The development of temporal coordination in children

The ability to learn temporal patterns in sequenced actions was investigated in elementary-school age children. Temporal learning depends upon a process of integrating timing patterns with action sequences. Children ages 6-13 and young adults performed a serial response time task in which a response and a timing sequence were presented repeatedly in a phase-matched manner, allowing for integrative learning. The degree of integrative learning was measured as the slowing in performance that resulted when phase-shifting the sequences. Learning was similar for the children and adults on average but increased with age for the children. Executive function measured by Wisconsin Card Sorting Test (WCST) performance as well as a measure of response speed also improved with age. Finally, WCST performance and response speed predicted temporal learning. Taken together, the results indicate that temporal learning continues to develop in pre-adolescents and that maturing executive function or processing speed may play an important role in acquiring temporal patterns in sequenced actions and the development of this ability.     

Comprehension of argument structure and semantic roles: evidence from English-learning children and the forced-choice pointing paradigm

Research using the intermodal preferential looking paradigm (IPLP) has consistently shown that English-learning children aged 2 can associate transitive argument structure with causal events. However, studies using the same methodology investigating 2-year-old children's knowledge of the conjoined agent intransitive and semantic role assignment have reported inconsistent findings. The aim of the present study was to establish at what age English-learning children have verb-general knowledge of both transitive and intransitive argument structure using a new method: the forced-choice pointing paradigm. The results suggest that young 2-year-olds can associate transitive structures with causal (or externally caused) events and can use transitive structure to assign agent and patient roles correctly. However, the children were unable to associate the conjoined agent intransitive with noncausal events until aged 3;4. The results confirm the pattern from previous IPLP studies and indicate that children may develop the ability to comprehend different aspects of argument structure at different ages. The implications for theories of language acquisition and the nature of the language acquisition mechanism are discussed.     

VIRTUE AS MASTERY IN EARLY CONFUCIANISM

This essay explores the interrelation of skills and virtues. I first trace one line of analysis from Aristotle to Alasdair MacIntyre, which argues that there is a categorical difference between skills and virtues, in their ends and intrinsic character. This familiar distinction is fine in certain respects but still importantly misleading. Virtue in general, and also some particular virtues such as ritual propriety and practical wisdom, are not just exercised in practical contexts, but are in fact partially constituted by the mastery of certain skills. This has implications for moral psychology, specifically how we might understand the acquisition of virtue, as well as its very nature. To try to make this claim plausible I analyze two case studies from early Confucianism: treatment of ritual propriety as a cardinal virtue, and Mencius's less carefully integrated treatment of excellence at moral discernment. I conclude by revisiting the question of the relations between skill and virtue, and exploring a few of the difficulties implied by my account of early Confucian ethics.     

小学生的社会技能与友善—敌对型教师互动风格、社交归因的关系

以武汉市343名小学三至六年级的儿童为被试,考察儿童友善—敌对型教师互动风格与社交归因、社会技能之间的关系。结果显示:友善型、理解型教师互动风格与小学生成功内部归因、环境、自我、任务行为技能呈显著正相关,与成功外部归因呈显著负相关;理解型教师互动风格与人际行为技能呈显著正相关;不满型和训诫型教师互动风格与小学生成功和失败外部归因因呈显著正相关,与成功和失败内归因、四种行为技能呈显著负相关;成功内部归因与四种行为技能呈显著正相关;失败内部归因与人际、自我、环境行为技能呈显著正相关;成功与失败外部归因与四种行为技能呈显著负相关。社交成功的外部归因分别在不满型教师互动风格和环境、人际、自我、任务行为技能间起部分中介作用。不满型教师互动风格对成功内部归因、社会技能的预测效应显著,通过成功内部归因的中介效应不显著。     

主动性人格与员工行为的关系：政治技能视角下有中介的调节模型

本研究通过两时点纵向问卷调查,探讨主动性人格与组织公民行为、任务绩效之间的关系,考察主动社会化行为在其中的中介作用,以及政治技能的调节作用。结果表明：（1）主动社会化行为在主动性人格和组织公民行为、任务绩效之间起中介作用;（2）政治技能对主动社会化行为在主动性人格和组织公民行为、任务绩效之间的中介效应起调节作用：当政治技能水平上升,主动性人格通过主动社会化行为对组织公民行为及任务绩效的预测更加明显。     

The Value of Topoi

Despite Vancil’s (1979) proclamation over twenty years ago that topoi have been abandoned in argument theory, this essay contends that topoi should have a vital role in contemporary argumentation theory. Four key areas are identified where topoi are (or can be) essential tools for argumentation: Locating argument, building argument, development of critical thinking, and argument pedagogy. As a result, teachers and students of argument can both benefit from a (re)discovery of topoi.     

The Economic, Political, Strategic, and Rhetorical Uses of Simple Constructive Dilemma in Legal Argument

The author argues that simple constructive dilemma is a valuable argument form for reasoning under relative conditions of uncertainty. When applied to legal argument this value of simple constructive dilemma is shown in its political, strategic, rhetorical, and especially economic, uses by lawyers and judges. After considering some examples of the use of the form by trial lawyers, the author gives examples of the more interesting use of the form by appellate courts. Research into the use of simple constructive dilemma by appellate courts helps us to understand how those courts distribute judicial resources. It also helps us to understand the political role of the appellate courts with respect to the doctrine of the separation of powers. Given some of the specific examples of legal reasoning used by the appellate courts presented in this article, and given the discussion of the doctrine of precedent, the article’s focus is on common law legal systems of the Anglo-American-type.     

Overcoming the myth of the mental

Can we accept John McDowell’s Kantian claim that perception is conceptual “all the way out,” thereby denying the more basic perceptual capacities we seem to share with prelinguistic infants and higher animals? More generally, can philosophers successfully describe the conceptual upper floors of the edifice of knowledge while ignoring the embodied coping going on on the ground floor? I argue that we shouldn’t leave the conceptual component of our lives hanging in midair and suggest how philosophers who want to understand knowledge and action can profit from a phenomenological analysis of the nonconceptual embodied coping skills we share with animals and infants, as well as the nonconceptual immediate intuitive understanding exhibited by experts.     

概化理论在内科学临床技能考核中的应用研究

运用多元概化理论对两届临床医学硕士研究生内科临床实践能力考核进行评价比较。结果表明,两届研究生内科临床实践能力考核的信度均较高,可靠性指数分别为0.78878、0.67985,考核内容较全面。比较发现,01级学生考核的信度要高于02级,考核专家以3-5位为宜。     

主动性人格与员工行为的关系：政治技能视角下有中介的调节模型

本研究通过两时点纵向问卷调查,探讨主动性人格与组织公民行为、任务绩效之间的关系,考察主动社会化行为在其中的中介作用,以及政治技能的调节作用。结果表明：（1）主动社会化行为在主动性人格和组织公民行为、任务绩效之间起中介作用;（2）政治技能对主动社会化行为在主动性人格和组织公民行为、任务绩效之间的中介效应起调节作用：当政治技能水平上升,主动性人格通过主动社会化行为对组织公民行为及任务绩效的预测更加明显。