Incongruent imagery interferes with action initiation

It has been suggested that representing an action through observation and imagery share neural processes with action execution. In support of this view, motor-priming research has shown that observing an action can influence action initiation. However, there is little motor-priming research showing that imagining an action can modulate action initiation. The current study examined whether action imagery could prime subsequent execution of a reach and grasp action. Across two motion analysis tracking experiments, 40 participants grasped an object following congruent or incongruent action imagery. In Experiment 1, movement initiation was faster following congruent compared to incongruent imagery, demonstrating that imagery can prime the initiation of grasping. In Experiment 2, incongruent imagery resulted in slower movement initiation compared to a no-imagery control. These data show that imagining a different action to that which is performed can interfere with action production. We propose that the most likely neural correlates of this interference effect are brain regions that code imagined and executed actions. Further, we outline a plausible mechanistic account of how priming in these brain regions through imagery could play a role in action cognition.     

Savoring with Intent: Investigating Types of and Motives for Responses to Positive Events

To contribute to a growing literature on positive affect (PA) regulation, we report on two studies investigating college students’ responses to hypothetical positive events using a new measure, the Positive Events and Responses Survey (PEARS). The PEARS includes various responses, including savoring (up-regulating PA) and dampening strategies (down-regulating PA), and novel responses (e.g., mass-sharing using Facebook). We examined its convergent and concurrent validity, its relationship with the value of happiness, and motives underlying savoring. Factor analyses supported a 3-factor model: natural savoring (e.g., expressing PA), intentional savoring (e.g., reflecting on the self), and dampening (e.g., minimizing the event). Both natural and intentional savoring were linked to other savoring behaviors, but only natural savoring was linked to perceived savoring ability and (in some bivariate results) to well-being. In contrast, dampening was consistently linked to less savoring and more dampening on other measures, lower well-being, and more depressive symptoms. People reporting valuing happiness more reported higher likelihood of all three types of responses. Qualitative data provided partial support for the hypothesis that intentional savoring strategies are more often used for instrumental reasons (e.g., boosting self-esteem), whereas natural savoring responses may sometimes be more automatic or stem from feeling PA. These studies validate a new measure and suggest that reasons underlying people’s savoring matter.     

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.