An analysis of observational learning in autistic and normal children

The present investigation studied observational learning in autistic children. Fifteen autistic and 15 normal children watched an adult model engage in a set of behaviors under specific verbal instructions. After observing this situation, the children were tested to determine what they had acquired through observation. The results showed that (1) the majority of the autistic and the youngest normal children acquired only some limited features of the observational situation and (2) chronological age was related to the amount of learning through observation in the normal children but not in the autistics. The deficit that the autistic children showed in observational learning may be related to a failure to discriminate or attend to the total stimulus input presented. Their failure in observational learning can be seen to contribute in a major way to the severely impoverished behavioral repertoires of these children.     

Age,and midcareer crisis: An empirical study of academics

This study develops an empirical basis for examining the midcareer crisis/ transition period of academic staff surveyed by questionnaire in four Australian Universities and Colleges. A total of 672 usable returns were obtained, representing a response rate of 52% of the academic staff. Principal components and factor analysis were used to establish latent social-role variables. Analysis of variance and covariance was applied using the latent social-role variables as dependent variables and occupational attributes such as age, sex, etc., as independent variables. The variable age was isolated from the larger study in this paper to illustrate empirically a midcareer crisis period for the population studied which is consistent with the general literature on midcareer crisis/transition.     

Does forgiving in a collectivistic culture affect only decisions to forgive and not emotions? REACH forgiveness collectivistic in Indonesia

According to some theorising, in collectivistic societies, forgiveness is mainly enacted to maintain relationships, not engender emotional transformation. This present study was designed to explore whether forgiveness affects decisional and emotional forgiveness in Indonesia, a country categorised as collectivistic. The evidence-based REACH Forgiveness psychoeducational group intervention was adapted to collectivistic culture (REACH forgiveness collectivistic; REACH-FC), and its efficacy was assessed in a randomised controlled trial. Undergraduates in Indonesia (N = 97; 24 male; 73 female; ages 16–21) were randomly assigned within a 2 × 3(S) quasi-experimental repeated-measures design comparing immediate treatment (IT) and waiting list (WL) conditions [Condition (IT, WL) × Time ([S] 3 time points). Harmonious value, a personality variable assessing the strength of participants' desire for group harmony, was the covariate. The condition × time (S) interactions for both decisional and emotional forgiveness were significant, challenging some previous literature. Clearly, not all forms of collectivism have similar effects when individuals and communities deal with transgressions.     

Do phonological representations specify variables? Evidence from the obligatory contour principle

Mental variables are central to symbolic accounts of cognition. Conversely, according to the pattern associator hypothesis, variables are obsolete. We examine the representation of variables by investigating the Obligatory Contour Principle (OCP, McCarthy, 1986) in Hebrew. The OCP constrains gemination in Hebrew roots. Gemination is well formed at the root's end (e.g., SMM), but not in its beginning (e.g., SSM). Roots and geminates, however, are variables; hence, according to the pattern associator view, the OCP is unrepresentable. Three experiments demonstrate that speakers are sensitive to the presence of root gemination and constrain its location. In forming words from novel biconsonantal roots, speakers prefer to reduplicate the root's final over its initial radical, and they rate such outputs as more acceptable. The avoidance or rejection of root-initial gemination is independent of its position in the word and is inexplicable by the statistical frequency of root tokens. Our results suggest that linguistic representations specify variables. Speakers' competence, however, is governed by violable constraints.     

Healing the Curse of the grosero Husband: Women’s Health Seeking and Pentecostal Conversion in Oaxaca,Mexico

Drawing on anthropological research in Oaxaca, Mexico, this article describes the role of health seeking in women’s experiences with Pentecostal conversion. The present study confirms that Pentecostalism’s promise of reforming problematic male behavior is a significant draw for women. Women’s stories of conversion are strikingly consistent in their accounts of male drinking, womanizing, and domestic violence. However, the findings also demonstrate that when efforts to domesticate men fail—and they often do—women still find significant ways in which Pentecostalism addresses suffering. The study provides a unique contribution to the literature by exploring that paradox in detail.     

Peer Disagreement and Two Principles of Rational Belief

This paper presents a new solution to the problem of peer disagreement that distinguishes two principles of rational belief, here called probability and autonomy. When we discover that we disagree with peers, there is one sense in which we rationally ought to suspend belief, and another in which we rationally ought to retain our original belief. In the first sense, we aim to believe what is most probably true according to our total evidence, including testimony from peers and authorities. In the second, we aim to base our beliefs only on objective evidence and argumentation, even if that lowers the probability of their being true. The first principle of rational belief tends to serve the short-term epistemic interests of individuals, while the second tends to serve the long-term epistemic interests of both individuals and groups. The best way to reconcile these principles in cases of peer disagreement is to associate them with two corresponding species of belief, here called perception and opinion.     

Quantity recognition among speakers of an anumeric language

Recent research has suggested that the Pirahã, an Amazonian tribe with a number‐less language, are able to match quantities > 3 if the matching task does not require recall or spatial transposition. This finding contravenes previous work among the Pirahã. In this study, we re‐tested the Pirahãs’ performance in the crucial one‐to‐one matching task utilized in the two previous studies on their numerical cognition, as well as in control tasks requiring recall and mental transposition. We also conducted a novel quantity recognition task. Speakers were unable to consistently match quantities > 3, even when no recall or transposition was involved. We provide a plausible motivation for the disparate results previously obtained among the Pirahã. Our findings are consistent with the suggestion that the exact recognition of quantities > 3 requires number terminology.     

Empty Names and `Gappy' Propositions

In recent years a number of authors sympathetic to Referentialistaccounts of proper names have argued that utterances containingempty names express `gappy,' or incomplete, propositions. In this paper I want to take issue with this suggestion.In particular, I argue versions of this approach developedby David Braun, Nathan Salmon, Ken Taylor, and by Fred Adams,Gary Fuller, and Robert Stecker.