Transcultural Attitudes toward Homicide and Suicide*

ABSTRACT: Using the concept that homicide and suicide are complex sociopsychiatric phenomena clearly influenced by cultural norms and values that define which behaviors are viewed as deviant, the investigators constructed a small-sample model to determine relevant qualitative attributes of public opinion. A stratified factorial sample of 258 subjects distributed among eight large cities throughout the world was selected for interviewing. The 2,603 resulting statements were then subjected to content analysis and categorization. Results indicated that people in cities, regardless of location, are most concerned about crimes of violence, especially homicide, and those against property. Other kinds of life-threatening offenses such as arson, war, and suicide are seldom seen as important “crimes.” Many people endorse a problem-solving approach to dealing with crime and criminals, but a reservoir of traditional, punitive attitudes clearly remains among the less educated, lower socioeconomic classes. A commonality of many attitudes in these various urban centers does suggest that modern communication techniques may well have a modulating effect on culture-bound orientations toward crime.     

Inference vs control sentences: are readers able to detect our intended differences?

The reliance of comprehension processes on knowledge to form explanatory inferences has been well established (Grasser, Singer, & Trabasso, 1994), yet the evidence that supports these studies is derived from sentence pairs that are largely unexamined. While some recent studies have suggested that the stimulus sentences utilized in comprehension research need further specification (Shears & Chiarello, 2004), there has been little 'normal reading' data provided that examines what readers are able to detect from traditional inference-requiring vs control sentence pairs. The current study utilized stimuli sentences that have historically been used to support inference research (Singer, 1995) as well as some newly developed sentences, to examine whether readers detect differences between control vs inference conditions, and to further examine whether readers could discern when inference sentences achieved an outcome or goal vs when these sentences did not achieve an outcome or goal.     

Spatio-temporal organization during group formation in rats

In the present study, the dynamic process of group formation in eight unfamiliar rats was followed in order to reveal how the group becomes oriented together in time and space, in light of the complexity that accompanies grouping. The focus was on who, where, and when joined together. We found that rats preferred to be in companionship over remaining alone, with all the rats gradually shifting to share the same location as a resting place. Group formation can be viewed as a tri-phasic process, with some rats gradually becoming more social than others, and thus playing a key role in group formation. Starting with seemingly independent traveling, the rats gradually converged to share the same location as a terminal (home base) for roundtrips in the arena. Because such a terminal is considered as the organizer of an individual’s spatial behavior, the shared home-base location may be viewed as the organizer of spatial behavior of the entire group. Despite huddling together, the rats continued to travel alone or in duos throughout the 3 h of testing. We suggest that resting together and traveling alone or in duos enabled the maintenance of communal relationship while reducing the complexity involved in traveling in relatively large groups. Taken together, the present results demonstrate the dynamic process during which unfamiliar rats shift from independent to group spatial behavior.     

Visuo-spatial representations of the alphabet in synaesthetes and non-synaesthetes

Visuo-spatial representations of the alphabet (so-called 'alphabet forms') may be as common as other types of sequence-space synaesthesia, but little is known about them or the way they relate to implicit spatial associations in the general population. In the first study, we describe the characteristics of a large sample of alphabet forms visualized by synaesthetes. They most often run from left to right and have salient features (e.g., bends, breaks) at particular points in the sequence that correspond to chunks in the 'Alphabet Song' and at the alphabet mid-point. The Alphabet Song chunking suggests that the visuo-spatial characteristics are derived, at least in part, from those of the verbal sequence learned earlier in life. However, these synaesthetes are no faster at locating points in the sequence (e.g., what comes before/after letter X?) than controls. They tend to be more spatially consistent (measured by eye tracking) and letters can act as attentional cues to left/right space in synaesthetes with alphabet forms (measured by saccades), but not in non-synaesthetes. This attentional cueing suggests dissociation between numbers (which reliably act as attentional cues in synaesthetes and non-synaesthetes) and letters (which act as attentional cues in synaesthetes only).     

Adaptive Testing

An adaptive test tailors the difficulty of the items to the ability of the examinee being tested. This article describes the general principles and models of adaptive testing beginning with the early Binet tests and continuing through state-of-the-art techniques. Such computerised adaptive tests (C.A.T.s), based on item response theory (I.R.T.), are useful both for measurement and classification applications. I.R.T. provides a means by which different sets of items, as administered in a C.A.T., can be scored on a common scale. The principal advantages of CAT. are efficiency and control over either the precision of measurement or the accuracy of classification. C.A.T. procedures can be easily implemented without writing programs using commercially available software (e.g. MicroCAT).
Un test adaptatif accorde la difficulté des items à la capacityé des candidate aux tests. Cet article décrit les principes généraux et les modèles de tests adaptatifs depuis les tests de Binet jusqu'aux techniques de pointe actuelles. Tels tests informatisés (C.A.T.s), basés sur la théorie des réponses par item (I.R.T.), sont utiles à la fois pour la mesure et la classification. I.R.T. procure les moyens par lesquels différents sets ďitems, tels qu'ils sont administrés dans un C.A.T., peuvent être notés sur une échelle commune. Les principaux avantages du C.A.T. sont ľefficacité et le contrôle de la précision de la mesure et de la fidélité de la classification. Le protocole du C.A.T. peut être aisément utilisé sans texte écrit en se servant des programmes informatisés disponibles dans le commerce.     

Reading/writing between the lines

This paper critically examines the practices of reading and writing through the differing perspectives offered by Kierkegaard, Sartre, Barthes, Foucault, and Derrida. Although Kierkegaard's and Sartre's respective views on reading and writing do not receive much attention today, I argue that both articulate (albeit in different ways) a notion of shared responsibility between reader and writer that is compatible with their respective emphases on absolute responsibility for oneself, for others, and for the situation. An advantage to both Sartre's and Kierkegaard's accounts from a postmodern perspective, is that they affirm the simultaneity of individual and co-responsibility without appealing to a fixed or unitary self.