A complementary—Empowering model of ministerial leadership

Conclusion In conclusion, we suggest that both contemporary leadership effectiveness theory and a Biblical view of leadership empowering point to what we have called a complementary-empowering model of ministerial leadership. The varying levels of maturity to be found in any congregation require an adaptable leadership style that addresses each member of the congregation at his/her level of maturity and empowers that person for ministry and leadership in the church and community. The skills needed to lead persons at each of the maturity levels are not always given to every minister, thus the complementarity of the Body of Christ provides a variety of gifted leaders who together can empower believers for lives of service to the Body and ministry in the community.     

Talking lions and lion talk: Davidson on conceptual schemes

This essay is a reconstruction and defense of Davidson's argument against the intelligiblity of the notion of conceptual scheme. After presenting a brief clarification of Davidson's argument in On the Very Idea of a Conceptual Scheme, I turn to reconstructing Davidson's argument. Unlike many commentators, and occasionally Davidson, who hold that the motive force of the argument is the Principle of Charity (or the denial of the Third Dogma), I argue that there is a further principle which underlies the argument. This principle I call the Strong Discrimination Principle.But the argument of the paper is not purely exegetical. Not only do I show how the Strong Discrimination Principle meets certain objections to Davidson's argument, but I show how the Principle clarifies the realist position. In particular, I show how a line of argument advanced by Rorty and Putnam against (metaphysical) realism can be rejected.If a lion could talk, we could not understand him.Wittgenstein,Philosophical Investigations I have a host of friends. I am grateful to Michael Zimmerman for taking the time to read a preliminary draft of this paper, and to Carolyn Morillo for her comments on a central issue in the paper. I am also especially grateful to the relentlessly enthusiastic participants in the Current Research Seminar at Tulane. To mention but a few: Robert Berman, Radu Bogdan, Norton Nelkin, Graeme Forbes, Jim Stone, and again, Michael Zimmerman and Carolyn Morillo. If I have forgotten just whose objection precipitated yet another footnote or modification, I hope they will be as forgiving as they were helpful. I am also grateful to a referee for having pointed out the relevance of Akeel Bilgrami's article.     

NONVOCAL LANGUAGE ACQUISITION IN ADOLESCENTS WITH SEVERE PHYSICAL DISABILITIES: BLISSYMBOL VERSUS ICONIC STIMULUS FORMATS

This study compared training in two language systems for three severely handicapped, nonvocal adolescents: the Bliss symbol system and an iconic picture system. Following baseline, training and review trials were implemented using an alternating treatments design. Daily probes were conducted to assess maintenance, stimulus generalization, and response generalization, and data were collected on spontaneous usage of either language system throughout the school day. Results showed that students required approximately four times as many trials to acquire Bliss symbols as iconic pictures, and that students maintained a higher percentage of iconic pictures. Stimulus generalization occurred in both language systems, while the number of correct responses during responses generalization probes was much greater for the iconic system. Finally, students almost always showed more iconic responses than Bliss responses in daily spontaneous usage. These results suggest that an iconic system might be more readily acquired, maintained, and generalized to daily situations. Implications of these findings for the newly verbal person were discussed.     

The role of vibration in the tactual perception of roughness

Katz (1925) has argued that the sense of vibration underlies the tactual perception of roughness. However, Taylor and Lederman (1975) have suggested that vibration serves only to prevent the cessation of mechanoreceptor activity. In an experimental evaluation of these positions, it is shown that, although prior (selective) adaptation of the fingertip strongly affects the perceived magnitude of supraliminal vibrotactile signals, it fails to alter the perceived roughness of metal gratings. The results thus favor the Taylor and Lederman position. The paper also speculates on roughness coding by the mechanoreceptor populations present in glabrous skin of the human hand.     

Recognition memory in hearing-impaired children: A levels-of-processing approach

Eighty-nine hearing-impaired children ranging in age from 6 years to 12 years, 11 months were given a recognition task comprised of items from the Raven Coloured Progressive Matrices and the Raven Learning Potential Test following administration of the Raven Coloured Progressive Matrices. The study was designed to determine whether recognition memory varied as a function of item type. The analysis indicated that performance on items involving analogous reasoning exceeded recognition for items requiring pattern completion through closure, which, in turn, exceeded performance for items involving simple pattern completion. Results are discussed in light of levels-of-processing.     

Semantic and associative factors in probability learning with words

Using a probability-learning technique with a single word as the cue and with the probability of a given event following this word fixed at .80, it was found (1) that neither high nor low associates to the original word and (2) that neither synonyms nor antonyms showed differential learning curves subsequent to original learning when the probability for the following event was shifted to .20. In a second study when feedback, in the form of knowledge of results, was withheld, there was a clear-cut similarity of predictions to the originally trained word and the synonyms of both high and low association value and a dissimilarity of these words to a set of antonyms of both high and low association value. Two additional studies confirmed the importance of the semantic dimension as compared with association value as traditionally measured.     

Stimulus selection and the number of stimulus components

The number of word components in the compound stimuli of paired-associate lists were varied, and the words within a compound were presented either in a constant or in a variable order from trial to trial. The number of components, above one, had no appreciable effect on the difficulty of learning, and the variable order lists were more difficult than the constant order. Recall with the word components as cues showed that the amount of selection decreased with the variable order lists as the number of components increased. With the constant order lists, selection tended to remain constant as number of components increased. This was interpreted as the result of the availability of a rule for selection in the constant order conditions.     

Selective listening and threshold for tones appearing on a relevant and on an irrelevant input channel

Threshold scores for tones appearing on shadowed and on nonshadowed messages were obtained in order to test whether input presented on an irrelevant channel is attenuated when Ss attend to another channel. Comparisons were made between threshold scores obtained for each ear, when Ss shadowed messages appearing on that ear and when Ss shadowed messages appearing on the contralateral ear. The threshold scores in the two conditions were highly similar. Data are evaluated in the context of auditory target detection, with targets identified by their verbal content vs their physical characteristics.