Newly learned word forms are abstract and integrated immediately after acquisition

A hotly debated question in word learning concerns the conditions under which newly learned words compete or interfere with familiar words during spoken word recognition. This has recently been described as a key marker of the integration of a new word into the lexicon and was thought to require consolidation Dumay & Gaskell, (Psychological Science, 18, 35–39, 2007; Gaskell & Dumay, Cognition, 89, 105–132, 2003). Recently, however, Kapnoula, Packard, Gupta, and McMurray, (Cognition, 134, 85–99, 2015) showed that interference can be observed immediately after a word is first learned, implying very rapid integration of new words into the lexicon. It is an open question whether these kinds of effects derive from episodic traces of novel words or from more abstract and lexicalized representations. Here we addressed this question by testing inhibition for newly learned words using training and test stimuli presented in different talker voices. During training, participants were exposed to a set of nonwords spoken by a female speaker. Immediately after training, we assessed the ability of the novel word forms to inhibit familiar words, using a variant of the visual world paradigm. Crucially, the test items were produced by a male speaker. An analysis of fixations showed that even with a change in voice, newly learned words interfered with the recognition of similar known words. These findings show that lexical competition effects from newly learned words spread across different talker voices, which suggests that newly learned words can be sufficiently lexicalized, and abstract with respect to talker voice, without consolidation.     

Infant directed speech and the development of speech perception: Enhancing development or an unintended consequence?

Infant directed speech (IDS) is a speech register characterized by simpler sentences, a slower rate, and more variable prosody. Recent work has implicated it in more subtle aspects of language development. Kuhl et al. (1997) demonstrated that segmental cues for vowels are affected by IDS in a way that may enhance development: the average locations of the extreme “point” vowels (/a/, /i/ and /u/) are further apart in acoustic space. If infants learn speech categories, in part, from the statistical distributions of such cues, these changes may specifically enhance speech category learning. We revisited this by asking (1) if these findings extend to a new cue (Voice Onset Time, a cue for voicing); (2) whether they extend to the interior vowels which are much harder to learn and/or discriminate; and (3) whether these changes may be an unintended phonetic consequence of factors like speaking rate or prosodic changes associated with IDS. Eighteen caregivers were recorded reading a picture book including minimal pairs for voicing (e.g., beach/peach) and a variety of vowels to either an adult or their infant. Acoustic measurements suggested that VOT was different in IDS, but not in a way that necessarily supports better development, and that these changes are almost entirely due to slower rate of speech of IDS. Measurements of the vowel suggested that in addition to changes in the mean, there was also an increase in variance, and statistical modeling suggests that this may counteract the benefit of any expansion of the vowel space. As a whole this suggests that changes in segmental cues associated with IDS may be an unintended by-product of the slower rate of speech and different prosodic structure, and do not necessarily derive from a motivation to enhance development.     

Justification as faultlessness

According to deontological approaches to justification, we can analyze justification in deontic terms. In this paper, I try to advance the discussion of deontological approaches by applying recent insights in the semantics of deontic modals. Specifically, I use the distinction between weak necessity modals (should, ought to) and strong necessity modals (must, have to) to make progress on a question that has received surprisingly little discussion in the literature, namely: ‘What’s the best version of a deontological approach?’ The two most obvious hypotheses are the Permissive View, according to which justified expresses permission, and the Obligatory View, according to which justified expresses some species of obligation. I raise difficulties for both of these hypotheses. In light of these difficulties, I propose a new position, according to which justified expresses a property I call faultlessness, defined as the dual of weak necessity modals. According to this view, an agent is justified in \(\phi\)-ing iff it’s not the case that she should [/ought] not \(\phi\). I argue that this ‘Faultlessness View’ gives us precisely what’s needed to avoid the problems facing the Permissive and Obligatory Views.     

Individual differences in online spoken word recognition: Implications for SLI

Thirty years of research has uncovered the broad principles that characterize spoken word processing across listeners. However, there have been few systematic investigations of individual differences. Such an investigation could help refine models of word recognition by indicating which processing parameters are likely to vary, and could also have important implications for work on language impairment. The present study begins to fill this gap by relating individual differences in overall language ability to variation in online word recognition processes. Using the visual world paradigm, we evaluated online spoken word recognition in adolescents who varied in both basic language abilities and non-verbal cognitive abilities. Eye movements to target, cohort and rhyme objects were monitored during spoken word recognition, as an index of lexical activation. Adolescents with poor language skills showed fewer looks to the target and more fixations to the cohort and rhyme competitors. These results were compared to a number of variants of the TRACE model (McClelland & Elman, 1986) that were constructed to test a range of theoretical approaches to language impairment: impairments at sensory and phonological levels; vocabulary size, and generalized slowing. None of the existing approaches were strongly supported, and variation in lexical decay offered the best fit. Thus, basic word recognition processes like lexical decay may offer a new way to characterize processing differences in language impairment.     

