A note on natural numbers objects in monoidal categories

The internal language of a monoidal category yields simple proofs of results about a natural numbers object therein.     

A note on russell's paradox in locally cartesian closed categories

Working in the fragment of Martin-Löfs extensional type theory [12] which has products (but not sums) of dependent types, we consider two additional assumptions: firstly, that there are (strong) equality types; and secondly, that there is a type which is universal in the sense that terms of that type name all types, up to isomorphism. For such a type theory, we give a version of Russell's paradox showing that each type possesses a closed term and (hence) that all terms of each type are provably equal. We consider the kind of category theoretic structure which corresponds to this kind of type theory and obtain a categorical version of the paradox. A special case of this result is the degeneracy of a locally cartesian closed category with a morphism which is generic in the sense that every other morphism in the category can be obtained from it via pullback.The financial support of the Royal Society in London is gratefully acknowledged.     

School adjustment, school performance and peer relations among first-graders in a Swedish suburban area

A study of 95 first-graders in one school management area used teacher ratings of problems and sociometric ratings to assess school adjustment and peer relations; 14% of the children had difficulties in reading/writing, motor skill, concentration and psychosocial function. Behavioural problems did not generally coincide with poor scholastic performance, but a small group (6.3%) exhibited problems in both reading/writing, concentration, gross and fine motor skill and psychosocial functions. Sociometric results showed only moderate agreement with teacher ratings. Extremely popular boys had no teacher-rated problems, but children with teacher-rated problems did not to any high degree tend to be isolated. Poor gross motor skill did distinguish isolated boys from others, a relationship that was not evident among the girls. The need to study the validity of teacher ratings as well as the prognostic value of school adjustment in first grade was stressed.     

Independence of uniphasic and biphasic audiogenic seizure progressions in mice

DBA/2J mice were monaurally or binaurally tested for susceptibility to sound-induced seizure. Two seconds following the beginning of running, one group of binaurally tested mice had acoustic stimulation interrupted for 15 s. These mice later seized when the stimulation was readministered. Their seizure progression closely resembled the behavior exhibited by noninterrupted binaurally stimulated mice and did not shift to the biphasic motor pattern of monaurally stimulated subjects. We conclude that the single burst of running of a binaurally tested mouse is qualitatively different from either of the two bursts of running exhibited by monaurally tested mice.     

Repeated failure: a source of helplessness or a factor irrelevant to its emergence?

We tested the validity of the egotism model of human helplessness. In contrast to the original theoretical approach of Seligman and his associates, which points to response-outcome noncontingency as the main source of helplessness, the egotism alternative proposes that repeated failure itself is the critical determinant of helplessness symptoms. Repeated failure threatens the self-esteem of the subject, who supposedly engages in a least-effort strategy during the test phase of a typical learned helplessness study, which results in performance impairment. To examine the egotism explanation, we gave subjects noncontingent-feedback training with or without repeated failure on five consecutive discrimination problems. In two experiments, noncontingent-feedback preexposure produced helplessness deficits in performance on avoidance learning, whereas repeated failure appeared irrelevant to helplessness. This and our other findings from research are inconsistent with the egotism explanation and support instead Seligman's original proposal, in which helplessness is attributed to prolonged experience with noncontingency.     

Internally represented forces may be cognitively penetrable: comment on Freyd, Pantzer, and Cheng (1988)

Freyd, Pantzer, and Cheng (1988) provided considerable evidence for the proposition that people can represent underlying forces within static scenes. However, they explicitly assumed that their observed memory shifts were the result of perceptually modular information processing. For several reasons, I suggest herein that this assumption of cognitive impenetrability is a dubious one. The assumption is challenged by recent empirical findings, some theoretical considerations, and calculations that show that the observed effects are minute when compared with those expected by means of physical forces. Three explanations for the evidence are proposed, including the alternative hypothesis that although people do represent static physical forces, these representations can be almost completely overridden by the conscious intention to remember an object's precise location.     

Context effects in stroop-like word and picture processing

Presents a series of 6 experiments in which Stroop-like effects were generated by modally pure color-color, picture-picture, and word-word stimuli instead of the usual modally mixed color-word or picture-word stimuli. Naming, reading, and categorization tasks were applied. The Stroop inhibition was preserved with these stimuli but unexpectedly showed a semantic gradient only in the naming and not in the reading task. Word categorizing was slower and more interference prone than picture categorizing. These and other results can be captured by a model with two main assumptions: (a) semantic memory and the lexicon are separate, and (b) words have privileged access to the lexicon, whereas pictures and colors have privileged access to the semantic network. Such a model is developed and put to an initial test.     

Video-task assessment of learning and memory in macaques (Macaca mulatta): effects of stimulus movement on performance

Effects of stimulus movement on learning, transfer, matching, and short-term memory performance were assessed with 2 monkeys using a video-task paradigm in which the animals responded to computer-generated images by manipulating a joystick. Performance on tests of learning set, transfer index, matching to sample, and delayed matching to sample in the video-task paradigm was comparable to that obtained in previous investigations using the Wisconsin General Testing Apparatus. Additionally, learning, transfer, and matching were reliably and significantly better when the stimuli or discriminanda moved than when the stimuli were stationary. External manipulations such as stimulus movement may increase attention to the demands of a task, which in turn should increase the efficiency of learning. These findings have implications for the investigation of learning in other populations, as well as for the application of the video-task paradigm to comparative study.