Differential bilingual laterality: mythical monster found in Wales

Paradis (1992) likens studies of bilingual laterality to reported sightings of the Loch Ness Monster, in that although some studies claim differential laterality much conflicting research evidence does not-and like the mythical Scottish monster, what reason have we to suspect that any such phenomenon might exist? This study reexamines differential bilingual laterality using four groups of English-Welsh bilinguals which differ in their age of acquisition and in their environment of acquisition. Using a split visual field paradigm we present evidence which, supports the notion of greater right hemisphere processing in a later learned language. Our findings also suggest the pattern of lateralization in bilinguals is strongly affected by the specific language environment during development such that the shift toward greater right hemisphere involvement for the later learned language will be more pronounced in individuals which are brought up in areas where that language is not regularly heard.     

Measuring automatic retrieval

A variety of procedures have been used to assess automatic retrieval effects on memory, including implicit memory tests and the process dissociation approach. Theoretical concerns with each are summarized prior to describing a procedure for evaluating automatic retrieval that is based on retrieval speed. Specifically, in a speeded implicit task, participants were encouraged to complete word stems using strictly automatic retrieval by presenting several practice test trials that did not allow responding based on previously studied items and by encouraging speed of responding. This speeded implicit task was compared with a condition in which conscious retrieval of studied information was not possible and a condition in which conscious retrieval was required, providing converging evidence to support the hypothesis that the speeded implicit procedure can yield pure estimates of automatic retrieval. Furthermore, evidence from a standard implicit memory task yielded comparable data that suggests that participants engaged automatic retrieval processes on this task also.     

Stability and correlates of the California Verbal Learning Test for a sample of normal elderly persons

The test-retest stability of the California Verbal Learning Test was examined for a normal elderly sample of 28 men and 74 women along with the correlation for total recall with scores on selected variables. Mean age was 72 yr. The test was re-administered after one year. Mean total recall did not change; the stability coefficient was .64. Coefficients for the other scores ranged considerably (.27 for recognition hits to .62 for perseverations) and were compared with prior research findings. Recall was moderately correlated with scores on the North American Reading Test, Trails B, visual reproductions, and subjective memory ability.     

Executive control of cognitive processes in task switching

In 4 experiments, participants alternated between different tasks or performed the same task repeatedly. The tasks for 2 of the experiments required responding to geometric objects in terms of alternative classification rules, and the tasks for the other 2 experiments required solving arithmetic problems in terms of alternative numerical operations. Performance was measured as a function of whether the tasks were familiar or unfamiliar, the rules were simple or complex, and visual cues were present or absent about which tasks should be performed. Task alternation yielded switching-time costs that increased with rule complexity but decreased with task cuing. These factor effects were additive, supporting a model of executive control that has goal-shifting and rule-activation stages for task switching. It appears that rule activation takes more time for switching from familiar to unfamiliar tasks than for switching in the opposite direction.     

Children's perceptions of unfair reward and punishment.

Being able to judge the fairness of a personal encounter and having an appreciation of the associated feelings are important components of prosocial development. This study explored a common feature of everyday experience: unfair reward and unfair punishment. Scenarios depicting 4 possible variants of unfairness were read to children aged 9 to 11 years, who then made judgments regarding the degree of unfairness and the nature and strength of the feelings experienced by the characters. Our hypothesis that children with classroom conduct problems would judge the non-receipt of a deserved reward as worse than the receipt of an undeserved punishment was not confirmed. This differentiation, however, did prove to be characteristic of boys in general, but not girls. Being asked to think of unfair things that had actually happened did not appear to influence the children's responses to hypothetical unfair situations, but did reveal that children experience and remember a variety of unfair events in everyday family contexts. This study provides evidence that children actively monitor the receipt of social reward and punishment according to their perception of fairness.     

