Language identification from visual-only speech signals

Our goal in the present study was to examine how observers identify English and Spanish from visual-only displays of speech. First, we replicated the recent findings of Soto-Faraco et al. (2007) with Spanish and English bilingual and monolingual observers using different languages and a different experimental paradigm (identification). We found that prior linguistic experience affected response bias but not sensitivity (Experiment 1). In two additional experiments, we investigated the visual cues that observers use to complete the languageidentification task. The results of Experiment 2 indicate that some lexical information is available in the visual signal but that it is limited. Acoustic analyses confirmed that our Spanish and English stimuli differed acoustically with respect to linguistic rhythmic categories. In Experiment 3, we tested whether this rhythmic difference could be used by observers to identify the language when the visual stimuli is temporally reversed, thereby eliminating lexical information but retaining rhythmic differences. The participants performed above chance even in the backward condition, suggesting that the rhythmic differences between the two languages may aid language identification in visual-only speech signals. The results of Experiments 3A and 3B also confirm previous findings that increased stimulus length facilitates language identification. Taken together, the results of these three experiments replicate earlier findings and also show that prior linguistic experience, lexical information, rhythmic structure, and utterance length influence visual-only language identification.     

Reconceiving the Boundaries of Home: The ‘Oikology’ of Ephesians

This article offers a reading of Ephesians in repair of a modern liberal inclusivism that unwittingly perpetuates an oppressive colonialist logic. It delineates the dynamic of dwelling, building and inhabitation present in Ephesians via the oik‐ root, coining the term ‘oikology’ to capture its inseparable economy and ecology. Willie James Jennings is a key dialogue partner in the articulation of the colonialist logic to be overcome. The particular species of modern inclusivism in view is that which is exhibited by New Testament scholars associated with the New Perspective on Paul, which I argue remains captive to a supersessionist logic. The article offers a non‐supersessionist reading of Ephesians, arguing that Israel, rather than being replaced, remains the wider habitat in which the gentile Ephesians find their home. In this way the article seeks a reading of the cosmic Christology of Ephesians as an instantiation not of colonial inclusivism but of true catholicity.     

Re-Examining the Effect of Top-Down Linguistic Information on Speaker-Voice Discrimination

The current study replicated and extended the results from a study conducted by Narayan, Mak, and Bialystok (2017) that found effects of top-down linguistic information on a speaker discrimination task by examining four conditions: rhymes (day-bay), compounds (day-dream), reverse compounds (dream-day), and unrelated words (day-bee). The original study found that participants were more likely to judge two words to be spoken by the same speaker if the words cohered lexically (created lexical compounds such as day-dream) or were phonologically related (rhymes, such as day-bay), but their study contained two limitations: (a) Same- and different-speaker trials were analyzed separately, which obscures effects of response bias, and (b) cross-gender pairs were used in the different-speaker trials, potentially inflating performance. The current study addresses these limitations by including only within-gender trials and by examining sensitivity and bias using signal detection theory. Our results not only provide support of the original study but also provide clear evidence that listeners are biased to judge two words as being produced by the same person when they share either phonological information (rhymes) or lexical-semantic coherence (compounds). Thus, the current study provides an important modified replication of previous research.     

School-Wide Behavioral Support: Starting the Year Off Right

Two years of office referral data are presented in evaluation of a school-wide behavioral support program designed to define, teach, and reward appropriate student behavior in a rural middle school (grades 6, 7, and 8). During 1994-95, the school had 530 students and recorded 2,628 office referrals. The 1995-96 school year began with a full day in which students were taught five school expectations. Throughout the year, students also received rewards for appropriate behavior and office referrals for infractions. Results during 1995-96 document a 42% reduction in office referrals from the previous year. While the evaluation results do not document functional relationship, they suggest an efficient process for evaluating school-wide behavioral support, teaching appropriate behaviors, and changing the overall climate of the school. Implications for future research, and the use of schools as a unit of analysis, are discussed.     

Uncovering Uncertainty through Disagreement

This study explored the association between different types of brief disagreements and subsequent levels of expressed psychological uncertainty, a fundamental cognitive aspect of complex problem solving. We examined 11 hours (11 861 utterances) of conversations in expert science teams, sampled across the first 90 days of the Mars Exploration Rover mission. Utterances were independently coded for micro‐conflicts and expressed psychological uncertainty. Using time‐lagged hierarchical linear modeling applied to blocks of 25 utterances, we found that micro‐conflicts regarding rover planning were followed by greater uncertainty. Brief disagreements about science issues were followed by an increase in expressed uncertainty early in the mission. Examining the potential reverse temporal association, uncertainty actually predicted fewer subsequent disagreements, ruling out indirect, third variable associations of conflict and uncertainty. Overall, these findings suggest that some forms of disagreement may serve to uncover important areas of uncertainty in complex teamwork, perhaps via revealing differences in mental models.Copyright © 2016 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Counseling the Gifted: Past,Present, and Future Directions

In the 29 years since the last special issue in the Journal of Counseling & Development focusing on gifted individuals, there has been considerable research regarding giftedness. However, meeting the counseling needs of gifted individuals has not been on the national agenda in counselor preparation. This article outlines the status of counseling the gifted from the standpoint of both the counseling and the gifted education professions and includes recommendations for future directions for both fields.