Visual crowding: a fundamental limit on conscious perception and object recognition

Crowding, the inability to recognize objects in clutter, sets a fundamental limit on conscious visual perception and object recognition throughout most of the visual field. Despite how widespread and essential it is to object recognition, reading and visually guided action, a solid operational definition of what crowding is has only recently become clear. The goal of this review is to provide a broad-based synthesis of the most recent findings in this area, to define what crowding is and is not, and to set the stage for future work that will extend our understanding of crowding well beyond low-level vision. Here we define six diagnostic criteria for what counts as crowding, and further describe factors that both escape and break crowding. All of these lead to the conclusion that crowding occurs at multiple stages in the visual hierarchy.     

Dynamic time warping: a new method in the study of poor handwriting

Poor handwriting is a diagnostic criterion for developmental coordination disorder. Typical of poor handwriting is its low overall quality and the high variability of the spatial characteristics of the letters, usually assessed with a subjective handwriting scale. Recently, Dynamic Time Warping (DTW), a technique originally developed for speech recognition, was introduced for pattern recognition in handwriting. The present study evaluates its application to analyze poor handwriting. Forty children attending Dutch mainstream primary schools were recruited and based on their scores on the Concise Evaluation Scale for Children's Handwriting (Dutch abbreviation: BHK), 20 good and 20 poor writers (of whom 13 were scheduled for handwriting intervention) were identified. The groups were matched for age (7-9 years), school grade (grades 2 and 3) and handedness. The children subsequently wrote sequences of the letter "a" on a graphics tablet in three conditions (normal, fast, and accurate). Classical kinematics were obtained and for each individual letter DTW was used to calculate the distance from the mean shape. The DTW data revealed much higher variability in the letter forms of the poor writers that was independent of the kinematic results of larger trajectories, faster movements, and higher pen pressure. The current results suggest that DTW is a valid and objective technique for letter-form analysis in handwriting and may hence be useful to evaluate the rehabilitation treatments of children suffering from poor handwriting. In education research it may be exploited to explore how children (should) learn to write.     

The Weak Normalization of the Simply Typed {lambda}se-calculus

In this paper, we show the weak normalization (WN) of the simply-typeds_e-calculus with open terms where abstractions are decoratedwith types, and metavariables, de Bruijn indices and updatingoperators are decorated with environments. We show a proof ofWN using the _e-calculus, a calculus isomorphic to . This proof is strongly influenced by Goubault-Larrecq'sproof of WN for the -calculus but with subtle differences whichshow that the two styles require different attention. Furthermore,we give a new calculus '_e which works like s_e but which iscloser to than _e. For both _e and '_e we prove WN for typedsemi-open terms (i.e. those which allow term variables but nosubstitution variables), unlike the result of Goubault-Larrecqwhich covered all open terms.     

Children's mappings of large number words to numerosities

Previous studies have suggested that children's learning of the relation between number words and approximate numerosities depends on their verbal counting ability, and that children exhibit no knowledge of mappings between number words and approximate numerical magnitudes for number words outside their productive verbal counting range. In the present study we used a numerical estimation task to explore children's knowledge of these mappings. We classified children as Level 1 counters (those unable to produce a verbal count list up to 35), Level 2 counters (those who were able to count to 35 but not 60) and Level 3 counters (those who counted to 60 or above) and asked children to estimate the number of items on a card. Although the accuracy of children's estimates depended on counting ability, children at all counting skill levels produced estimates that increased linearly in proportion to the target number, for numerosities both within and beyond their counting range. This result was obtained at the group level (Experiment 1) and at the level of individual children (Experiment 2). These findings provide evidence that even the least skilled counters do exhibit some knowledge of the form of the mapping between large number words and approximate numerosities.     

Attribution bias: On the inconclusiveness of the cognition-motivation debate

Social psychologists have given considerable theoretical and research attention to whether motivational variables bias the attributions people make for behavior. Some theorists maintain that motivational constructs must be invoked to explain certain attributional phenomena; other theorists maintain that information-processing variables can adequately explain these phenomena. The present article critically examines existing cognitive and motivational approaches to attribution and analyzes the assumptions underlying the cognition-motivation debate. We argue that cognitive and motivational theories are currently empirically indistinguishable. In particular, its is possible to construct information-processing explanations for virtually all evidence for motivated bias. We conclude by examining the implications of this indeterminacy of cognitive and motivational explanations. Future research in the area can most profitably be addressed to improving the specificity of cognitive and motivational theories rather than to resolving the between-theory confrontation.     

Parental Perceptions of Separating Children

Newer models of familial interaction emphasize the importance of parental perceptions of the child as determinants for his self-image and interpersonal functioning. This paper examines this issue in detail as it bears on the developmental phase of separation and individuation in adolescence.     

A Polyvocal Body

This essay aims to elucidate how multiple voices and traditions should interact with one another in the practice of ethics. First, it explores some of the major ways in which questions of bodily autonomy function in secular feminist and Jewish bioethical discourses. It then uses case studies to illuminate ways each discourse's concepts of bodily autonomy can be deeply problematic, and argues that the strengths in each discourse can serve as important correctives for the weaknesses in the other. It suggests that some formal features of rabbinic texts can serve as a model for a discourse of constant and animated mutual correction. Finally, it examines two case studies in light of this model.