Deep dyslexia, imageability, and ease of predication

A development of existing theories of deep dyslexia is outlined. It proposes that the effects of imageability upon the ease of reading of words by deep dyslexics occur as a result of variation in the ease with which individual words summon semantic predicates, on the basis of which reading responses can be made. Ease-of-predication scores are obtained for a corpus of nouns and found to be, as hypothesized, closely related to imageability scores. It is shown that the other major characteristics of deep dyslexia can also be accounted for by this proposed mechanism. These include the well-established effects of syntactic category (in particular, of the distinction between content and function words) upon reading. Further evidence is provided that this effect may be attributed to variation in ease of predication.     

Infant clothing: Sex labeling for strangers

Labeling an infant as a boy or girl affects behavior toward the infant. While intimates know a baby's sex label and behave consistently to the baby, strangers cannot unless given a cue. Forty-eight infants and their caretakers were observed in suburban malls to see if clothing normally provides such cues; 90% of the infants were dressed in sex-typed clothes. Girls wore or carried pink (75%), yellow, ruffles, puffed sleeves, and/or dresses. Boys wore blue (79%) and/or red. Observers were able to correctly guess the sex of “labeled” infants only. Surprisingly, simultaneous caretaker interviews revealed that parents do not spontaneously mention sex as a factor in clothing choice, nor do they feel they would be very bothered by strangers' mistaking the infant's sex.     

Book reviews

Kundalni and the Physical World. Mary Scott. Routledge & Kegan Paul, London 1983 Paperback 274 pp £5.95

Seasons of the Spirit. Readings Through the Christian Year, selected and edited by George Every, Richard Harries and Kallisto's Ware, London, S.P.C.K., 1984 £7.50

Are Religious Cults Dangerous?. Carol Coulter Mercier Press Dublin and Cork 1984 ISBN 0–85342–722–4 (H/B) £4.50

The Making of a Moonie. Choice or Brainwashing?. Eileen Barker. Basil Blackwell, Oxford 1984 ISBN 0–631–13246–5 (H/B) £12     

Information Integration in Modulation of Pragmatic Inferences During Online Language Comprehension

Upon hearing a scalar adjective in a definite referring expression such as “the big…,” listeners typically make anticipatory eye movements to an item in a contrast set, such as a big glass in the context of a smaller glass. Recent studies have suggested that this rapid, contrastive interpretation of scalar adjectives is malleable and calibrated to the speaker's pragmatic competence. In a series of eye‐tracking experiments, we explore the nature of the evidence necessary for the modulation of pragmatic inferences in language comprehension, focusing on the complementary roles of top–down information ‐ (knowledge about the particular speaker's pragmatic competence)  and bottom‐up cues  (distributional information about the use of scalar adjectives in the environment). We find that bottom‐up evidence alone (e.g., the speaker says “the big dog” in a context with one dog), in large quantities, can be sufficient to trigger modulation of the listener's contrastive inferences, with or without top‐down cues to support this adaptation. Further, these findings suggest that listeners track and flexibly combine multiple sources of information in service of efficient pragmatic communication.     

The Role of Irritability in the Treatment of Behavior Disorders: A Review of Theory,Research, and a Proposed Framework

Clinical Child and Family Psychology Review - Research provides strong evidence that the symptoms of Oppositional Defiant Disorder (ODD) are comprised of at least two dimensions: irritability and...