Emergence in physics

In this paper we intend to examine whether there are examples for emergence to be found in physics. The answer depends on the concept of emergence one invokes. We distinguish two such concepts, those of Broad and Kim. We will argue that it is unlikely that there will be examples with respect to the former because it runs counter to an explanatory strategy that is both well entrenched in physical practice and to a certain degree flexible. On the other hand we will argue that all those physical systems that provide an example for supervenience are at the same time examples for emergence - at least if one defines emergence the way Kim does.     

Bilingual Children’s Narrative Comprehension: Do Pauses during Retelling Buy Time for Understanding?

Abstract

This study extended research on bilingual children’s narrative comprehension to text processing during retelling. A cross- and monolinguistic design allowed for the investigation of the association of various aspects of narrative comprehension with two types of pause occurring during oral retelling of a story heard in one language and retold in a second or in the same language. A sample of 95 bilingual (L1 German/L2 English) fourth-graders participated in the experiment. Comprehension was predominantly accomplished during listening, as children with L1 input outperformed children with L2 input, but they did not benefit from L1 in retelling. Children’s comprehension performance and corresponding pause patterns suggested that the duration of filled pauses dedicated to gist formation indicated efficiency of comprehension: The duration decreased with increasing comprehension. The findings allowed the conclusion that longer pauses during retelling did not buy time for comprehension.     

The effects of gendered information in stories on preschool children’s development of gender stereotypes

Social-cognitive theory posits that children learn gender stereotypes through gendered information. The present study examined whether children learn new gender stereotypes from stories when unknown words are linked to a gendered protagonist or context information. In Experiment 1, 40 3- to 6-year-old preschoolers were read stories with either a gendered protagonist embedded within a non-gendered context, or a non-gendered protagonist embedded within a gendered context. In Experiment 2, the same sample of children were read stories with the protagonist and the context displaying congruent or incongruent gender information. Each story featured an unknown activity linked with the stereotypical content. Both experiments indicate that the children rated the activity according to both the gender of the context and of the protagonist; however, the effect of the latter was stronger. In addition, children showed higher interest in the unknown activity if the protagonist’s gender matched their own sex. Thus, gender information in stories influences how children perceive unknown words.