Infants' reasoning about opaque and transparent occluders in an individuation task

Two experiments document that conceptual knowledge influences 3-year-olds' extension of novel words. In Experiment 1, when objects were described as having conceptual properties typical of artifacts, children extended novel labels for these objects on the basis of shape alone. When the very same objects were described as having conceptual properties typical of animate kinds, children extended novel labels for these objects on the basis of both shape and texture. Moreover, providing a salient perceptual cue (Experiment 2) did not interfere with children's reliance on conceptual information in extending novel words: when an object with eyes was labeled with a novel word in the context of a story describing the object as an artifact, children extended the label on the basis of shape alone (i.e. as though the object were an artifact). These results, which challenge directly the position that 'dumb attentional mechanisms' can account for word learning, stand as evidence for the central role of conceptual information in mapping words to meaning.     

Action-based and vision-based selection of input: Two sources of control

In the first part of this paper we review evidence suggesting that there exists a mechanism that selects input on the basis of its similarity to the required action. This response-based input selection differs from the more established space- and object-based input selection in that it is not constrained by the structure of the input. Our evidence suggests that the two-choice Stroop effect is caused by this response-based selection mechanism. By contrast, it is known that the flanker effect is determined by the space- and object- based selection mechanisms. We explore whether the conflict resolution of the Stroop and flanker tasks is different as well by embedding these two tasks in a PRP (Psychological Refractory Period) paradigm. We show that the Stroop and the PRP effects are additive whereas the flanker and the PRP effects are underadditive, suggesting that the processes in charge of the conflict resolution in the Stroop and the flanker tasks are indeed different. We discuss possible reasons for this difference, and discuss possible ways in which the response-based mechanism can be implemented in information processing models.     

Longing for Life Extension: Science Fiction and Late Life

Rejuvenescence has long been a topic of legend and medicine. As the body became the property of medical science, speculative fiction asked how fantastic experiments with bodies would affect the life course. In science fiction, medical breakthroughs promise or threaten to forestall or even reverse the decline from midlife through old age to senility and decrepitude. Responding to debates over evolution, eugenics, and scientific experimentation with human and animal subjects, rejuvenescence novels such as Bruce Sterling's Holy Fire (1996) ask readers whether they desire long life or heightened quality of life; the consolations of age or the hungers of youth; short-lived intensity or perpetual ennui.     

The Factor Structure of the Beavers Interactional Scales

Confirmatory factor analysis and regression analyses of the Beavers Interactional Scales did not appear to support the model offered by its developers, namely, several specified family attributes contributing respectively to two global factors of Family Competence and Family Style. Moreover, regression analysis indicated that only three of 12 items predicted raters' assessments of Global Family Health, and one of seven items predicted Global Family Style. Individuals interested in the family dynamic centripetal/centrifugal might best think of that as a unitary entity and rate it accordingly.     

Children's reasoning about the causal significance of the temporal order of events

Four experiments examined children's ability to reason about the causal significance of the order in which 2 events occurred (the pressing of buttons on a mechanically operated box). In Study 1, 4-year-olds were unable to make the relevant inferences, whereas 5-year-olds were successful on one version of the task. In Study 2, 3-year-olds were successful on a simplified version of the task in which they were able to observe the events although not their consequences. Study 3 found that older children had difficulties with the original task even when provided with cues to attend to order information. However, 5-year-olds performed successfully in Study 4, in which the causally relevant event was made more salient.     

Plantinga’s Reformed Epistemology: What’s the Question?

Alvin Plantingas Warranted Christian Belief is without questionone of the central texts of the Reformed epistemology movement. Critiques of Plantingas defence have been both multiple and varied. As varied as these responses are, however, it is my contention that many of them amount to the same thing. It is the purpose of this paper to offer an overview of the main lines of attack that have been directed as Plantingas project, and thereafter to show how many, if not most, of these objections can be understood as versions or aspects of the same criticism, what I call the Inadequacy Thesis.