Grading the ‘cultural literacy’ project

The essay examines the argument advanced by E.D. Hirsch, Jr., for instituting ‘cultural literacy’ as a fundamental priority of schools. A number of confusions and equivocations in Hirsch's reasoning are identified, and the propensity of his project to indoctrinate is exposed. Among the features of Hirsch's argument shown to be troubling are his shifting construal of ‘language’, his inconsistency about the requirements of cultural literacy, and his uncritical relation to traditional images of the American past and present. The upshot is to raise the question why Hirsch's project has elicited wide support and praise.     

Referenzsemantik in der Partnermodellierung

How can we explain that an assertion on something perceived can be understood in the same manner by somebody who cannot perceive that scene? This problem bases the interest in computational linguistics in how listener modeling could possibly be harmonized with reference semantics. Mental images substituting real perception appear as a way out. The architecture of the listener model has to be adapted to the creation and use of such pictorial data structures. Furthermore, the relation between the latter and a verbal (i. e., propositional) representation must be understood. The resulting architecture of a listener model with reference semantics can be employed to solve communicational problems from three general classes in a better way, as is demonstrated by an example implementation.     

Probabilistic inferences,discrimination, and stimulus interference in comparative judgement

Comparative judgements of successive stimuli involve constant errors. Here, two theories of these errors are considered. For the wave theory of discrimination, constant errors directly originate from discrimination operations. For the inferential theory, the same errors are due to probabilistic inferences drawn after discrimination. Previous studies suggest that the second of two successively compared stimuli has more influence on the comparative response. The results of the present experiment, in which successive lines as comparison stimuli were used, confirm this suggestion. The wave theory does not explain these results, while the inferential theory explains them in terms of probabilistic inferences. Analysis of response frequencies and response times indicates that there was a response bias in favour of the longer response. Interfering lines appearing before the first comparison line significantly affected response frequency, response time, and discriminability, whereas interpolated lines significantly affected only response frequency and response time. The inferential theory does not explain these effects on response time, while the wave theory explains them as due to modifications of response bias. These results suggest the possibility that the two theories describe independent sources of constant errors.     

Brief report: Pictorial vs. auditory prompt systems for promoting independent task performance in adolescents with multiple handicaps

A pictorial and an auditory prompt systems were employed with two adolescents affected by multiple handicaps. The purpose was to assess whether one of the systems was more effective than the other for promoting independent task performance, and whether subjects and staff preferred one of the systems over the other. The results indicated that the two systems were comparably effective in promoting independent performance. The subjects as well as the staff differed with regard to the system they preferred.     

Attentional scanning and space errors

Using the method of paired comparisons, pairs of simultaneous horizontal or vertical lines, with one line above and one below or one on the left and one on the right of a fixation point, respectively, were presented tachistoscopically for length comparison. Space errors were found to have a pattern similar to that of time errors. The tendency to guess the comparative response from the absolute magnitude of stimuli is proposed as a basis for time and space errors. Manipulation of attentional scanning, which implies a more frequent usage of this guessing strategy for one of the two lines in a pair, was shown to affect space errors.     

NORMAL CHILDREN AS TUTORS TO TEACH SOCIAL RESPONSES TO WITHDRAWN MENTALLY RETARDED SCHOOLMATES: TRAINING,MAINTENANCE, AND GENERALIZATION

The findings of the three experiments reported herein indicate that normal children can successfully teach social responses (i.e., delayed imitation, cooperative play, and verbalization of positive comments) to withdrawn mentally retarded peers. The effects of the intervention generalized across stimulus and response conditions, while the trained and generalized levels of responding were maintained after the end of the intervention. Moreover, the subjects developed social responding within their classrooms and play areas parallel to the intervention and continued to increase such responding after the interruption of the intervention. Direct edible reinforcement appeared to be necessary at least during the initial period of the intervention. Vicarious edible reinforcement seemed useful to prompt the appearance of responding. Vicarious social reinforcement was ineffective at the beginning of the intervention, but apparently acquired prompting power at a later stage of training. Generalization results indicated that the similarity between the response occasions used for training and those used for testing generalization played an important role. Yet, the extensiveness of training and the development of responding within the classrooms and play areas may also have had a relevant effect. The development of social responding within the classrooms and play areas appeared to be mainly the effect of new learning. This was perhaps due to vicarious and direct social reinforcement.