SENSATIONS, SWATCHES, AND SPECKLED HENS

Abstract: We argue that there is a interesting connection between the old problem of the Speckled Hen and an argument that can be traced from Russell to Armstrong to Putnam that we call the “gradation argument.” Both arguments have been used to show that there is no “Highest Common Factor” between appearances we judge the same – no such thing as “real” sensations. But, we argue, both only impugn the assumption of epistemic certainty regarding introspective reports.     

Thinking about the past,present, and future: Time perspective and self-esteem in adolescents,young adults,middle-aged adults,and older adults

We examined time perspective and self-esteem in adolescents, young adults, middle-aged adults, and older adults. Time perspective was measured with scales that assess relative orientations and relationships among the past, present, and future. Age effects were examined with standard analytic strategies to determine categorical differences between age groups and with new statistical techniques designed to show continuous age patterns. Findings indicated that (1) thinking about the future was greatest for adolescents and young adults and lowest for middle-aged and older adults, and thinking about the present increased across ages; (2) fewer adolescents and middle-aged participants perceived that the time periods were interrelated compared to younger and older adults; and (3) across ages, a greater emphasis towards the past compared to other time periods was associated with lower self-esteem, whereas emphasizing the present and the future jointly was associated with higher self-esteem.     

Preferences for scale structure in melodic sequences

Most Western music is tonal; that is, pitch organization can largely be described in terms of scales or keys. A considerable amount of research has been conducted on the role played by scale in perceiving notes and melodies. The present article points out a potentially important distinction between scale structure (the set permitted pitch intervals between notes) and mode (the assignment of a special salience or centrality to particular notes within the scale structure). Four experiments are described that investigated the judgment of adult Western listeners for melodies that approximated to scale structure in differing degrees but that were random in other respects. We found that musicians and nonmusicians gave higher ratings of preference and adjudged musicality to melodies containing increased numbers of consecutive notes conforming to scale structure. A significant exception to this rule was the least scalar type of sequence, which received ratings as high as the fully scalar sequences. This exception occurred because subjects identified scale structure not only in groups of contiguous notes but also in groups of discontiguous notes that formed a coherent "stream" as long as the number of notes intervening corresponded to a standard temporal grouping, or meter, such as is commonly found in Western music.     

Kant and Kantian Themes in Recent Analytic Philosophy

This article notes six advances in recent analytic Kant research: (1) Strawson's interpretation, which, together with work by Bennett, Sellars, and others, brought renewed attention to Kant through its account of space, time, objects, and the Transcendental Deduction and its sharp criticisms of Kant on causality and idealism; (2) the subsequent investigations of Kantian topics ranging from cognitive science and philosophy of science to mathematics; (3) the detailed work, by a number of scholars, on the Transcendental Deduction; (4) the clearer understanding of transcendental idealism sparked by reactions to Allison's epistemic account; (5) the resulting need—prompted also by new studies of the thing in itself—to face up to the old question of the philosophical defensibility of such idealism; and (6) the active engagement with Kant's ethics and political philosophy that derives from Rawls's and others' work.     

Auditory backward-masking performance by children who stutter and its relation to dysfluency rate

The fluency of people who stutter is affected markedly when auditory feedback is altered, suggesting that stuttering may be associated with hearing. Peripheral hearing problems, however, are no more common in people who stutter than in those who do not. Performance was investigated in a task that involves central auditory processing (backward masking). Children who stuttered had deficits in backward masking (indicated by higher thresholds) compared with a group of fluent control children. The backward-masking thresholds were positively correlated with frequency of stuttering.     

Intrusive thoughts and avoidance in breast cancer: Individual differences and association with psychological distress

Abstract Eighty-five women with newly diagnosed breast cancer were classified on the basis of high and low levels of cancer-related intrusive thoughts and avoidance at diagnosis, and their psychological adjustment was studied prospectively at 3 and 6 months post diagnosis. Patients who initially reported high levels of both intrusive thoughts and avoidance and those who reported high levels of intrusive thoughts but low avoidance experienced the highest levels of anxiety and depression symptoms, and continued intrusive thoughts and avoidance. Patients who were high in avoidance but low in intrusive thoughts also experienced adjustment problems, including increased intrusive thoughts, when compared with patients who were low in both types of symptoms. The findings highlight the value of considering subgroup differences in patterns of intrusion and avoidance as predictors of subsequent psychological adjustment to breast cancer.     

Sleep quality, sleep propensity and academic performance

We examined associations between measures of sleep propensity on the Epworth Sleepiness Scale, sleep quality on the Pittsburgh Sleep Quality Index and academic performance by GPA and grades in introductory psychology for 414 students. In the total sample, neither sleep propensity nor sleep quality correlated with GPA or introductory psychology grades. However, among students carrying a full course load, those reporting poor sleep quality performed less well on academic measures than those reporting a better quality of sleep. Further research is needed to assess the moderating influence of overall demands of daytime functioning on the association between sleep quality and academic performance.     

Some properties of auditory memory for rapid formant transitions

In the three experiments reported here, subjects indicate whether two sequentially presented syllables, differing in the place of articulation of an initial stop consonant, are phonernically the same or not. The first experiment finds faster |ldsame” responses to acoustically identical pairs than to pairs that are phonemically identical but acoustically distinct. provided that the second syllable is presented within 400 msec of the first. This is interpreted as indicating the persistence of a memory which preserves auditory information about within-category distinctions. The third experiment shows that this advantage remains when a tone is interposed between the two syllables, but is removed when a brief vowel is similarly interposed. The second experiment presents the second syllable of each pair dichotically with a noise burst, and shows that the size of the right-ear advantage for this reaction time task is reduced when the result of comparisons based on this auditory memory is compatible with the required phonemic decision, but that the right-ear advantage is increased when auditory comparisons would contradict the phonemic relationship.