REMOVING VEILS OF IGNORANCE1

For more than two millennia the development of philosophy in what is called the West has been the province of men who trace their intellectual heritage to (some) men in ancient Greece. Within “the development of philosophy” I include the training of philosophers as well as publishing and preserving philosophical work in libraries. Thus I regard philosophy as a very material as well as spiritual enterprise. My focus here is on the spiritual impact, actual and potential, of recent changes in the material base of philosophy and the material impact of recent changes in the spiritual focus of philosophers. Before the Twentieth Century, the most significant transitions in the development of Western philosophy were its coming under the domination of Christian religious institutions and then its becoming relatively freed from such domination. Since the advent of the Twentieth Century, the most significant transitions may come from the increasing access to academic institutions of the middle and working classes, of people of color with histories of oppression by white societies, and of women from all classes and ethnic backgrounds—people who do not always or only trace their intellectual heritages to men of ancient Greece. What differences might these changes make to, and call for in, the development of philosophy? What I have thought about most are differences made by women and differences that have drawn in women to academic philosophy in Western democracies, such as the United States. Twentieth Century women in these contexts have published substantial bodies of philosophical inquiry with feminist agendas (both philosophy of feminism and philosophy manifesting feminist perspectives in ethics, epistemology, etc.). I want to comment on two features of such inquiry that often make it attractive to women less readily engaged by the traditions defined by privileged men. These features are holism and what I call “historical particularism.” I begin with “particularism.”     

Comparing the effects of static and dynamic signals during multiple schedules

The extent to which multiple schedules are an effective schedule thinning method following functional communication training (FCT) relies on the control the schedule-correlated stimuli exert over behavior. Thus, the stimuli used to signal the schedule in place (e.g., reinforcement and extinction) in a multiple schedule arrangement require special attention. To date, the majority of the research on multiple schedules has evaluated the use of different arbitrary signals as schedule-correlated stimuli (e.g., poster boards). These signals are considered static as they lack movement. More recently, some studies have successfully used dynamic signals, which include movement or animation, within multiple schedule arrangements. However, the extent to which one type of signal may result in faster stimulus control over behavior has not been evaluated. Thus, the purpose of this study was to compare the use of static and dynamic signals as schedule-correlated stimuli in multiple schedules used within the context of FCT. Four children diagnosed with autism spectrum disorder participated in the study. The results suggest that no differences in discriminated manding were observed for three out of four participants. Only dynamic signals resulted in discriminated manding for one participant.     

Sentence comprehension and production in children with cochlear implants: Errorless procedures and equivalence-based instruction

Research supports equivalence-based instruction (EBI) and matrix training for increased listening and speaking skills in children with cochlear implants (CI). We incorporated errorless procedures to optimize the EBI and evaluated the effects on the auditory comprehension and verbal responding at-sentences level in six CI children who were readers and showed inaccurate tacting. Subject-verb-object sentences were arranged in two matrices; diagonal combinations were trained and evaluated non-diagonal combinations. EBI included stimulus fading and exclusion to directly teach the dictated sentence-picture matching; written-sentences construction upon dictation also was taught. Probes assessed the derived stimulus-stimulus and stimulus-response relations. All participants learned the auditory-visual discriminations and the exclusion resulted in fewer errors than on a stimulus fading procedure. Five participants formed equivalence classes and increased verbal responding to equivalent stimuli, especially pictures tacting. They also showed recombinative generalization for both matrices. Professionals can incorporate errorless procedures to EBI for improving sentence comprehension, tacting, and productivity in CI children.     

Prospects for Computerized Memory Training in Normal Elderly: Effects of Practice on Explicit and Implicit Memory Tasks

We gave 12 cognitively normal, elderly adults (mean age = 76.33 years) training and practice on the Colorado Neuropsychology Tests, a computerized battery of explicit and implicit memory tasks. Half the subjects practised on the explicit memory tasks for 1.5 hours a week for 9 weeks with the assistance of a psychologist, while the other half practised on the implicit tasks for the equivalent amount of time. Subjects in both training conditions showed significant improvement within and across training sessions, with those in the implicit memory condition showing the most overall improvement, as indicated by standardized change scores. However, the improved performance on the training tasks did not result in more positive self-assessments of memory capability. In general, subjects displayed favourable attitudes toward the computer technology and were capable of learning to operate the computer software. The results support the practical application of computerized memory training with normal elderly adults.     

