Young children's sensitivity to probabilistic phonotactics in the developing lexicon

A series of three experiments examined children's sensitivity to probabilistic phonotactic structure as reflected in the relative frequencies with which speech sounds occur and co-occur in American English. Children, ages 212 and 312 years, participated in a nonword repetition task that examined their sensitivity to the frequency of individual phonetic segments and to the frequency of combinations of segments. After partialling out ease of articulation and lexical variables, both groups of children repeated higher phonotactic frequency nonwords more accurately than they did low phonotactic frequency nonwords, suggesting sensitivity to phoneme frequency. In addition, sensitivity to individual phonetic segments increased with age. Finally, older children, but not younger children, were sensitive to the frequency of larger (diphone) units. These results suggest not only that young children are sensitive to fine-grained acoustic-phonetic information in the developing lexicon but also that sensitivity to all aspects of the sound structure increases over development. Implications for the acoustic nature of both developing and mature lexical representations are discussed.     

Resisting body dissatisfaction: fat women who endorse fat acceptance

Fat women who endorsed fat acceptance (N=128) were recruited from Radiance Magazine. Relationships between objectified body consciousness (OBC), body esteem, and psychological well-being for the mostly European American sample were similar to those found in other samples. OBC was independently related to body esteem when weight dissatisfaction was controlled. Those who endorsed the need for social change in attitudes towards fat people had higher body esteem and self-acceptance, and lower body shame, than those who endorsed personal acceptance of body size only.     

Tribal Participatory Research: Mechanisms of a Collaborative Model

Although much social science research has been conducted within American Indian and Alaska Native (AIAN) communities, relatively little research has been conducted by or for those communities. We describe an approach that facilitates the active involvement of AIAN communities in the research process, from conceptualizing the issues to be investigated to developing a research design, and from collecting, analyzing, and interpreting the data to disseminating the results. The Tribal Participatory Research (TPR) approach is consistent with recent developments in psychology that emphasize the inclusion of community members and the social construction of knowledge. We describe the foundations of the approach and present specific mechanisms that can be employed in collaborations between researchers and AIAN communities. We conclude with a discussion of the implications of the use of TPR regarding project timelines and budgets, interpretation of the data, and ultimately the relationships between tribes and researchers.     

Demographic characteristics,social competence,and behavior problems in children with gender identity disorder: a cross-national,cross-clinic comparative analysis

This study examined demographic characteristics, social competence, and behavior problems in clinic-referred children with gender identity problems in Toronto, Canada (N = 358), and Utrecht, The Netherlands (N = 130). The Toronto sample was, on average, about a year younger than the Utrecht sample at referral, had a higher percentage of boys, had a higher mean IQ, and was less likely to be living with both parents. On the Child Behavior Checklist (CBCL), both groups showed, on average, clinical range scores in both social competence and behavior problems. A CBCL-derived measure of poor peer relations showed that boys in both clinics had worse ratings than did the girls. A multiple regression analysis showed that poor peer relations were the strongest predictor of behavior problems in both samples. This study—the first cross-national, cross-clinic comparative analysis of children with gender identity disorder—found far more similarities than differences in both social competence and behavior problems. The most salient demographic difference was age at referral. Cross-national differences in factors that might influence referral patterns are discussed.     

《圣迹图》版本初探

多年来 ,研究孔子的专书中涉及《圣迹图》版本研究的几乎没有 ,且为之介绍的专文也难得一见。《圣迹图》有绘本、石刻本、木刻本三种类型 ,乃为画家及刻梓者出自以垂永久之思 ,以求望图而知所考据 ,入室如见其人之感受。从中国版画史的角度来看 ,《圣迹图》中孔子形象 ,为后人运用想像力 ,揣摩当时的情景 ,选取孔子生平事迹中最为人所津津乐道的难忘情节创造出来的。本文就传世的各种版本及内容作一些考证及探讨。     

Ethical issues at the university-industry interface: A way forward?

