Perspectival Direct Reference for Proper Names

I defend what I believe to be a new variation on Kripkean themes, for the purpose of providing an improved way to understand the referring functions of proper names. I begin by discussing roles played by perceptual perspectives in the use of proper names, and then broaden the discussion to include what I call “cognitive perspectives.” Although both types of perspectives underwrite the existence of intentional intermediaries between proper names and their referents, the existence of these intentional intermediaries does not entail that a Kripke-inspired view of direct reference must be abandoned. At the same time, the existence of these intermediaries can be seen to play illuminating roles as regards the referring functions of proper names in the following types of cases, among others: (a) where different names pick out the same subject; (b) where names are empty. Along the way, I argue that “perspectival views” are not something “inside the head” of language users as intended by Putnam in his well-known discussion of meaning.     

Examining the Relationships Between Personality,Coping Strategies,and Work–Family Conflict

Purpose  

The purpose of this study was to examine the processes through which personality characteristics may influence work–family conflict (WFC). Specifically, the mediating effects of selection, optimization, and compensation (SOC) behavioral stress-coping strategies on the relationship between personality characteristics and WFC were tested.     

Treatment specific competence predicts outcome in cognitive therapy for social anxiety disorder

Several studies have demonstrated a positive relationship between competence and outcome in CBT for depression but studies of CBT for anxiety disorders are lacking. The present study explores the relationship between competence and outcome in cognitive therapy (CT) for social anxiety disorder, using hierarchical linear modeling analyses (HLM). Data were drawn from a multicenter randomized controlled trial. Five trained raters evaluated videotapes of two therapy sessions per patient using the Cognitive Therapy Competence Scale for Social Phobia (CTCS-SP). Overall adherence to the treatment manual and patient difficulty were also assessed. Patient outcome was rated by other assessors using the Clinical Global Impression Improvement Scale (CGI-I) and the Liebowitz Social Anxiety Scale (LSAS). Results indicated that competence significantly predicted patient outcome on the CGI-I (β = .79) and LSAS (β = .59). Patient difficulty and adherence did not further improve prediction. The findings support the view that competence influences outcome and should be a focus of training programs. Further research is needed to compare different ways of assessing competence and to understand the complex relationships between competence and other therapy factors that are likely to influence outcome.     

The effects of verbal operant training and response interruption and redirection on appropriate and inappropriate vocalizations

Past research has shown that response interruption and redirection (RIRD) can effectively decrease automatically reinforced motor behavior (Hagopian & Adelinis, 2001). Ahearn, Clark, MacDonald, and Chung (2007) found that a procedural adaptation of RIRD reduced vocal stereotypy and increased appropriate vocalizations for some children, although appropriate vocalizations were not targeted directly. The purpose of the current study was to examine the effects of directly targeting appropriate language (i.e., verbal operant training) on vocal stereotypy and appropriate speech in 3 children with an autism spectrum disorder. The effects of verbal operant (i.e., tact) training were evaluated in a nonconcurrent multiple baseline design across participants. In addition, RIRD was implemented with 2 of the 3 participants to further decrease levels of vocal stereotypy. Verbal operant training alone produced slightly lower levels of stereotypy and increased appropriate vocalizations for all 3 participants; however, RIRD was required to produce acceptably low levels of stereotypy for 2 of the 3 participants.     

PLEASURE AS SELF‐DISCOVERY

This paper uses readings of two classic autobiographies, Edmund Gosse's Father & Son and John Stuart Mill's Autobiography, to develop a distinctive answer to an old and central question in value theory: What role is played by pleasure in the most successful human life? A first section defends my method. The main body of the paper then defines and rejects voluntarist, stoic, and developmental hedonist lessons to be taken from central crises in my two subjects' autobiographies, and argues for a fourth, diagnostic lesson: Gosse and Mill perceive their individual good through the medium of pleasure. Finally, I offer some speculative moral psychology of human development, as involving the waking, perception, management, and flowering of generic and individual capacities, which I suggest underlies Gosse and Mill's experiences. The acceptance of one's own unchosen nature, discovered by self‐perceptive pleasure in the operation of one's nascent capacities, is the beginning of a flourishing adulthood in which that nature is fully developed and expressed.     

Source expertise and persuasion: the effects of perceived opposition or support on message scrutiny

Compared to nonexperts, expert sources have been considered to elicit more processing of persuasive messages because of expectations that the information is likely to be valid or accurate. However, depending on the position of an advocacy, source expertise could activate other motives that may produce a very different relation from that found in past research. When messages are counterattitudinal (disagreeable), experts should motivate greater processing than nonexpert sources because of expectations that they will likely provide robust opposition to one's existing views. In contrast, when advocacies are proattitudinal (agreeable), nonexpert rather than expert sources should elicit more scrutiny because of perceptions that they will likely provide inadequate support to recipients' current views. Two studies offer evidence consistent with these predictions. Manipulations of source expertise created different expectations regarding the strength of opposition or support, and these perceptions accounted for effects of source expertise on the amount of message scrutiny.     

Resolving the contributions of fatigue-induced migration and scapular reorientation on the subacromial space: an orthopaedic geometric simulation analysis

Subacromial impingement occurs when tissues interposed between the humeral head and the acromion become compressed between the bones. Two fatigue-related mechanisms are suggested to contribute to this impingement: superior humeral head migration and scapular reorientation, specifically downward rotation, anterior tilt and protraction. Although both mechanisms have received attention, controversy exists regarding their relative contributions to reducing subacromial space width. This simulation study presents a three-dimensional orthopedic model for assessing the spatial relationship between the humerus and the scapula. Through incorporating empirically generated fatigue data as inputs, changes in the subacromial space associated with each mechanism acting independently and in combination were quantified. These changes were examined for three scenarios (average, impingement sparing, impingement causing) and at three humeral elevation angles (0°, 45° and 90°) in a total of 36 unique simulations. Humeral head migration generally decreased the subacromial space and scapular reorientation generally increased the space across scenarios. This strongly implies that superior humeral migration is the dominant fatigue-related mechanism associated with increasing the likelihood of impingement. The results suggest that future research should target efforts to reduce migration in industry, primarily through avoidance or modification of situations known to induce rotator cuff fatigue, such as overhead work.     

Assessing the Incremental Algorithm: A Response to Krahmer et al.

This response discusses the experiment reported in Krahmer et al.’s Letter to the Editor of Cognitive Science. We observe that their results do not tell us whether the Incremental Algorithm is better or worse than its competitors, and we speculate about implications for reference in complex domains, and for learning from ‘‘normal” (i.e., non‐semantically‐balanced) corpora.