On Presuppositional Implicatures

Scalar implicatures arise when a speaker uses a logically weak alternative in a context where a logically stronger alternative was available. Presuppositional implicatures, as I call them, arise when a speaker uses a presuppositionally weak alternative when a presuppositionally stronger alternative was available. My goal is to give a detailed, working theory of presuppositional implicatures, and show that they are a special case of scalar implicatures. In doing so, I carefully contrast presuppositional implicatures with antipresuppositions. These two phenomena have been treated as closely related in the literature, but some differences have not been adequately appreciated. Antipresuppositions are observed when a presuppositionally weak alternative is infelicitously used in a context that satisfies the presupposition of a presuppositionally stronger alternative. Presuppositional implicatures arise when a presuppositionally weak alternative is felicitously used in a context that does not satisfy the presupposition of a presuppositionally stronger alternative, but where that stronger presupposition would have been accommodated. Attention to this difference reveals a shortcoming in Schlenker’s (Nat Lang Semant 20:391–429, 2012) theory of presuppositional implicature. This paper both identifies and remedies that shortcoming.     

Perspectives on the Fairness of Lotteries

When there are equally strong claimants for a scarce good, lotteries are often argued to be a fair method of allocation. This paper reproduces four of the views on the fairness of lotteries that have been presented in the literature: the distributive view; the preference view; the actual consent view; and the expressive view. It argues that these four views cannot offer plausible explanations for the fairness of lotteries. The distributive view is argued to be inadequate because, even though receiving expectations to a good is of value to the participants, this value cannot plausibly make a contribution to the satisfaction of a participant’s claim. Both the preference and actual consent views are argued to be implausible because they lead to accepting procedures as legitimate that fail to correspond with what a claim is. Finally, it is contended that the expressive view identifies a value that is relevant to respecting equal claimants, but that cannot plausibly be related to a procedure’s fairness. The paper concludes by maintaining that an equal treatment view can accept all the valid insights from these four views without needing to accept their untenable implications.     

Anti-Poverty,Development, and the Limits of Progress

In this paper I critically engage with Hennie Lötter’s impressive book, Poverty, Ethics and Justice. I discuss his conception of poverty, and offer an interpretation of his claim that poverty is a uniquely human scourge. I exam the various harms of poverty that Lötter discusses. I consider two reasons that he offers for why we have a moral duty to end poverty, and I argue that the reason based on what we can justify to others if we take their human dignity seriously is most compelling. Finally, I argue that Lötter overemphasizes of the moral importance of aid and downplays in the importance of the justice of institutional and structural change. I close by considering the prospects for social equality given our experience of capitalist development as a means for poverty eradication. I consider the moral importance of limits to the achievement of robust equality.     

多元概化理论在评定量表编制中的作用——以音像教材测评数据分析为例

目前多元概化理论已开始在考试、评价领域得到应用,但是很少有研究者关注其对评定量表编制的作用.本文认为多元概化理论的G研究可以估计各种效应带来的变异,能够据此(1)考察评定量表各维度和总体信度;(2)确定评定量表各维度的权重;D研究可以评估各种测量方案的信度,能够据此(3)确定评定项目的数量.这三个方面都是编制评定量表必不可少的环节,本文采用音像教材的测评数据,用实证方法展示多元概化理论对评定量表编制的指导作用.     

条件性推理测验：人格测验的新思路

条件性推理测验关注人们如何解决表面上看上去类似于传统归纳推理测验的问题,其真实目的是根据反应者是否将基于某种内隐偏差的解决方案视为合理的,进而评估反应者的人格倾向.有证据表明该方法可以有效防止自陈问卷的有意扭曲等相关问题,获得更可靠的结果.这种测评思路在成就动机和攻击性两个领域的研究中已经获得初步成效,测验的信度和效度都较为理想.然而也需指出,这一新思路尚处在发展中,还有一些问题如施测方法、测验构建和思路拓展等需作进一步探讨.     

中国道教协会组团赴台湾参访

应台湾台中谷关大道院的邀请,以中国道教协会副会长黄信阳为团长的大陆道教界参访团一行36人,于9月3日赴台,参加了谷关大道院举办的"八八蟠桃圣会",并参访了台湾部分道教官观和道教团体.参访团由中国道教协会5人、湖北省道教协会6人和武当山道教协会25人共同组成,成员包括中国道教协会副秘书长张立光、湖北省道教协会会长吴诚真、武当山道教协会副会长刘文国等.     

State of Multicultural Neuropsychological Assessment in Children: Current Research Issues

Scientific attention to cultural considerations in child neuropsychological assessment has not developed parallel to the focus these issues have received in adult and elderly neuropsychological assessment. There are limited data on the presence, magnitude, etiology, and implications of culture-related differences in cognitive test performance among children. This preliminary report reviews the available empirical literature on the current state of multicultural neuropsychological assessment in children. The review identified articles by searching PubMed and PsycINFO databases, and the tables of contents of Developmental Neuropsychology and Child Neuropsychology from 2003-2008. Of the 1,834 abstracts reviewed, ten papers met inclusion criteria for the review. Five studies were completed in America; four of these compared performance between ethnic groups while the fifth examined neighborhood level poverty indicators exclusively within African-American children. Of the five international studies, all established local normative data and/or were exploratory investigations of neuropsychological functions in specific cultural groups, including Taiwanese infants, South African youth, and bilingual British children. Taken together, the results yield important clinical and research data that begin to inform many of the complex and fascinating mechanisms by which ethnic identity and culture impact cognitive development and the neuropsychological assessment of children. A critique of the existing literature and directions for future research are provided.     

Creating physically accurate visual stimuli for free: Spectral rendering with RADIANCE

Visual psychophysicists, who study object, color, and light perception, have a demand for software that produces complex but, at the same time, physically accurate stimuli for their experiments. The number of computer graphic packages that simulate the physical interaction of light and surfaces is limited, and mostly they require the purchase of a license. RADIANCE (Ward, 1994), however, is freely available and popular in the visual perception community, making it a prime candidate. We have shown previously that RADIANCE's simulation accuracy is greatly improved when color is coded by spectra, rather than by the originally envisaged RGB triplets (Ruppertsberg & Bloj, 2006). Here, we present a method for spectral rendering with RADIANCE to generate hyperspectral images that can be converted to XYZ images (CIE 1931 system) and then to machine-dependent RGB images. Generating XYZ stimuli has the added advantage of making stimulus images independent of display devices and, thereby, facilitating the process of reproducing results across different labs. Materials associated with this article may be downloaded from www.psychonomic.org.     

New and updated tests of print exposure and reading abilities in college students

The relationship between print exposure and measures of reading skill was examined in college students (N = 99, 58 female; mean age = 20.3 years). Print exposure was measured with several new self-reports of reading and writing habits, as well as updated versions of the Author Recognition Test and the Magazine Recognition Test (Stanovich & West, 1989). Participants completed a sentence comprehension task with syntactically complex sentences, and reading times and comprehension accuracy were measured. An additional measure of reading skill was provided by participants' scores on the verbal portions of the ACT, a standardized achievement test. Higher levels of print exposure were associated with higher sentence processing abilities and superior verbal ACT performance. The relative merits of different print exposure assessments are discussed.