI est de 100 en moyenne donnent des réponses qui sont très proches de celles des enfants de la classe qui habitent la banlieue et qui ont un haut QI (130) : une analyse sémantique, ainsi que la fréquence d'usage de la “forme” ou de la “classe”, confirme cette observation. On a généralement admis que l'enfant des zones de taudis vivait dans un milieu linguistiquement pauvre et de mauvais résultats scolaires vont souvent de pair avec ce déficit: la présente recherche, au contraire, laisse supposer que le developpement du langage jusqu'a la première année de scolarité est, en quelque sorte, accéléré. l'explication la plus plausible de ce phénomène tiendrait à la forte fréquence d'écoute de la télévision : l'auteur montre pourquoi l'enfant des taudis regarde probablement beaucoup plus souvent la télévision que I'enfant banlieusard. On observe que le développement du langage chez les enfants modernes semble accéléré par rapport à celui des enfants qui vivaient il y a une cinquantaine d'années : cette observation est compatible avec l'idée que la télévision accélère le développement. Les différences entre les blancs et les noirs des taudis semblent le mieux s'expliquer par les taux différentiels d'immigration du Sud agricole vers Baltimore. Les différences entre campagne et ville dans le développement des associations verbales rappellent les différences entre campagne et ville dans le développement cognitif, si largement observées par Bruner et ses collaborateurs. Cette différence est sans doute la plus utile à considérer en matiére d'explication causale.     

TEMPORAL AND CLIMATIC VARIABLES IN NATURALISTIC OBSERVATION1

Home-observation data on 5- to 7-yr-old boys collected over 2 yr were examined for systematic variations in rates of desirable and undesirable behaviors associated with several temporal and climatic variables. Significant effects associated with time of day, day of the week, precipitation, and temperature were found. No significant effects on the naturalistic observation data were found for environmental factors associated with lunar phase. It was noted that the correlational nature of the findings did not obviate the necessity for control of the influence of temporal and climatic variables. Several methodological strategies for such control were discussed.     

VALUE ORIENTATIONS IN HETEROSEXUAL RELATIONSHIPS

It is often suggested that men and women have divergent orientations toward love relationships. A questionnaire study of 130 university students demonstrated that their values about romantic relationships comprise two distinct, orthogonal dimensions reflecting concerns with intimacy and with independence. However, results challenge the stereotype that whereas women are more concerned with close-knit attachments, men are more eager to maintain personal autonomy. In actuality, no sex differences were found in attachment values, and women gave significantly more importance than did men to equal sharing and maintaining their personal autonomy. Also examined were individual and dyadic correlates of these value dimensions. Results suggest that dimensions of attachment and egalitarian autonomy provide a useful way to conceptualize individual differences in orientations toward love relationships.     

THE LANGUAGE OF PARTICIPATION AND THE LANGUAGE OF RESISTANCE1

Language and gestures define the involvement of low-status groups with authorities either as joint participation in policymaking or as conflict. Policies that seriously deprive non-elites are often politicized, encouraging the perception that all affected by them participated in their formulation. This perception is problematic and often misleading, for formal decision-making procedures chiefly reflect extant inequalities in the ability of participants to achieve their values and to influence public opinion. It is those who can exercise influence outside the context of formal proceedings who wield real power; but formal proceedings remain vital rituals, for they symbolize participation and democracy and so marshal public support and compliance. The poor lack the informal sanctions and other resources that confer influence, with the important exception that they can create disorder and thereby threaten elites; but in becoming politicized they renounce that political weapon.     

LANGUAGE AND TRUTH IN HUA-YEN BUDDHISM

It has been observed in contemporary Buddhist studies that new and distinct ways of expressing Buddhist "ultimate truth" and its relation to ordinary truth and experience began to emerge in the Chinese Buddhist tradition in the sixth and seventh centuries A.D. During this period of Chinese history, several systems of Buddhist thought arose that seemed to mitigate the primacy of negative language in references to "ultimate truth" and the predominantly negative evaluation of conventional truth and experience that had dominated the tradition previously. This development has been noticed especially in the Sui/T'ang systems of Buddhist thought, T'ien-t'ai and Hua-yen, as well as in later Ch'an thought and practice.     

TURNING POINTS IN DEVELOPING ROMANTIC RELATIONSHIPS

The 80 partners from 40 romantic relationships were independently interviewed using the RIT procedure with regard to the turning points of their respective relationships; 26 types of turning points were found, which reduced to 14 supra-types. These supra-types differed in their association with relational commitment, with some events strongly positive, some strongly negative, and others relatively modest in reported change in commitment. About half of the turning points involved explicit metacommunication between the relationship parties, but the likelihood of relationship talk varied by turning point type. About half of the 759 identified turning points were agreed upon by relationship partners, but agreement differed depending on turning point type. Neither partner agreement nor the presence of explicit metacommunication was related to the respondent's current satisfaction with the relationship. However, the proportion of total turning points that were negative correlated negatively with current satisfaction. Two turning point events, Exclusivity and Disengagement, individually differentiated more from less satisfied relationship parties.     

