The effects of spelling consistency on phonological awareness: a comparison of English and German

Within alphabetic languages, spelling-to-sound consistency can differ dramatically. For example, English and German are very similar in their phonological and orthographic structure but not in their consistency. In English the letter a is pronounced differently in the words bank, ball, and park, whereas in German the letter a always has the same pronunciation (e.g., Ball, Park, Bank). It is often argued that reading acquisition has a reciprocal effect on phonological awareness. As reading is acquired, therefore, spoken language representation may be affected differently for English and German children. Prior to literacy acquisition, however, phonological representation in English and German children should be similar due to the similar phonological structure of the two languages. We explored this hypothesis by comparing phonological awareness at the rime and phoneme levels in prereaders and beginning readers in English and German. Similar developmental effects were indeed observed in prereaders, but differential effects had emerged within the first year of reading instruction.     

Utility of the impact of event scale in screening for posttraumatic stress disorder

This study assesses the optimal cut-off point for the Impact of Event Scale and compares its screening properties with those of the Self-rating Inventory for Posttraumatic Stress Disorder among war-related trauma victims. 74 patients with war-related trauma were administered the Impact of Event Scale and the Self-rating Inventory for Posttraumatic Stress Disorder, followed 1 wk. later by the Clinician-administered PTSD Scale. Receiver operating characteristic analysis indicated for the Impact of Event Scale a sensitivity of .77 and a specificity of .51 at a cut-off value of 36. For the Self-rating Inventory for Posttraumatic Stress Disorder a sensitivity of .86 and a specificity of .69 were found at a cut-off value of 52. The authors conclude that careful use of the Impact of Event Scale as a screening measure for Posttraumatic Stress Disorder is warranted.     

Second-order statistics of colour codes modulate transformations that effectuate varying degrees of scene invariance and illumination invariance

We argue, from an ethology-inspired perspective, that the internal concepts 'surface colours' and 'illumination colours' are part of the data format of two different representational primitives. Thus, the internal concept of 'colour' is not a unitary one but rather refers to two different types of 'data structure', each with its own proprietary types of parameters and relations. The relation of these representational structures is modulated by a class of parameterised transformations whose effects are mirrored in the idealised computational achievements of illumination invariance of colour codes, on the one hand, and scene invariance, on the other hand. Because the same characteristics of a light array reaching the eye can be physically produced in many different ways, the visual system, then, has to make an 'inference' whether a chromatic deviation of the space-averaged colour codes from the neutral point is due to a 'non-normal', ie chromatic, illumination or due to an imbalanced spectral reflectance composition. We provide evidence that the visual system uses second-order statistics of chromatic codes of a single view of a scene in order to modulate corresponding transformations. In our experiments we used centre surround configurations with inhomogeneous surrounds given by a random structure of overlapping circles, referred to as Seurat configurations. Each family of surrounds has a fixed space-average of colour codes, but differs with respect to the covariance matrix of colour codes of pixels that defines the chromatic variance along some chromatic axis and the covariance between luminance and chromatic channels. We found that dominant wavelengths of red-green equilibrium settings of the infield exhibited a stable and strong dependence on the chromatic variance of the surround. High variances resulted in a tendency towards 'scene invariance', low variances in a tendency towards 'illumination invariance' of the infield.     

Re-Interpretation in Historiography: John Dewey and the Neo-Humanist Tradition

Did John Dewey’s ‘new philosophy of education’ really try to dissolve the whole block of tradition or is his debt namely to educational core-concepts of neo-humanism deeper than he was prepared to acknowledge? After some general remarks on the process of reception as productive re-adaptation and its implication for historiography I will deal with Dewey’s own contexts that shape the interpretative grid through which he receives the tradition. Two case studies attempt to illustrate both continuity and discontinuity with a specific part of this tradition, namely two critical perspectives within German neo-humanism: Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel and Johann Friedrich Herbart.     

