How to avoid developmental effects in free recall

Immediate and final free recall was tested in children from grades 4, 6, and 8, using lists of words and lists of tasks which the children performed. The expected developmental effect was found in both the immediate and the final free recall of the words, but there were no significant differences in the recall of the tasks as a function of age. These data are discussed within the Flavell-Brown framework of strategic and nonstrategic memory tasks.     

Counseling Parents of Handicapped Children: An Empathic Approach

Counseling is often perceived as a process one reluctantly goes through when life's problems become too overwhelming to handle alone. One such situation frequently occurs when parents become aware that they have a handicapped child. Prescott and Hulnick hold that essentially all of life's experience, including parenting a handicapped child, can be perceived as an opportunity for personal growth. Given this orientation, the truly empathic counselor assists parents in learning the skills and attitudes needed to deal effectively with their child and to learn to transform their own pain into caring and love.     

The influence of parent negative emotional expression on adolescents' perceptions of their relationships with their parents

The purpose of this study was to examine the relationship between parent affective expression in interactions and adolescent perceptions of their relationship. Observational and self-report data were collected on 85 intact families with adolescents in grades 5 to 9 (n = 44 males, 41 females). Each parent and adolescent took part in two 8-minute conversations–one about an activity they reported enjoying together and one about a disagreement or area of conflict. Conversations were coded on a speaker turn basis for positive, negative, neutral, mixed, and altered affect (kappa = .76). Physical maturation was related to adolescent perceptions of increased negative communication quality in all parent-adolescent dyads. Stepwise regression analyses indicated that expression by fathers of negative and mixed affect significantly predicted adolescent perceptions of communication quality, psychological autonomy, and firm/lax control, in addition to the effects of adolescent pubertal maturation. Mother affective expression in interactions was less consistently related to adolescent perceptions of relationship satisfaction. Implications for the salience of father versus mother affective expression in interactions with adolescents are discussed.     

WHAT IS PURE,WHAT IS GOOD? DISINTERESTEDNESS IN FÉNELON AND KANT

Two philosophers, Robert Spaemann and Henri Gouhier, have identified a similarity between Fénelon and Kant in the prominence of motive in their thought: disinterestedness in Fénelon's pure love and in Kant's good will . Spaemann emphasizes their common detaching of the ethical in terms of motivation from the context of happiness. In this article I explore further similarities and differences under the topics of perfectionism, pure love, good will, happiness, and disinterestedness, as these are pertinent to their thought. On perfectionism there appears a stark contrast; on pure love over against good will, on happiness, and on disinterestedness, however, there seems a balance between likenesses and differences. Finally I point out a qualification set on pure love by Fénelon and on the good will by Kant.     

Perspectives on multisensory experience and cognitive development in infants with cochlear implants

Infants learn about their environment through sensory exploration, acquiring knowledge that is important for cognitive development. However, little is known about the sensory exploration of infants with profound hearing loss before or after they receive cochlear implants. This paper reviews aspects of sensory perception and cognitive development in hearing infants, discusses the implications of delayed access to auditory information for multisensory perception and cognitive development in infants who use cochlear implants, and suggests several new directions for research addressing multisensory exploration and cognitive development in infants with cochlear implants.     

RECRUITERS' USE OF GPA IN INITIAL SCREENING DECISIONS: HIGHER GPAs DON'T ALWAYS MAKE THE CUT

The relationship between college grade point average (GPA) and recruiters' initial screening decisions was examined using data from 548 job postings in a college recruitment program. Results indicate that in-major grade point average (GPA) is more strongly associated with screening decisions ( p = 0.18, SD_P = 0.200) than is overall GPA ( p = 0.06, SD_P = 0.187), but the magnitudes of the relationships varied across decision sets including a larger number of negative values than would be expected from sampling error alone. Subsequent examination of the bivariate data identified 6 different plot types suggesting that recruiters use a variety of GPA decision rules to initially screen applicants in college recruiting. The most common data plots found in 42% of the decision sets suggests that recruiters do not use GPA in screening decisions. But a surprising 81 of 548 decision sets indicated recruiters selected against applicants with high GPAs. Evidence that organizations recruiting for the same job produced different plot types suggests that the use of GPA data in initial screening decisions may be idiosyncratic to individual recruiters.     

Greco's Agent Reliabilism

John Greco's Putting Skeptics in their Place presents an illuminating perspective on the nature of the skeptical problem and how to respond to it. Building on Ernest Sosa's Virtue Epistemology, Greco develops an account of knowledge he calls, "Agent Reliabilism". In this essay, I will take up several issues regarding the details of this account.