Direct Evidence of Memory Retrieval as a Source of Difficulty in Non‐Local Dependencies in Language

Linguistic dependencies between non‐adjacent words have been shown to cause comprehension difficulty, compared with local dependencies. According to one class of sentence comprehension accounts, non‐local dependencies are difficult because they require the retrieval of the first dependent from memory when the second dependent is encountered. According to these memory‐based accounts, making the first dependent accessible at the time when the second dependent is encountered should help alleviate the difficulty associated with the processing of non‐local dependencies. In a dual‐task paradigm, participants read sentences that did or did not contain a non‐local dependency (i.e., object‐ and subject‐extracted cleft constructions) while simultaneously remembering a word. The memory task was aimed at making the word held in memory accessible throughout the sentence. In an object‐extracted cleft (e.g., It was Ellen whom John consulted…), the object (Ellen) must be retrieved from memory when consulted is encountered. In the critical manipulation, the memory word was identical to the verb's object (ELLEN). In these conditions, the extraction effect was reduced in the comprehension accuracy data and eliminated in the reading time data. These results add to the body of evidence supporting memory‐based accounts of syntactic complexity.     

Towards a Marine Mindset: Visiting an Aquarium Can Improve Attitudes and Intentions Regarding Marine Sustainability

ABSTRACT

The oceans are crucial for human survival, yet they are under serious threat from humans, for example through overfishing and poor waste management. We investigated two questions. First, does a leisure visit to an aquarium improve visitor attitudes and intentions towards marine sustainability, specifically regarding overfishing and pollution? Second, does an information booklet handed out in addition to the visit have additional measurable impact? Aquarium visitors (n = 104) completed a questionnaire on marine sustainability attitudes and behavioral intentions before and after their visit. Half of the visitors also were given informational materials that offered behavioral solutions to the problem of overfishing. The aquarium visit significantly improved visitors’ overall attitudes and intentions. The information booklet additionally improved intentions significantly, but not attitudes. These findings show that a visit to an aquarium can help individuals develop what we term a marine mindset, a state of readiness to address marine sustainability issues. Implications, limitations, and ideas for further research are discussed.     

Lateralized Hand Gesture during Speech

A group of individuals conversing in natural dyads and a group of lecturers were observed for lateral hand movement patterns during speech. Right-handed individuals in both groups displayed a significant right hand bias for gesture movements but no lateral bias for self-touching movements. The study provides external validity for previous laboratory studies of lateralized hand gesture. The results were interpreted as evidence of a central processor for both spoken and gestural communication.     

Pointing and the interference effect in obsessive‐compulsive disorder (OCD)

The interference effect in obsessive‐compulsive disorder (OCD) was investigated in order to analyze cognitive aspects of motor stereotypy in OCD‐related compulsions. So far, the domain of cognitive control in compulsive behavior has been under‐investigated. Twelve participants (OCD patients and healthy controls) completed a newly created computer‐based pointing task as well as standard clinical and psychological background measures. Findings showed that the patients displayed a larger visual interference effect compared to the controls and pointing paths were longer in time as well as distance when a distractor stimulus was present. It is concluded that, for compensation, patients would need to generate excessive amounts of attentional resources not available to overcome motor rigidity on the one side and visual distraction on the other side.     

Buddhadharma and Contemporary Ethics

‘The ‘exotic’ is uncannily close …’¹

‘Anthropologists in particular are viewed with profound distrust by ever-growing segments of the Candomblé²community …’³     

Short review and book note

John McManners, Death and the enlightenment. Changing attitudes to death among Christians and unbelievers in eighteenth-century France, Oxford University Press 1981, vii + 619 pp. £17.50

Richard Swinburne, Faith and reason, Oxford, The Clarendon Press 1981, 206 pp. £16.00

John Coulson, Religion and imagination, Oxford, The Clarendon Press 1981, 193 pp. £12.50

Irving Hexham, The irony of apartheid, the struggle for national independence of Afrikaner calvinism against British imperialism, New York, Edwin Mellen Press 1981, 239 pp

David Tracy, The analogical imagination, London, SCM Press 1981, xii + 467 pp. £12.50

K. D. Sethna Rutherford, The spirituality of the future, a search apropos of R. C. Zaehner's study in Sri Aurobindo and Teilhard de Chardin, Madison, Teaneck: Fairleigh Dickinson University Press; London and Toronto: Associated University Presses 1981. 314 pp. $28.50     

Mastery of the logic of natural numbers is not the result of mastery of counting: evidence from late counters

To master the natural number system, children must understand both the concepts that number words capture and the counting procedure by which they are applied. These two types of knowledge develop in childhood, but their connection is poorly understood. Here we explore the relationship between the mastery of counting and the mastery of exact numerical equality (one central aspect of natural number) in the Tsimane’, a farming‐foraging group whose children master counting at a delayed age and with higher variability than do children in industrialized societies. By taking advantage of this variation, we can better understand how counting and exact equality relate to each other, while controlling for age and education. We find that the Tsimane’ come to understand exact equality at later and variable ages. This understanding correlates with their mastery of number words and counting, controlling for age and education. However, some children who have mastered counting lack an understanding of exact equality, and some children who have not mastered counting have achieved this understanding. These results suggest that understanding of counting and of natural number concepts are at least partially distinct achievements, and that both draw on inputs and resources whose distribution and availability differ across cultures.