A shortened version of the Southern Illinois university speech situation checklist for the identification of speech-related anxiety

This study investigated the ability of the 51-item Southern Illinois University Speech Situation Checklist (SSC) to differentiate stutterers known to have high levels of speech-related anxiety from nonstutterers with normal levels of speech- related anxiety. Checklist responses of 65 randomly selected subjects (33 stutterers and 32 nonstutterers) were subjected to a stepwise discriminant analysis. The analysis identified a combination of 21 SSC items that had significant discriminative power. Subsequently, the derived discriminant equation achieved 93% accuracy in correctly classifying a hold-out sample of 29 subjects (14 stutterers and 15 nonstutterers). These results strongly suggest that the 21 items of the SSC identified by discriminant analysis may provide an effective screening device for identifying disfluent speakers who experience an abnormal amount of speech-related anxiety.     

Effects of personal causation and perceived control on responses to an aversive environment: The more control,the better

A laboratory experiment was conducted to investigate the effects on reactions to aversive noise of three types of personal control: control over the initiation of noise, control over its termination, and combined control over both initiation and termination. On an attention-to-detail measure which occurred concurrently with noise stimulation, subjects' error rates decreased linearly as degree of control increased. Likewise, on a post-noise measure of task persistence, subjects' performance rates increased linearly across the three conditions as degree of control increased. Results were discussed in terms of Seligman's theory of learned helplessness and deCharms' theory of personal causation, and the motivational effects of personal control were emphasized.     

A matched-subject comparison of underachievers with normals on intellectual,behavioral, and emotional variables

Children labeled as under achievers are compared to a matched group functioning normally within the classroom. Factor analyses of the data from several tests reveal that the normal children not only have achieved higher academic performance but also have better learning aptitude. The inference may be made that many underachievers actually have a low general aptitude when carefully measured.This study was supported from funds from the Holden Foundation at the Children's Hospital of Michigan. The authors extend their thanks to Mrs. Barrie Lowy, Mrs. Sheila Kempler, and Ms. Enid Braun.     

Increasing the efficiency of instruction for a person with severe disabilities: The applicability of Fitts' law in predicting response time

The purpose of this study was to demonstrate the applicability of Fitts' law in predicting the response duration of instruction-specific head movements for a person with severe multiple disabilities. Fitts' law is a motoric algorithm that calculates an index of difficulty (ID) for responses in relation to the variables of stimulus width and stimulus amplitude. Four functional tasks from the learner's current continuing education plans were targeted: photocopying, using a paint well, model painting, and communication symbol sequencing. For each of the four tasks, two sets of indices were calculated by (1) holding constant stimulus width while varying amplitude, and (2) holding constant stimulus amplitude while varying width. Results showed that response duration varied as a function of ID variation.     

Induced motion of a fixated target: influence of voluntary eye deviation.

Induced motion (IM) was observed in a fixated target in the direction opposite to the real motion of a moving background. Relative to a fixation target located straight ahead, IM decreased when fixation was deviated 10 degrees in the same direction as background motion and increased when fixation was deviated 10 degrees opposite background motion. These results are consistent with a "nystagmus-suppression" hypothesis for subjective motion of fixated targets: the magnitude of illusory motion is correlated with the amount of voluntary efference required to oppose involuntary eye movements that would occur in the absence of fixation. In addition to the form of IM studied, this explanation applies to autokinesis, apparent concomitant motion, and the oculogyral illusion. Accounts of IM that stress visual capture of vection, afferent mechanisms, egocenter deviations, or phenomenological principles, although they may explain some forms of IM, do not account for the present results.     

Offence,offender, and victim characteristics in South Korean filicides, 1948–1962: A descriptive study

Filicide is defined as the killing of children from birth to age 18 by a natural or step-parent. The legal definition of filicide in Korea does not impose such age limits. Although families in contemporary Korea are nuclear in structure, they were multigenerational prior to the industrialisation that occurred during the second half of the twentieth century. While psychiatric and evolutionary theories have been predominantly used in the filicide literature, prior works have neglected to examine how culture shapes violence against one’s offspring. This paper explores the offence, offender, and victim characteristics in South Korean filicides (1948–1962) through a content analysis of a major newspaper (Chosun Ilbo). Results indicate that filicides occur in one-on-one contexts, primarily carried out by biological parents against their offspring while adoptive children appeared as victims due to the genealogical customs practiced in Korean society. Results indicate that more than 12% of filicide victims are adults. The implications of our findings are discussed.     

Monitoring the future: object and source memory for real and imagined events

In these experiments a memory‐monitoring decision is made, whereby subjects must decide not only whether or not to‐be‐learned stimuli will be remembered—the focus of all of the past research into the Judgement of Learning (JOL)—but also whether they will be able to assess the source of those stimuli, as assessed by a new measure, Judgement of Source (JOS). In Experiment 1 subjects had to judge whether they would remember the occurrence and the source of items that were either seen or imagined. Although seen items were better remembered and sourced than imagined, subjects were unable to predict this outcome: they underestimated their ability to recall seen items and overestimated their ability to recall imagined items. In Experiment 2 subjects had to discriminate between self‐performed or other‐performed enacted or imagined events. We expected that the motor cues associated with overt performance should provide more sensory information than had the visual input in Experiment 1, and this should help subjects to discriminate between real and imagined items. As predicted, JOL magnitude showed that subjects were now able to predict accurately that they would recall more enacted events than imagined events. JOS magnitude showed that subjects incorrectly predicted that self‐enactment would assist source memory compared to imagination. However, it was the source of other‐focused events which was more accurately remembered. The results are discussed in terms of Koriat's (1997) view about cue utility in making JOLs. Copyright © 1999 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Embracing the “Nation”

The idea of the “nation” has played only a small role in modern political philosophy because of its apparent irrationalism and amoralism. David Miller, however, sets out to show that these charges can be overcome: nationality is a rational element of one’s cultural identity, and nations are genuinely ethical communities. In this paper I argue that his project fails. The defence against the charge of irrationalism fails because Miller works within a framework of ethical particularism which leads to a position of metaethical relativism. A consequence of this relativism is that a community’s moral principles and boundaries of exclusion cannot be rationally justified to those constructed as “outsiders”. The defence against the charge of amoralism fails because Miller does not so much provide an argument to show that nations are ethical communities as assume they are; we are therefore left without resources to discriminate between ethical and unethical nations. I apply these problems to Miller’s treatment of the question of immigration, arguing that it shows that his version of “liberal” nationalism has a tendency to collapse towards a conservative position on such issues. This should not give us any great confidence that the nation, as Miller presents it, should be embraced by modern political philosophy. This revised version was published online in August 2006 with corrections to the Cover Date.