What do you do after you say hello? Observing,coding, and analyzing parent-infant interactions

Procedures for observing, coding, and analyzing parent-infant interactions are described. Sample data are presented to illustrate the outcome of these procedures and the manner in which developmental issues can be addressed using the hardware and software systems described.     

Adaptation to delayed auditory feedback

Delayed auditory feedback disrupts the production of speech, causing an increase in speech duration as well as many articulatory errors. To determine whether prolonged exposure to delayed auditory feedback IDAFI leads to adaptive compensations in speech production, 10 subjects were exposed in separate experimental sessions to both incremental and constantdelay exposure conditions. Significant adaptation occurred for syntactically structured stimuli in the form of increased speaking rates. After DAF was removed, aftereffects were apparent for all stimulus types in terms of increased speech rates. A carry-over effect from the first to the second experimental session was evident as long as 29 days after the first session. The use of strategies to overcome DAF and the differences between adaptation to DAF and adaptation to visual rearrangement are discussed.     

Effect of sample presentation time on long-delay matching in the pigeon

The effect of sample stimulus presentation time on long-delay matching in highly practiced pigeons was investigated. The birds were found capable of above chance matching performance at a delay of 60 sec provided the sample stimulus was presented for 4 sec or longer. Matching accuracy increased as a negatively accelerated function of sample stimulus presentation time and decreased as a negatively accelerated function of time since the termination of the sample. The rate of forgetting was found to be independent of sample stimulus presentation time. The data were inconsistent with a temporal discrimination interpretation of the effect of presentation time on delayed matching. The data were interpreted as supporting a simple trace strength and decay model of pigeon delayed matching.     

A Taxonomy of Part-Whole Relations

A taxonomy of part-whole or meronymic relations is developed to explain the ordinary English-speaker's use of the term “part of” and its cognates. The resulting classification yields six types of meronymic relations: 1. component-integral object (pedal-bike), 2. member-collection (ship-fleet), 3. portion-mass (slice-pie), 4. stuff-object (steel-car), 5. feature-activity (paying-shopping), and 6. place-area (Everglades-Florida). Meronymic relations ore further distinguished from other inclusion relations, such as spatial inclusion, and class inclusion, and from several other semantic relations: attribution, attachment, and ownership. This taxonomy is then used to explain cases of apparent intransitivity in merological syllogisms, and standard form syllogisms whose premises express different inclusion relations. The data suggest that intransitivities arise due to equivocations between different types of semantic relations. These results are then explained by means of the relation element theory which accounts for the character and behavior of semantic relations in terms of more primitive relational elements. The inferential phenomena observed are then explained by means of a single principle of element matching.     

Creating Creativity: A Behavior Analytic Approach

The Psychological Record - Creativity and innovation have brought about phenomenal changes throughout human history. Art, science, medicine, industry, and technology have all grown through creative...     

The Zygote Argument Is Still Invalid: So What?

Philosophia - In “The Zygote Argument is Invalid: Now What?”, Kristin Mickelson argues that Alfred Mele’s original Zygote Argument is invalid: its two premises tell us merely that...