Grading the ‘cultural literacy’ project

The essay examines the argument advanced by E.D. Hirsch, Jr., for instituting ‘cultural literacy’ as a fundamental priority of schools. A number of confusions and equivocations in Hirsch's reasoning are identified, and the propensity of his project to indoctrinate is exposed. Among the features of Hirsch's argument shown to be troubling are his shifting construal of ‘language’, his inconsistency about the requirements of cultural literacy, and his uncritical relation to traditional images of the American past and present. The upshot is to raise the question why Hirsch's project has elicited wide support and praise.     

Visual and tactile memory for 2-D patterns: Effects of changes in size and left-right orientation

Visual identification of 3-D objects depends on representations that are invariant across changes in size and left-right orientation. We examined whether this finding reflects the unique demands of processing 3-D objects, or whether it generalizes to 2-D patterns and to the tactile modality. Our findings suggest that object representation for identification is influenced greatly by the processing demands of stimulus materials (e.g., 2-D vs. 3-D objects) and stimulus modality (touch vs. vision). Identification of 2-D patterns in vision is adversely affected by left-right orientation changes, but not size changes. Identification of the same patterns in touch is adversely affected by both changes. Together, the results suggest that the unique processing demands of stimulus materials and modality shape the representation of objects in memory.     

Religious Coping and Heart Transplantation: From Threat to Health

Previous research has established the existence of homogeneous religious coping profiles in cardiac-transplantation candidates labeled as the deferring/collaborators, self-directors, and the eclectic religious copers. However, their prospective impact on outcome has not yet been established. This paper examines potential differences between pre-cardiac transplantation religious coping cluster groups on post-cardiac transplantation quality of life (physical functioning, mental health, and general health). Results indicated that the religious coping profiles of deferring/collaborators and self-directors had significantly better scores on mental health and general health than did the eclectics. Implications for religious-coping research and clinical practice are discussed.     

Two Types of Externalism

A contrast is drawn between two types of externalism, one based on ideas of Wittgenstein, the other on arguments from Putnam. Gregory McCulloch's attempt to combine the two types is then examined and criticized. Putnamian externalism is ambiguous. It can be interpreted either as the empirical claim that we give priority to scientific as opposed to other forms of discourse, or as a metaphysical claim that our language attempts to conform to the structure of the world 'in itself'. But the first claim is simply false, and the second involves a form of metaphysical realism that a Wittgensteinian must reject as unintelligible. McCulloch's attempted synthesis of the two types is therefore either incoherent, or else simply adds an empirical falsehood to Wittgenstein's conceptual point. It is also noted that Putnam himself has progressively retreated from his original claims, and now appears to be a Wittgensteinian, but not a 'Putnamian', externalist.     

Memory for words and drawings in children with hemiplegic cerebral palsy

A list-learning paradigm was used to study learning and memory of verbal and figurative material in children with right versus left-sided hemiplegic cerebral palsy. Thirty-one children with right (n=18), or left (n=13) congenital hemiplegia were compared with normal controls (n=19). All children had normal intelligence (IQ>80), and were attending standard schools. The inclusion criteria for the two hemiplegic groups were; no epilepsy, no hearing or visual impairments, and a mild to moderate hemiparesis. The aim of this study was to explore material-specific (words and drawings) differences in the acquisition, recall and serial position effects in children with an early unilateral brain lesion. The left-hemisphere impaired (i.e. right hemiplegia) group showed impaired acquisition for drawings, as compared with the normal controls. There was also a material-specific difference in the serial position effect for all three groups. Learning of words followed the primacy principle, whereas the learning of drawings followed the recency principle. There were no group-differences in delayed-recall (i.e. long-term memory) for either words or drawings. The results are discussed in terms of acquisition and retention of verbal and figurative materials in relation to lesion side and size.     

Referenzsemantik in der Partnermodellierung

How can we explain that an assertion on something perceived can be understood in the same manner by somebody who cannot perceive that scene? This problem bases the interest in computational linguistics in how listener modeling could possibly be harmonized with reference semantics. Mental images substituting real perception appear as a way out. The architecture of the listener model has to be adapted to the creation and use of such pictorial data structures. Furthermore, the relation between the latter and a verbal (i. e., propositional) representation must be understood. The resulting architecture of a listener model with reference semantics can be employed to solve communicational problems from three general classes in a better way, as is demonstrated by an example implementation.     

Should the behavioral sciences become more pragmatic? The case for functional contextualism in research on human behavior

Although societal need for behavioral science research is enormous, current research practices seem to be inefficient vehicles for producing knowledge that guides practical action. Many of our most popular theories provide little direct guidance for application. They focus on the development of models of the relationships among organismic events such as attitudes, self-efficacy expectations, and behavior, but pay little or no attention to the contextual influences on behavior. Such research is in keeping with a long-standing mechanistic tradition in psychology. We propose a version of contextualism as an alternative paradigm for the behavioral sciences. According to this paradigm, theories and research are evaluated in terms of their contribution to the prediction and influence of behavior. Basic research organized to pursue this goal has a direct bearing on how behavioral phenomena can be changed for practical purposes. Conversely, applied research contributes to basic understanding of the determinants of psychological phenomena.     

An affordable computer-aided method for conducting Morris water maze testing

A relatively inexpensive and reliable computer-aided method for assessing Morris water maze performance is described. The procedure uses SigmaScan digitizing software (Jandel Scientific, San Rafael, CA) to collect distance swum data, while escape latencies are measured with a hand-held stopwatch. Swim paths are videotaped for subsequent viewing and saved on disk as data sets ofx,y coordinates. At a later time,x,y data files are printed and analyzed to obtain additional performance measures (e.g., distance swum in previous reinforced quadrant, heading angle, etc.). Intra- and interrater reliabilities associated with this method are presented. Correlation coefficients in ther = .85?.90 and above range are reported for both reliability types. Given its approximate cost of $1,500 (excluding the price of an IBM-compatible computer), the present procedure potentially can aid in performing instructional and research activities at small colleges which typically lack extensive equipment budgets.