Equivalence relations, contextual control, and naming

This paper reports two experiments that investigated the role of verbal behavior in the emergence and generalization of contextually controlled equivalence classes. During both experiments, participants were trained with two different combinations of the same easily nameable, yet formally unrelated, pictorial stimuli. Match-to-sample baselines for eight four-member classes were established under the contextual control of two colors. In the presence of one color, conditional relations were established between stimuli whose normative names rhymed. In the presence of the other color, conditional relations were established between stimuli whose normative names did not rhyme. Although, during Experiment 1, all participants demonstrated equivalence classes involving rhyming stimuli, none demonstrated the formation of nonrhyme equivalence classes. To investigate this finding, Experiment 2 evaluated whether participants would demonstrate both rhyme and nonrhyme equivalence classes given more extensive exposure to the experimental contingencies. All participants demonstrated contextually controlled rhyme and nonrhyme equivalence classes, although rhyme classes were demonstrated with greater facility than nonrhyme classes. Results indicate that visual stimuli are named, that verbal bases for stimulus classification can affect the emergence of contextually controlled equivalence classes, and that untrained contextually controlled conditional discriminations involving novel stimuli can emerge on the basis of participants' verbal behavior.     

When similarity and causality compete in category-based property generalization

Five experiments were performed to investigate the category-based generalization of nonblank properties, properties that were novel but that were attributed to existing category features with causal explanations. Experiments 1-3 tested how such explanations interact with the well-known effects of similarity on such generalizations. The results showed that when the causal explanations were used, standard effects of typicality (Experiment 1), diversity (Experiment 2), or similarity itself (Experiment 3) were almost completely eliminated. Experiments 4 and 5 demonstrated that category-based generalizations exhibit some of the standard properties of causal reasoning; for example, an effect (i.e., a novel category property) is judged to be more prevalent when its cause (i.e., an existing category feature) is also prevalent. These findings suggest that category-based property generalization is often an instance of causal inference.     

The thrill of victory and the agony of defeat: spontaneous expressions of medal winners of the 2004 Athens Olympic Games

Facial behaviors of medal winners of the judo competition at the 2004 Athens Olympic Games were coded with P. Ekman and W. V. Friesen's (1978) Facial Affect Coding System (FACS) and interpreted using their Emotion FACS dictionary. Winners' spontaneous expressions were captured immediately when they completed medal matches, when they received their medal from a dignitary, and when they posed on the podium. The 84 athletes who contributed expressions came from 35 countries. The findings strongly supported the notion that expressions occur in relation to emotionally evocative contexts in people of all cultures, that these expressions correspond to the facial expressions of emotion considered to be universal, that expressions provide information that can reliably differentiate the antecedent situations that produced them, and that expressions that occur without inhibition are different than those that occur in social and interactive settings.     

Instructions for Authors

Instructions for Authors

Instructions for Authors     

Gradient effects of within-category phonetic variation on lexical access

In order to determine whether small within-category differences in voice onset time (VOT) affect lexical access, eye movements were monitored as participants indicated which of four pictures was named by spoken stimuli that varied along a 0-40 ms VOT continuum. Within-category differences in VOT resulted in gradient increases in fixations to cross-boundary lexical competitors as VOT approached the category boundary. Thus, fine-grained acoustic/phonetic differences are preserved in patterns of lexical activation for competing lexical candidates and could be used to maximize the efficiency of on-line word recognition.     

