Beyond rhyme or reason: ERPs reveal task-specific activation of orthography on spoken language

Metaphonological tasks, such as rhyme judgment, have been the primary tool for the investigation of the effects of orthographic knowledge on spoken language. However, it has been recently argued that the orthography effect in rhyme judgment does not reflect the automatic activation of orthographic codes but rather stems from sophisticated response strategies. Such a claim stands in sharp contrast with recent findings using event-related brain potentials (ERPs) in lexical and semantic tasks, which were taken to suggest that orthographic information occurs early enough to affect the core process of lexical access. Here, we show that the electrophysiological signature of the orthography effect in rhyme judgment is indeed different from the one obtained in online lexical or semantic tasks. That is, we did not find the orthography effect in the 300-350 ms time window which has previously been shown to process lexical information in the lexico-semantic tasks, but the effect appeared within the 175-250 ms and the 375-750 ms time-windows which we interpreted to reflect segmentation and decisional process, respectively. We conclude that the interactions between phonology and orthography are task-specific. Metaphonological tasks appear of limited use for studying the core processes and interactions that underlie lexical access.     

God and Some Recent Public Theologies

This article addresses the 'ever widening' circle of theological writing concerned with the public character of theology. Specifically, it examines the work of two 'public theologians': Linell Cady and Max Stackhouse, and it does so by focusing on the concept of God ingredient in their programmes for contemporary public theology. The article is an inquiry into the sort of theology such public theologies might be. It argues that an account of the identity and agency of God is of decisive significance for an account of the public character of theology. In keeping with its exploratory nature, it concludes with a series of questions regarding the work of Cady and Stackhouse and suggests an alternative way forward for public theology. It suggests a re-orientation of public theology 'on the basis of a more robust account of divine identity and divine agency cognizant of the possibilities afforded by the prevenient publicity of the God of the Christian gospel'.     

Graphemes are perceptual reading units

Graphemes are commonly defined as the written representation of phonemes. For example, the word 'BREAD' is composed of the four phonemes /b/, /r/, /e/ and /d/, and consequently, of the four graphemes 'B', 'R', 'EA', and 'D'. Graphemes can thus be considered the minimal 'functional bridges' in the mapping between orthography and phonology. In the present study, we investigated the hypothesis that graphemes are processed as perceptual units by the reading system. If the reading system processes graphemes as units, then detecting a letter in a word should be harder when this letter is embedded in a multi-letter grapheme than when it corresponds to a single-letter grapheme. In Experiment 1A, done in English, participants were slower to detect a target letter in a word when the target letter was embedded in multi-letter grapheme (i.e. 'A' in 'BEACH') than when it corresponded to a single-letter grapheme (i.e. 'A' in 'PLACE'). In Experiment 1B, this effect was replicated in French. In Experiment 2, done in English, this grapheme effect remained when phonemic similarity between the target letter alone and the target letter inside the word was controlled. Together, the results are consistent with the assumption that graphemes are processed as perceptual reading units in alphabetic writing systems such as English or French.     

Phonology matters: the phonological frequency effect in written Chinese

Does phonology play a role in silent reading? This issue was addressed in Chinese. Phonology effects are less expected in Chinese than in alphabetical languages like English because the basic units of written Chinese (the characters) map directly into units of meaning (morphemes). This linguistic property gave rise to the view that phonology could be bypassed altogether in Chinese. The present study, however, shows that this is not the case. We report two experiments that demonstrate pure phonological frequency effects in processing written Chinese. Characters with a high phonological frequency were processed faster than characters with a low phonological frequency, despite the fact that the characters were matched on orthographic (printed) frequency. The present research points to a universal phonological principle according to which phonological information is routinely activated as a part of word identification. The research further suggests that part of the classic word-frequency effect may be phonological.     

Predicting dangerousness with two Millon Adolescent Clinical Inventory psychopathy scales: the importance of egocentric and callous traits

Psychopathy in youth has received increased recognition as a critical clinical construct for the evaluation and management of adolescents who have come into contact with the law (e.g., Forth, Hare, & Hart, 1990; Frick, 1998; Lynam, 1996, 1998). Although considerable attention has been devoted to the adult construct of psychopathy and its relation to recidivism, psychopathy in adolescents has been less thoroughly researched. Recently, a psychopathy scale (Murrie and Cornell Psychopathy Scale; Murrie & Cornell, 2000) was developed from items of the Millon Adolescent Clinical Inventory (MACI; Millon, 1993). This scale was found to be highly related to the Psychopathy Checklist-Revised (Hare, 1991) and was judged to have demonstrated good criterion validity. A necessary step in the validation process of any psychopathy scale is establishing its predictive validity. With this in mind, we investigated the ability of the MACI Psychopathy Scale to predict recidivism with 55 adolescent offenders 2 years after they had been evaluated at a juvenile court evaluation unit. In addition, we devised a psychopathy scale from MACI items that aligned more closely with Cooke and Michie (2001) and Frick, Bodin, and Barry's (2001) recommendations for the refinement of psychopathy and tested its predictive validity. Results indicate that both scales had predictive utility. Interpersonal and affective components of the revised scale were particularly important in the prediction of both general and violent reoffending.     

