The common value of pausing time in spontaneous speech

Experiments have shown that hesitation increases both before and during speech concerned with the solution of verbal tasks which involve an increasing degree of syntactic or semantic complexity. These experiments have been concerned with differences between tasks. An attempt is made to compare hesitation time between individuals who are set the same tasks, in terms of the quality of their responses to the tasks. Individual dispositions to a characteristic speech-silence ratio complicate such comparisons. Here a strong trend was found between the quality of the subjects' responses and the extra time they took over and above their characteristic speech-silence ratios.     

The Dutch curve: The introduction and reception of intelligence testing in the Netherlands, 1908–1940

In the Netherlands, intelligence testing has been pragmatic and has not generated the heated controversies found in other cultures. Four historical reasons are presented for this paradoxical development. First, the Binet test was used mainly as a diagnostic instrument for professional judgments about admission to special education. Second, the eugenic use of IQ tests was moderated by the marginal position of eugenics in Dutch society. Third, the process of “pillarization” gave considerable power to denominational groups in Dutch society, and they strongly criticized deterministic ideas about the heredity of intelligence. Fourth, the educational scientist, cognitive psychologist, philosopher, and government adviser, Philip Kohnstamm, was very influential in Dutch science and politics. He rejected intelligence testing and its deterministic connotations in favor of the idea of the educability of cognitive capacities. © 1998 John Wiley & Sons, Inc.