From Metaphysics and Philosophical Theses to Grammar: Wittgenstein's Turn

The paper discusses the question ‘what does Wittgenstein mean by not having theses in philosophy?’ His conception of philosophy without theses, as this is articulated in his later work, is understood as a response to the problem of dogmatism in philosophy and a non‐metaphysical form of philosophy. I argue that although already the Tractatus aims at a philosophy devoid of theses, it involves a relapse back to such theses. Its conception of philosophical clarification involves a particular conception of the essence of propositions. This way the form of the activity of clarification is determined by a philosophical/metaphysical thesis. In his later philosophy Wittgenstein, however, manages to solve this problem. His solution, explained with the help of the metaphor of ‘turning our whole investigation around’, consists of a change in the comprehension of the status of philosophical statements. For instance rules (e.g. definitions) and examples are understood as what he calls ‘objects of comparison’. Such objects of comparison are something that cases of language use (to be investigated with the purpose of clarification) are to be compared with, but the philosopher is not to make the claim that such objects of comparison show what the cases of language use under examination must be. The modality (expressed by ‘must’) is a characteristic of the philosopher's mode of presentation. It should not be claimed to be a feature of his object of investigation (the uses of language to be clarified).     

Parents' Explanations of Their Child's Performance in Mathematics and Reading: A Replication and Extension of Yee and Eccles

This study was conducted to examine whether Finnish parents would endorse the the classic gender-related attribution pattern and explain their son's mathematical performance in terms of talent and their daughter's in terms of effort. In addition, we examined whether the pattern of attributions would be the opposite in regard to parental explanations of their child's reading performance. A group of parents (N = 486), both mothers and fathers, were requested to assess the level of competence of their 1st grader in mathematics and reading. The parents were also asked to recall events from their child's 1st school year in which the child succeeded and failed in mathematics and reading; they were then asked to evaluate the importance of talent, effort, and task to the child's outcomes. The parents of boys assessed their child's mathematical competence to be higher than did the parents of girls. Furthermore, the parents of boys rated talent as a more important reason for their child's mathematical success than did the parents of girls. In contrast, the parents of girls rated effort as a more important reason for their child's mathematical success. Although the girls were perceived to surpass boys in reading, the girls' positive outcomes in reading were explained by effort more than the boys' outcomes, and at the highest level of assessed competence, the boys' verbal talent was rated as a more significant cause of success in reading than the girls' verbal talent. In sum, our results suggested that in both mathematics and reading, girls were not entitled to ability-based attribution to the same extent as were boys.     

Visual processing of coherent rotation in the central visual field: an fMRI study

Functional magnetic resonance imaging was used to determine the brain areas that process coherent motion. To reduce the activity related to eye-movement planning and self-motion perception, rotation was used as coherent motion and the stimulus was restricted to the central visual field. Coherent rotation relative to incoherent random-dot motion resulted in consistent activation in the superior parietal lobule (SPL), in the lateral occipital gyrus (presumptive kinetic occipital region, KO), and in the fusiform gyrus (FG). The main novel finding in present study is the bilateral SPL activation, which has not been found in any previous study contrasting coherent and incoherent motion. It is suggested that the SPL activation is related to form-from-motion processing. The stimulus modification that prevented abrupt appearances of dots at the borders of the stimulus field increased the strength of rolling disk-like percept of the coherent stimulus. This perception of form may also be at least partly responsible for the activation in KO and FG. With this explanation, our three consistent activation areas are in line with previous findings. Furthermore, these results demonstrate that even delicate changes in some stimulus aspects can lead to significant changes in the activation of the brain.     

Systematic observation methods in the study of small groups

A comparison was made between the Bales and the Carter-Haythorn-Meirowitz-Lanzetta methods of systematic observation. The comparison was limited to the categorizing of verbal behaviour. It was found that there are several deficiencies in the latter method with respect to the classes used, and that satisfactory observer reliability could not be obtained. By using the Bales method, on the other hand, fairly high total observer reliabilities were achieved, and even the category reliabilities in various classes turned out to be satisfactory, provided the category frequencies were large enough.     

A comparison of concurrent and retrospective verbal protocol analysis

In verbal protocol analysis, verbalization can occur either during decision making (concurrent data) or after (retrospective data). Although both methods have advantages and disadvantages, no empirical research has focused on a direct comparison. This study compared the effectiveness of concurrent and retrospective data for revealing the human decision making process. In general, the concurrent protocol analysis method outperformed the retrospective method. Not only was the number of concurrent protocol segments elicited higher than that of retrospective protocol segments, but concurrent data provided more insights into the decision-making steps occurring between stimulus introduction and the final choice outcome. However, retrospective protocols offer an interesting advantage: More statements about the final choice are provided in retrospective protocols than in concurrent protocols.     

Modeling the categorical perception of speech sounds: A step toward biological plausibility

Our native language has a lifelong effect on how we perceive speech sounds. Behaviorally, this is manifested as categorical perception, but the neural mechanisms underlying this phenomenon are still unknown. Here, we constructed a computational model of categorical perception, following principles consistent with infant speech learning. A self-organizing network was exposed to a statistical distribution of speech input presented as neural activity patterns of the auditory periphery, resembling the way sound arrives to the human brain. In the resulting neural map, categorical perception emerges from most single neurons of the model being maximally activated by prototypical speech sounds, while the largest variability in activity is produced at category boundaries. Consequently, regions in the vicinity of prototypes become perceptually compressed, and regions at category boundaries become expanded. Thus, the present study offers a unifying framework for explaining the neural basis of the warping of perceptual space associated with categorical perception.     

The role of gender in claiming partial or complete homicide-related amnesia

The current study examined offence and offender characteristics in female and male offenders claiming no, partial or complete homicide-related amnesia. Pre-trial file information consisting of forensic examination reports and crime reports of all female (n = 79) and male (n = 577) offenders subject to forensic psychiatric examination in 1995–2004 and convicted of homicide were retrospectively analysed. The Psychopathy Check List Revised (PCL-R) was used for scoring psychopathy. Claiming homicide-related amnesia was significantly more frequent in female (60.7%) than male (42.1%) offenders. Findings indicate that in males the use of sharp instrument, intoxication, staying at the scene and feeling regret for the killing accompany claims of crime-related amnesia. In females, personality disorder and criminal history were significantly more frequent in offenders claiming crime-related amnesia. Analysis of intelligence, psychopathology or psychopathy indicated no significant relationship with claims of amnesia in either gender groups.     

“<Emphasis Type="Italic">Do the very best you can</Emphasis>”: The third-grade class test

The aim of this study was to examine third-graders’ test situations such as they appeared in the day-to-day functioning of the school. The research was ethnographic, focusing on the test situations of one third-grade class in the mother tongue and mathematics during one school year. Our analyses suggest that third-graders no longer see the test practices as objects of learning but rather as a familiar part of their everyday schoolwork. The test-taking practices have been mastered, but preparation for the test still needs to be emphasized and practised. And, according to our findings, cheating is an object of practice as well. To third-graders, test situations appear as ‘real tests’: the evaluative import of these situations seems clear to them. The teacher and the school institution reach for maximal proficiency and performance so as bring out the pupils’ ‘pure’ ability and performance in the class test. The class teacher must deal with the ever-strengthening evaluative significance of the test in relation to both the pupils and the school administration: we find that in the test situation the class teacher creates a social-psychological we-group—an alliance of the teacher and the pupils versus the test writer—as comes out particularly clearly in connection with national tests. The findings of the study are discussed with special reference to the ways in which the class test constructs the selective-restrictive sphere of education.