Do current connectionist learning models account for reading development in different languages?

Learning to read a relatively irregular orthography, such as English, is harder and takes longer than learning to read a relatively regular orthography, such as German. At the end of grade 1, the difference in reading performance on a simple set of words and nonwords is quite dramatic. Whereas children using regular orthographies are already close to ceiling, English children read only about 40% of the words and nonwords correctly. It takes almost 4 years for English children to come close to the reading level of their German peers. In the present study, we investigated to what extent recent connectionist learning models are capable of simulating this cross-language learning rate effect as measured by nonword decoding accuracy. We implemented German and English versions of two major connectionist reading models, Plaut et al.'s (Plaut, D. C., McClelland, J. L., Seidenberg, M. S., & Patterson, K. (1996). Understanding normal and impaired word reading: computational principles in quasi-regular domains. Psychological Review, 103, 56-115) parallel distributed model and Zorzi et al.'s (Zorzi, M., Houghton, G., & Butterworth, B. (1998a). Two routes or one in reading aloud? A connectionist dual-process model. Journal of Experimental Psychology: Human Perception and Performance, 24, 1131-1161); two-layer associative network. While both models predicted an overall advantage for the more regular orthography (i.e. German over English), they failed to predict that the difference between children learning to read regular versus irregular orthographies is larger earlier on. Further investigations showed that the two-layer network could be brought to simulate the cross-language learning rate effect when cross-language differences in teaching methods (phonics versus whole-word approach) were taken into account. The present work thus shows that in order to adequately capture the pattern of reading acquisition displayed by children, current connectionist models must not only be sensitive to the statistical structure of spelling-to-sound relations but also to the way reading is taught in different countries.     

DRC: a dual route cascaded model of visual word recognition and reading aloud

This article describes the Dual Route Cascaded (DRC) model, a computational model of visual word recognition and reading aloud. The DRC is a computational realization of the dual-route theory of reading, and is the only computational model of reading that can perform the 2 tasks most commonly used to study reading: lexical decision and reading aloud. For both tasks, the authors show that a wide variety of variables that influence human latencies influence the DRC model's latencies in exactly the same way. The DRC model simulates a number of such effects that other computational models of reading do not, but there appear to be no effects that any other current computational model of reading can simulate but that the DRC model cannot. The authors conclude that the DRC model is the most successful of the existing computational models of reading.     

Are good salespeople born or made? A new perspective on an age-old question: implicit theories of selling ability

Considering implicit theories in a sales context can provide a framework for better understanding salesperson motivation and behavior. The current research develops, tests, and examines the relevance of an Implicit Theories of Selling Ability (ITSA) measure, which measures the extent to which a person believes selling is an incremental (made) ability versus an entity (born) ability. After pre-testing the ITSA measure, two studies found an unfavorable pattern of outcomes associated with an entity belief of selling ability, consistent with research in other domains. Experimental validity for ITSA is demonstrated, thus supporting a direct relationship between ITSA and sales-relevant constructs, and suggesting manipulation of ITSA as a potential training intervention. This research extends past sales research on implicit theories by developing a sales-specific implicit theories measure and by examining goal orientations and behavior within the social-cognitive model (SCM). Conceptualizing sales performance behaviors from this SCM perspective reveals important considerations for both researchers and practitioners regarding salesperson hiring, training, and placement.     

Basic Assumptions Concerning Human Nature Underlying Rational Emotive Behavior Therapy (Rebt) Personality Theory

In this article it is argued that all major theories of personality, including the currently developing REBT personality theory, rest upon certain basic philosophic assumptions concerning human nature made by the theorist. If REBT theory preferably is to develop into a more comprehensive theory of personality, then it would be helpful in that effort to identify the basic philosophic assumptions underlying it. For that purpose Ellis' basic assumptions in this regard are here identified, articulated, and documented. Theoretical and treatment implications are also explored. In the case of each philosophic assumption it is briefly indicated how Ellis' position on that assumption may translate into the theory and practice of REBT.     

Beyond the two-strategy model of skilled spelling: Effects of consistency, grain size, and orthographic redundancy

Most models of spelling assume that people rely on two procedures when engaging in spelling: a lexical look-up procedure that retrieves spellings in their entirety, and a nonlexical procedure that constructs spellings with a set of phoneme-grapheme rules. In the present research, we investigated whether larger sized subsyllabic relationships also play a role in spelling, and how they compare to small-sized phoneme-grapheme relationships. In addition, we investigated whether purely orthographic units can explain some of the variance typically attributed to the mapping between sound and spelling. To do this, we ran five spelling experiments, two using real words and three using nonwords. Results from the experiments showed that there were independent contributions of both phoneme-grapheme and larger sized subsyllabic sound-spelling relationships, although the effect of phoneme-grapheme-sized relationships was always stronger and more reliable than larger sized subsyllabic sound-spelling relationships. Purely orthographic effects were also shown to affect word spelling, but no significant effects were found with nonword spelling. Together, the results support the hypothesis that a major constraint on spelling comes from phoneme-grapheme-sized relationships.