On Bound Variable Interpretations: The LF-Only Hypothesis

Under what conditions do perceivers prefer to assign a bound variable interpretation to a pronominal that is ambiguous between a bound variable and a coreferential interpretation? Several experiments were designed to test the hypothesis that language perceivers prefer a bound variable over a coreferential interpretation of a pronoun because the former only requires consultation of a logical form (LF) representation, while the latter requires access to a discourse representation. The hypothesis was disconfirmed in two respects. First, although bound variable interpretations show a processing advantage over coreferential interpretations in VP ellipsis constructions, the preference for bound variable interpretations is not general--it does not extend to other quantificational contexts. Second, the preference for bound variable interpretations in VP ellipsis constructions is not limited to examples in which the antecedent and the ellipsis site occur in the same sentence. If the bound variable advantage were due to the ready availability of the LF for the current sentence, the advantage should disappear across sentence boundaries. An alternative hypothesis is then considered which could explain the source of the bound variable advantage in VP ellipsis contexts.     

Processing Coordinate Structures

Coordination often involves syntactically like categories. Based on the results of four reading time studies, it is argued here that the syntactic like-category restriction is not grammatical. Coordination of unlike categories can be just as acceptable as coordination of like categories. However, syntactically like category coordination is processed faster than coordination of unlike categories even when the two sentence types are judged to be fully acceptable. Further, parallelism of conjuncts facilitates processing regardless of whether it is parallelism in the category of the conjuncts (a property which the grammar might regulate) or parallelism in the internal structure of the conjuncts (a property which the grammar does not regulate, on anyone's view). Parallelism did not facilitate processing when the structure of a subject and object were manipulated, implying that parallelism effects are largely limited to the conjuncts of a coordinate structure and not due simply to the repetition of a phrase with a particular shape.     

The Psychosocial Adjustment to Illness Scale--Self-Report: factor structure and item stability

The Psychosocial Adjustment to Illness Scale--Self-Report (PAIS-SR; Derogatis & Derogatis, 1990), a frequently used measure of adjustment in medically ill adults, was subjected to several exploratory factor analyses, with principal-axes factor extractions and varimax rotation procedures. The sample consisted of kidney, heart, liver, lung, and bone marrow transplant candidates (N = 280). The final analysis yielded a six-factor, 26-item instrument accounting for 59% of the variance. Coefficient alpha for the 26-item measure was .87, and internal consistency estimates for the factors ranged from .50 to .86. Strong correlations with other adjustment measures commonly used in the assessment of adults with chronic physical conditions support the validity of the PAIS-SR.     

Reviews of current books

Conclusion Wise counseling can relieve the anxiety and inner conflict of parents torn between the dread of their retarded offspring becoming a parent and the fear of an operation they believe to be illegal, immoral, and castrating.By knowing where to refer patients, clergymen can make it possible for some of these deprived members of society to find support and love within marriage without being overburdened by children they are not capable of rearing properly.     

Deception research involving children: ethical practices and paradoxes

This commentary draws on the thoughtful contemplation and innovative procedures described in the special section articles as well as current professional codes and federal regulations to highlight ethical practices and paradoxes of deception research involving children. The discussion is organized around 4 key decision points for the conduct of responsible deception research involving children: (a) evaluating the scientific validity and social value of deception research within the context of alternative methodologies, (b) avoiding and minimizing experimental risk, (c) the use of child assent procedures as questionable ethical safeguards, and (d) debriefing as both remedy and risk.     

When development and learning decrease memory. Evidence against category-based induction in children

Inductive inference is crucial for learning: If one learns that a cat has a particular biological property, one could expand this knowledge to other cats. We argue that young children perform induction on the basis of similarity of compared entities, whereas adults may induce on the basis of category information. If different processes underlie induction at different points in development, young children and adults would form different memory traces during induction, and would subsequently have different memory accuracy. Experiment 1 demonstrates that after performing an induction task, 5-year-olds exhibit more accurate memory than adults. Experiment 2 indicates that after 5-year-olds are trained to perform induction in an adultlike manner, their memory accuracy drops to the level of adults. These results, indicating that sometimes 5-year-olds exhibit better memory than adults, support the claim that, unlike adults, young children perform similarity-based rather than category-based induction.