Temporal necessity; Hard facts/soft facts

Conclusion In conclusion, then, the notion of temporal necessity is certainly queer and perhaps a misnomer. It really has little to do with temporality per se and everything to do with counterfactual openness or closedness. We have seen that the future is as unalterable as the past, but that this purely logical truth is not antithetical to freedom or contingency. Moreover, we have found certain past facts are counterfactually open in that were future events or actualities to be other than they will be, these past facts would have been different as a consequence. God's beliefs about the future are such past facts. Moreover, the effects of actions which God would have taken had He believed differently are also such past facts. Oddly enough, then, virtually any past fact is potentially counterfactually open, and the only necessity that remains is purely de facto. We, of course, do not in general know which events of the past depend counterfactually on present actions, and those cases we do know about seem rather trivial. Our intuitions of the necessity, unalterability, and unpreventability of the past as opposed to the future stem from the impossibility of backward causation, which is precluded by the dynamic nature of time and becoming. But the counterfactual dependence of God's beliefs on future events or actualities is not a case of backward causation: rather future-tense propositions are true in virtue of what will happen, given a view of truth as correspondence, and God simply has the essential property of knowing all and only true propositions. With regard to the future, virtually all facts are counterfactually open, and therefore future-tense propositions are not temporally necessary. Propositions thus move from being temporally contingent to being temporally necessary when all the opportunities to affect things counterfactually have slipped by. Hence, the mere fact that an event is past is no indication that it is counterfactually closed. This is especially evident in the case of God's foreknowledge. If we say that God foreknows that I shall do x and therefore I cannot refrain from doing x, lest I change God's past foreknowledge, we are being deceived by a modality which has nothing to do with my power or freedom. All that is impossible is the conjunction of God's foreknowledge that p and of ~ p; but this modality in sensu composito has no bearing on my ability to act such that ~ p would be true and God would have foreknown differently. Temporal necessity, then, turns out to be only obliquely temporal and modally weak, certainly no threat to freedom or divine foreknowledge.     

Warm-up effects in the learning of discrete motor skills

Three experiments were conducted to determine the influence of warming-up activities on performance and on learning in two discrete motor tasks. During initial trials on the criterion task, Ss were given various types of warming-up activities having an activity-set that was either the same as or different from the criterion task. Test trials followed in which all groups practiced the criterion task only. No significant differences in performance on the criterion task were found regardless of the appropriateness of the warming-up activity during initial trials. The results suggested that warming-up properties are not a factor in original learning of discrete motor skills.     

Skin conductance response conditioning with CS intensities equal to and greater than UCS intensity

With .2-sec bursts of white noise as both conditioned stimulus (CS) and unconditioned stimulus (UCS), conditioning of first-interval skin conductance responses was obtained when the intensity of the CS equaled and exceeded that of the UCS. There was no evidence that second-interval response conditioning occurred. Nonspecific response frequencies were also affected by the variations in stimulus intensity, this raising some question about typical controls employed in SCR conditioning. There was some evidence that second interval responses were suppressed by the intense CS values. It was concluded that the existence of simple conditioning with a CS/UCS intensity ratio equal to or greater than unity was contrary to the Pavlovian proposition that a CS must be biologically less salient than the UCS in order for conditioning to occur. It was noted, however, that the suppression of second-interval responses might indicate that anticipatory CRs which are not confounded with orienting reflexes are prevented from exhibiting a conditioning effect when a high CS/UCS intensity ratio is employed.     

Brightness of paired photic pulses with pulse duration and separation varied

The brightness of pairs of photic pulses, differing in pulse duration and pulse separation. was measured. The data were in general agreement with the neurophysiological model of Bishop and Clare. Pulse duration appeared to have little systematic influence on the shape of the curves. Time between onset of the first and second pulse appeared to be a prime factor determining the receptivity of the cortex to the second pulse. The two pulses were seen as single below about .03 sec separation. The second pulse was always judged brighter than the first.     

