Semiotic systems,culture and early mathematical knowledge / Sistemas semióticos,cultura y conocimiento matemático temprano

Abstract

In this introduction to the issue Semiotic tools in early mathematical knowledge, we offer a theoretical perspective that provides meaning to the different contributions. We begin by reviewing three perspectives bearing an important influence on the study of mathematical development in childhood (the Piagetian, the information processing and the neonativist perspectives). Next, we underscore the need for developmental studies in this domain to consider the semiotic component, and hence the socio-cultural component, in depth. The contributions that form this volume — a theoretical article, five papers and four short reports of empirical studies and a review of an instructional approach — illustrate different ways of including the semiotic component in the study of children’s mathematical knowledge.     

Configurations of unemployment,reemployment, and psychological well-being: A longitudinal study of unemployed individuals in Portugal

This study examined how four different configurations of unemployment and reemployment (defined by history of past unemployment and unemployment/reemployment 3 years later) related to changes in psychological well-being. The longitudinal sample consisted of 566 Portuguese men and women who were unemployed at the beginning of the study. Using true change score models, we found that individuals who reported a long period of unemployment at T1 but were reemployed at T2 showed meaningful gains in positive affect and life satisfaction compared to those who had a shorter history of unemployment and were reemployed. An examination of gender differences revealed that the women who were reemployed after a long history of unemployment showed the greatest relative gains in positive affect. We conclude by noting limitations of this research and suggesting future research to address these limitations.     

Psychometric properties of a European Spanish version of the Perceived Stress Scale (PSS)

This paper presents evidence from a heterogeneous sample of 440 Spanish adults, for the reliability and validity of a European Spanish version of the Perceived Stress Scale (PSS), designed to measure the degree to which situations in one's life are appraised as stressful. The European Spanish version PSS (14-item) demonstrated adequate reliability (internal consistency, alpha = .81, and test-retest, r = .73), validity (concurrent), and sensitivity. Additional data indicate adequate reliability (alpha = .82, test-retest, r = .77), validity, and sensitivity of a 10-item short version of the PSS.     

Goal orientation, motivational climate, and dispositional flow of high school students engaged in extracurricular physical activity

The purpose of this study was to examine the role of goal orientation, motivational climate, and dispositional flow in physical education lessons on extracurricular involvement in physical activity. Questionnaires were administered to 1,103 (792 athletes; 311 nonathletes) secondary school students (M age = 14.3 yr., SD = 0.7). Analysis showed significant mean differences between groups on goal orientation and dispositional flow in physical education lessons, but none for perception of motivational climate. These findings suggest that dispositional variables are related to extracurricular involvement in physical activity.     

Organ sales and moral distress

abstract The possibility that organ sales by living adults might be made legal is morally distressing to many of us. However, powerful arguments have been provided recently supporting legalisation (I consider two of those arguments: the Consequentialist Argument and the Autonomy Argument). Is our instinctive reaction against a market of organs irrational then? The aim of this paper is not to prove that legalization would be immoral, all things considered, but rather to show, first, that there are some kinds of arguments, offered in favour of legalisation, that are, in an important sense, illegitimate, and second, that even if legalisation might not be wrong all things considered, there are good reasons for our negative moral intuitions. Moreover, identifying these reasons will help highlight some features of moral decisions in non‐ideal situations, which in turn might be relevant to some other moral or policy choices.     

The cumulative semantic cost does not reflect lexical selection by competition

The cumulative semantic cost describes a phenomenon in which picture naming latencies increase monotonically with each additional within-category item that is named in a sequence of pictures. Here we test whether the cumulative semantic cost requires the assumption of lexical selection by competition. In Experiment 1 participants named a sequence of pictures, while in Experiment 2 participants named words instead of pictures, preceded by a gender marked determiner. We replicate the basic cumulative semantic cost with pictures (Exp. 1) and show that there is no cumulative semantic cost for word targets (Exp. 2). This pattern was replicated in Experiment 3 in which pictures and words were named along with their gender marked definite determiner, and were intermingled within the same experimental design. In addition, Experiment 3 showed that while picture naming induces a cumulative semantic cost for subsequently named words, word naming does not induce a cumulative semantic cost for subsequently named pictures. These findings suggest that the cumulative semantic cost arises prior to lexical selection and that the effect arises due to incremental changes to the connection weights between semantic and lexical representations.     

Theories of Truth without Standard Models and Yablo’s Sequences

The aim of this paper is to show that it’s not a good idea to have a theory of truth that is consistent but ω-inconsistent. In order to bring out this point, it is useful to consider a particular case: Yablo’s Paradox. In theories of truth without standard models, the introduction of the truth-predicate to a first order theory does not maintain the standard ontology. Firstly, I exhibit some conceptual problems that follow from so introducing it. Secondly, I show that in second order theories with standard semantics the same procedure yields a theory that doesn’t have models. So, while having an ω- inconsistent theory is a bad thing, having an unsatisfiable theory of truth is actually worse. This casts doubts on whether the predicate in question is, after all, a truthpredicate for that language. Finally, I present some alternatives to prove an inconsistency adding plausible principles to certain theories of truth.     

Religious Context and Prosociality: An Experimental Study from Valparaíso,Chile

Are people more prosocial in a religious context? We addressed this question through an experiment. We randomly placed participants in the control group in a neutral location (a lecture hall), and we placed participants in the experimental group in a religious location (a chapel). The participants then took part in a one‐shot three‐person public goods game, which measured participants’ degree of cooperativeness. The results showed that participants in the experimental group cooperated significantly more than did participants in the control group. Furthermore, participants’ beliefs about other participants’ cooperativeness were more positive in the experimental group than they were in the control group. Improved expectations of others partially explained the enhanced cooperation in the religious context. We found no main or interaction effect of self‐reported religiosity in the experiment.     

Body Boundary and Psychological Control in an Arthritic Population

This study investigated the relationship of body boundary and psychological control in a sample of 115 arthritic and connective tissue disorder patients. Barrier and penetration scores in the Rorschach were compared with ratings of outer and inner control. A positive significant relationship was found between barrier and outer control and a negative significant relationship was found between penetration and inner control. It is indicated that in this population a combination of high barrier and low penetration is associated with good psychological control while a combination of low barrier and high penetration is associated with poor psychological control. A combination of high barrier and high penetration is associated with poor inner control and a combination of low barrier and low penetration is associated with poor outer control.