A factor analytic study of the Stanford Binet with young children

Seven factors were found as the result of a factor analysis of year IV-6 through year VI of the 1960 Revision of the Stanford Binet Intelligence Test. No factor had a sufficient number of high loadings to justify interpretation as ‘g’, a general intelligence factor. The test protocols used were of 152 children from three to seven years of age who attended a University nursery school or Head Start day care centers. The group included 107 white and 45 Negro children who had been tested as part of a routine intellectual evaluation. The socioeconomic level, as measured by occupation of the parent, was higher than that of the standardizing population of the Binet, as was the mean IQ (109.4 ± 14.7). The results of this study were compared with the logical analysis of Meeker & Bonsall based upon Guilford's factors of the intellect, and with Valett's profile analysis.     

Prototypes and conceptual analysis

In this paper, I explore the implications of recent empirical research on concept representation for the philosophical enterprise of conceptual analysis. I argue that conceptual analysis, as it is commonly practiced, is committed to certain assumptions about the nature of our intuitive categorization judgments. I then try to show how these assumptions clash with contemporary accounts of concept representation in cognitive psychology. After entertaining an objection to my argument, I close by considering ways in which conceptual analysis might be altered to accord better with the empirical work.Thanks are due to John Bickle, Marian David, Terence Horgan, Stephen Stich, John Tienson, Paul Weithman and an anonymous referee for several helpful comments and suggestions. Earlier versions of this paper were presented at Central Michigan University, The University of Memphis, The University of Mississipi and The Second International Conference on Cognitive Science at San Sebastian, Spain. A great deal of useful feedback was provided by these audiences.     

How much can the school house control?

Conflict between school systems and their communities is part of American history. Much of the conflict is symbolic, the school being the stage for the acting out of deeper clashes. Several hundred teachers in the north Florida area were polled in 1977 and 1978 to identify areas of conflict between schools and community. The issue which evoked the greatest dissension was the question of responsibility for the children of the new American underclass. Data were tabulated and analyzed in the light of historical patterns developed by the author, and the conclusion drawn that school-community conflict will persist with regard to the teaching of underclass children because the public has no clear perception about who is responsible.     

The initial counseling interview

Conclusion There is no doubt that the initial interview puts maximum demands upon the counselor's skill, knowledge, and abilities. How the initial interview is structured and developed will have a strong influence upon the subsequent developments and outcomes of a counseling relationship. Errors made in the first session are usually much more costly than those made after a good working relationship has been established. If the initial interview has developed toward goals as outlined herein, then the counselee will find he has been able to express and explore some of life's difficulties which have been bother-some or disturbing to him. He is likely to feel some progress has been made. The counselor should rcognize that a major counseling goal has been achieved when, at the end of the initial interview, he feels he has established a helping or working relationship with the counselee. Such a relationship is the crucible in which personality change can evolve.     

Connectionism and three levels of nativism

Along with the increasing popularity of connectionist language models has come a number of provocative suggestions about the challenge these models present to Chomsky's arguments for nativism. The aim of this paper is to assess these claims. We begin by reconstructing Chomsky's argument from the poverty of the stimulus and arguing that it is best understood as three related arguments, with increasingly strong conclusions. Next, we provide a brief introduction to connectionism and give a quick survey of recent efforts to develop networks that model various aspects of human linguistic behavior. Finally, we explore the implications of this research for Chomsky's arguments. Our claim is that the relation between connectionism and Chomsky's views on innate knowledge is more complicated than many have assumed, and that even if these models enjoy considerable success the threat they pose for linguistic nativism is small.     

Probing sensory and associative semantics for animals and objects in normal subjects

Abstract

Neuropsychological studies of patients with “category-specific” semantic memory disorders have fuelled a debate concerning the organisation of knowledge. In particular it has been suggested that the reported double dissociation between knowledge of animals and living things on the one hand, and objects on the other, reflects a more fundamental division of semantic representation into functional-associative and sensory-visual domains. The present study attempted to investigate whether there were systematic differences along these dimensions in normal subjects using a sentence-verification technique. It was found that response times were significantly longer for verification of statements concerning the sensory attributes of objects than for statements about their associative attributes. In the case of animals, there were no differences in response latency to associative or sensory statements. In the light of this previously unreported fractionation within verbal semantics, the possible consequences for models of semantic memory are discussed.     

Possession Episodes in Young Children's Social Interactions

This naturalistic study examined the relationships between possession episodes and other social behaviors. Twenty children were observed in 240 social interactions that occurred during free play in their preschool classroom. The interactions were analyzed for behaviors related to possession, affiliation, prosociability, and aggression. The findings suggest that possession episodes are positively associated with agonistic behaviors and negatively related to positive social responses both situationally and dispositionally. First, disputes following possession claims frequently resulted in the termination or disruption of the social interaction. Moreover, a comparison between children's behaviors in interactions that contained a possession episode and in those that did not revealed that more aggression and fewer prosocial and affiliative behaviors occurred in the possession interactions. Second, in an analysis of individual social patterns, children who frequently engaged in possession disputes engaged in more aggressive actions and fewer affiliative ones than did their less possession-oriented classmates.     

Exploring the Relationship Between Religious Coping and Spirituality Among Three Types of Collegiate Substance Abuse

Religion and spirituality are protective factors against collegiate substance abuse; however, considering the variance among different types of drug abuse is important. We investigated religious coping and spirituality in relation to hazardous drinking, marijuana use, and psychostimulant use. Results indicated that positive religious coping and several dimensions of spirituality protect against hazardous drinking and marijuana use. Furthermore, differences in religious coping and spirituality may not exist between groups of psychostimulant users.