The semantic origins of word order

Where do the different sentence orders in the languages of the world come from? Recently, it has been suggested that there is a basic sentence order, SOV (Subject–Object–Verb), which was the starting point for other sentence orders. Backup for this claim was found in newly emerging languages, as well as in experiments where people are asked to convey simple meanings in improvised gesture production. In both cases, researchers found that the predominant word order is SOV. Recent literature has shown that the pragmatic rule ‘Agent first’ drives the preference for S initial word order, but this rule does not decide between SOV and SVO. This paper presents experimental evidence for grounding the word order that emerges in gesture production in semantic properties of the message to be conveyed. We focus on the role of the verb, and argue that the preference for SOV word order reported in earlier experiments is due to the use of extensional verbs (e.g. throw). With intensional verbs like think, the object is dependent on the agent’s thought, and our experiment confirms that such verbs lead to a preference for SVO instead. We conclude that the meaning of the verb plays a crucial role in the sequencing of utterances in emerging language systems. This finding is relevant for the debate on language evolution, because it suggests that semantics underlies the early formation of syntactic rules.     

Is it better to be an English little pea than a Mexican little pea?: The role of the categorization process on the evaluation of football players

Two studies investigated the effects of manipulating team membership on the evaluation of a football player. We hypothesized that the evaluations of the same football player, Javier “Chicharito” Hernandez, would vary as a function of the categorization process. For study 1, participants were randomly assigned to one of three conditions: Manchester United, Mexican National team or control. Results showed that “Chicharito” obtained better evaluations when his membership to Manchester United was made salient. In study 2, participants were randomly assigned to one of two conditions: Manchester United and Mexican National team condition. We found support for the mediating role of team evaluation on the relationship between team membership and the evaluations of Chicharito. The theoretical and applied implications were discussed.     

Test development and use in five Iberian Latin American countries

The abundance of scholarship on test development and use generally is higher in English‐speaking than in Iberian Latin American countries. The purpose of this article is to help overcome this imbalance by describing and identifying similarities and differences in test development and use in two Iberian (Portugal and Spain) and three of the largest Latin American (Argentina, Brazil, and Venezuela) countries. The stages of test development in each country, roles of professional associations, presence of standards for test use, professionals' educational training, commonly used tests, together with prominent challenges to continued progress are discussed. Test development and use in these five countries are transitioning from a dependence on the use of translated tests to greater reliance on adapted and finally nationally constructed tests. Continued growth requires adherence to international standards guiding test development and use. Stronger alliance among professional associations in the Iberian Latin American countries could serve as a catalyst to promote test development in these regions.     

Contrasting two models of academic self‐efficacy – domain‐specific versus cross‐domain – in children receiving and not receiving special instruction in mathematics

In social cognitive theory, self‐efficacy is domain‐specific. An alternative model, the cross‐domain influence model, would predict that self‐efficacy beliefs in one domain might influence performance in other domains. Research has also found that children who receive special instruction are not good at estimating their performance. The aim was to test two models of how self‐efficacy beliefs influence achievement, and to contrast children receiving special instruction in mathematics with normally‐achieving children. The participants were 73 fifth‐grade children who receive special instruction and 70 children who do not receive any special instruction. In year four and five, the children's skills in mathematics and reading were assessed by national curriculum tests, and in their fifth year, self‐efficacy in mathematics and reading were measured. Structural equation modeling showed that in domains where children do not receive special instruction in mathematics, self‐efficacy is a mediating variable between earlier and later achievement in the same domain. Achievement in mathematics was not mediated by self‐efficacy in mathematics for children who receive special instruction. For normal achieving children, earlier achievement in the language domain had an influence on later self‐efficacy in the mathematics domain, and self‐efficacy beliefs in different domains were correlated. Self‐efficacy is mostly domain specific, but may play a different role in academic performance depending on whether children receive special instruction. The results of the present study provided some support of the Cross‐Domain Influence Model for normal achieving children.     

Publish Yet Perish: On the Pitfalls of Philosophy of Education in an Age of Impact Factors

In many countries publications in Web of Knowledge journals are dominant in the evaluation of educational research. For various purposes comparisons are made between the output of philosophers of education in these journals and the publications of their colleagues in educational research generally, sometimes also including psychologists and/or social scientists. Taking its starting-point from Hayden’s article in this journal (Stud Philos Educ 31:1–27, 2012), this paper discusses the situation of educational research in three countries: The Netherlands, South Africa and Norway. In this paper an alternative for comparing research output is offered by invoking comparisons with colleagues at the international level from within the same sub-discipline. It is argued that if one would do so a different picture would emerge, even if one were to limit oneself to particular kinds of publications. The case is then made that if comparisons are regarded as a necessary part of the evaluation of an individual scholar (for appointment, promotion, tenure, and/or funding application purposes), it would be more fair to use a proxy system which is sub-discipline specific, or minimally contains some kind of correction factor in relation to the over-all quality assessment device. Debates about the relevance or irrelevance of philosophy of education in the context of educational sciences are now obscured, even poisoned by focusing almost exclusively on a particular kind of publication output. As the ‘reward’ system that is developed accordingly is possibly the most important driver of educational research, it puts the sub-discipline unduly under pressure to the extent that it possibly cannot survive.     

