Imitation of synthesized English and nonEnglish vowels by children and adults

Imitations of 15 synthesized vowels, some like English vowels and some not, were obtained from nine adults and ten 6-year-old children. Estimates of the first three formant frequencies (F ₁ , F ₂ , and F ₃ ) were made from spectrograms of the vowel imitations. The reliability of reproduction was assessed by calculating standard deviations for five imitations each of ten of the synthetic stimuli. Generally, both the intrasubject and intersubject variabilities were greater for the children than for the adults. However, the differences in intrasubject variability between the two groups often were not much greater than the difference in measurement error which would be expected for voices of different fundamental frequencies. Subjects tended to reproduce the nonEnglish vowels less reliably than the English vowels, although the adults were less influenced by phonetic familiarity than were the children. Vowel familiarity appeared to be especially important for reliable reporoduction of the F ₂ frequency. Plotting of the imitation data for English vowels in a F ₁ –F ₂ plane with linear dimensions revealed a fairly systematic clustering for the four age-sex groups of men, women, boys, and girls, but the group clustering was not so systematic for the imitation data for the nonEnglish vowels.This work was supported by Public Health Service Research Grant NS-HD-12281.     

Real and Illusory Control Over Exposure to HIV in College Students and Gay Men1

Reasons for unsafe sex were examined using an illusions of control framework. Heterosexual college students (N= 301) and gay men (N= 248) were surveyed regarding perceived control over exposure to HIV, of vulnerability to HIV, use of illusory control in chance situations, and real and illusory strategies for protection against HIV. As predicted, the use of illusory control in chance situations was associated with more illusory HIV protection in both samples. Illusory protection strategies were associated with feeling less vulnerable to HIV which was mediated by perceptions of control over exposure to HIV. Suggestions for intervention include providing information about the illusory nature of some protective strategies and a focus on failing to protect oneself from STDs.     

When Lightning Strikes: Reexamining Creativity in Psychotherapy

Creativity is paramount to the therapeutic process. This article explored the role of creativity in counseling and psychotherapy through a critical analysis of several key articles in a special issue of The Journal of Clinical Activities, Assignments, & Handouts in Psychotherapy Practice (L. L. Hecker, 2002). Implications for counselors/therapists and the future of the field are discussed.     

The cognitive effects of jury aids on decision‐making in complex civil litigation

Two hundred seventy nine individuals served as mock jury members in a civil trial that involved multiple plaintiffs and several expert witnesses. Juries were or were not provided with written summary statements of the testimony of expert scientific witnesses, and were either permitted or not permitted to take notes. The results showed that the combination of summary statements and note‐taking had a synergistic effect on the quality of decision‐making. Mock juries enabled by both cognitive aids provided significantly higher awards, as compared to mock juries aided by one or none of the jury‐aids, to the most severely injured plaintiffs without increasing compensation for those less worthy. Aided mock juries also recalled more probative evidence than non‐aided jurors, and were more satisfied with the efficacy of their deliberations. Copyright © 2005 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Our inalienable ability to sin: Peter Olivi’s rejection of asymmetrical freedom

From the time of Augustine to the late thirteenth century, leading Christian thinkers agreed that freedom requires the ability to make good choices, but not the ability to make bad ones. If freedom required the ability to sin, they reasoned, neither God nor the angels nor the blessed in heaven could be free. This essay examines the work of Peter Olivi, the first medieval philosopher known to reject the asymmetrical conception of freedom. Olivi argues that the ability to sin is essential to creaturely freedom and remains even in heaven. While Anselm is the nominal target of Olivi’s arguments on this topic, they form part of a wider critique directed even more at Aquinas and his followers. Olivi faults them for misunderstanding the nature of the created will and for failing to provide a foundation for a particular kind of moral responsibility: personal merit.     

Treatment‐Seeking Disparity Between African Americans and Whites: Attitudes Toward Treatment,Coping Resources,and Racism

African Americans seek mental health treatment at lower rates than Whites. This disparity has been attributed to African Americans' attitudes toward services, alternate coping, and differences in care. Research on microaggressions adds an important element to this literature. Including discussion of microaggressions in counseling training may illuminate subtle student biases. Los individuos Afroamericanos buscan recibir tratamientos de salud mental en un índice menor que los Blancos. Esta disparidad ha sido atribuida a las actitudes de los Afroamericanos hacia los servicios, formas de afrontamiento alternativas, y a las diferencias en la asistencia. Las investigaciones sobre microagresiones añaden un elemento importante a esta documentación. Incluir la discusión sobre microagresiones en la formación de consejeros puede iluminar los sesgos sutiles de los estudiantes.     

The encoding-retrieval relationship: retrieval as mental simulation

There is increasing evidence to suggest that mental simulations underlie many cognitive processes. We review results from three rapidly developing research areas suggesting that simulations underlie information retrieval. First, neuroimaging work indicates that cortical circuits that were activated during encoding are reactivated during retrieval. Second, retrieval is aided by behavioural re-enactment of processes involved in encoding, including re-enactment of encoding eye movements. Third, the time courses of encoding of visual features and the retrieval of information about those features are related. Overall, the evidence suggests that the often observed interactions between encoding and retrieval result from a cognitive system that, at least partially, reactivates processes that were involved in encoding to retrieve information.     

Causality and things in themselves

In this paper I examine Kant's use of causal language to characterize things in themselves. Following Nicholas Rescher, I contend that Kant's use of such causal language can only be understood by first coming to grips with the relation of things in themselves to appearances. Unlike Rescher, however, I argue that things in themselves and appearances are not numerically distinct entities. Rather, I claim that it is things in themselves that we are intentionally related to in veridical experience, though of course we know them only as they appear to us via our subjective experiential faculties. In light of this account of the role of things in themselves in Kant's account of experience, I argue that his use of causal locutions to describe things in themselves is simply his attempt to capture the fact that as the objects that we are related to in experience, the existence of things in themselves is presupposed by any account of the nature of our experienceof them.Substantial work on this paper was done while I attended the National Endowment for the Humanities 1986 Summer Seminar given by Hector-Neri Castañeda at Indiana University. I would like to thank the National Endowment for the Humanities for their support, and Professor Castañeda and the other members of the seminar for their many invaluable comments, suggestions, and criticisms.     

Thematic Analysis of the Intersection of Spirituality and Eating Disorder Symptoms

The authors interviewed 12 female participants about the intersection of their spiritual beliefs and eating disorder symptoms. Three main themes emerged from the data: (a) spiritual beliefs as helpful, (b) choice not to ask for spiritual help, and (c) guilt.     

Motivated prediction of future feelings: effects of negative mood and mood orientation on affective forecasts

This article examines the role of motivational factors in affective forecasting. The primary hypothesis was that people predict positive emotional reactions to future events when they are motivated to enhance their current feelings. Three experiments manipulated participants' moods (negative vs. neutral) and orientation toward their moods (reflective vs. ruminative) and then assessed the positivity of their affective predictions for future events. As hypothesized, when participants adopted a reflective orientation, and thus should have been motivated to engage in mood-regulation processes, they predicted more positive feelings in the negative than in the neutral mood condition. This pattern of mood-incongruent affective prediction was not exhibited when participants adopted a ruminative orientation. Additionally, within the negative mood condition, generating affective forecasts had a more positive emotional impact on reflectors than on ruminators. The findings suggest that affective predictions are sometimes driven by mood-regulatory motives.