INCREASING SPONTANEOUS LANGUAGE IN THREE AUTISTIC CHILDREN

A time delay procedure was used to increase spontaneous verbalizations of 3 autistic children. Multiple baseline across behaviors designs were used with target responses, selected via a social validation procedure, of two spontaneous responses (“please” and “thank you”) and one verbally prompted response (“you're welcome”). The results indicate gains across target behaviors for all children, with occurrence across other stimuli and settings. These gains were validated socially with 10 adults. Furthermore, increases in appropriate language had no effect on levels of inappropriate speech.     

自然语言理解的并行处理

传统的自然语言理解的范式是:先对句子进行句法分析,然后在此基础上再进行语义分析,得到句子的意义结构。显然,这与人的语言理解是不同的。一些心理学实验表明,句子理解时句法和语义是同时起作用的。 本文提出一个自然语言理解的新的范式,即句法和语义同时加工的模式。如果仅用句法规则对句子进行分析,其结果往往有几个歧义的句法结构,而其中只有一个是正确的。句法加工的同时,再加入语义的工作,则只得到一个句法结构。联结主义正在认知科学界兴起,它给句法和语义并行加工提供了方法。本文使用局部联结模式实现语言理解并行处理的范式,并在计算机上编制了这样的程序,它可以理解简单的汉语句子。     

记叙文中时间信息的事件边界效应

运用视知觉研究中经典的事件切割程序,探讨记叙文中时间信息的事件边界效应.结果发现记叙文中的时间信息会被读者外显地知觉为事件边界,并且,跨度长的时间信息比跨度短的时间信息更易于被知觉为事件边界.这和视知觉研究中的发现是一致的.研究在一定程度上支持了记叙文理解过程中情境模型建构的过程依赖类似于事件知觉中所发现的切割过程的观点,为知觉研究和认知研究领域提供了可供沟通的实证支持.     

FUTURE ORIENTATION: A MEDIATOR IN TEMPORAL CODING

Influence of future orientation on temporal coding was investigated in two experimental studies. A three by two paradigm involving three conditions of list discrimination and two groups of subjects of high and low future orientation, was used. Story writing technique and list discrimination tasks were employed to assess future orientation and efficiency in using temporal codes, respectively. Results show that in experiment 1, when subjects had been forewarned about an impending memory test and hence there was a competition between these future demands and present demands of an orienting task, performance of high as compared to low future oriented subjects was better on list discrimination tasks; they utilized temporal codes more efficiently. This difference in performance between high and low future oriented groups of subjects was not evident in experiment 2 when there was no forewarning about an impending memory test. Temporal coding was better for different concept rather than same concept lists. It is argued that type of material, as well as perception of future utility of material, influence the amount of temporal coding for both groups of subjects, but dispositional future orientation also mediates the perception of the utility of a material in the future to affect its temporal coding.     

DEVELOPMENT OF SPONTANEOUS MANDING IN LANGUAGE DEFICIENT CHILDREN

Six institutionalized children, aged 7–11, with little or no spontaneous vocal manding, were trained to request food items under appropriate natural conditions when snacks were presented. “I want a” was appropriate when an adult presented food in the playroom. “Out” was appropriate when the items were displayed in the hallway, across a half-door barrier from the child. A sequence of steps was trained, through increasingly naturalistic setting and cuing conditions. The two mands were trained in sequence, not concurrently. To encourage “spontaneous” productions, no vocal cuing was provided by the adult. After criterion performance in each step, several probe sessions were conducted for various cuing conditions, adults, and settings. Probes after imitation training showed no spontaneous manding. Thus, failure of manding was not due to production difficulties. In probes after training for “approximately” natural cues, most children showed little transfer to the natural cues. This implies that training for the specific appropriate cues may often be required. However, good transfer generally occurred across persons, and from training room to playroom. Probes also showed that most children did not use one of the trained mands in the stimulus conditions that were appropriate for the other mand. Thus, adding a second mand did not generally disrupt use of the first. However, significant disruption occurred for two children. Finally, at the end of training, extinction training was given for one mand in one setting. Performance of the other mand was litle affected. In sum, the appropriate form of a mand depends on specific stimulus and setting characteristics, and these characteristics must be considered in training.