This paper forms an introduction to this issue, the contents of which arose directly or indirectly from a conference in May 2001 on Corruption of scientific integrity? — The commercialisation of academic science. The introduction, in recent decades, of business culture and values into universities and research institutions is incompatible with the openness which scientific and all academic pursuit traditionally require. It has given rise to a web of problems over intellectual property and conflict of interest which has even led to corporate sponsors’ suppressing unfavourable results of clinical trials, to the detriment of patients’ health. Although there are those who see the norms of science developing to recognise the importance of instrumental science aiming at specific goals and of knowledge judged by its value in a context of application, none justifies the covert manipulation of results by vested interest.Public awareness of these problems is growing and creating a climate of opinion where they may be addressed. We suggest a way forward by the introduction of nationally and internationally-accepted guidelines for industrial collaboration which contain proper protections of the core purposes of universities and of the independence of their research. Some codes suggested for this purpose are discussed. We note that some universities are moving to adopt such codes of conduct, but argue the need for strong support from the government through its funding bodies.     

The Tromsø Social Intelligence Scale, a self-report measure of social intelligence

Social intelligence is a construct that not only appeals to laymen as a relevant individual difference but also has shown promising practical applications. Nevertheless, the use of social intelligence in research and applied settings has been limited by definitional problems, difficulties in empirically differentiating social intelligence from related constructs, and the complexity of most existing measures of social intelligence. The goal of the present research was to address some of these obstacles by designing a multi‐faceted social intelligence measure that is short and easy to administer. Three studies were conducted to develop and validate the Tromsø Social Intelligence Scale (TSIS). Study 1 examined professional psychologists’ interpretations of social intelligence to derive a consensually agreed‐upon definition of the construct. In Study 2, a large pool of social intelligence items were tested, and a 3‐factor, 21‐item scale was identified. In Study 3, the stability of this measure was confirmed.     

The acquisition of complex predicates in japanese specifically language-impaired and normally developing children

Japanese exhibits two different types of morphological processes. Some morphologically complex predicates are generated within the domain of the lexicon, whereas others are generated outside the domain of the lexicon. An elicited production task involving both types of complex predicates was administered to six Japanese children with specific language impairment (JSLI) and six children with normal language development (JNLD). The JSLI children experienced significant difficulty forming the lexicon-external complex predicates but much less difficulty with the lexicon-internal complex predicates while the performance of the JNLD children exhibited no such asymmetry. These preliminary results suggest that the deficit of SLI affects the ability to construct implicit procedural rules for morphology that are generated outside the lexicon while their lexical operations for morphology that are generated within the domain of the lexicon remain relatively unimpaired.     

LF-interpretability and language development: a study of verbal and nominal features in Greek normally developing and SLI children

This paper includes (i) a comparison of the developmental pattern of certain morphosyntactic features in normally developing (ND) Greek children with similar data from a group of children with specific language impairment and (ii) a new analysis of the differences found. The analysis is based on a minimalist notion of LF interpretability. Depending on the feature-specification of lexical items (i.e., [+/- interpretable] at LF), a different route of development follows. In addition, phonological salience of both interpretable and noninterpretable features is argued to play an important role in an account of crosslinguistic differences in both normal and exceptional development.     

Resilience and Protective Factors in Adolescence: An Autobiographical Perspective From Disadvantaged Youth

This article focuses on the development of adolescent resilience and protective factors within a sample of 86 inner-city high school students in Chicago. Resilience was considered present when (a) children living in conditions of risk (b) show better-than-predicted outcomes (c) presumably due to some intervening process. Conditions (a) and (b) were met using quantitative comparisons. Condition (c), the intervening process, was examined using autobiographical essays to begin to understand protective factors youth consider salient in overcoming adversity. Internal attributes such as perseverance, determination, and having the awareness to learn from the risk-attrition process surfaced in the content analyses. Motivational support from family members and teachers was also highly valued for promoting successful adjustment.