New evidence for morphological errors in deep dyslexia

Morphological errors in reading aloud (e.g., sexist-->sexy) are a central feature of the symptom-complex known as deep dyslexia, and have historically been viewed as evidence that representations at some level of the reading system are morphologically structured. However, it has been proposed (Funnell, 1987) that morphological errors in deep dyslexia are not morphological in nature but are actually a type of visual error that arises when a target word that cannot be read aloud (by virtue of its low imageability and/or frequency) is modified to form a visually similar word that can be read aloud (by virtue of its higher imageability and/or frequency). In the work reported here, the deep dyslexic patient DE read aloud lists of genuinely suffixed words (e.g., killer), pseudosuffixed words (e.g., corner), and words with non-morphological embeddings (e.g., cornea). Results revealed that the morphological status of a word had a significant influence on the production of stem errors (i.e., errors that include the stem or pseudostem of the target): genuinely suffixed words yielded more stem errors than pseudosuffixed words or words with non-morphological embeddings. This effect of morphological status could not be attributed to the relative levels of target and stem imageability and/or frequency. We argue that this pattern of data indicates that apparent morphological errors in deep dyslexic reading are genuinely morphological, and discuss the implications of these errors for theories of deep dyslexia.     

Emotional, physical, and sexual maltreatment in childhood versus adolescence and personality dysfunction in young adulthood.

The current study examined the unique relations of childhood and adolescent maltreatment (emotional, physical, and sexual) with DSM-III-R personality disorder (PD) dimensions in a sample of undergraduates. The results suggested that reported levels of childhood sexual maltreatment were uniquely related to six of the 11 PD dimensions examined. In contrast, reported levels of adolescent emotional maltreatment were uniquely related to only three PD dimensions and reported levels of adolescent physical maltreatment were uniquely related to only one PD dimension. Thus, whereas reported levels of adolescent emotional and physical maltreatment demonstrated some specificity to the various kinds of personality dysfunction, reported levels of childhood sexual maltreatment appeared to be related to more generalized personality dysfunction in young adulthood.     

Serotonin transporter genetic variation and biased attention for emotional word stimuli among psychiatric inpatients

The short allele in a variable repeat sequence of the promoter region of the serotonin transporter gene (5-HTTLPR) has been associated with stronger activation in brain regions critical for processing emotional stimuli. The authors examined whether variants of the 5-HTTLPR promoter polymorphism were also associated with individual differences in attentional biases for emotional stimuli. Words related to anxious and dysphoric emotional states were presented to psychiatric inpatients in a standard dot-probe reaction time task. Compared with participants with two long alleles, carriers of the short 5-HTTLPR allele exhibited a stronger attentional bias for anxious word stimuli. No genetic group difference was observed for dysphoric word stimuli. Findings from this preliminary study highlight the potential for integrating genetic and cognitive models of psychopathology.     

Violence restrained: Effects of self-regulation and its depletion on aggression

Aggressive impulses arise from many factors, but they are usually held in check by social norms for self-control. Thus, the proximal cause of aggression is often failure of self-restraint. In five studies, depleted capacity for self-regulation (caused by prior, even irrelevant acts of self-regulation) increased aggressive responding, especially after an insulting provocation. When participants were insulted and their self-regulatory strength was depleted (i.e., after completing previous tasks that required self-regulation), participants were more likely to aggress. When the urge to aggress was relatively weaker (i.e., when participants were not insulted), self-regulatory depletion did not increase aggressive behavior. This effect was moderated by trait self-control: Participants low in trait self-control were particularly likely to express intentions of behaving aggressively in response to provocation, whereas participants high in trait self-control did not express intentions of responding aggressively. Laboratory, autobiographical memory, and hypothetical responses confirmed the pattern.     

Contingency tracking during unsignaled delayed reinforcement

Three experiments were conducted with rats in which responses on one lever (labeled the functional lever) produced reinforcers after an unsignaled delay period that reset with each response during the delay. Responses on a second, nonfunctional, lever did not initiate delays, but, in the first and third experiments, such responses during the last 10 s of a delay did postpone food delivery another 10 s. In the first experiment, the location of the two levers was reversed several times. Responding generally was higher on the functional lever, though the magnitude of the difference diminished with successive reversals. In the second experiment, once a delay was initiated by a response on the functional lever, in different conditions responses on the nonfunctional lever either had no effect or postponed food delivery by 30 s. The latter contingency typically lowered response rates on the nonfunctional lever. In the first two experiments, both the functional and nonfunctional levers were identical except for their location; in the third experiment, initially, a vertically mounted, pole-push lever defined the functional response and a horizontally mounted lever defined the nonfunctional response. Higher response rates occurred on the functional lever. These results taken together suggest that responding generally tracked the response-reinforcer contingency. The results further show how nonfunctional-operanda responses are controlled by a prior history of direct reinforcement of such responses, by the temporal delay between such responses and food delivery, and as simple generalization between the two operanda.     

Philosophical investigations into the essence of pediatric suffering

Theoretical Medicine and Bioethics -     

A Critique of the Husserlian and Heideggerian Concepts of Earth: Toward a Transcendental Earth That Accords with the Experience of Life

This paper presents an exposition and critical appraisal of the concepts of earth that appear almost simultaneously in essays by Husserl and Heidegger in the mid 1930s (the former in a fragment from 1934 on the ground of all possible experience of motion and rest, and the latter most famously in his 1935–6 essay, “The Origin of the Work of Art”). I argue that while both of these earths are noteworthy insofar as they suggest, each in its own way, the isolation of a non-worldly dimension of disclosure, nevertheless, neither Husserl nor Heidegger succeeds in fully emancipating the earth from the logic of the world. In Husserl's case, the earth is implicated in a fourfold schema involving: the absolute fixity of the world; the horizon of all being, sense, and judgment; the transcendental unity of the world; and the lifeworld as the basis of a common humanity. In Heidegger's case, the earth is construed as the “stream of boundary-setting” that, as the primordial adversary of the world, accomplishes the rising-up of beings into the open of being. The effect of this failure on the part of both philosophers to achieve an adequate ontological segregation of world and earth is to devalue the naïve image of the earth apprehended in the natural attitude even while the earth-dimension is divested of any discernable earthly character, leaving the earth itself barren and abstract, a pure category of thought rather than the horizon of actually lived life.     

Can bare dispositions explain categorical regularities?

One of the traditional desiderata for a metaphysical theory of laws of nature is that it be able to explain natural regularities. Some philosophers have postulated governing laws to fill this explanatory role. Recently, however, many have attempted to explain natural regularities without appealing to governing laws. Suppose that some fundamental properties are bare dispositions. In virtue of their dispositional nature, these properties must be (or are likely to be) distributed in regular patterns. Thus it would appear that an ontology including bare dispositions can dispense with governing laws of nature. I believe that there is a problem with this line of reasoning. In this essay, I’ll argue that governing laws are indispensable for the explanation of a special sort of natural regularity: those holding among categorical properties (or, as I’ll call them, categorical regularities). This has the potential to be a serious objection to the denial of governing laws, since there may be good reasons to believe that observed regularities are categorical regularities.