Truth Without Reference: The Use of Fictional Names

Topoi - Singular terms without referents are called empty or vacuous terms. But not all of them are equally empty. In particular, not all proper names that fail to name an existing object fail in...     

A hermeneutic study of integrating psychotherapist competence in postnatal Child Health Care: Parents’ perspectives

A child's emotional and social development depends on the parents’ provision of optimal support. Many parents with perinatal distress experience difficulties in mastering parenthood and seek help from professionals within primary healthcare. A clinical project was launched in Stockholm, where psychodynamic psychotherapists provided short-term consultations at Child Health Centers. This study qualitatively explored parents’ experiences of perinatal distress and of receiving help by nurses and therapists in the project. Thirteen parents were interviewed, and their responses were analyzed with a hermeneutical method. Three main themes crystallized; accessibility of psychological help and detection of emotional problems; experiences of therapy at the Child Health Center; and the therapists’ technique. Parents were also clustered into three so-called ideal types: the insecure; parents in crisis; and parents with lifelong psychological problems. Parents experienced obstacles in accessing psychological care within primary healthcare. Psychotherapists with a holistic family perspective and who managed to oscillate between insight-promoting and supportive interventions were especially appreciated. Patient categories who benefitted from insight promotion and support, respectively, were identified.     

EARSHOT: A Minimal Neural Network Model of Incremental Human Speech Recognition

Despite the lack of invariance problem (the many-to-many mapping between acoustics and percepts), human listeners experience phonetic constancy and typically perceive what a speaker intends. Most models of human speech recognition (HSR) have side-stepped this problem, working with abstract, idealized inputs and deferring the challenge of working with real speech. In contrast, carefully engineered deep learning networks allow robust, real-world automatic speech recognition (ASR). However, the complexities of deep learning architectures and training regimens make it difficult to use them to provide direct insights into mechanisms that may support HSR. In this brief article, we report preliminary results from a two-layer network that borrows one element from ASR, long short-term memory nodes, which provide dynamic memory for a range of temporal spans. This allows the model to learn to map real speech from multiple talkers to semantic targets with high accuracy, with human-like timecourse of lexical access and phonological competition. Internal representations emerge that resemble phonetically organized responses in human superior temporal gyrus, suggesting that the model develops a distributed phonological code despite no explicit training on phonetic or phonemic targets. The ability to work with real speech is a major advance for cognitive models of HSR.     

Does cognitive reflection mediate the math gender gap at university admission in Chile?

Social Psychology of Education - In Chile, a vast and persistent gender gap in math performance at university admission has negative consequences for women’s opportunities. International...     

Emotional adjustment in victims and perpetrators of cyberbullying and traditional bullying

Given the rise in cyberbullying among secondary education students and the importance of certain psychological adjustment variables for the comprehension of this type of violent behavior, both in bullies and in victims, the purpose of the present study was to analyse the emotional adjustment of those involved in cyber- and traditional bullying. The adjustment variables studied were self-concept, perceived stress, loneliness, depressive symptomatology, social anxiety, life satisfaction, and emotional intelligence. Using a sample of 1318 adolescents (47% boys), aged between 11 and 17 years, four groups were established to compare victims and cybervictims (uninvolved students, traditional victims, cybervictims, and traditional–cybervictims). The analysis of variance showed that students who performed the same role (bully or victim) in both contexts (at school and online). In particular, those who suffered traditional or cyberbullying or both conjointly presented lower scores in physical and social self-concept, life satisfaction, emotional clarity, and emotion regulation, as well as higher scores in perceived stress, loneliness, depression, and social anxiety. In bullies—traditional, cyberbullying or both simultaneously—higher scores were observed in perceived stress, loneliness, depressive symptomatology, fear of negative assessment, avoidance, and general social anxiety, and lower scores in the dimensions of academic and family self-concept, life satisfaction, emotional clarity, and emotion regulation. In general, the findings indicate that students who were involved in bullying situations, both victims and bullies, presented more damaged emotional profiles than those who are uninvolved, especially students who performed the same role (bully or victim) in both contexts (at school and online).

     

Effect of social organisation on interspecific differences in overmarking behaviour of foals in African equids

Animal Cognition - Overmarking remains an unstudied topic in juvenile mammals. We have previously documented a very high rate of overmarking by foals in four captive African equid species: mountain...     

Personality development and growth in women across 30 years: three perspectives

This article addressesthree questions about personality development in a 30‐year longitudinal study of women (N = 78): (1) To what extent did the women maintain the same position inrelation to each other on personality characteristics over the 30 years, and what broad factorswere related to the amount of change in their rank order? (2) Did the sample as a whole increaseor decrease over time on indices of personality growth, and did they change in ways distinctive towomen? (3) Were experiential factors associated with individual differences in the amount ofchange? Results showed that personality was quite consistent while also showing that timeinterval was positively related to rank‐order change and age was negatively related to rank‐orderchange. Over the period from age 21 to age 52, the women increased on measures ofnorm‐orientation and complexity and showed changes on measures of Dominance andFemininity/Masculinity consistent with the hypothesis that changing sex roles would lead toincreases in Dominance and increases, then decreases, in Femininity/Masculinity. A third set ofresults showed that changes in Dominance and Femininity/Masculinity were associated with lifecircumstances such as marital tension, divorce, and participation in the paid labor force. Theimplications of the findings for personality development and growth are discussed.     

Ego development and the ethics of care and justice: the relations among them revisited

This study examined the links among ego development and the ethics of care and justice in 144 Norwegian men and women, 15 to 48 years old, taking into consideration age, sex, education, and verbal intelligence. As expected, the relationship between Loevinger's model of ego development and care-based moral reasoning as measured with Skoe's Ethic of Care Interview (ECI) was significantly stronger than the one between ego development and justice as measured with Rest's Defining Issues Test (DIT). Both ethics correlated significantly with verbal ability. Analyses showed that beyond its overlap with verbal intelligence, the variance shared between the ECI and ego development was substantial. By contrast, when verbal intelligence was controlled, the DIT was not significantly related to ego development or to the care ethic.     

Exploring the mental health of Mexican migrant farm workers in the Midwest: psychosocial predictors of psychological distress and suggestions for prevention and treatment

The purposes of the present study were threefold: (a) to assess the prevalence levels of anxiety and depression in a sample of Mexican migrant farm workers in the midwestern United States; (b) to explore the relationships among acculturative stress, anxiety, and depression; and (c) to examine the variables that best predict anxiety and depression. The overall sample revealed elevated levels of anxiety and depression. Migrant farm workers with heightened levels of acculturative stress were more likely to report high levels of anxiety and depression. Family dysfunction, ineffective social support, low self-esteem, lack of agreement with the decision to migrate, high education levels, high levels of acculturative stress, and high levels of anxiety were significantly associated with high depression levels. The overall findings suggest that migrant farm workers who experience elevated levels of acculturative stress may be at risk for experiencing high levels of anxiety and depression. The findings highlight the importance of establishing prevention and treatment services for migrant farm workers that aim to increase levels of emotional support, self-esteem, and coping skills.