Heart Rate Variability During Sympatho-excitatory Challenges: Comparison Between Spontaneous And Metronomic Breathing

Respiration influences heart rate variability, leading to the suggestion that respiration should be controlled to assess autonomic function by using heart rate variability. Clearly, control of respiration is advantageous or even essential in several experimental circumstances. However, control of respiration, by itself, produces a small, but significant, increase in mean heart rate and a decrease in respiratory synchronous variation in heart rate. We tested whether, in some experimental situations, it may be possible to arrive at similar interpretation about autonomic function with and without using control of respiratory rate. Heart rate spectral powers from nine subjects were compared between spontaneous and metronomic breathing during two sympatho-excitatory stresses, lower body negative pressure (LBNP) and head up tilt (HUT). The normalized spectral powers in supine and HUT during spontaneous breathing were: 0.43 and 0.75 in very low (VLF) and 0.28 and 0.09 in high frequency (HF) regions. The powers during metronomic breathing were: 0.36 and 0.82 (VLF) and 0.36 and 0.09 (HF). The powers in supine and LBNP during spontaneous breathing were: 0.43 and 0.81 (VLF) and 0.28 and 0.06 (HF). The powers during metronomic breathing were: 0.36 and 0.80 (VLF) and 0.36 and 0.07 (HF). All p values were <0.05. Therefore, changes in heart rate spectral powers during HUT and LBNP were similar during metronomic breathing and spontaneous breathing. These results suggest that in experimental designs such as in our study, using metronomic breathing may not provide any additional insight into autonomic function than that can be obtained during spontaneous breathing.     

Intuition as a Basic Source of Moral Knowledge

The idea that intuition plays a basic role in moral knowledge and moral philosophy probably began in the eighteenth century. British philosophers such as Anthony Shaftsbury, Francis Hutcheson, Thomas Reid, and later David Hume talk about a “moral sense” that they place in John Locke’s theory of knowledge in terms of Lockean reflexive perceptions, while Richard Price seeks a faculty by which we obtain our ideas of right and wrong. In the twentieth century intuitionism in moral philosophy was revived by the works of G. E. Moore, H. A. Prichard, and W. D. Ross. These philosophers reject Kantian deontological ethics and utilitarianism insisting that intuition is the only source of moral knowledge. Recently, there is a renewed interest in intuition by philosophers doing meta-philosophy by reflecting on what philosophers do, and why they disagree. In this essay we plan to take some of this recent literature on intuition and apply it to moral philosophy. We will proceed by (1) defining a conception of intuition, (2) answering some skeptical challenges, (3) delimiting its target, and (4) arguing that intuition is often a source of moral knowledge.

Goal shifts following reminders of mortality: reconciling posttraumatic growth and terror management theory

Research findings within posttraumatic growth (PTG) and terror management theory (TMT) currently appear contradictory. Following confrontations with mortality, PTG research demonstrates intrinsic goal shifts, whereas TMT suggests extrinsic shifts. The current studies examine factors contributing to these inconsistent results. Study 1 demonstrates that perceived death threat is associated with PTG effects. Study 2 illuminates the importance of duration of death processing. Study 3 demonstrates that existing goal values and duration and type of processing all interact in determining ultimate goal structure, with a match between level of goals and processing producing the most psychologically advantageous outcomes. Although previous research suggests that short-term confrontations with death may lead to defensiveness, the current studies suggest that encountering death over a longer period or in a manner consistent with goal structure may lead individuals to transcend defensiveness and maintain intrinsic goals or become more intrinsically oriented.     

Medicine and Music: Three Relations Considered

Two well-recognised, but inherently reductionist, relations between medicine and music are the attempted neuro-scientific understanding of responses to music and interest in music's contributions to clinical therapy. This paper proposes a third relation whereby music is seen as an organising metaphor for clinical medicine as a practice. Both music and clinical medicine affirm human well-being, and both do this inter alia through varieties of skilful, crafted yet spontaneous mutual engagement between a 'performer' and an 'audience'. I argue that this organising metaphor offers a corrective to the reductionist influences of the first two relations, illuminates a number of medicine's important features, and reaffirms the existential as being at the core of medicine's telos.     

On the basis of belief in causal and diagnostic conditionals

According to the suppositional theory of conditionals, people assess their belief in a conditional statement of the form “if p then q” by conducting a mental simulation on the supposition of p in which they assess their degree of belief in q. This leads to them to the judge the probability of a conditional statement to be equal to the conditional probability, P(q|p). Evidence for this conditional probability hypothesis has been adduced in earlier studies for abstract, causal, and counterfactual conditionals. For the realistic conditionals, it is natural to assume that people perform such mental simulations by building causal mental models from prior causes to later effects. However, in the present study we show that the conditional probability hypothesis extends to diagnostic conditionals, which relate effects to causes. This new finding presents a major challenge for theoretical accounts of the mental processing of conditional statements.