Biological specializations for speech: what can the animals tell us?

Language research over the past 40 years converges on the speech-is-special hypothesis (SiS), according to which speech perception and production are uniquely human adaptations. SiS is grounded in a variety of biological, developmental, and behavioral evidence. In some comparative studies, speechlike stimuli have seemed to cause nonhuman animals to exhibit humanlike performance functions. Auditorists—who believe that spoken language processing is executed by, and is explicable in terms of, general auditory mechanisms—have seized upon such studies as evidence that SiS is incorrect. However, it is difficult to identify biological and functional similarities across different species on the basis of behavior alone, and the elaborate training regimen that nonhuman animals require to achieve human performance levels undermines the significance of certain comparative studies. Both comparative and human behavioral research, including brain-imaging studies of functional localization, electrophysiological recordings of the neural basis of the perception-production link, and developmental studies of a time-locked schedule of language learning, favor SiS over auditorism.     

Francis Collins,the Skeptics,and Evidence for God

Skeptical Inquirer magazine has published an attempted refutation of Francis Collins' book, The Language of God. The refutation argues that Collins lacks scientific evidence for God and that Collins actually appeals not to evidence, but to personal belief. In refutation of this refutation, Ted Peters argues that Collins plays completely within the rules of scientific discourse while providing rational evidence—though not conclusive proof—for the existence of God as creator and moral lawgiver.     

Cognitive impairments and disordered speech in schizophrenia: thought disorder, disorganization, and communication failure perspectives

This article posits that basic cognitive impairments in schizophrenia are more highly related to speech disorder measured as communication failures than speech disorder measured as thought disorder or disorganization. The author tested 47 schizophrenia patients and 36 control participants for sustained attention, sequencing, and conceptual sequencing ability. Their speech was also rated for communication failures, thought disorder, and conceptual disorganization. Attention and sequencing impairments, examined hierarchically, explained a substantial 38% of the variance in the communication measure of speech disorder but little of the variance in formal thought disorder or conceptual disorganization. The author concludes that (a) impairments in attention and sequencing abilities contribute substantially to schizophrenic communication failures, and (b) it is important to consider lower level cognitive "3rd variables" when examining higher level cognitive associates of speech disorder.     

In Defense of Rawlsian Fair Equality of Opportunity

Richard Arneson argues that Fair Equality of Opportunity (FEO) should be rejected, since it is not only too weak and too strong, but also problematically meritocratic. The paper aims to defend FEO, and argues that it is not too weak, since, pace Arneson, it does apply to the problem of stunted ambition. The argument from meritocracy is shown to be based on a conflation of different senses of meritocracy. Finally, it is shown that FEO, correctly interpreted, gives intuitive answers to the examples put forward to bolster the too strong charge. It is concluded that Arneson’s refutation of FEO fails.     

Gesture, speech, and computational stages: a reply to McNeill

McNeill (1985) claimed that speech and its accompanying gestures "share a common computational stage" that is located early in the speech production process. This position depends on two crucial arguments that we believe are unsound: first, that gestures "are synchronized with linguistic units in speech" and, second, that gestures "have semantic and pragmatic functions that parallel those of speech." Careful analysis of the relevant data indicated that although the processes underlying gestural production are globally autonomous, they are linked to speech production at more than just one computational stage. An account is offered that explicates these links.     

From Freudian narcissism to the Buddhist notion of anatman,via Jung's idea of identity

Starting from the question the youthful Carl Gustav pondered as he sat on ‘his’ stone – ‘Am I he who sits on the stone, or am I the stone on which he sits?’ – the author has attempted to show that, for Jung, the idea of identity is founded on a wilful non‐determination. This stance results in ethical and methodological repercussions that differentiate it both from the Freudian project and from Hindu and Buddhist thought, while at the same time having much in common with them. The paper refers to the notions of emergence and (Varela et al. 1992) enaction 2 2 According to the Wikipedia entry, the introduction of the term ‘enaction’ is attributed to Francisco Varela, Evan Thompson, and Eleanor Rosch (1992), who proposed the name to ‘emphasize the growing conviction that cognition is not the representation of a pre‐given world by a pre‐given mind but is rather the enactment of a world and a mind on the basis of a history of the variety of actions that a being in the world performs’.
and argues that the concept of the archetype, especially in relation to the self, merits a re‐evaluation in light of the new scientific paradigm.     

