The effect of prosody on conceptual combination

Research into people's comprehension of novel noun-noun phrases has long neglected the possible influences of prosody during meaning construction. At the same time, work in conceptual combination has disagreed about whether different classes of interpretation emerge from single or multiple processes; for example, whether people use distinct mechanisms when they interpret octopus apartment as property-based (e.g., an apartment with eight rooms) or relation-based (e.g., an apartment where an octopus lives). In two studies, we manipulate the prosodic emphasis patterns of novel noun-noun combinations (placing stress on the modifier noun, the head noun, or dual stress on both nouns) and ask participants to generate an interpretation for the novel phrase. Results show that people are faster to generate property-based interpretations when dual emphasis stresses both nouns equally, with prosody having little effect on the speed of relation-based interpretations. These findings highlight a role for prosody during meaning construction and underline important differences between relation- and property-based interpretations that are difficult to reconcile with unitary process views of conceptual combination.     

Psychosocial health mediates the gratitude-physical health link

There is now a growing body of research demonstrating the physical health benefits of being grateful. However, research has only just began to explore the mechanisms accounting for this gratitude-health relationship. This study examines the relationship between dispositional gratitude and self-reported physical health symptoms, and explores whether this relationship is explained through reduced levels of perceived loneliness and stress. This study employed a cross-sectional design with a sample of 607 healthy adults. Serial mediation analysis revealed that the positive effect of gratitude on physical health was significantly mediated by lower reported levels of perceived loneliness and stress. These findings are important given evidence that gratitude can be cultivated, and may serve to buffer against stress and loneliness and improve somatic health symptoms in the general population.     

Thinking about others and the future: Neural correlates of perspective taking relate to preferences for delayed rewards

We infer the thoughts and feelings of others by taking their perspectives. Similar processes could be used to understand how we will be affected by future events, by allowing us to take the perspective of our future self. In this paper, we test this idea using a previously presented framework for guiding predictions. The framework proposes that a shared neural mechanism is involved in controlling egocentric bias, both while shifting our perspective away from self and towards others, and while shifting our perspective from immediate to future perspectives. To test this framework, 36 adults performed an intertemporal choice task. They were then scanned using 3T functional magnetic resonance imaging while completing a false-belief “localizer” task, which requires egocentric bias control. A positive correlation was observed between the right temporoparietal junction (rTPJ) response during the false-belief task, and preferences for delayed rewards in intertemporal choices. A subset of participants performed the intertemporal choice task again in the scanner, which revealed that the response of the same rTPJ cluster, individually localized during the false-belief task, was higher during delayed over immediate reward choices. In addition, functional connectivity between the rTPJ and ventromedial prefrontal cortex was found to differ between immediate and delayed choices. The current results indicate an overlap in processes of egocentric bias control and those that determine preferences in intertemporal choices, offering a social cognitive explanation for why rewards are devalued with delay in temporal discounting.     

A third language in therapy: deconstructing sameness and difference

The paper draws on recent research and the first author’s personal story to show what happens when the language difference between therapist and client is brought to mutual awareness in the therapy room. Individual lived experiences of migrant psychotherapists and counsellors and the issues that arise in therapy practice when the practitioners use their second language as the means of communication with clients are explored. The notion of a third language – a dynamic communication system that is a result of developing a professional identity through a second language – is introduced. Unlike the psychoanalytic third, it is often conscious and may be used either defensively or purposefully as a concrete third point of reference in the intersubjective encounter. The paper explores how the concept of a ‘Third Language’ can be used as a tool to negotiate perceived sameness or difference in therapeutic encounters and to build a common language with a client, both literally and metaphorically. The study featured in the paper has implications for practice, theory and research.     

Perceived locus of causality and internalization: examining reasons for acting in two domains

Theories of internalization typically suggest that self-perceptions of the "causes" of (i.e. reasons for) behavior are differentiated along a continuum of autonomy that contains identifiable gradations. A model of perceived locus of causality (PLOC) is developed, using children's self-reported reasons for acting. In Project 1, external, introjected, identified, and intrinsic types of reasons for achievement-related behaviors are shown to conform to a simplex-like (ordered correlation) structure in four samples. These reason categories are then related to existing measures of PLOC and to motivation. A second project examines 3 reason categories (external, introject, and identification) within the domain of prosocial behavior. Relations with measures of empathy, moral judgement and positive interpersonal relatedness are presented. Finally, the proposed model and conceptualization of PLOC are discussed with regard to intrapersonal versus interpersonal perception, internalization, cause-reason distinctions, and the significance of perceived autonomy in human behavior.     