Knowledge Under Threat

Many contemporary epistemologists hold that a subject S’s true belief that p counts as knowledge only if S’s belief that p is also, in some important sense, safe. I describe accounts of this safety condition from John Hawthorne, Duncan Pritchard, and Ernest Sosa. There have been three counterexamples to safety proposed in the recent literature, from Comesaña, Neta and Rohrbaugh, and Kelp. I explain why all three proposals fail: each moves fallaciously from the fact that S was at epistemic risk just before forming her belief to the conclusion that S’s belief was formed unsafely. In light of lessons from their failure, I provide a new and successful counterexample to the safety condition on knowledge. It follows, then, that knowledge need not be safe. Safety at a time depends counterfactually on what would likely happen at that time or soon after in a way that knowledge does not. I close by considering one objection concerning higher‐order safety.     

Do a Posteriori Physicalists Get Our Phenomenal Concepts Wrong?

A posteriori physicalism is the combination of two appealing views: physicalism (i.e. the view that all facts are either physical or entailed by the physical), and conceptual dualism (i.e. the view that phenomenal truths are not entailed a priori by physical truths). Recently, some philosophers such as Goff (2011), Levine (2007) and Nida‐Rümelin (2007), among others, have suggested that a posteriori physicalism cannot explain how phenomenal concepts can reveal the nature of phenomenal properties. In this paper, I wish to defend a posteriori physicalism from this new and interesting challenge, by arguing that a posteriori physicalists have the resources to explain how phenomenal concepts can reveal at least something of what it would take for the corresponding phenomenal property to be instantiated.     

Rise of Pilgrims on the Camino to Santiago: Sign of Change or Religious Revival?

There is a renewed interest amongst scholars in the practice of pilgrimage. Over the past two decades, pilgrim numbers have risen significantly, whilst forms of “implicit” or “alternative” spirituality have gained visibility and now coexist with organised religions, sometimes sharing the same ritualistic space. There is probably no better place to look at the coexistence of old and new forms of ritual expression than in the Camino to Santiago. To better understand the meanings attributed to this pilgrimage, we undertook a survey with over 470 pilgrims at various locations along the Camino. The findings confirm that individuals with various, often contrasting, motivations and expectations walk side by side on this pilgrimage route. We suggest that the results cannot be read simplistically as either confirming a “post-secularisation” trend or a religious revival.     

Are there limits to scientists’ obligations to seek and engage dissenters?

Dissent is thought to play a valuable role in science, so that scientific communities ought to create opportunities for receiving critical feedback and take dissenting views seriously. There is concern, however, that some dissent does more harm than good. Dissent on climate change and evolutionary theory, for example, has confused the public, created doubt about existing consensus, derailed public policy, and forced scientists to devote resources to respond. Are there limits to the extent to which scientific communities have obligations to seek and engage dissenting views? We consider the two main criteria that have been offered for what constitutes “normatively appropriate dissent” or the sort of dissent that ought to have the opportunity to be heard and taken seriously. Many have argued that dissenters must (1) engage in uptake of criticism against their own views and (2) share some standards for theory appraisal. We argue these criteria ultimately are unsuccessful.     

The Trauma Related Shame Inventory: Measuring Trauma-Related Shame Among Patients with PTSD

This article proposes a new measurement instrument of trauma-related shame. The purpose of this study is to investigate the psychometric properties of the scores derived from the Trauma Related Shame Inventory (TRSI) by means of generalizability theory (G-theory). The psychometric analyses are based on a sample of 50 patients in treatment for Post-traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD). The results provided supporting construct validity evidence for the interpretation of TRSI as a homogeneous construct. The 24-item version of internal and external referenced shame yielded generalizability and dependability coefficients of .874 and .868, respectively. The distinction between shame and guilt was supported by a high generalizability coefficient of .812 for the difference scores between TRSI and guilt cognition scale. Further validity evidence was provided by a positive relationship between TRSI and a) self-judgment subscale in Self-Compassion Scale (SCS; Neff Self and Identity 2:(3), 223–250, 2003) and b) Beck Depression Inventory (Beck Steer and Brown 1996a) when controlled for guilt. The results of the present study provided promising support for using the 24-item version of TRSI in both clinical research and practice.