Activity-Based Accounts of Mechanism and the Threat of Polygenic Effects

Accounts of ontic explanation have often been devised so as to provide an understanding of mechanism and of causation. Ontic accounts differ quite radically in their ontologies, and one of the latest additions to this tradition proposed by Peter Machamer, Lindley Darden and Carl Craver reintroduces the concept of activity. In this paper I ask whether this influential and activity-based account of mechanisms is viable as an ontic account. I focus on polygenic scenarios—scenarios in which the causal truths depend on more than one cause. The importance of polygenic causation was noticed early on by Mill (1893). It has since been shown to be a problem for both causal-law approaches to causation (Cartwright 1983) and accounts of causation cast in terms of capacities (Dupré 1993; Glennan 1997, pp. 605–626). However, whereas mechanistic accounts seem to be attractive precisely because they promise to handle complicated causal scenarios, polygenic causation needs to be examined more thoroughly in the emerging literature on activity-based mechanisms. The activity-based account proposed in Machamer et al. (2000, pp. 1–25) is problematic as an ontic account, I will argue. It seems necessary to ask, of any ontic account, how well it performs in causal situations where—at the explanandum level of mechanism—no activity occurs. In addition, it should be asked how well the activity-based account performs in situations where there are too few activities around to match the polygenic causal origin of the explanandum. The first situation presents an explanandum-problem and the second situation presents an explanans-problem—I will argue—both of which threaten activity-based frameworks.     

Decision science: from Ramsey to dual process theories

The hypothesis that human reasoning and decision-making can be roughly modeled by Expected Utility Theory has been at the core of decision science. Accumulating evidence has led researchers to modify the hypothesis. One of the latest additions to the field is Dual Process theory, which attempts to explain variance between participants and tasks when it comes to deviations from Expected Utility Theory. It is argued that Dual Process theories at this point cannot replace previous theories, since they, among other things, lack a firm conceptual framework, and have no means of producing independent evidence for their case.     

Modular Treatment for Children and Adolescents With Problematic School Absenteeism: Development and Description of a Program in Germany

Problematic school absenteeism is defined as absence from school occurring with a clinical-level mental disorder. It represents a higher-order term for school refusal, school truancy, and the combination thereof and is associated with an increased risk for school dropout, prolonged mental disorders, and unemployment. This article describes the manualized modular treatment of problematic school absenteeism (MT) by a multiprofessional team. The manual was developed to target a broad spectrum of mental disorders characterized by internalizing but also externalizing behavior. The therapeutic focus is on the reintegration into school and on the cognitive behavioral treatment of the mental disorder. The MT is based on a multilevel model of problematic school absenteeism. The treatment is informed by an extensive case-conceptualization and addresses motivational aspects by offering a low-threshold therapeutic design and motivational interviewing. Core interventions are represented in four modules: cognitive behavioral therapy, family counseling, school counseling, and a psychoeducational physical exercise program. A case vignette provides an illustration of the treatment and the specific graduated approach for school reintegration. The current modular approach is discussed in relation to other cognitive-behavioral manuals targeting a broad spectrum of mental disorders or school refusal.     

The Mechanics of Human Achievement

Countless studies have addressed why some individuals achieve more than others. Nevertheless, the psychology of achievement lacks a unifying conceptual framework for synthesizing these empirical insights. We propose organizing achievement‐related traits by two possible mechanisms of action: Traits that determine the rate at which an individual learns a skill are talent variables and can be distinguished conceptually from traits that determine the effort an individual puts forth. This approach takes inspiration from Newtonian mechanics: achievement is akin to distance traveled, effort to time, skill to speed, and talent to acceleration. A novel prediction from this model is that individual differences in effort (but not talent) influence achievement (but not skill) more substantially over longer (rather than shorter) time intervals. Conceptualizing skill as the multiplicative product of talent and effort, and achievement as the multiplicative product of skill and effort, advances similar, but less formal, propositions by several important earlier thinkers.