Quantum Logic in Intuitionistic Perspective

In their seminal paper Birkhoff and von Neumann revealed the following dilemma:[ ] whereas for logicians the orthocomplementation properties of negation were the ones least able to withstand a critical analysis, the study of mechanics points to the distributive identities as the weakest link in the algebra of logic.In this paper we eliminate this dilemma, providing a way for maintaining both. Via the introduction of the "missing" disjunctions in the lattice of properties of a physical system while inheriting the meet as a conjunction we obtain a complete Heyting algebra of propositions on physical properties. In particular there is a bijective correspondence between property lattices and propositional lattices equipped with a so called operational resolution, an operation that exposes the properties on the level of the propositions. If the property lattice goes equipped with an orthocomplementation, then this bijective correspondence can be refined to one with propositional lattices equipped with an operational complementation, as such establishing the claim made above. Formally one rediscovers via physical and logical considerations as such respectively a specification and a refinement of the purely mathematical result by Bruns and Lakser (1970) on injective hulls of meet-semilattices. From our representation we can derive a truly intuitionistic functional implication on property lattices, as such confronting claims made in previous writings on the matter. We also make a detailed analysis of disjunctivity vs. distributivity and finitary vs. infinitary conjunctivity, we briefly review the Bruns-Lakser construction and indicate some questions which are left open.     

Rising verbal intelligence scores: implications for research and clinical practice

Evidence suggests that scores on various intelligence tests have been rising at a fast rate. To find out whether performance on the Wechsler Adult Intelligence Scale (WAIS) Vocabulary subtest has also been rising, the authors searched major psychology journals for investigations involving healthy younger and older adult participants and collected the reported WAIS Vocabulary scores. The meta-analysis shows that WAIS Vocabulary scores have been rising at the rate of 0.117/year (corresponding to 1.52 IQ points/decade) for younger adults and 0.367/year (corresponding to 4.79 IQ points/decade) for older adults.     

Maternal depression and the timing of mother–child dialogue

Turn-taking in dialogue is an essential part of communication and early language experience. The prevalence of utterances and the timing of responses in dialogue were examined at 14 and 36 months of age in 104 mother–child dyads from the Early Head Start Research and Evaluation Project (EHSREP). Mothers varied in their level of depression risk (measured with the Center for Epidemiological Studies-Depression scale; CES-D). Although maternal utterance rate did not vary significantly across any factors, the latency of mothers' responses to their children decreased with development (12 ms/month) and was significantly related to that of their own children (i.e., slow-responding children had slow-responding mothers). Mothers with higher levels of depressive symptoms were 11% slower in responding to their children than mothers with low depression risk, suggesting that the interactive timing of speech to children may be particularly sensitive to maternal depression, modifying the contingent properties of children's early language experience.     

The impact of a new emotional self-management program on stress, emotions, heart rate variability, DHEA and cortisol

This study examined the effects on healthy adults of a new emotional self-management program, consisting of two key techniques, “Cut-Thru” and the “Heart Lock-In.” These techniques are designed to eliminate negative thought loops and promote sustained positive emotional states. The hypotheses were that training and practice in these techniques would yield lowered levels of stress and negative emotion and cortisol, while resulting in increased positive emotion and DHEA levels over a one-month period. In addition, we hypothesized that increased coherence in heart rate variability patterns would be observed during the practice of the techniques. Forty-five healthy adults participated in the study, fifteen of whom acted as a comparison group for the psychological measures. Salivary DHEA/DHEAS and cortisol levels were measured, autonomic nervous system function was assessed by heart rate variability analysis, and emotions were measured using a psychological questionnaire. Individuals in the experimental group were assessed before and four weeks after receiving training in the self-management techniques. The experimental group experienced significant increases in the positive affect scales of Caring and Vigor and significant decreases in the negative affect scales of Guilt, Hostility, Burnout, Anxiety and Stress Effects, while no significant changes were seen in the comparison group. There was a mean 23 percent reduction in cortisol and a 100 percent increase in DHEA/DHEAS in the experimental group. DHEA was significantly and positively related to the affective state Warmheartedness, whereas cortisol was significantly and positively related to Stress Effects. Increased coherence in heart rate variability patterns was measured in 80 percent of the experimental group during the use of the techniques. The results suggest that techniques designed to eliminate negative thought loops can have important positive effects on stress, emotions and key physiological systems. The implications are that relatively inexpensive interventions may dramatically and positively impact individuals’ health and well-being. Thus, individuals may have greater control over their minds, bodies and health than previously suspected.