Our Relations with the Past

The approach that philosophers have taken to history has too often been one-dimensional. It is my aim in this paper to map out a future multi-dimensional philosophy of history, by invoking the notion of a relation with the past, and by arguing for the philosophical relevance of multiple such relations.

Why did I right that? Factors that influence the production of homophone substitution errors

Despite considerable research on language production errors involving speech, little research exists in the complementary domain of writing. Two experiments investigated the production of homophone substitution errors, which occur when a contextually appropriate word (e.g., beech) is replaced with its homophone (e.g., beach tree). Participants wrote down auditorily presented sentences containing dominant or subordinate homophones. Homophones were preceded by a lexical prime that overlapped in phonology and orthography (e.g., teacher) or only orthography (e.g., headmaster) with the target homophone. Results showed more substitution errors when the context elicited a subordinate homophone than when it elicited a dominant homophone. Furthermore, both types of primes equivalently increased production of homophone errors relative to control words (e.g., lawyer), suggesting that only orthographic overlap between the prime and target was necessary to influence errors. These results are explained within dual-route models of spelling, which postulate an interaction between lexical and sublexical routes when spelling.     

Representation over time: the effects of temporal distance on similarity

Similarity is central in human cognition, playing a role in a wide range of cognitive processes. In three studies, we demonstrate that subjective similarity may change as a function of temporal distance, with some events seeming more similar when considered in the near future, while others increase in similarity as temporal distance increases. Given the ubiquity of inter-temporal thought, and the fundamental role of similarity, these results have important implications for cognition in general.     

Anticipatory injustice among adolescents: age and racial/ethnic differences in perceived unfairness of the justice system

The present study examines age differences in anticipatory injustice, or the expectation of unfair or discriminatory treatment in the legal system. 1,393 adolescents and young adults from the community or from detention centers and jails were interviewed regarding demographic and justice system experience, intelligence, expectations about fair treatment, and legal decisions. African Americans and Latinos and those with more system experience expected greater injustice across multiple legal contexts. Anticipatory injustice increased with age among African Americans and those with the most system experience. It also predicted choices about police interrogation, attorney consultation, and plea agreements. Anticipations of injustice during adolescence may affect future interactions with court officials as well as more general constructs of legal socialization.     

Rates of Non-Suicidal Self-Injury: A Cross-Sectional Analysis of Exposure

Research on the social influences associated with rates of non-suicidal self-injury (NSSI) is scarce and limited to studies of contagion within inpatient and residential treatment settings. Using an archival dataset that included 1,965 college students, the current study examined whether exposure to acts of NSSI and/or suicidal behavior in others was associated with increased rates of NSSI. Results supported hypotheses in that participants who knew someone who had engaged in NSSI only, or knew someone who engaged in both NSSI and suicidal behavior were more likely to have engaged in NSSI compared to those not exposed. The findings provide preliminary, albeit indirect, evidence of the potential for social modeling to influence rates of NSSI within college students. Directions for future studies are offered.     

Caregiver involvement in applied behavior-analytic research: A scoping review and discussion

We conducted a scoping review to characterize the role of caregiver involvement in behavior-analytic research. We reviewed eight behavioral-learning journals from 2011–2022 for works that included children or caregivers as participants and characterized caregiver involvement as passive (implications for caregivers, input, social validity) and active (implementation, caregiver behavior, training, caregiver-collected data). The review identified 228 studies, and almost all (96.1%; n = 219) involved caregivers in some capacity; 94.3% (n = 215) had passive involvement (26.8% had only passive involvement; n = 61), 69.3% (n = 158) had active involvement (1.8% had only active involvement; n = 4), and 3.9% (n = 9) had neither passive nor active involvement. Involvement generally increased over publication years. The most common types of involvement were implications for caregivers, implementation, and input; caregiver-collected data were rare. We propose considerations when engaging caregivers in research and suggest new avenues of inquiry related to caregivers' treatment objectives and social validity, treatment implementers, and caregiver-collected data.     

Stripes within words affect reading

In a series of eight studies it is shown that the first peak in the horizontal autocorrelation of the image of a word (which captures the similarity in shape between the neighbouring strokes of letters) determines (i) the appearance of the words as striped; (ii) the speed with which the words are read, both aloud and silently; and (iii) the speed with which a paragraph of text can be searched. By subtly distorting the horizontal dimension of text, and thereby reducing the first peak in the horizontal autocorrelation, it is shown that the speed of word recognition can be increased. The increase in speed is greater in poor readers.     

Assessment of risk for substance use disorder consequent to consumption of illegal drugs: psychometric validation of the neurobehavior disinhibition trait.

Previous research has shown that the trait neurobehavior disinhibition (ND), which consists of affect, behavior, and cognitive indicators of self-regulation, is a significant predictor of substance use disorder (SUD) between childhood and young adulthood. The authors evaluated the psychometric properties of the ND trait in 278 boys evaluated at ages 10-12 and 16 years. ND score significantly predicted SUD and outcomes that commonly manifest in tandem with SUD by age 19, such as violence, arrests, committing crime while intoxicated, and concussion injury. In addition to predictive validity, the ND trait was found to have good construct, discriminative, and concurrent validity, as well as good test-retest and internal reliability. The ND trait may be useful for detecting youths at high risk for developing SUD and related outcomes.