汉语言语产生的语音加工单元——基于音位的研究

言语产生的语音加工单元具有跨语言的特异性。在印欧语言中, 音位是语音加工的重要功能单元。音位指具体语言中能够区别意义的最小语音单位, 如“big”包含三个音位/b/, /i/, /g/。目前, 在汉语言语产生中, 对音位的研究较少。本项目拟采用事件相关电位技术, 对汉语言语产生中的音位加工进行探讨, 试图考察：在汉语言语产生中, 1)音位加工的心理现实性, 以及音位表征是否受第二语言、汉语拼音习得、拼音使用经验的影响?2)音位的加工机制是怎样的?具体而言, 音位加工的特异性、位置编码、组合方式、时间进程是怎样的?对这些问题的回答, 将有助于深化对汉语言语产生的认识, 为建立汉语言语产生计算模型提供基础; 为比较印欧语言与汉语在机制上的异同提供基础; 为制定汉语语音教育教学方法提供心理学依据。     

Reality and Existence in Anselm

It is a premise of a widely endorsed putative refutation of Anselm's ontological argument that 'exists' is not a predicate. This Note argues that although 'exists' has the superficial grammatical appearance of a predicate in the Proslogion , Anselm does not in fact rely on the premise that 'exists' is a logical predicate (or that existing is a property) in his putative proof. It follows that even if some argument for the conclusion that 'exists' is not a predicate is sound, that argument is not a refutation of Anselm's argument.     

Does Counseling Need the Mind?

In this article, the author argues that the language used in counseling practice is largely a common sense language using mentalistic words. Basic mentalistic assumptions and challenges to those assumptions are outlined. The practical consequences of retaining or discarding mentalism in counseling are discussed. The author concludes that mentalistic language persists in counseling practice because it offers a useful vocabulary, but that the counseling field could benefit from adopting a path similar to that used in the cognitive sciences.     

victims and offenders: accounts of paybacks,invulnerability, and financial gain among homeless youth

In recent years, club-drug use among a segment of urban gay men has gained in popularity, contributing to a range of effects, including heightened sexual stimulation, increased sexual performance and endurance, but also, unsafe sexual practices, drug overdose, drug addiction and death. This article draws from a larger study of urban sexual careers and identifies two prominent forms of club-drug use: the first, to facilitate sexual performance; and the second, to facilitate community. The author argues that the basis of both patterns of drug use lie in adaptations to the institutional organization of urban gay sexual sociality.     

The ethics of trauma: re-traumatization in society's approach to the traumatized subject

The paper starts from a question about the subconscious needs and anxieties which may underlie society's current responses to trauma. In particular, the author argues that the interest in the trauma of torture and man-made violence is a reaction to the increasingly dehumanizing and death-denying culture we live in. After proposing that the various categories of societal responses-the author focuses on evaluation, treatment, and advocacy-to traumatized subjects hide defenses of denial, distortion, refusal, with respect to the challenge of mortality, meaning-making, and mourning, the author then makes the thesis that they can derail and corrupt the project of post-traumatic repair. The paper proceeds with an examination of the ethics and politics that are implicit in contemporary North American society's current approach to trauma. The central argument is that the current approach may contain a collective acting out that often ends up being re-traumatizing to the traumatized subjects.     

SEX EFFECTS IN CONVERSATIONAL INTERACTION: ANOTHER LOOK AT MALE DOMINANCE

The present study represents a contemporary test of traditional assumptions about sex effects in social interaction. An experiment was conducted to assess the independent and interactive effects of communicator sex, listener sex, and interpersonal distance on temporal measures of conversational interaction. Results demonstrated that the average duration of speech acts was significantly longer for females than for males; that communicators, regardless of sex, speak for a greater proportion of the total conversation when the listener is female as opposed to male; and that within the sex-same male dyads, far interpersonal distance is associated with significantly greater simultaneous speech when compared to the near condition. Results are interpreted as refutation for traditional notions of male dominance.     

The liar: What paradox?

Most philosophers believe that the Liar Paradox is semantical in character, and arises from difficulties in the predicate true. The author argues that the paradox is pragmatic, not semantic, and arises from violations of essential conditions that define statement-making speech acts. The author shows that his solution to the paradox will not only handle the classical Liar sentences that are necessarily or intrinsically paradoxical, but also sets of Kripke-sentences that are contingently paradoxical.     

Irma--Emma--Martha--Anna. Some additional comments on presentations by K. R. Eissler and H. Thom?

The author re-examines the significance of the Emma-Eckstein-episode and the Irma-dream with their implications for the theory of psychoanalysis. He follows Eissler and contradicts Schur in his argument that the identity of Irma with Emma cannot be proven and is, in any case, improbable. Neither the proof nor the refutation of this identity are of vital significance for psychoanalytic theory, but only for the suppression of dynamic psychiatry in favour of biological psychiatry.     

