Understanding Vietnamese Refugee Women's Identity Development From a Sociopolitical and Historical Perspective

The authors address the lack of information about the identity development of Vietnamese refugee women. Although their age and time of arrival to the United States have a major impact on Vietnamese refugee women's identity development, a review of the historical and sociopolitical influences on the identity development of this group also plays an important role in understanding their resiliency, traditional and nontraditional frames of references, and coping mechanisms.     

ERP evidence for telicity effects on syntactic processing in garden-path sentences

Verbs contain multifaceted information about both the semantics of an action, and potential argument structures. Linguistic theory classifies verbs according to whether the denoted action has an inherent (telic) end-point (fall, awaken), or whether it is considered homogenous, or atelic (read, worship). The aim of our study was to examine how this distinction influences on-line sentence processing, investigating the effects of verbal telicity on the ease of syntactic re-analysis of Object reduced relative clauses. Event-related brain potentials (ERPs) were recorded from 22 English speakers as they read sentences in which the main verb was either telic or atelic, e.g., “The actress awakened/worshipped by the writer left in a hurry”. ERPs elicited by telic and atelic verbs, the preposition “by” introducing the second argument (Agent), and the second argument itself, e.g., “writer”, were compared. Additionally, participants were grouped according to receptive syntactic proficiency: normal (NP) or high (HP). ERPs from the NP group first diverged at the second argument, with the atelic condition eliciting larger amplitude negativity at the N100, and continuing to the P200 interval. In contrast, ERPs from the HP group first diverged earlier in the sentence, on the word “by”. ERPs elicited by “by” in the atelic condition were also characterized by increased negativity, in this case significant at P200 and Anterior Negativity between 320 and 500 ms post stimulus onset. Our results support the postulated conceptual/semantic distinction underlying the two verb categories, and demonstrate that world-knowledge about actions designated by verbs and syntactic proficiency are reflected in on-line processing of sentence structure.     

Trace eyeblink conditioning requires the hippocampus but not autophosphorylation of alphaCaMKII in mice

Little is known about signaling mechanisms underlying temporal associative learning. Here, we show that mice with a targeted point mutation that prevents autophosphorylation of alphaCaMKII (alphaCaMKII(T286A)) learn trace eyeblink conditioning normally. This forms a sharp contrast to the severely impaired spatial learning in the water maze and contextual fear conditioning observed in alphaCaMKII(T286A) mutants. Importantly, hippocampal lesions impaired trace eyeblink conditioning in alphaCaMKII(T286A) mice, suggesting a potential role of hippocampal alphaCaMKII-independent mechanisms. These results indicate that hippocampal signaling mechanisms that underlie temporal associative learning as assessed by trace eyeblink conditioning may differ from those of spatial and contextual learning.     

Social Status and Relational System of Elderly Suicides: A Reexamination of the Henry-Short Thesis*

ABSTRACT: The relationship between status and suicide has not been clearly established. Henry and Short suggested a direct relationship, but subsequent research has proposed an inverse association. The present study of elderly males uses information obtained from two sources: (a) a random sample of the aged population studied in Pinellas County, Florida, in 1959; and (b) persons aged 65 and over who committed suicide in that county between 1955 and 1963. The major findings are: (a) the highest suicide rate is found at the lowest class level, suggesting an inverse relationship; (b) class differential in suicide is explained by a direct relationship between class and the relational system; and (c) controlling on the relational system results in a direct association between class and suicide. Thus, both status and the relational system operate independently and jointly to affect suicide rates of these elderly males. Findings suggest that both Henry and Short and later investigators are partially correct. The relationship between status and suicide may be clarified by taking into account other factors which are class related but which perhaps are more significant than measures of class alone.     

THE EFFECTS OF TEXT ADAPTATION ON RATED APPEAL AND DIFFICULTY

This study was designed to investigate how low‐achieving readers rate high‐interest low vocabulary adaptations and their original story versions for difficulty and appeal. Five hundred and seventy‐six Title 1 junior and senior high school students were assigned randomly to read and rate one of eight story versions (three original versions and five adaptations). Significant differences in difficulty and appeal ratings were found across the eight story versions. Adaptations were rated as being easier than original stories. Generally, changes in length and readability did not affect appeal. The one exception to this finding was a story adaptation that also had a substantial content modification. The quality of a story was found to be the important factor affecting appeal.     

Book reviews

J. Roger Saydah. The Ethical Theory of Clarence Irving Lewis. Athens, Ohio: Ohio University Press, 1969. Pp. 171. Indexed. $7.50.

Nicholas Rescher. Many‐Valued Logic. New York: McGraw‐Hill Book Co., 1969. Pp. ix, 359.

EVA Schaper. Prelude to Aesthetics. New York: Humanities Press, 1968. Pp. 179. Indexed. $6.50.

N. Fotion. Moral Situations. Yellow Springs, Ohio: The Antioch Press, 1968. Pp. 124. Indexed. $4.75; paperback $1.05.

John and Shirley Lachs, eds. Physical Order and Moral Liberty. Previously Unpublished Essays by George Santavana. Nashville, Tennessee: Vanderbilt University Press. Pp. xiv, 322. $7.95.

D. C. Armstrong. A Materialist Theory of Mind. New York: Humanities Press, 1968. Pp. xi, 372. Indexed. $8.50.

Annali della Facolta di Lettere et Filosofia, Pubblicazioni dell’ Universita di Barni, Volume XII, Adriatica Editrice, Bari, 1967. Pp. 251.

Bernard Zylstra. From Pluralism to Collectivism: The Development of Harold Laski's Political Thought. New York: Humanities Press, 1968. Pp. 236. $8.00.

Andrew J. Reck. The New American Philosophers: An Exploration of Thought Since “World War II. Baton Rouge, La.: Louisiana State University Press, 1968. Pp. xxii, 362. $8.95.

Elizabeth Ramsden Eames. Bertrand Russell's Theory of Knowledge. New York: George Braziller, 1969. Pp. 240. Indexed. $6.00.