'I'm Just Saying . . .': Discourse Markers of Standpoint Continuity

Examining discourse markers (Schiffrin, 1987) in two transcribed discussions of controversial issues in an undergraduate 'critical thinking' class, we note frequent uses of 'I'm just saying' and related metadiscursive expressions (I'm/we're saying, I'm/we're not saying, etc.). Our central claim is that these 'saying' expressions are pragmatic devices by which speakers claim 'all along' to have held a consistent argumentative standpoint, one that continues through the discussion unless changed for good reasons. Through close analysis of a series of discourse examples, we show how these discourse markers are used to display continuity, deflect counterarguments, and acknowledge the force of counterarguments while preserving continuity. In a concluding section we reflect critically on the use of these continuity markers with regard to four pragmatic functions that they potentially serve: to specify and clarify argumentative standpoints, to acknowledge a presumption of standpoint continuity, to acknowledge a normative expectation that discussion participants should have standpoints, and to avoid overt disagreement while saving face.     

An Island in a Sea of Development: An Examination of Place Attachment,Activity Type,and Crowding in an Urban National Park

ABSTRACT

As more people move to urban areas there will be increased pressure on existing green spaces to offer places for recreation, contemplation, historic interpretation, exercise, and nature appreciation. Development and a rise in population has led to too few public recreation sites available in many regions of the world resulting in unsustainable pressure being applied to parks. The objective of this study was to examine how place attachment may be related to type and frequency of park use and management issues regarding crowding. Data for this study were obtained via intercept survey of a random sample of visitors (N = 1088) at a park in the Metro Atlanta area, Georgia. Results suggest that place attachment had a significant relationship with frequency of visits and types of activities that visitors engaged in. There was, however, no significant relation between place attachment and crowding. First-time visitors and less frequent visitors felt most crowded, which may support the idea that the most frequent visitors expect it to be crowded and are, therefore, less sensitive to it. This study sheds light on how visitors to an urban park view their experience while recreating, and may inform policies and regulations that will help mitigate the unique management situations that urban parks present.     

Eye Movements and Lexical Access in Spoken-Language Comprehension: Evaluating a Linking Hypothesis between Fixations and Linguistic Processing

A growing number of researchers in the sentence processing community are using eye movements to address issues in spoken language comprehension. Experiments using this paradigm have shown that visually presented referential information, including properties of referents relevant to specific actions, influences even the earliest moments of syntactic processing. Methodological concerns about task-specific strategies and the linking hypothesis between eye movements and linguistic processing are identified and discussed. These concerns are addressed in a review of recent studies of spoken word recognition which introduce and evaluate a detailed linking hypothesis between eye movements and lexical access. The results provide evidence about the time course of lexical activation that resolves some important theoretical issues in spoken-word recognition. They also demonstrate that fixations are sensitive to properties of the normal language-processing system that cannot be attributed to task-specific strategies.     

Long-term effects of intensive treatment for a client with both a cluttering and stuttering disorder

This study presents data on the effects of an intensive smooth speech treatment program for stuttering on the speech and psychological status of a man, aged 21 years who stuttered and who was also diagnosed as a clutterer (S 29). Stuttering was mild to moderate (7% syllables stuttered) (%SS) and consisted mostly of rapid repetitions with an occasional block. The client had stuttered since the age of 5 years. Initial rate could not be determined with accuracy due to its irregularity and speed, but was estimated to be between 260 to 300 syllables per minute (SPM). Speech was also characterized by irregular quick bursts that were often unintelligible. There was no evidence of abnormal psychological traits. However, a higher than normal level of negative communication attitudes was evidenced. An intensive 3-week smooth speech program designed to reduce and control stuttering was initiated. It was believed the training, which involved rate control, would control the cluttering symptoms as well. After successful completion of the program, stuttering was greatly reduced, and the gains were maintained after 10 months. Speech rate was reduced to normal levels and was also maintained at the 10-month follow-up. Negative attitudes to communication, furthermore, were greatly reduced both in the short- and long-term. Consequently the cluttering symptoms after treatment were minimal. This case study suggests that an intensive treatment for stuttering, which contains rate control, can also be a successful treatment for cluttering, at least for those who also stutter.