Grammatical and nongrammatical contributions to closed-class word selection

Closed-class word selection was investigated by focusing on determiner production. Native speakers from three different languages named pictures of objects using determiner plus noun phrases (e.g., in French "la table" [the-sub(feminineA) table], while ignoring distractor determiners printed on the pictures (e.g., "le" [the-sub(masculine)]. The target and distractor expressed either shared or different grammatical and nongrammatical features (gender, number, and definiteness). A gender-facilitation effect was observed and attributed to noun processing. Crucially, across five experiments, distractors that shared a feature with the target determiner never resulted in longer naming latencies than distractors that were more different. These results indicate that activating related candidates is not detrimental for determiner retrieval, suggesting a noncompetitive mechanism of closed-class word selection.     

The Relatively Happy Fish Revisited

The anecdote of Zhuangzi and Hui Shi's brief discussion on a bridge above the Hao river gives us a nice piece of reasoning in ancient Chinese texts that may serve as a platform for a productive philosophical exchange between the East and the West. The present study examines Hansen's inferential analysis of Zhuangzi and Hui Shi's discussion in this spirit. It is argued that Hansen's analysis founders. To do justice to both Hui Shi and Zhuangzi, the present study proposes that we apply the logic developed in the later Mohist text, the Lesser Pick, to an analysis of their discussion. The re-analysis shows that the intricate dialectic of the reasoning in which Zhuangzi and Hui Shi engage, neatly accords with the pattern of discourse expounded in the Lesser Pick, and gives us global insight into Zhuangzi's final statement in the anecdote, which is notoriously recondite, or confusing.     

Zur Dynamik der Interaktion in der Supervision

The manifold functions of a supervisor in following the course of complex processes together with the trainee, are: ? to keep the goals of the supervision in view, ? to establish a teaching alliance and to support the wish and ambitions of the candidate to learn, ? to build a platform for the complex interactions with the trainee with regard to the dynamics of the training situation and keeping in mind the institutional influences, ? to lay down the setting for the work, ? to explore and to reflect how transference and counter-transference influence the interaction between patient and analyst as well as between trainee and supervisor, ? to examine these interactions together focussing continuously on the interaction between candidate and patient, and to encourage the candidate to do the same on his own, ? to continuously formulate hypotheses about the core conflict, the transference phenomena and resistance of the patient, ? to explore and reflect on the cooperative work.     

DO INFANTS SHOW GENERALIZED IMITATION OF GESTURES?

Two experiments were conducted to investigate generalized imitation of manual gestures in 1- to 2-year-old infants. In Experiment 1, 6 infants were first trained four baseline matching relations (e.g., when instructed "Do this", to raise their arms after they saw the experimenter do so). Next, four novel gestures that the infants did not match in probe trials were selected as target behaviors during generalized imitation Test 1; models of these gestures were presented on unreinforced matching trials interspersed with intermittently reinforced baseline matching trials. None of the infants matched the target behaviors. To ensure that these behaviors were in the infants' motor skills repertoires, the infants were next trained to produce them, at least once, under stimulus control that did not include an antecedent model of the target behavior. In repeat generalized imitation trials (Test 2), the infants again failed to match the target behaviors. Five infants (3 from Experiment 1) participated in Experiment 2, which was identical to Experiment 1 except that, following generalized imitation Test 1, the motor-skills training was implemented to a higher criterion (21 responses per target behavior), and in a multiple-baseline, across-target-behaviors procedure. In the final generalized imitation test, 1 infant matched one, and another infant matched two target behaviors; the remaining 17 target behaviors still were not matched. The results did not provide convincing evidence of generalized imitation, even though baseline matching was well maintained and the target behaviors were in the infants' motor skills repertoires, raising the question of what are the conditions that reliably give rise to generalized imitation.     

Loyalty and Creativity in a Disciplinary Organization

The relationship between loyalty to rules and the creativity that attempts to improve those same rules was examined among Norwegian army officers deployed in international operations. Today's army officers are faced with rapidly changing work conditions and unpredictable enemies, both of which challenge and outdate rules and routines. They thus may experience that they are either guided by too few or inadequate rules, or by many rules that need to be constantly updated. Assuming that following rules is advantageous to officers, then, contrary to classical theory, it was hypothesized that officers scoring both low and high on loyalty to rules would score high on creativity. Hierarchical regression analyses revealed a significant U‐shaped relationship between loyalty to rules and creativity.