A Standardized Set of 380 Pictures for Lebanese Arabic: Norms for Name Agreement,Conceptual Familiarity,Imageability, and Subjective Frequency

Journal of Psycholinguistic Research - Research on language processing requires language-specific norms of pictorial and linguistic experimental stimuli across different psycholinguistic variables....     

Age-related changes in aphasia type and stroke location

Two-hundred consecutive CT scans of patients with an infarction in the territory of the middle cerebral artery (MCA) were examined for evaluation of a possible relationship between age and stroke location. Two distinct procedures, one evaluating the incidence of four areas within the MCA territory and the other measuring some quantified parameters, were used. Statistical studies failed to show any significant correlation between these parameters and the age of patients. These results lead to refute previous claims that semiological changes in aphasia type with age in stroke patients may be due to a posterior shift of cerebral infarcts with age.     

Symptoms of Posttraumatic Stress Disorder and Social Support Among Children and Adolescents After the 2010 Haitian Earthquake

This study explored the prevalence of posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD) symptoms related to social support received by the children and adolescents who survived the earthquake on January 12, 2010, in Haiti. A strategy of stratified sampling was used, and 540 children and teenagers were questioned. Questionnaires based on the PTSD Checklist, the Impact of Event Scale-Revised, and the Peritraumatic Distress Inventory, among others, were used and bivariate statistical analyses were carried out. The results showed high rates of complete and partial PTSD symptoms, with higher rates among females, and indicated the need for reinforcing social support as a resilience factor for youth.     

Persuasive Argumentation Versus Manipulation

This article deals with the relationship between argumentation and persuasion. It defends the idea that these two concepts are not as opposed as all too often said. If it is important to recognize their differences (there are argumentative discourses without persuasion and persuasive discourses without argumentation), there is nevertheless an overlap, in which characteristics are taken from both. We propose to call this overlap “persuasive argumentation”. In order to bridge argumentation and persuasion, we will first distinguish the latter from manipulation. In the second part of this article, we will analyze four cases of persuasive argumentation: the enthymeme, a few rhetorical figures, narration and visual argumentation.     

High religiosity and societal dysfunction in the United States during the first decade of the twenty-first century

This study provides independent empirical evidence that bears upon the truth or falsity of recently formulated hypotheses regarding reciprocal relationships between levels of religiosity and societal dysfunction. Gregory S. Paul's findings, published in the Journal of Religion and Society (2005), Free Inquiry (2008), and Evolutionary Psychology (2009), have demonstrated that high degrees of theism are associated with high degrees of societal dysfunction among the prosperous democracies. Whereas his research employs numerous scatter diagrams and bivariate correlations involving measures of religiosity and societal dysfunction pertaining to 17 nation states, the current study's units of analysis are the 50 states and the District of Columbia. Additionally, the utilization of multiple regression analysis allows the detection of the effects of other potentially relevant explanatory variables, such as educational attainment, income level, and race. The findings are only minimally supportive of Paul's hypotheses regarding the contributions of high religiosity to societal dysfunction and to the effects of societal dysfunction upon religiosity. Simultaneously, the results of correlational and regression analyses attest to the more substantial explanatory power of the social inequality variables of education, income, and race. Accordingly, it is argued that "American Exceptionalism," when understood as referring to a society manifesting the coexistence of high levels of theism and high levels of societal dysfunction, is best explained by the United States' high degree of social inequality, compared with other modern industrialized democracies.     

Education today

Education must take account of the new world order. We must introduce into the educational system a real consciousness of other cultures. We must develop tolerance and solidarity towards what is foreign, nurture creative relations with others.