Reasoning about conditional sentences: development of understanding of cues to quantification

The previous literature has reported that when children are asked to judge the truth or falsity of universally quantified conditional sentences of the form If a thing is P then it is Q they typically give responses, e.g., responding "true" whenever there is a case of P and Q even if there are also cases of P and not-Q. Three experiments are reported that address possible sources of this error. Experiment 1 shows that the error survives on sentences that refer to particular things as well as to things of a particular kind, and further shows that articulating the necessity of the consequent (... then it has to be Q) eliminates the error for adults and reduces it for fifth graders, although it does not affect second grade performance. Experiment 2 shows that for second and fifth graders the error survives to problems that are not universally quantified and for second graders to problems that are not conditionals although are otherwise structurally similar. Experiment 3 compares various verbal formulations of such universally quantified conditionals: Second and fifth graders do not make the error when the quantification is expressed with the surface structure that makes its universality most explicit (all things ...); the error tendency is greatest when the indefinite article is used (if a thing ...); and formulations using any fall in between. We argue that such erroneous evaluations of universally quantified conditionals have more to do with the quantificational aspect than the conditional aspect of the problems; children interpret the indefinite article as existential, although they resist the error when the cue to universal quantification is completely clear. The error appears to result more from the surface-structure form of the stimuli than from an inability of children to appreciate the logic of universally quantified conditionals.     

Empiricism,fideism and the nature of religious belief

Earlier versions of this paper were read to the Departments of Philosophy at the University of New Brunswick and at Saint Francis Xavier University and to the Canadian Societh for the Study of Religion at Queen’s University, Kingston. The authors wish to thank the participants for their comments.     

“Bad philosophy” and “derivative philosophy”: Labels that keep women out of the canon

Efforts to include women in the canon have long been beset by reactionary gatekeeping, typified by the charge “That's not philosophy.” That charge doesn't apply to early and mid-analytic female philosophers—Welby, Ladd-Franklin, Bryant, Jones, de Laguna, Stebbing, Ambrose, MacDonald—with job titles like lecturer in logic and professor of philosophy and publications in Mind, the Journal of Philosophy, and Proceedings of the Aristotelian Society. It's hopeless to dismiss their work as “not philosophy.” But comparable reactionary gatekeeping affects them, this paper argues, typified by the labels “bad philosophy” and “derivative philosophy.” Virtue and vice epistemology help explain why these women have been neglected and why their own approaches are epistemically virtuous. Their contemporaries and historians are deficient in scholarly virtues in labelling these women's work “bad” or derived from male mentors with no or specious justification. Their disparaged qualities—intellectual humility, modesty, critical self-reflection, disclosing biases—are often epistemic virtues.     

Gender Differences in the Media Interviews of Bill and Hillary Clinton

Does gender make a difference in the way politicians speak and are spoken to in public? This paper examines perspective in three television interviews and two radio interviews with Bill Clinton in June 2004 and in three television interviews and two radio interviews with Hillary Clinton in June 2003 with the same interviewers. Our perspectival approach assumes that each utterance has a dialogically constructed point of view. Earlier research has shown that markers of conceptual orality and literacy as well as referencing (name and pronoun use for self and other reference) do reflect perspective. This paper asks whether perspective is gendered. Our data analysis demonstrates that some markers of perspective show gender differences while others do not. Those that do include the number of syllables spoken by each interlocutor, referencing, the use of the intensifier so, the use of the hedge you know, the use of non-standard pronunciations, turn transitions, and lastly the use of laughter.     

Collateral benefits of the Family Check-Up on early childhood school readiness: indirect effects of parents' positive behavior support

The authors examined the longitudinal effects of the Family Check-Up (FCU) on parents' positive behavior support and children's school readiness competencies in early childhood. It was hypothesized that the FCU would promote language skills and inhibitory control in children at risk for behavior problems as an indirect outcome associated with targeted improvements in parents' positive behavior support. High-risk families in the Women, Infants, and Children Nutrition Program participated in a multisite preventive intervention study (N = 731) with 3 yearly assessments beginning at child age 2 years. Positive behavior support was measured using 4 indicators derived from at-home observations of parent-child interaction during semistructured tasks. Longitudinal structural equation models revealed that parents in families randomly assigned to the FCU showed improvements in positive behavior support from child age 2 to 3, which in turn promoted children's inhibitory control and language development from age 3 to 4, accounting for child gender, ethnicity, and parental education. Findings suggest that a brief, ecological preventive intervention supporting positive parenting practices can indirectly foster key facets of school readiness in children at risk.