The Priestley duality for Wajsberg algebras

The Priestley duality for Wajsberg algebras is developed. The Wajsberg space is a De Morgan space endowed with a family of functions that are obtained in rather natural way.As a first application of this duality, a theorem about unicity of the structure is given.     

Grading the ‘cultural literacy’ project

The essay examines the argument advanced by E.D. Hirsch, Jr., for instituting ‘cultural literacy’ as a fundamental priority of schools. A number of confusions and equivocations in Hirsch's reasoning are identified, and the propensity of his project to indoctrinate is exposed. Among the features of Hirsch's argument shown to be troubling are his shifting construal of ‘language’, his inconsistency about the requirements of cultural literacy, and his uncritical relation to traditional images of the American past and present. The upshot is to raise the question why Hirsch's project has elicited wide support and praise.     

Changes in information as a function of a culturally appropriate smoking cessation community intervention for Hispanics

Tested a 7-month, media-based, community intervention among Hispanics in San Francisco designed to change levels of information on the damaging effects of cigarette smoking and on the availability of culturally appropriate cessation services. Three community-wide surveys of Hispanics were conducted with independent random samples, two as baselines (n = 1,660 and 2,053) and one postintervention (n = 1,965). Results showed that changes in the level of awareness of cessation services had taken place after implementation of the intervention. Furthermore, those changes took place primarily among the less acculturated Spanish-speaking Hispanics who were the target of the intervention. The changes in information reported here demonstrate that a culturally appropriate information dissemination campaign that utilizes multiple channels can produce changes in a community's level of information even when the campaign is implemented for a relatively short period.     

Attention and personality in augmenting/reducing of visual evoked potentials

Earlier research has shown that extraverts tend to increase their visual evoked potential amplitudes with increasing light intensity (augmenting), while introverts reach their maximum amplitude at lower intensities (reducing). The evoked response has normally been measured from association areas of the brain (at the vertex). The present study measured VEP amplitudes over visual cortex and at the vertex, using four light intensities in two conditions, where attention was either directed towards the light stimuli, or away from them by a concurrent auditory task. Forty subjects were classified as extraverts or introverts based on the Eysenck Personality Inventory. The results show that attention interacted significantly with extraversion. Introverts exhibited a narrower focus of attention, while higher amplitudes and amplitude-intensity functions when attending to the light flashes and lower when distracted. Extraverts showed smaller differences between conditions, indicating a more evenly distributed attention. Higher arousal in introverts is the probable cause of their narrower focus of attention. There were marked differences in the distribution of activity between vertex and occipital cortex. Introverts showed relatively stronger occipital responses and extraverts stronger vertex responses across all intensities and in both conditions. The predisposition for mainly perceptual responses to aversive stimuli in introverts, and for general alerting and motor preparatory responses in extraverts, are interpreted as supportive of Brebner and Cooper's hypothesis that introverts are ‘geared to inspect’ and extraverts are ‘geared to respond’.     

The role accorded to the public by philosophers of science 1

The role accorded to the public by scientists and philosophers of science has undergone an essential historical change in the last three centuries. Public participation in (witnessing of) scientific experiments was considered an important requirement for 17th century experimenters (e.g. for Boyle or Pascal). The cognitive role played by lay persons was later substantially downgraded; witnessing went out of fashion, while science became more and more esoteric and a matter for experts only. Part of this process was that all scientific disciplines became intensively compartmentalized and in consequence a rather puzzling or even paradoxical situation appeared: that the scientists themselves were and are being reduced epistemically to the status of lay persons, outside of their proper field of expertise (as was pointed out by J. Hardwig). The paper deals with some cognitive aspects of this historical process.     

Therapeutic Interaction and Dropout: Measuring Relational Communication in Solution-focused Therapy

The relational communication of sixteen dropout versus sixteen continuation sessions of solution-focused therapy was studied using two different coding schemes. On the Topic Initiation/Topic Following coding scheme (Tracey, 1986) no differences were found between dropout and continuation sessions, whereas the Family-Relational Communication Control Coding Scheme (Heatherington and Friedlander, 1987) yielded a number of significant findings. Both in 'successful' and in 'unsuccessful' dropout sessions, therapeutic interaction was found to be more conflictive than in continuation cases, with clients showing more domineering behaviour in dropout than in continuation sessions. Markovian and lag sequential analysis are used to clarify some of these findings, and their implications are discussed.     

Implicit learning: Below the subjective threshold

In this review, we consider three possible criteria by which knowledge might be regarded as implicit or inaccessible: It might be implicit only in the sense that it is difficult to articulate freely, or it might be implicit according to either an objective threshold or a subjective threshold. We evaluate evidence for these criteria in relation to artificial grammar learning, the control of complex systems, and sequence learning, respectively. We argue that the convincing evidence is not yet in, but construing the implicit nature of implicit learning in terms of a subjective threshold is most likely to prove fruitful for future research. Furthermore, the subjective threshold criterion may demarcate qualitatively different types of knowledge. We argue that (1) implicit, rather than explicit, knowledge is often relatively inflexible in transfer to different domains, (2) implicit, rather than explicit, learning occurs when attention is focused on specific items and not underlying rules, and (3) implicit learning and the resulting knowledge are often relatively robust.     

Is visual attention automatically attracted by one’s own name?

Subjects were presented with briefly exposed visual displays of words that were common first names with a length of four to six letters. In the main experiment, each display consisted of four words: two names shown in red and two shown in white. The subject’s task was to report the red names (targets), but ignore the white ones (distractors). On some trials the subject’s own name appeared as a display item (target or distractor). Presentation of the subject’s name as a distractor caused no more interference with report of targets than did presentation of other names as distractors. Apparently, visual attention was not automatically attracted by the subject’s own name.