“I'll Take Gender Differences for $1000!” Domain-Specific Intellectual Success on “Jeopardy”

A great deal of laboratory research has demonstrated that women underestimate their intellect and abilities, and we studied whether this tendency manifested itself outside the laboratory by examining the performance of men and women on the television game show Jeopardy. Information about the masculinity and femininity of the topic categories for 65 games was collected, and selections, answers,wagering strategies, and earnings were noted for 195 White men and women contestants on the show. Men were more likely than women to appear as contestants, made most of the selections in the game, and won more money. Until the end of the game, men selected and correctly answered a disproportional number of questions from masculine topic categories, which appeared more often during the first round of play. Women chose more feminine and neutral questions than did men, and correctly answered those questions at a proportional rate. Wagering strategies differed late in the game, as men bet a higher percent of their earnings than did women, but only when wagering on masculine topics. Several explanations for differing performance of men and women on Jeopardyare offered, including confidence in ability due to self-estimation of intelligence, differential use of evaluative feedback, and the gender role appropriateness of demonstrating intellect.     

Sources of anxiety among pre-service teachers on field placement experience

This study examined pre-service students’ perceptions of their sources of anxiety during field experience. A sample of 85 undergraduate education students participated in the study (females = 52.9%). The students completed a survey on their perceptions of sources of anxiety during teaching practice. The results suggest students experience anxiety in four domains, namely preparation and execution of lesson plans, evaluation of lessons, classroom management, and relationship with host school staff. Evaluation of lessons ranked high as a source of anxiety for student teachers on field placement, followed by preparation, classroom control and relationship with the host school staff, respectively. Seeming inconsistencies between university and school-based supervisors in lesson plan formats compounded the pre-service teachers field placement-related anxieties Appropriately targeted student support interventions can help allay the fears and anxiety of pre-service teachers during teaching practice.     

IRB and Research Regulatory Delays Within the Military Health System: Do They Really Matter? And If So,Why and for Whom?

Institutional review board (IRB) delays may hinder the successful completion of federally funded research in the U.S. military. When this happens, time-sensitive, mission-relevant questions go unanswered. Research participants face unnecessary burdens and risks if delays squeeze recruitment timelines, resulting in inadequate sample sizes for definitive analyses. More broadly, military members are exposed to untested or undertested interventions, implemented by well-intentioned leaders who bypass the research process altogether. To illustrate, we offer two case examples. We posit that IRB delays often appear in the service of managing institutional risk, rather than protecting research participants. Regulators may see more risk associated with moving quickly than risk related to delay, choosing to err on the side of bureaucracy. The authors of this article, all of whom are military-funded researchers, government stakeholders, and/or human subject protection experts, offer feasible recommendations to improve the IRB system and, ultimately, research within military, veteran, and civilian populations.     

On Fork Arrow Logic and its Expressive Power

We compare fork arrow logic, an extension of arrow logic, and its natural first-order counterpart (the correspondence language) and show that both have the same expressive power. Arrow logic is a modal logic for reasoning about arrow structures, its expressive power is limited to a bounded fragment of first-order logic. Fork arrow logic is obtained by adding to arrow logic the fork modality (related to parallelism and synchronization). As a result, fork arrow logic attains the expressive power of its first-order correspondence language, so both can express the same input–output behavior of processes.     

The challenge of prejudice: counsellors’ talk about challenging clients’ prejudices

This paper considers the implications for training and practice of counsellors’ responses to the notion of challenging clients’ prejudices. It explores tensions in counselling discourse between social responsibility, responsibility to the client and responsibility for one's self as counsellor. Three focus groups of counsellors were asked whether a counsellor should challenge clients’ prejudices. Responses were categorised as challenge, not-challenge or exit responses. Discursive themes identified in the responses are: managing congruence and being non-judgemental; self-care and self-respect; and social responsibility. Strategies for managing the discursive conflicts identified in responding to counsellor-identified client prejudices are summarised.     

Production deficits in aphasia: A voice-onset time analysis

An experimental study was conducted to examine phonetic and phonemic deficits in the speech production of aphasics. Subjects included four Broca's aphasics, four Conduction aphasics, five Wernicke's aphasics, one nonaphasic dysarthric patient, and four normal controls. The subjects read a list of words containing word-initial stop consonants which were subsequently measured acoustically for voice-onset time. The results showed that Broca's aphasics exhibit a more severe production disorder than Conduction aphasics who in turn exhibit a more severe disorder than Wernicke's aphasics, in accord with clinical observations. In addition, although Broca's aphasics produced both phonetic and phonemic errors, the results showed that they have a pervasive phonetic disorder which affects their correct target productions as well as the total number of phonetic errors produced. This deficit however seems to be a speech deficit rather than a low-level motor control problem. In contrast, the Wernicke's aphasics show a deficit characterized by isolated phonemic mistargeting errors. Finally, the pattern of productions for the Conduction aphasics indicates that some patients show a predominantly phonetic disorder similar to the Broca's aphasics and others show predominantly a phonemic disorder similar to the Wernicke's aphasics.     

Rescher's Metaphilosophy

Books reviewed in this article:
Nicholas Rescher, Philosophical Standardism
Nicholas Rescher, The Strife of Systems
Nicholas Rescher, A System of Pragmatic Idealism. Vol. III, Metaphysical Inquiries