How many notions of necessity?

Evans distinguishes between superficial necessity and deep necessity in his analysis of the contingent a priori. The distinction between these two notions of necessity is formalized by Davies and Humberstone through the addition of the operator Fixedly to Actuality Modal Logic (AML, S5A), where deep necessity is represented by the combination Fixedly Actually. Wehmeier’s Subjunctive Modal Logic (SML) provides an extension of the expressive capacity of ordinary modal predicate logic alternative to AML. I add Fixedly to SML and show that in the system SML with Fixedly the distinction between deep and superficial necessity disappears. I conclude that the existence of the distinction between deep and superficial necessity, as well as the existence of the contingent a priori, cannot be asserted independently of the choice of background logic.     

Adolescent intelligence and socio-economic wealth independently predict adult marital and reproductive behavior

Counter-intuitively, sociobiological and evolutionary theories predict a negative relationship between g and reproduction when applied to modern humans. Although existing research has documented this dysgenic trend, the association between g and socio-economic factors presents a confound that has not systematically been addressed in prior research. Based on a sample of 325,252 individuals drawn from the nationally representative Project Talent database, we examined the unique effects of g and socio-economic wealth, assessed in adolescence, on marital and reproductive behavior over the next 11 years. Results show that both g and socio-economic wealth have unique, independent negative effects on marital and reproductive behavior such that individuals of higher intelligence and higher wealth delay marriage and reproductive longer than those of lower intelligence and wealth. The effect of g was slightly stronger than that of wealth, though for both variables much of their influence was mediated by educational attainment. Consistent with sociobiological theory, these dysgenic effects were stronger among females than males.     

It Works Both Ways: The Relationship Between Exposure to Sexual Content in the Media and Adolescent Sexual Behavior

Using a longitudinal Web-based survey of adolescents 14–16 years of age, we estimate regression models where self-reported sexual behavior and content analytic-based exposure to sex in the media are related cross-sectionally and longitudinally. We find evidence for both cross-sectional nonrecursive and prospective longitudinal relationships even after adjusting for both established predictors of sexual behavior (e.g., physical development, having a romantic partner, parental monitoring, peer and parental norms, respondent's age) and of exposure to sexual media content (e.g., time the respondent goes to bed, extracurricular activities, television in the bedroom, total time spent with television, music, video games, and magazines). Sexually active adolescents are more likely to expose themselves to sex in the media and those exposed to sex in the media are more likely to progress in their sexual activity. These findings are consistent with others in the literature that demonstrate a causal effect of exposure to sexual content on sexual behavior but extend established results by also looking at the causal effect of sexual behavior on exposure both cross-sectionally and over time.     

What’s left? An eye movement study of the influence of interword spaces to the left of fixation during reading

In English and other alphabetic systems read from left to right, the useful information acquired during each fixational pause is generally reported to extend 14–15 character spaces to the right of each fixation, but only 3–4 character spaces to the left, and certainly no farther than the beginning of the fixated word. However, this leftward extent is remarkably small and seems inconsistent with the general bilateral symmetry of vision. Accordingly, in the present study we investigated the influence of a fundamental component of text to the left of fixation—interword spaces—using a well-established eyetracking paradigm in which invisible boundaries were set up along individual sentence displays that were then read. Each boundary corresponded to the leftmost edge of a word in a sentence, so that as the eyes crossed a boundary, interword spaces in the text to the left of that word were obscured (by inserting a letter x). The proximity of the obscured text during each fixational pause was maintained at one, two, three, or four interword spaces from the left boundary of each fixated word. Normal fixations, regressions, and progressive saccades were disrupted when the obscured text was up to three interword spaces (an average of over 12 character spaces) away from the fixated word, while four interword spaces away produced no disruption. These findings suggest that influential information from text is acquired during each fixational pause from much farther leftward than is generally realized and that this information contributes to normal reading performance. Implications of these findings for reading are discussed.     

See an object,hear an object file: Object correspondence transcends sensory modality

An important task of perceptual processing is to parse incoming information into distinct units and to keep track of those units over time as the same, persisting representations. Within the study of visual perception, maintaining such persisting object representations is helped by “object files”—episodic representations that store (and update) information about objects' properties and track objects over time and motion via spatiotemporal information. Although object files are typically discussed as visual, here we demonstrate that object–file correspondence can be computed across sensory modalities. An object file can be initially formed with visual input and later accessed with corresponding auditory information, suggesting that object files may be able to operate at a multimodal level of perceptual processing.     

The recognition of mental states from dynamic and static facial expressions

The ability to recognize mental states from facial expressions is essential for effective social interaction. However, previous investigations of mental state recognition have used only static faces so the benefit of dynamic information for recognizing mental states remains to be determined. Experiment 1 found that dynamic faces produced higher levels of recognition accuracy than static faces, suggesting that the additional information contained within dynamic faces can facilitate mental state recognition. Experiment 2 explored the facial regions that are important for providing dynamic information in mental state displays. This involved using a new technique to freeze motion in a particular facial region (eyes, nose, mouth) so that this region was static while the remainder of the face was naturally moving. Findings showed that dynamic information in the eyes and the mouth was important and the region of influence depended on the mental state. Processes involved in mental state recognition are discussed.     

Two sets of twins with selective mutism: neuropsychological findings.

Neuropsychological data are reviewed from two sets of dizygotic twins presenting with selective mutism characterized by situation specific anxiety, extreme passive behavior, lack of responsivity, lack of peer interaction, and a chronic course of selective mutism. Both sets of twins had a history of prematurity and delayed speech development. One set of twins presented with normal intelligence and normal receptive language skills but with expressive language and oral motor sequencing difficulties. The second set of twins presented with Verbal IQ deficits and significant receptive and expressive language deficits. A summary of current conceptualizations regarding etiology and treatment of selective mutism is provided.     

Expand Positive Learning Opportunities and Results

Students with emotional disturbance (ED) experience the worst outcomes of any group of pupils in the public schools. We suggest that at least part of the reason is that the services they receive while in school are inadequate to meet their needs. Although applied research has resulted in a number of effective practices, they are not used in the majority of America's schools. Barriers to the implementation of such practices are described, and recommendations for improving programs and outcomes for these students are offered.     

Democratic Moral Education and the Gifts of the Holy Spirit

How far is Thomas Aquinas available for current discussions in political philosophy? While there are certainly things to be learned from him about our political preoccupations, the pedagogy of his moral teaching typically resists our familiar questions. This holds even when the question is put in terms that Thomas should recognize—say, as a question about the virtues appropriate for a democracy. Thomas not only gives different meanings to these terms, he moves political topics away from the center of theological attention and so organizes them very differently. A reader can notice these differences at many points but perhaps especially in the attention that Thomas gives in the Summa to the gifts of the Holy Spirit. His account of these gifts qualifies significantly what he says of virtue and suggests large limits on human agency, whether in ethics or in politics.