Reaction time for voiced and whispered /a/ in stutterers and nonstutterers

Recent research reviewed in this article suggests that stutterers' inability to initiate phonation promptly could be a significant factor in the occurence of stuttering. Since stuttering is either completely absent or markedly reduced in frequency during whisper, the present study tested the hypothesis that stutterers do not significantly differ from nonstutterers in reaction time (RT) for the initiation of whispered/a/, whereas the two groups differ significantly in RT for the initiation of voiced /a/. Ten adult stutterers and an equal number of comparable nonstutterers produced prolonged versions of the vowel /a/ using voice and whisper in response to tone stimuli. The results showed that stutteres and nonstutterers did not differ in RT for either voiced or whispered /a/. The stutterers, however, exhibited significantly longer RT to produce voiced /a/ than whispered /a/.     

Part of speech and phonological form implied in written-word comprehension: Evidence from homograph disambiguation by normal and aphasic subjects

A sentence construction experiment examining the effect of part of speech and phonological form in written-word comprehension is reported. Normal and aphasic subjects had to write sentences incorporating a given word pair, one word was a homograph (e.g., “bank”) whose meaning was context-biased by the other (e.g., “money”/“river”). The effect of three psycholinguistic factors on subjects' performance was questioned: (i) The relative frequency of one meaning of the homograph as compared to the other meaning; (ii) The lexical/syntactic ambiguity (“ball”/“can”); (iii) The same/different phonological forms of the two meanings (“fair”/“bass”). The results are discussed in the framework of a model in which multiple special-purpose procedures are involved in normal processing, some of them being differentially impaired by brain disease in Broca's and Wernicke's aphasics.     

A mathematical model for social influences on perceptual judgments

A mathematical model based upon signal detection theory is developed that characterizes social influences upon judgments of a stimulus. A social influence cue and the physical aspects of the stimulus were assumed to have independent effects upon performance. A visual movement discrimination task was employed in which subjects could make their judgment either before or after a cue that they had been led to believe was the response of another subject. The accuracy of this “response” was varied. The model provided a good account of the data. A model-based estimate of the magnitude of the influence effect indicated that this effect was greater when the “other” was highly accurate. The model provided an interpretation of social influences on perceptual judgments in which influence pressures have their effects only when subjects' sensory impressions are ambiguous.     

Newborn behavioral observations system in rural Pakistan: A feasibility and acceptability study

The Newborn Behavioral Observations (NBO) system is a relationship-based tool that helps parents recognize their infant's competencies and learn their behavioral cues, with the goals of enhancing parental responsiveness and satisfaction in the infant-parent relationship. In our study, a pediatrician integrated the NBO into 44 pediatric health care visits of infants in rural Pakistan villages, under the remote guidance of two U.S.-based child psychiatrists. A clinician then gave the mothers a survey about their experience of the NBO and found that the mothers were highly satisfied, reporting greater appreciation of their infant's strengths, greater understanding of their infant's behavioral cues, stronger attachment to their infant, and greater self-confidence as a mother. In their consideration of these results, the authors explore cultural reasons for the mothers’ responses and generate hypotheses to inform an outcome study of a similar intervention. This was a feasibility and acceptability study and was not randomized, had no control group, and did not use objective measures of outcome.     

The Transformation of Chinese Cultural Images of the Plague through Chinese Characters,Legends and Folkways1

The human experience of survival from a plague is about distinguishing the sick from the healthy as quickly as possible, establishing a barrier to stop the infection, and protecting healthy people. Nevertheless, the various quarantine rules and the acceptance and compliance of the population are a kind of battle between policy implementers and the public. This paper tries to understand how Chinese cultural attitudes (Henderson, 1984) unconsciously influence the Chinese people to be most cooperative with the strict containment and quarantine measures to confront the COVID-19 pandemic. This article begins with the Chinese characters, exemplified by the four characters of disease and plague, to discuss how the pictograph nature and spatial structural way profoundly shaped the cultural mind. Then, through plague-related Chinese legends, stories and folklore, the paper sets out the Chinese cultural attitudes which are also manifested in the analogical associations between disease, plague and seasons, the balance of the five elements of the universe and ghosts, gods and the government bureaucrats in the Kingdom of the Heaven. All of these approaches are well in line with Jung’s method of associative amplification as a way to locate the archetypal wisdom that assures survival.     

Thinking Childbirth from an Emancipatory Perspective? Phenomenology and Psychoanalysis1

Feminist thought, despite the importance of its work, has not resolved the phenomenon of women's subordination in the care and education of children, and in society as a whole. Meanwhile, we are witnessing a gradual but continuous process of disconnection between women's bodies and subjectivity, and the conception, pregnancy and birth of children, due to developments in reproductive techniques. Considering this paradoxical tension, the author proposes to return to the very place where this subordination and anticipated rupture occur, to consider whether mothers could find there both the means to reclaim their childbirth experiences and potential levers for emancipation and rebirth, on both a personal and societal level. To this end, she describes, from the point of view of a singular woman, and from an emancipatory perspective, the phenomenological and psychoanalytical itinerary of childbirth by which this woman, in becoming a mother, is born to herself by giving birth to her child. By co-constituting the universal meaning of childbirth and becoming a philosophical mother, this singular woman operates a real paradigm shift in our representations of the mother and the metaphysical structure of the sexes.