Concepts of Emotion: "Emotionness", and Dimensional Ratings of Italian Emotion Words

Italian emotion terms (N = 153) were judged by samples of Italian university students in eight studies, two of which were replications. The studies collected normative ratings (a) on the dimensions of Valence, Intensity, and Duration, and (b) on “emotionness” (i.e. prototypicality judgements, frequencies in a spontaneous production task, and reaction times in word categorisation). Two sets of multiple regression analyses showed that Intensity, Duration, and Valence ratings significantly predicted, but to a varying degree, individual “emotionness” ratings, as well as “emotionness” factor scores, a compound index. Intensity appeared to be a dimension that can subsume information about other emotion features, especially duration. Additional predictors included word length, and, less often, frequency of words in the language. The results were interpreted as supporting the hypothesis that “emotionness” judgements are summary-like statements of a complex computation that considers emotional features denoted by a word.     

关于普通话声调知觉中心的初步研究

通常将普通话单音节的声调F0曲线划分成“弯头段”、“调型段”和“降尾段”。考察“调型段”的具体位置和相对长度,对普通话语音教学,对开发语音识别和语音合成系统,都是很有意义的。本文使用两大类合成刺激连续体,通过辨认试验,初步确定了“调型段”在音节F0曲线上的位置,即一个单音节,不论是清声母音节,还是浊声母音节,也不论是何种声调和调域,其声调知觉中心(P-CT)的位置位于韵母段中部,而且,只要“调型段”的长度为浊音段的一半左右,就可能被感知成相应的调类。     

The Orthodox Diaspora

This paper discusses the decisions of the Holy and Great Council of the Orthodox Church in June 2016 that offered the Orthodox diaspora throughout the world the opportunity on many levels to act and develop activities to promote Orthodox witness, faith, and life. The issue of diaspora is very important for the church on account of the dynamic presence of the Orthodox faith and witness within large heterodox, non-Christian, and diversified multicultural populations. The diaspora, after the Holy and Great Synod of the Orthodox Church, has in front of it an open door that no one can shut. Hence the diaspora is always in a movement of outreach for the sowing of the seed of truth to those who are far away and to those who are near: always with the mighty assistance of the merciful and philanthropic God.     

The Documents of the Council of Crete

This document is the translation of a report given on 29 November 2017 by Metropolitan Hilarion of Volokolamsk to the Bishops’ Council of the Russian Orthodox Church. It presents the results of the study by the Synodal Biblical-Theological Commission of the Russian Orthodox Church of the documents adopted by the Holy and Great Council of the Orthodox Church at its meeting in Crete from 19 to 26 June 2016. This report is followed by the decisions of the Bishops’ Council concerning the Council of Crete.     

Community-delivered infant–parent psychotherapy improves maternal sensitive caregiving: Evaluation of the Michigan model of infant mental health home visiting

The current study evaluated the effectiveness of a home-based psychotherapeutic Infant Mental Health Home Visiting (IMH-HV) intervention for enhancing parenting sensitivity; a secondary aim was to evaluate whether the use of video feedback was associated with greater treatment response. Participants were N = 78 mothers and their children (age at entry ranged from prebirth to 24-month old (M = 9.8, SD = 8.4), who were initiating IMH-HV services with community mental health-based therapists (N = 51). Dyads were assessed during extended home visits via standardized interviews and observational and questionnaire methods within the first month of treatment (baseline), and again 6 and 12 months thereafter. Following each of these extended home visits, study evaluators completed a standard Q-sort to capture observations of maternal sensitivity during the visit. Therapists completed fidelity checklists used to derive the total number of IMH-HV sessions received (i.e., dosage) and frequency with which therapists provided video feedback. Results indicated a dose–response relationship between number of sessions and maternal sensitivity, and that video review with parents independently contributed to improved maternal sensitivity. Discussion focuses on the effectiveness of this community-based psychotherapeutic home visiting model for enhancing parenting, as well as the value of video feedback as a specific therapeutic strategy.