Perceiving onset clusters in infancy

By 9-months infants are sensitive to native-language sound combinations. Our studies show that while younger infants discriminate clusters, they are not sensitive to differences in statistical frequency. Thus, the emergence of phonotactic knowledge is driven by experience with the frequency of occurrence of the sound combinations in one's language.     

Limitations in the Prediction of Mass Violence: Cautionary Tales

The incidents of mass violence that have occurred in the United States have been deeply disturbing to the public as well as to mental health professionals. The public, the media, as well as our patients, family members, and friends have reached out to mental health professionals in the hope that we can provide an understanding of these events that might serve to reduce their frequency in the future. This article explores how we can best respond to these requests, including the current limitations of psychologists in the prediction of mass violence. Two incidents of mass violence are used to illustrate these issues. The first is a review of the investigation of the explosion on the U.S.S. Iowa in April 1989 that resulted in the deaths of 47 seamen. The second incident used for illustration purposes will be the University of Texas Clock Tower shootings that occurred in August 1968. This article discusses the reliability and validity problems inherent in retrospective reviews of the personality characteristics of perpetrators, and the limitations imposed by base-rate issues in the prediction of mass violence.     

Rehabilitating Self-Sacrifice: Care Ethics and the Politics of Resistance

ABSTRACT

How should feminists view acts of self-sacrifice performed by women? According to a long-standing critique of care ethics such acts ought to be viewed with scepticism. Care ethics, it is claimed, celebrates acts of self-sacrifice on the part of carers and in doing so encourages women to choose caring for others over their own self-development. In doing so, care ethics frustrates attempts to liberate women from the oppression of patriarchy. Care ethicists have responded to this critique by noting limits on the level, form, or scope of self-sacrifice that work to restrict its role in their theories. While we do not here take issue with the initial feminist critiques of self-sacrifice, we suspect that the strategies offered by Care ethicists in response are importantly flawed. Specifically, these responses undervalue the positive roles that self-sacrifice can play in fighting patriarchal oppression. As a result, in attempting to restrict an oppressive norm, these responses risk foreclosing on valuable means of resistance. Our aim is to explore these positive roles for self-sacrifice and thereby rehabilitate its standing with feminists.     

Primary process in competitive archery performance: Effects of flotation REST

Abstract

The purpose of the present study was to investigate whether or nor the floating form of Restricted Environmental Stimulation Technique (REST) may be exploited within the field of competitive archery to reinforce primary process (inner-directed) orientation and thereby enhance the quality of coaching and training. Floatation REST consists of a procedure whereby an individual is immersed in a water-tank filled with saltwater of an extremely high salt concentration. The experiment was performed over the course of two weekends with a 6-week interval. Twenty participating archers, 13 male and 7 female, were recruited. The between-group factor was “adjudged skill.” The within-group factor was provided by an Armchair condition in which the participants sat in an armchair for 45 min after which they were required to shoot four salvo series of three shots each, as a comparison to the Flotation-Rest condition whereby the participants were required to lie in a floating-tank for 45 min just prior to shooting. Results indicated that: (a) the participants experienced less perceived exertion during marksmanship in the floating condition, (b) the elite archers performed more consistently in the Flotation-REST condition, (c) the least and most proficient archers had lower muscle tension in the Extensor Digitorum in the Flotation REST condition.