The nature of speech production impairments in anterior aphasics: an acoustic analysis of voicing in fricative consonants

This study investigated the acoustic characteristics of voicing in English fricative consonants produced by anterior aphasics and the effects of phonetic context on these characteristics. Three patients produced voiced and voiceless fricative-vowel syllables in isolation, following a voiced velar stop, and following a voiceless velar stop. Acoustic analyses were conducted of the amplitude and patterning of glottal excitation, as well as fricative noise duration. Results showed that, although the patients are able to coordinate the articulatory gestures for voicing in fricative consonants, they demonstrated abnormal patterns of glottal excitation in the amplitude measures, owing to weaker amplitudes of glottal excitation in voiced fricatives. Context effects failed to emerge because of dysfluent speech. These results suggest that the locus of the speech production deficit of anterior aphasics is not at the higher stages of phoneme selection or planning but rather in articulatory implementation, one related to laryngeal control.     

The excluded player in coalition formation

Coalition research generally assumes that people strive to maximize their share of the coalition payoff and that they exclude others from joining a coalition if these others are not needed to obtain the coalition payoff. In two experiments, the authors show that this view is too narrow and that willingness to include such others is dependent on the extent to which people feel that exclusion affects the payoff of the excluded player. This finding was moderated by social value orientations. Proselfs were not affected by the consequences for the excluded players. Prosocials were less willing to exclude others the more harmful were the consequences of exclusion. Results are related to research on social exclusion, the do-no-harm principle, and social value orientations.     

Individual differences in the responses of naïve rhesus monkeys to snakes

The authors demonstrated individual differences in inhibited behavior and withdrawal responses of laboratory-born rhesus monkeys when initially exposed to a snake. Most monkeys displayed a small significant increase in their behavioral inhibition in the presence of a snake. A few monkeys had marked responses, and some actively withdrew. Although the responses of the most extreme laboratory-born monkeys were comparable to feral-born monkeys, the responses of the laboratory-born monkeys rapidly habituated. The individual differences in the responses of na?ve monkeys likely reflect a continuum from orienting to wariness to fear. A neurobiological model is presented that addresses potential mechanisms underlying these individual differences, their relation to fear, and how they may predispose to phobia development.     

Construct validity of the Sivik Psychosomaticism Test and test of operational style: correlations with Karolinska Scheme of Personality.

To evaluate the construct validity (convergent and divergent) of Sivik Psycho Somaticism test (SPS) and test of Operationality (OPER), Pearson correlation coefficients between SPS scales and subscales and Karolinska Scheme of Personality (KSP) were calculated. Seventy-eight healthy individuals and 196 psychosomatic patients completed the SPS and OPER tests and KSP. The results show that the SPS and OPER subscales are significantly correlated to most KSP subscales. The correlations were higher for the psychosomatic group than for the normal population. The results confirm the validity of the SPS and OPER constructs.     

In Defense of Individualism

This paper offers a programmatic philosophical articulation of moral and political individualism. This individualism consists of two main components: value individualism and rights individualism. The former is the view that, for each individual, the end which is of ultimate value is his own well-being. Each individual's well-being has ultimate agent-relative value and the only ultimate values are these agent-relative values. The latter view is that individuals possess moral jurisdiction over themselves, i.e., rights of self-ownership. These rights (along with other rights individuals may come to possess) constrain the manner in which agents may pursue value. For this reason, the articulated individualism is an constrained individualism. Sketches of arguments are offered for both value and rights individualism. And it is argued that the sole legitimate function of legal/political institutions is to further delineate and protect the rights of individuals. However, the paper is also concerned to indicate why this radical moral and political individualism does not have many of the features or implications that are commonly ascribed to it. In this connection, I seek to show how this social doctrine accords with individuals' having concern for the well-being of others, with the emergence of relationships among individuals that have both instrumental and non-instrumental value, with a degree of responsibility for self and others that is often thought to be antithetical to individualism and, in general, with a flourishing of civil order.     

Physiological and self-reported disgust reactions to obesity

There is accumulating evidence that disgust plays an important role in prejudice toward individuals with obesity, but that research is primarily based on self-reported emotions. In four studies, we examined whether participants displayed a physiological marker of disgust (i.e. levator labii activity recorded using facial electromyography) in response to images of obese individuals, and whether these responses corresponded with their self-reported disgust to those images. All four studies showed the predicted self-reported disgust response toward images of obese individuals. Study 1 further showed that participants exhibited more levator activity to images of obese individuals than to neutral images. However, Studies 2–4 failed to provide any evidence that the targets’ body size affected levator responses. These findings suggest that disgust may operate at multiple levels, and that the disgust response to images of obese individuals may be more of a cognitive-conceptual one than a physiological one.     

Sweet-cheeks vs. pea-brain: embodiment,valence, and task all influence the emotional salience of language

Previous research has found that more embodied insults (e.g. numbskull) are identified faster and more accurately than less embodied insults (e.g. idiot). The linguistic processing of embodied compliments has not been well explored. In the present study, participants completed two tasks where they identified insults and compliments, respectively. Half of the stimuli were more embodied than the other half. We examined the late positive potential (LPP) component of event-related potentials in early (400–500?ms), middle (500–600?ms), and late (600–700?ms) time windows. Increased embodiment resulted in improved response accuracy to compliments in both tasks, whereas it only improved accuracy for insults in the compliment detection task. More embodied stimuli elicited a larger LPP than less embodied stimuli in the early time window. Insults generated a larger LPP in the late time window in the insult task; compliments generated a larger LPP in the early window in the compliment task. These results indicate that electrophysiological correlates of emotional language perception are sensitive to both top-down and bottom-up processes.     

Attitudes Toward and Beliefs about Transgender Youth: A Cross-Cultural Comparison Between the United States and India

Using an internet-based survey, we examined attitudes toward transgender youth in the United States and India, two cultures with differences in conceptualizations of gender and treatment of transgender individuals in society, law, and religion. We found generally positive attitudes toward transgender youth in our U.S. (n = 218), but moderately negative ones in our Indian (n = 217), sample. Consistent with the literature on prejudice against transgender adults in many Western societies, general social conservatism in the form of religious beliefs and political ideology, gender-specific conservatism in the form of gender binary belief, and endorsement of environmental rather than biological causes of transgender identity were the best predictors of U.S. participants’ attitudes, although personal contact with gender and sexual minorities also played a role at the bivariate level. These findings suggest that the processes underlying prejudice against transgender youth are similar to those that foster adult-directed transphobia in that cultural context. In contrast, religion-based disapproval and environmental causal attributions were the best predictors of Indian respondents’ attitudes, whereas gender binary belief played only a minor role, and political conservatism and personal contact no role at all. Our regression analyses accounted for considerably more of the variability in U.S. than in Indian participants’ attitudes, highlighting the need for additional (qualitative) work to identify the factors that promote transprejudice in India. We discuss these findings in light of cross-cultural differences between the two countries in terms of our predictors and consider implications for efforts to reduce prejudice against transgender youth.