Source credibility and the processing of refutation texts

The knowledge revision components framework (KReC) outlines the basic comprehension processes and text factors that can be accentuated to increase the potential for knowledge revision during reading. The goal of the present study was to explore source credibility as one such text factor. In Experiment 1, we established the utility of a set of refutation texts in influencing knowledge revision. Participants read ten refutation and ten control texts. The participants had faster reading times and higher posttest scores for the refutation than for the control texts, providing evidence for knowledge revision. In Experiment 2, we examined the influence of source credibility under normal reading conditions. Participants read 20 refutation texts, ten with high-credibility and ten with low-credibility sources. The reading times and posttest scores suggested that knowledge revision unfolded successfully, independent of credibility. Using the same texts, in Experiment 3 we examined the influence of direct instructions that made the credibility of the source of information more salient. When the credibility of the source was made salient, the revision process was disrupted in the low-credibility condition, as evidenced by slower reading times and lower posttest scores than in the high-credibility condition. The results add to our understanding of the factors that constrain knowledge revision during the reading of refutation texts, and are discussed in the context of the extant literature and KReC.     

Changing False Beliefs from Repeated Advertising: The Role of Claim‐Refutation Alignment

This research addresses refutation of false beliefs formed on the basis of repeated exposure to advertisements. Experiment 1 explores belief in the refutation as a function of the perceptual details shared (alignment) between the claim and the refutation as manipulated by whether the original claim was direct (assertion) or indirect (implication). Experiment 2 then examines whether this effect will carry through to belief in the original claim after exposure to the refutation. Findings indicate that direct refutations of indirect claims are believed more than refutations of direct claims. However, direct refutations of direct claims are more effective in reducing belief in the original claim. We argue that recollection of the original claim facilitates automatic updating of belief in that claim. Experiment 3 demonstrates that an alternative cue (a logo) in a refutation that facilitates recall of the original claim enables reduction of belief in the original indirect claim; this finding helps to pin down the mechanism—recall of the original claim—underlying belief updating. Further, Experiment 3 finds that multiple cues to recalling the original claim may prevent the automatic updating process. Theoretical and practical implications are discussed.     

The Problem of Authorship and the Project of Chinese Philosophy: Zhuang Zhou and the <Emphasis Type="BoldItalic">Zhuangzi</Emphasis><Emphasis Type="Bold">between Sinology and Philosophy in the Western Academy</Emphasis>

This essay looks into a particular aspect of Sinological challenge to the modern project of Chinese philosophy within the Western academy through the lens of authorship, using the Zhuangzi 莊子 as a case study. It explores philosophical implications for texts whose authorship is in doubt and develops a new heuristic model of authorship and textuality, so that a more robust intellectual space for the philosophical discourse on Chinese classics can be carved out from the dominant historicist Sinological discourse. It argues that philosophical and Sinological approaches to Chinese classics have divergent scholarly objectives and follow different disciplinary norms. To clarify such divergence, it proposes a heuristic model to distinguish two sets of scholarly objects operative in Sinology and philosophy respectively, namely original text versus inherited text, historical author versus textual author, and authorial intent versus textual intent. These two sets of scholarly objects are related, at times overlapping but often irreducibly distinct, with the former in the pairs belonging to Sinologists and the latter to philosophers.     

Interventions to address the stigma associated with leprosy: a perspective on the issues

This paper presents a perspective on stigma as an effect of leprosy. It identifies some of the strengths and weaknesses of current approaches to stigma reduction in leprosy and presents a rationale for considering alternative strategies. It is suggested that models used to explain health behavior in developed societies are inappropriate for explaining leprosy stigma or for developing strategies to address it. The author recommends due consideration of the alternative logic that characterizes cultural belief systems in countries where leprosy is a challenge. Criticism of the common practice of information dissemination as a strategy to address leprosy stigma is defended and the merits and limitations of an integrated health service in India is discussed. The author defends the suggestion that the principal objective of stigma interventions should be "normalization". An example of a Nepalese project based on empowerment theory is given to demonstrate how the transformation of identity from outcast to positive change agent, can effect "normalization".     

You Say Oedipal,I Say Postoedipal A Consideration of Desire and Hostility in the Analytic Relationship

Using a case example, the author explores the complex and shifting boundary between aspects of oedipal regression and postoedipal phenomena. Particularly, during termination phases, it is sometimes difficult to distinguish among the hostility, frustration, and anger related to oedipal longings and scorn that is connected to realistic appraisals of the limits of erotic longings in the analytic situation. Scorn sometimes involves a kind of righteous indignation that results from the patient's awareness that analytic immersion in erotic longings toward unavailable others has aspects of erotic masochism. To some extent, the analytic situation itself contains aspects of erotic masochism that are important to try to reorganize during ending phases of analysis. The author argues that distinctions between oedipal and postoedipal are ever-shifting and difficult to make because the Oedipus complex is a lifelong process that is never resolved. Instead, we are always seeking new adaptations and new ways to organize our relationships against the background of a fluid boundary between oedipal and postoedipal phenomena.