Variations on incremental interpretation

The strict competence hypothesis has sparked a small dialogue among several researchers attempting to understand its ramifications for human sentence processing and incremental interpretation in particular. In this paper, we review the dialogue, reconstructing the arguments in an attempt to make them more uniform and crisp, and provide our own analyses of certain of the issues that arise. We argue that strict competence, because it requires a synchronous computation mechanism, may actually lead to more complex, rather than simpler, models of incremental interpretation. Asynchronous computation, which is arguably both psychologically more plausible and conceptually more basic, allows for incremental interpretation to fall out naturally, without additional machinery for interpreting partial constituents. We show that this is true regardless of whether the presumed interpretation mechanism is top-down or bottom-up, contra previous conclusions in the literature, and propose a particular implementation of some of these ideas using a novel representation based on tree-adjoining grammars.The research in this paper was supported in part by grant IRI-9157996 from the National Science Foundation to the first author. The authors would like to thank Fernando Pereira, Edward Stabler, and Mark Steedman for discussions on the topic of this paper and for their comments on previous drafts.     

Good Practice in Transcultural Counselling: An Asian Perspective

In Britain today, counsellors and therapists often work with people from a diverse range of ethnic groups whose cultures are substantially different from their own. There is increasing concern that people from black and ethnic communities have limited access to appropriate services—despite service planners' and providers' statements that mental health services are being restructured to become more sensitive, relevant and meaningful to these communities. This paper is an attempt to redress the balance with an emphasis on the therapeutic needs of South Asian communities. It aims to challenge assumptions and beliefs held by therapists and counsellors, question therapeutic practice based within a white, middle-class ideology, raise awareness of an 'Asian' perspective in therapy, and provide some guidelines for good practice in transcultural counselling.     

The stability of individual differences in gender typing: Implications for understanding gender segregation

The stability of individual differences has important implications for understanding the origins of gender-typed behaviors. For example, if some children have a stronger preference for same-sex playmates (gender segregation) than do others, then exploring characteristics that may differentiate these children from their peers (e.g., preference for gender-typed toys or teacher proximity) should prove fruitful. Otherwise, research might be focused more appropriately on group-level processes or situational factors rather than individual differences. In the current study, 57 2 1/2- to 3-year-olds from middle-class Canadian homes were observed repeatedly during free play at their preschools. Four aspects of gender typing (gender segregation, use of masculine and feminine gender-typed toys, teacher proximity) were measured so that the stability of individual differences and relations among the measures could be assessed. Stable individual differences were found for all four measures among boys, and for two of the measures (feminine toy play, teacher proximity) among girls. In addition, boys who played most frequently with masculine toys rarely were observed in proximity to the teacher. However, there was no relation between gender segregation and the other indices of gender typing.     

The role of position in object selection in vision

Summary Within contemporary visual-information-processing psychology, two classes of selective-attention theories can be distinguished: position-not-special theories and position-special theories. The position-not-special theories postulate that attentional selection by colour, by form, and by position are equivalent selective operations. The position-special theories assume that selection by position is more basic or direct than selection by colour or by form. Examples of both types of theory are briefly described, and irrelevant and relevant evidence is critically discussed. It is concluded that the relevant evidence is directly compatible with the position-special views and that the position-not-special theories require additional extraneous assumptions. The position-special model presented in Van der Heijden (1992) is elaborated in further detail. It is shown that this model is compatible with two important and often substantiated assumptions of the position-not-special theories: the assumption that pre-attentive analysers organize the visual scene in objects against a background, and the assumption that visual-selective attention can be directed at objects isolated in this way. This position-special theory is a parsimonious theory because it can identify the mentalistic conceptselective attention with the materialistic conceptspatial position.     

A stochastic model for inter-keypress times in a typing task

A mathematical model for the inter-keypress times (IKT) in a typing task is proposed. The model, which includes a diffusion process terminated by a single response threshold, was evaluated using data obtained from typists. The differences in performance for successive cross-hand and within-hand keypresses were examined using IKT distributions and hazard functions, and it was shown that the empirical hazard functions could be fit by the theoretical hazard function derived from the convolution of normal and inverse Gaussian random variables. Some possible applications of the model for the evaluation of fatigue and strategic effects in typing are suggested.     

In search of an everyday morality: the development of a measure

Current interest in moral theorizing has been dominated by Kohlberg's cognitive-developmental view. Haan (1982) has challenged psychology's reliance on this rationalistic focus and has argued for a rethinking of morality's meaning in accord with everyday human experience. In light of this challenge, the present study gives both theoretical and empirical support to the advancement of a morality for everyday life. Specifically, a new measure called the Visions of Morality Scale (VMS) is reported. The VMS is sensitive to three dimensions which are necessary for an everyday morality: (1) a human constitutive component which is universally experienced by all human beings (empathy); (2) the inclusion of a behavioral component which reflects actual behavior (pro-social inclinations); and (3) a view of morality that is multilevel (private, interpersonal, and social). A brief sketch of the VMS is provided. Results are presented from a study of 181 high school students which relate the VMS to empathy and political orientation. Highly significant relationships were found among morality, political orientation, and empathy. In addition, results revealed numerous sex differences. Finally, the implications of an everyday morality are discussed.     

Teenage suicide in Zimbabwe

The teenage suicide rate in Zimbabwe did not change much during the 1970s, though the rate rose for female teenagers. Female teenagers used poison as a method of suicide more often than did adults, and self-immolation had increased in frequency among young women by the mid-1980s.