Taking on semantic commitments, II: Collective versus distributive readings

In earlier work, Frazier and Rayner (1990) provided evidence for a processing principle termed the Minimal Semantic Commitment (MSC)hypothesis. In the present study, we used the MSC hypothesis as a starting point in addressing the issue of when to treat mental representations as vague versus determinate and ambiguous. Given ambiguous representations, the MSC hypothesis predicts that the processor will commit to one interpretation (the grammatical ambiguity hypothesis). On the other hand, given a single underspecified representation, the MSC hypothesis predicts that the processor will await disambiguating information before fully committing to an interpretation (the vagueness hypothesis). In an experiment designed to evaluate these hypotheses with respect to the representation of distributivity, participants' eye movements were recorded as they read sentences containing distributive or collective predicates that were either disambiguated by a preceding adverb or left locally ambiguous by delaying the disambiguating adverb until the end of the predicate. The results suggested that a semantic commitment is made in locally indeterminate cases as evidenced by a significant interaction of ambiguity and distributivity in first pass times, total times, and regressions. If the difficulty of distributives simply reflected the difficulty of postulating a distributive operator when evidence warranting it is encountered, then no interaction would be expected. Hence we argue that the distributive/collective distinction is treated as a matter of ambiguity rather than as one of vagueness. In the absence of evidence for a distributive reading, the processor commits itself to a collective reading sometime during the processing of the predicate (before the disambiguation in our late disambiguation examples). The findings are discussed in relation to recent linguistic work on the representation of distributivity.     

Self-instruction training following neurological injury

The teaching of cognitive strategies is a potentially effective intervention technique for some students with acquired neurological injuries; however, educators have only infrequently reported on the systematic application of cognitive strategies to the academic challenges of this population. This study represents such an attempt by investigating the effects of a self-instruction strategy on the academic performance of a student with acquired neurological damage. The intervention programme pertained to performing 2-digit by 1-digit multiplication problems and consisted of: (1) a six-step multiplication procedure; (2) self-instruction cues; and (3) procedural prompts. The intervention package resulted in improved performance on the multiplication task with levels being maintained despite fading of procedural prompts and self-instruction cues. Results are discussed in terms of implications for training and future research.     

Sorting out what's in a word from what's not: Evaluating Clark's Semantic Features Acquisition theory

The Semantic Features Acquisition theory of semantic development which is due to E. Clark (e.g., 1973b) is reviewed and evaluated against the recent experimental literature, with special reference to the acquisition of English antonyms. The review critically examines the three major ontogenetic principles of Clark's theory in light of numerous recent findings, many of which are at variance in some major way with predictions from the theory. In many instances, new data are available which call into question previous findings. A recurrent problem has been that children's comprehension task performance is confounded with their response biases which are specific to the linguistic and nonlinguistic contexts in which the lexical terms are presented. Methodological implications are discussed, with recommendations for employing the logic of converging operations.     

Attitudes of Catholic and Protestant clergy on euthanasia and abortion

This study analyzes the attitudes of a random sample of Cleveland clergy toward: (1) acceptance of euthanasia; (2) the establishment of legal guidelines; and (3) the similarity between euthanasia and abortion. Although the clergymen find active euthanasia highly unacceptable, they expressed a definite ranking in priority of the different circumstances under which passive euthanasia would be acceptable. The clergy tend to oppose legalizing euthanasis, and indicate their fear of potential abuses. More than their Protestant counterpart, Catholic clergy significantly oppose any statement linking euthanasia and abortion. Clergymen who define their role as purely spiritual in nature tend to express greater disapproval of the three issues.Dr. Lazerine obtained his Ph.D. from the same department. The writers gratefully acknowledge the support of the Office of Research Development at Bowling Green State University and the College of Arts and Sciences. This paper was originally presented at the American Sociological Association Annual Meeting, New York, August 1980.     

Hemispheric specialization in reading and word recognition

Three experiments dealing with hemispheric specialization are presented. In Experiment 1, words and/or faces were presented tachistoscopically to the left or right of fixation. Words were more accurately identified in the right visual field and faces were more accurately identified in the left visual field. A forced choice error analysis for words indicated that errors made for word stimuli were most frequently visually similar words and this effect was particularly pronounced in the left visual field. Two additional experiments supported this finding. On the basis of the results, it was argued that word identification is a multistage process, with visual feature analysis carried out by the right hemisphere and identification and naming by the left hemisphere. In addition, Kinsbourne's attentional model of brain function was rejected in favor of an anatomical model which suggests that simultaneous processing of verbal and nonverbal information does not constrict the attention of either hemisphere.     

Measurement invariance,factor analysis and factorial invariance

Several concepts are introduced and defined: measurement invariance, structural bias, weak measurement invariance, strong factorial invariance, and strict factorial invariance. It is shown that factorial invariance has implications for (weak) measurement invariance. Definitions of fairness in employment/admissions testing and salary equity are provided and it is argued that strict factorial invariance is required for fairness/equity to exist. Implications for item and test bias are developed and it is argued that item or test bias probably depends on the existence of latent variables that are irrelevant to the primary goal of test constructers.Presidential address delivered at the Annual Meeting of the Psychometric Society in Berkeley, California, June 18–20, 1993.     

Comprehensive Counselling: One Pupil's Integration

A case-study is used to show how an eclectic approach towards counselling can be helpful in the integration of a child with special educational needs into a mainstream secondary school. The value of a problem-solving model which focuses on personal agency and self-help skills is demonstrated. In particular, the effectiveness of goal setting, feedback and modelling to change perceptions, increase self-responsibility and change behaviour is emphasised. Limitations of the school context, particularly the attitudes of some staff, on the effectiveness of the approach are outlined. It is concluded that comprehensive counselling, whilst taking the needs of the majority as a starting point, is equally a means of enabling those with 'special' needs to achieve true integration.     

Attention to one word at a time in reading is still a viable hypothesis: rejoinder to Inhoff, Radach, and Eiter (2006)

A. W. Inhoff, R. Radach, and B. Eiter argue that the current version of the E-Z Reader model (A. Pollatsek, E. D. Reichle, & K. Rayner) cannot explain 2 key findings in their data, and as a result, the assumption of words being attended to 1 at a time is likely to be false. In this rejoinder, the authors argue that the E-Z Reader model can easily explain the 1st of the 2 phenomena and that the 2nd phenomenon is likely to be at least partially an artifact of changing displays during fixations. The authors also argue that their assumptions about attention shifting are not contrary to the attention literature and that the assumption that A. W. Inhoff et al. deem to be unrealistic (i.e., instantaneous shifting of attention) is easily modified within the architecture of the model.