The Bearable Lightness of Being

How are philosophical questions about what kinds of things there are to be understood and how are they to be answered? This paper defends broadly Fregean answers to these questions. Ontological categories—such as object, property, and relation—are explained in terms of a prior logical categorization of expressions, as singular terms, predicates of varying degree and level, etc. Questions about what kinds of object, property, etc., there are are, on this approach, reduce to questions about truth and logical form: for example, the question whether there are numbers is the question whether there are true atomic statements in which expressions function as singular terms which, if they have reference at all, stand for numbers, and the question whether there are properties of a given type is a question about whether there are meaningful predicates of an appropriate degree and level. This approach is defended against the objection that it must be wrong because makes what there depend on us or our language. Some problems confronting the Fregean approach—including Frege’s notorious paradox of the concept horse—are addressed. It is argued that the approach results in a modest and sober deflationary understanding of ontological commitments.     

Social and Personal Factors as Predictors of Earthquake Preparation: The Role of Support Provision,Network Discussion,Negative Affect,Age, and Education1

Panel data collected in 1991 as part of the University of Southern California Longitudinal Study of Generations (LSOG) were used to predict reported preparation activities prior to and in response to the 1994 Northridge, California, earthquake. In late 1994 and early 1995, 163 panelists (representing 107 multigenerational families) were interviewed by phone about their earthquake experiences. The best 1991 predictor of pre‐quake preparation was the extent of instrumental support respondents provided to network members. Earthquake preparation activities undertaken after the quake were associated with the amount and cost of damage experienced during the quake, 1991 neuroticism scores, age (inversely), and having preparedness encouraged by multiple network sources. The results highlight the importance of social roles (e.g., support provision) and discussion by informal network sources in the adoption of public health and safety messages.     

Visual versus kinesthetic mental imagery: Efficacy for the retention and transfer of a closed motor skill in young children

The main purposes of this study were (a) to compare the effects of mental imagery combined with physical practise and specific physical practise on the retention and transfer of a closed motor skill in young children; (b) to determine the mental imagery (visual vs. kinesthetic), which is the most efficient for retention and transfer of a closed motor skill; and (c) to verify the relationship between movement image vividness and motor performance. As for the secondary purpose, it was to compare the effects of gender on motor learning. Participants (n = 96) were selected from 3 primary schools. These participants were divided into 6 groups and submitted to different experimental conditions. The experimental task required the participants to throw, with the nondominant hand (left hand), a ball toward a target composed of 3 concentric circles. The results demonstrated that performance obtained by the mental imagery (visual or kinesthetic) combined with physical practise group was, during the retention phase, equivalent to that produced by the specific physical practise group but significantly superior during the transfer of closed motor skill. These results showed the potential benefits of mental imagery as a retention strategy intended for motor skills and performance enhancement. Such results could be explained by the similarity of 3 principal functional evidences shared by mental and physical practise: behavioural, central, and peripheral (as suggested by Holmes & Collins, 2001). (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2008 APA, all rights reserved).     

A reassessment of psychoanalytic education: Controversies and changes2

To understand the many controversies surrounding psychoanalytic education, it is necessary first to understand the unique role played by education in our field where control of educational structures remains the most important measure of professional success for the majority of psychoanalysts. To keep debate about educational policy focused on the task of strengthening the intellectual basis of psychoanalysis, it is also necessary to understand that forces affecting education arise from at least three different domains which can too easily become confused with one another: 1) the domain of knowledge‐ intellectual, scientific and clinical; 2) the domain of the organized professional community; and 3) the domain of local institutional politics. The authors explore controversy arising within and among each of these domains. They also explore the major alternatives proposed to the Eitingon model of psychoanalytic education, arguing that excessive authoritarianism in education arises not from the existence of hierarchical structures per se (as suggested by the ‘French model’), but from two other factors: the condensation of all important professional functions into the single ‘monolithic’ position of the training analyst, and the lack of agreed upon methodology for determining the validity of theoretical propositions. The solution lies not in obliterating all gaps in expertise and status by doing away with hierarchical structures altogether, but rather in strengthening the intellectual, scholarly and research context within which psychoanalytic education takes place. We must attempt to relocate our experience of a gap where it belongs: not between those who are training analysts and those who are not, but between what we feel we already know about mental life and what we do not yet know.