Functional structure in sentences: A performance analysis

Two experiments are reported which attempt to define the groupings of component words within sentences which subjects have committed to memory. The structural groupings are indexed by judgement latencies for pairs of words and these serve as the input matrix for a hierarchical clustering (HC) analysis. It is concluded that when subjects make judgements concerning the forward order of pairs of words, the latencies imply the presence of a hierarchical organization. Although the tree structures obtained do not follow in any detail the surface structures of the sentence types in either experiment, nonetheless when constituent analysis indicates no difference it is accompanied by identical performance structures, and when a surface distinction is called for, an appropriate difference is found in the tree diagrams produced by cluster analysis. Deep structure differences involving the rearrangement of component words are not found in the hierarchical structure subjects imposed. The pausing patterns followed by subjects when reading the sentences are shown to relate to the structural diagrams generated by the HC analysis.     

Maltreated and Comparison Adolescents’ Recollections of Lifetime Residences: Relationship to Delinquency and Marijuana Use

This study of child welfare-affiliated maltreated youth (n?=?216) and comparison youth (n?=?128) from the same community (age M?=?18.21, SD?=?1.42) examined: 1. whether child/caregiver characteristics and maltreatment status were associated with lifetime number of residences; and 2. whether child/caregiver characteristics, residences, and maltreatment status were associated with delinquency and marijuana use. Maltreatment status, ever living with a nonparent caregiver, and being older were associated with more residences during childhood. More residences and male sex were associated with person offense delinquency and marijuana use. It is important to help caregivers who live in disadvantaged neighborhoods, especially families with child welfare involvement, understand the behavioral consequences of a high number of residences during childhood and adolescence and provide support for stable long-term housing.     

A Leader-Led Supervision Group as a Model for Practicing Genetic Counselors

With the stage set by the overview of supervision models in the previous paper, thispaper now presents the development and evolution of a currently ongoing leader-ledsupervision group for experienced genetic counselors. I discuss the procedures forgetting started; the creation and maintenance of the contract; typical issues and themesconsidered; the format for case presentation; and the overall growth of the group and itsmembers.     

Sensitivity to criticism and theory of mind: A cross cultural study on Japanese and Italian children

Although recent studies have shown cross-cultural differences in theory of mind (ToM) between children in Western and Eastern cultures, little is known about cross-cultural differences pertaining to social correlates. The present research investigated cultural variations in the relationship between sensitivity to criticism and ToM. Japanese (n = 76) and Italian (n = 76) 6-year-olds completed a sensitivity-to-criticism task (either the teacher condition or the peer condition), second-order false-belief tasks, and a verbal ability test. The results replicated previous findings of an association between ability rating after teacher criticism and ToM in both countries. Cultural variation was found in emotional response and motivation after teacher, but nor peer, criticism. Japanese children responded to teacher criticism more positively than did Italian children. Moreover, Japanese children who failed the second-order false-belief task were more motivated after teacher criticism than were Italian children. These results are discussed in relation to differences in cultural factors.     

Assessment of Emotional Avoidance in Adolescents: Psychometric Properties of a New Multidimensional Measure

Emotional avoidance—which includes cognitive and attentional processes that function as means of avoiding or dampening emotional experiences—may be a transdiagnostic risk and maintenance factor for emotional disorders. However, existing measures generally assess separate aspects of emotional avoidance, and few multidimensional measures exist for adolescents. The aim of the current study was to establish the psychometric properties of a new multidimensional measure of emotional avoidance for adolescents--the Emotional Avoidance Strategy Inventory for Adolescents (EASI-A; Fairholme et al. 2008)--employing an exploratory structural equation modeling framework. Analyses yielded a three-factor structure for the EASI-A, including subscales measuring Avoidance of Emotion Expression, Avoidance of Thoughts and Feelings, and Distraction. Moderate correlations were observed between the EASI-A and a measure of thought suppression, and the EASI-A was significantly associated with anxiety and depression symptoms. The EASI-A is a new, psychometrically sound measure that will aid in the assessment of avoidance as a vulnerability factor for psychopathology and as an outcome and mechanism for treatments of emotional disorders in adolescents.     

The Ethics of Treating Animals as Resources: A Post-Heideggerian Approach

This paper describes the phenomenological ethics implicit in Heidegger’s later work. It is argued that these phenomenological ethics take the form of a perfectionist ethics in which one consciously resists the temptation to nihilistically enframe other entities as Bestand. Despite Heidegger’s reputation as an inferior animal philosopher, it is then argued that we can employ this ethics to improve our relationship with non-human animals. Specifically, our use of them in the agricultural setting is examined to determine whether or not our current practices are ethical according to Heidegger’s normative model. Ultimately it is concluded that, more often than not, animals are harmed both ontically and ontologically by our modern farming practices. We are called on instead to try to dwell meditatively with other entities, to be-with them in such a way that respects them as inexhaustibly meaningful instantiations of being as such. This requires changes to the way in which we satisfy our needs as consumers.     

Object naming induces reliance on orientation-independent representations during longer-term, but not short-term, visual remembering

Naming novel objects with novel count nouns changes how the objects are drawn from memory, revealing that object categorisation induces reliance on orientation-independent visual representations during longer-term remembering, but not during short-term remembering. Serial position effects integrate this finding with a more established conceptualisation of short-term and longer-term visual remembering in which the former is identified as keeping an item in mind. Adults were shown a series of four novel objects in orientations in which they would not normally be drawn from memory. When not named ("Look at this object"), the objects were drawn in the orientations in which they had been seen. When named with a novel count noun (e.g., "Look at this dax"), the final object continued to be depicted in the orientation in which it had been seen, but all other objects were depicted in an unseen but preferred (canonical) orientation, even though participants could still remember the orientations in which they had been seen. Although orientation-dependent exemplar representations appear to be more accessible than orientation-independent generic representations during short-term remembering, the reverse is the case during longer-term remembering. How the theoretical framework emerging from these observations accommodates a broader body of evidence is discussed.     

When disagreement gets ugly: perceptions of bias and the escalation of conflict

It is almost a truism that disagreement produces conflict. This article suggests that perceptions of bias can drive this relationship. First, these studies show that people perceive those who disagree with them as biased. Second, they show that the conflict-escalating approaches that people take toward those who disagree with them are mediated by people's tendency to perceive those who disagree with them as biased. Third, these studies manipulate the mediator and show that experimental manipulations that prompt people to perceive adversaries as biased lead them to respond more conflictually-and that such responding causes those who engage in it to be viewed as more biased and less worthy of cooperative gestures. In summary, this article provides evidence for a "bias-perception conflict spiral," whereby people who disagree perceive each other as biased, and those perceptions in turn lead them to take conflict-escalating actions against each other (which in turn engender further perceptions of bias, continuing the spiral).