Comparison of active and purely visual performance in a multiple-string means-end task in infants

The aim of the present study was to understand what factors influence infants’ problem-solving behaviours on the multiple-string task. The main question focused on why infants usually solve the single string-pulling task at 12 months at the latest, whereas most 16-month-old infants still cannot solve the task when several strings are presented, only one of which is attached to the desired object. We investigated whether this difficulty is related to infants’ ability to inhibit their spontaneous immediate actions by comparing active and purely visual performance in this task. During the first part of the experiment, we assessed the ability of infants aged 16–20 months to solve the multiple-string task. The infants were then divided into three groups based on performance (a “failure” group, an “intermediate” group, and a “success” group). The results of this action task suggest that there were differences in infants’ performance according to their level of inhibitory control of their preferred hand. In the second part of the experiment, the three groups’ predictive looking strategies were compared when seeing an adult performing the task. We found that only infants who successfully performed the action task also visually anticipated which string the adult had to pull in the visual task. Our results suggests that inhibitory control was not the only factor influencing infants’ performance on the task. Furthermore, the data support the direct matching hypothesis (Rizzolatti and Fadiga, 2005), according to which infants need to be able to perform actions themselves before being able to anticipate similar actions performed by others.     

Testimonial Knowledge from Lies

Recently, Dan O’Brien has argued that there are situations in which a hearer can gain testimonial knowledge from a speaker who is lying. In order to make his case, O’Brien presents two examples where a speaker lies to a hearer, but supposedly the hearer comes to have testimonial knowledge on the basis of the lying speaker’s testimony. O’Brien claims that his examples demonstrate that lies can be used to pass on knowledge in a non-inferential fashion. I argue that O’Brien is mistaken. More specifically, I argue that the hearer’s belief in the second example that O’Brien depicts fails to meet two plausible conditions for knowledge. First, the hearer’s belief fails to satisfy the requirements of the epistemic basing relation. Second, the hearer’s belief is not safe.     

SHALL WE DANCE? MUSIC AS A PORT OF ENTRANCE TO MATERNAL–INFANT INTERSUBJECTIVITY IN A CONTEXT OF POSTNATAL DEPRESSION

The present study introduces the concept of a mother–infant group therapy that makes use of music, singing, and moving to establish maternal–infant intersubjectivity. It was conducted in a residential mother–baby unit for mothers with postnatal depression and their infants over a 5‐week period. Maternal–infant intersubjectivity of four dyads in relation to the group dynamics were microanalyzed for Sessions 1 and 5. We made within‐session (i.e., beginning–middle–end) and between‐session (Session 1 vs. Session 5) comparisons for the number of intersubjectivity moments (ISMs), total time of intersubjectivity (IST), and the mean duration of ISMs on a dyadic (i.e., own mother/infant involved) and a nondyadic level (i.e., own mother/infant not involved). In addition, three ISM levels (degree of group contribution) were distinguished. The results indicated a significant increase of ISMs/IST from Session 1 to Session 5. Within‐session analyses showed that ISMs/IST significantly decreased through Session 1 and remained stable throughout Session 5. Intersubjectivity occurred mainly on ISM Level 1 during Session 1 and on ISM Level 3 during Session 5, suggesting increased dyadic autonomy and self‐efficacy. The results are discussed in relation to the musical characteristics of mother–infant dyads, music improvisation techniques, group processes, and intersubjective development.     

Can good science be logically inconsistent?

Some philosophers have recently argued that contrary to the traditional view, good scientific theories can in fact be logically inconsistent. The literature is now full of case-studies that are taken to support this claim. I will argue however that as of yet no-one has managed to articulate a philosophically interesting view about the role of logically inconsistent theories in science that genuinely goes against tradition, is plausibly true, and is supported by any of the case studies usually given.     

Balancing Critique and Commitment: A Synthetic Approach to Teaching Religion and the Environment

Courses about religion and the environment should work toward a synthesis of critical thinking – teaching students to examine and question the interplay of environmental degradation, religious traditions, and new religious movements – and advocacy – helping students to embrace, articulate, and refine their own environmentalist commitments, in religious terms when appropriate. To meet these goals, teachers of religion and the environment can learn from literature on balancing faith and critical analysis in other religion courses. This literature will help us to clarify the goals of our courses, critically examine the environmental movement with our students, and remain trustworthy to those who do not share environmentalist commitments. See a companion essay in this issue of the journal (Jennifer R. Ayres, “Learning on the Ground”) and a response to both of these essays (Forrest Clingerman, “Pedagogy as a Field Guide to the Ecology of the Classroom”) also published in this issue of the journal.     

Assessment of performance validity in the Stroop Color and Word Test in mild traumatic brain injury patients: A criterion‐groups validation design

The current study assessed performance validity on the Stroop Color and Word Test (Stroop) in mild traumatic brain injury (TBI) using criterion‐groups validation. The sample consisted of 77 patients with a reported history of mild TBI. Data from 42 moderate–severe TBI and 75 non‐head‐injured patients with other clinical diagnoses were also examined. TBI patients were categorized on the basis of Slick, Sherman, and Iverson (1999) criteria for malingered neurocognitive dysfunction (MND). Classification accuracy is reported for three indicators (Word, Color, and Color–Word residual raw scores) from the Stroop across a range of injury severities. With false‐positive rates set at approximately 5%, sensitivity was as high as 29%. The clinical implications of these findings are discussed.     

Culture Cultivating Culture: The Four Products of the Meaning-Made World

Culture, in a semiotic cultural psychology, is defined from the viewpoint of cultivation—the meaning making processes that give meaning to the world (Valsiner 2000, 2007a). However, the individual is not simply a process-machine in an empty world—there are both the external outcomes of meaning making (individual and group based) as well as the collective influence on the cultivation process. I argue to examine the cultivation process more completely, one must look at these external influences that catalyze future cultivation processes. By examining the power of the external (environmental Umwelten) and group-internal (myths, morals), a much greater understanding of the behavior of individuals can be accomplished beyond examining the individual’s process of meaning making. Further work into examining the objects that affectively activate the individual as well as group action and meaning making is called for and examples of such studies are given.