The Trouble with Tarski

As a result of thinking ( pace Tarski, wrongly) that it is propositions, not sentences, that are true or false, it has been supposed (also wrongly) that propositions such as that 'Snow is white' is true if and only if snow is white are necessarily true. But changing the rules for the use of the words in a sentence has no effect on the truth of the proposition, only on what proposition it formulates. Many similar statements, e.g., that 'plus' does not mean plus, are only pragmatically contradictory: if this were true, it would be impossible to say so in these words. One should distinguish between sentences that express necessary truths, and sentences that necessarily express truths. It follows that many well known accounts of necessity are wrong, that the truth of an analytic proposition does not follow from the definitions of the words in the sentence that expresses it, that it is not helpful to define meaning in terms of truth, that truth is not relative to language, and that conventionalism is false. This paper is a move in the direction of establishing the eternity of truth.     

Place of Birth, Place of Residence, and Concentration in Social Occupations

To explore the hypothesis that people who migrate across international, provincial, and state borders tend to veer away from occupations that require intense social interaction, demographic data were obtained on 2,638 North Americans who have attained eminence within their chosen fields. Occupations were blind-coded either as "social" or "nonsocial." While there were similar concentrations in social occupations among Native Americans (75.00%) and Native Canadians (73.02%), there were successively fewer social occupations among Canadian emigres (59.53%), world (predominantly European) emigres (51.46%), and Asian emigres (40.99%) to the U.S. Findings suggest that Asian Americans' well-documented tendencies to veer away from lines of work that involve forceful self-expression reflects a continuous variable rather than a dichotomous variable that sharply separates Asian and North American cultures.     

Contrasting managerial perspectives of American and Italian public administrators

A 45-item Q- sort first developed in a study of Italian public administrators was used to compare managerial attitudes of 110 American and 183 Italian male administrators. Items were evaluated both with regard to mean ratings and sequential ranking within samples. Twenty-five items differentiated significantly between the samples; the correlation (rho) between the two rankings was .60. American administrators placed relatively greater emphasis on interpersonal relationships and career opportunities, whereas Italians stressed security and structure. On six Italian typologies previously established, American scored slightly above average on Type II (the mediator-tolerant, modest in his demands, generous in his relationships), and slightly below average on Type III (the actionist-tough-minded, decisive, indifferent to the feelings of subordinates).     

Orientation and lever responding in auditory discriminations in squirrel monkeys.

Head orientation during auditory discriminations was studies in squirrel monkeys using a two-lever trial-by-trial procedure. Animals were studied using auditory discriminations based on the position of the sound and on the spectral content differences between a pure tone and a noise. After the percentage of correct responses reached asymptote, head orientation was measured using videotape recordings. Orientation occurred on virtually every trial and was under the control of the position of the sound under all conditions. Lever responding was controlled by the same parameters of the sound under some conditions, and by different parameters in others. Orientation and lever responding were correlated (a level response could be predicted from the direction of orientation) when both responses were under the control of the same parameters of the sound. The two responses were uncorrelated when they were controlled by different parameters of the sound. Orientation and lever responding were not functionally related.     

The choice reaction times of single and dual jointed actions

The choice reaction times of dual (elbow and wrist) and single (elbow) jointed movements were measured using ‘mixed’ (dual and single) and ‘matched’ (both dual or both single) response pairings. Although subjects found it more difficult to execute dual jointed actions (as shown by error rate), there was no concomitant prolongation of latencies for acceptable responses. In the light of these findings, the utility of CRT as an index of motor programming complexity, and the claim that pre-programming of responses is precluded with CRT testing, were discussed.     

Auditory discrimination: role of time and intensity in the precedence effect.

Rats were trained to respond on a lever adjacent to a sounding speaker (the sound source) when a single click was emitted. A second click (the artificial echo) was presented through a second speaker on the opposite side. In Condition I, the echo (equal in intensity to the source) was delayed from .015 to 32 milliseconds; greater than 75% correct responses were given for delay times between about .040 milliseconds (lower threshold) and 8 milliseconds (upper threshold). In Condition II, the echo (simultaneous with the source) was reduced in intensity relative to the source over a range from 2.5 decibels to 40 decibels; greater than 75% correct responses occurred for intensity reductions greater than 5 decibels. In Condition III, both the intensity and the delay time of the echo were manipulated in a manner analogous to that which would occur under natural conditions; greater than 95% correct responses were given for delay times from 1 to 32 milliseconds. These data indicate that both time and intensity differences are necessary for localization of primary sources, with delay time contributing more at short echo path distances, and intensity differences at long distances.