Expectancies, Setting, Age, and Beverage Choice as Predictors of Sexual Behaviors in Hypothetical Dating Situations

Brief vignettes depicting heterosexual dates were used to examine how date location (bar/restaurant), age (21/35), female character's beverage choice (alcohol/soda), and respondents' gender interacted to determine participants' estimations of the likelihood of sexual behaviors between daters. Participants were randomly assigned to read vignettes that combined these factors in a factorial design. Younger, alcohol-drinking females in a bar date were perceived as more likely to engage in sex than were nondrinking females at a restaurant. For older daters, neither factor was relevant. The drinking female was perceived as more likely to initiate sex than was the nondrinker. Alcohol use by the male target was not related to perceived initiation likelihood. Participants with stronger alcohol expectancies gave higher estimates of likelihood of sex.     

Women, Evil, and Grey Zones

Gray zones, which develop wherever oppression is severe and lasting, are inhabited by victims of evil who become complicit in perpetrating on others the evils that threaten to engulf themselves. Women, who have inhabited many gray zones, present challenges for feminist theorists, who have long struggled with how resistance is possible under coercive institutions. Building on Primo Levi's reflections on the gray zone in Nazi death camps and ghettos, this essay argues that resistance is sometimes possible, although outsiders are rarely, if ever, in a position to judge when. It also raises questions about the adequacy of ordinary moral concepts to mark the distinctions that would be helpful for thinking about how to respond in a gray zone.     

The longitudinal associations between personal belief in a just world and teacher justice among advantaged and disadvantaged school students

The Just World Hypothesis states that people need to believe in a just world in which they get what they deserve and deserve what they get. This study examines the longitudinal associations between personal belief in a just world (BJW), the belief that events in one's own life are just and teacher justice in different status groups. It is posited that the more individuals believe in a personal just world, the more they feel they are treated justly by others, and this should be particularly true for students with a low-status background. Longitudinal questionnaire data were obtained from students with German and Turkish/Muslim backgrounds over a period of 3–4 months. The pattern of results revealed that personal BJW was important for the Turkish/Muslim students in evaluating teachers as more just over a given period of time, but not for the German students. That is, the buffering effect of personal BJW was crucial for the disadvantaged students.     

The Role of Animacy in Children's Interpretation of Relative Clauses in English: Evidence From Sentence–Picture Matching and Eye Movements

Subject relative clauses (SRCs) are typically processed more easily than object relative clauses (ORCs), but this difference is diminished by an inanimate head-noun in semantically non-reversible ORCs (“The book that the boy is reading”). In two eye-tracking experiments, we investigated the influence of animacy on online processing of semantically reversible SRCs and ORCs using lexically inanimate items that were perceptually animate due to motion (e.g., “Where is the tractor that the cow is chasing”). In Experiment 1, 48 children (aged 4;5–6;4) and 32 adults listened to sentences that varied in the lexical animacy of the NP1 head-noun (Animate/Inanimate) and relative clause (RC) type (SRC/ORC) with an animate NP2 while viewing two images depicting opposite actions. As expected, inanimate head-nouns facilitated the correct interpretation of ORCs in children; however, online data revealed children were more likely to anticipate an SRC as the RC unfolded when an inanimate head-noun was used, suggesting processing was sensitive to perceptual animacy. In Experiment 2, we repeated our design with inanimate (rather than animate) NP2s (e.g., “where is the tractor that the car is following”) to investigate whether our online findings were due to increased visual surprisal at an inanimate as agent, or to similarity-based interference. We again found greater anticipation for an SRC in the inanimate condition, supporting our surprisal hypothesis. Across the experiments, offline measures show that lexical animacy influenced children's interpretation of ORCs, whereas online measures reveal that as RCs unfolded, children were sensitive to the perceptual animacy of lexically inanimate NPs, which was not reflected in the offline data. Overall measures of syntactic comprehension, inhibitory control, and verbal short-term memory and working memory were not predictive of children's accuracy in RC interpretation, with the exception of a positive correlation with a standardized measure of syntactic comprehension in Experiment 1.     

Fathers' caregiving in low-income African–American and Hispanic–American families

The present study assessed fathers' and mothers' relative involvement in infant caregiving tasks in 34 low-income African–American and Hispanic–American families. Analysis showed that involvement in childcare differed as a function of the gender of the parent. Fathers spent one half the time mothers did in caregiving. However, fathers' and mothers' participation in caregiving did not vary as a function of ethnic group. African–American parents reported to have received more family support than Hispanic–American parents. Although relationships were noted between age, income, education, length of marriage, social support, and involvement in infant caregiving, these sociodemographic variables did not predict parents' participation in childcare. The results are discussed in relation to the preconceived notion that low-income, minority fathers are ‘uninvolved’. ©1997 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.