Understanding quantified categorical expressions

A model of categorical inference (Revlis, 1975b) claims that a conversion operation participates in the encoding of quantified, categorical expressions. As a consequence, a reasoner is said to interpret such sentences as “All A are B” in a way that permits it to also be the case that “All B are A.” The present study examines this conception of encoding using a sentence-picture verification task. In two experiments, students were asked to judge whether one of five possible Euler diagrams was true or false of a categorical expression (e.g., All A are B, No A are B, Some A are B, Some A are not B). Verification errors support a three-stage verification model whose major component is access to a “meaning stack” representing the progressive analysis of categorical relations; at the top of that stack is a converted reading of the input sentence. These findings have implications for current conceptions of categorical inference and semantic retrieval.     

AFFILIATIVE ASSOCIATIONS

The International Platform of the International Journal of Psychology plans a series of articles on the associations affiliated to the IUPS. The first article on the World Federation for Mental Health was written by a long time member of the Executive Committee of the IUPS, Professor Otto Klineberg, President of the World Federation for Mental Health.     

The EEG preferential frequency as an indicator of the degree of wakefulness

Ever since electroencephalographic research began, interest has been focused on problems of the physiology, pathology, and symptomatology of the relationship between sleep and wakefulness. Following preliminaries, the present paper describes a combined procedure for the determination of the EEG preferential frequency, and by random sampling statistically examines its suitability for indicating the fluctuations of activation level as a control measure. A trained volunteer gradually increased his degree of wakefulness, reliably producing parallel changes in the preferential frequency in three frequency bands. A standardised manual period analysis as control produced largely the same results. The preferential frequency has considerable value for indicating the degree of wakefulness.