The relative benefit of word context is a constant proportion of letter identification time

Letter identification is reduced when the target letter is surrounded by other, flanking letters. This visual crowding is known to be impacted by physical changes to the target and flanks, such as spatial frequency content, polarity, and interletter spacing. There is also evidence that visual crowding is reduced when the flanking letters and the target letter form a word. The research reported here investigated whether these two phenomena are independent of each other or whether the degree of visual crowding impacts the benefit of word context. Stimulus duration thresholds for letters presented alone and for the middle letters of 3-letter words and nonwords were determined for stimuli presented at the fovea and at the periphery. In Experiment 1, the benefit of word context was found to be the same at the fovea, where visual crowding is minimal, and at the periphery, where visual crowding is substantial. In Experiment 2, visual crowding was manipulated by changing the interletter spacing. Here, too, the benefit of word context was fairly constant for the two retinal locations (fovea or periphery), as well as with changes in interletter spacing. These data call into question both the idea that the benefit of word context is greater when stimulus quality is reduced (as is the case with visual crowding) and the idea that words are processed more effectively when they are presented at the fovea.     

Temporal lobe epilepsy and the selective reminding test: the conventional 30-minute delay suffices

Conventional memory assessment may fail to identify memory dysfunction characterized by intact recall for a relatively brief period but rapid forgetting thereafter. This study assessed learning and retention after 30-min and 24-hr delays on auditory and visual selective reminding tests (SRTs) in right (n=20) and left (n=22) temporal lobe epilepsy (TLE) patients and controls (n=49). The left TLE group performed significantly worse than controls on all 3 trials of both tests. The right TLE group differed from the controls on all 3 visual SRT trials and on learning for the auditory SRT. There were no between-groups differences in rate of information lost at the 30-min versus the 24-hr delay. At the individual level, there was no difference in the percentage of patients versus controls who demonstrated isolated memory impairment at the 24-hr delay. Accelerated forgetting over 24 hr is uncommon in TLE patients.     

Four psychoanalytic perspectives: a study of differences in interpretive interventions

This research study was designed to test two main hypotheses: (1) there are detectable differences in interpretive style among classical, Kleinian, Kohutian, and Kernbergian analysts; and (2) the nature of these differences can be discerned and described. The methodology consists of three phases of data collection. The statistical findings are presented, along with clinical examples, followed by a discussion of their implications.     

Individual differences in distance estimation: comparison of judgments in the field with those from projected slides of the same scenes

This study was designed to determine the comparative accuracy with which trained and untrained observers could judge distances to a target and to assess the correspondence of those judgments with other judgments, by the same observers, from photographic slides of the same target and scene at identical viewing distances. 9 experienced and 15 untrained observers estimated distances ranging from 600 to 1550 m in 50-m increments. Photographic slides were made of the target at each distance and, 1 mo. later, observers made the same judgments from the slides. It was found that averages of the group's judgments in the field very closely approximated true target distances. However, judgments of the individual observers were so erratic and inaccurate as to render questionable the interpretation of those averages. In addition, while the averages of the group indicated that judgments from two-dimensional slides could be substituted fro three-dimensional real-world judgments, detailed analysis of the individual observers' performances dramatically contradicted this conclusion.     

Where the Girls (and Women) Are

This paper takes up a theoretical and empirical investigation of how two community-based projects for young women both create safety from community and domestic violence but how, in the process, discourses of multicultural inclusion define one site, and racist discourses of exclusion float through the other site. By relying on two intensive qualitative case studies of community-based organizations for girls, one exclusively White and working class and the other expressly multicultural and antiracist, we try to identify those structures and practices that support feminist, but inadvertently racist, work and those structures and practices that enable, at once, feminist and antiracist consciousness and praxis.     

The ‘Two Worlds’ Theory in the Phaedo

At least in some dialogues, Plato has been thought to hold the so-called Two Worlds Theory (TW), according to which there can be belief but not knowledge about sensibles, and knowledge but not belief about forms. The Phaedo is one such dialogue. In this paper, I explore some key passages that might be thought to support TW, and ask whether they in fact do so. I also consider the related issue of whether the Phaedo argues that, if knowledge is possible at all, we can have it only when discarnate.