Photograph method fosters direct access to second-language word meaning: Direct evidence from a word-picture matching task

This experiment was designed to investigate conceptual links directly through a word–picture matching task in children. Participants were asked to indicate between two pictures the one depicting the same concept as the newly learned L2 word (target). One of the two pictures was the target, while the other was either semantically related to it or was unrelated. To investigate whether learning methods modulate L2 word processing, two learning methods were compared: an L2-photograph method and an L1-L2 method. Results showed a semantic interference effect only with the L2-photograph method: Children responded more slowly in the related condition than in the unrelated one. The learning method modulated L2 word processing and L2 word meaning was not necessarily accessed through L1 mediation in the first steps of learning. The method used paves the way for the direct investigation of conceptual links.     

The Oedipus myth and its analogues,especially its characteristic manifestation in Finnish folk tales

ABSTRACT

The play of the ancient Greek tragedian Sophocles is the most famous story of Oedipus. However, similar stories have been told before and thereafter throughout history as legends and folk tales in different parts of the world. There is a specific folk tale type classified according to its narrative components and named the Oedipus tale. There are somewhat conflicting opinions about the universality of the Oedipus tales and Oedipus complex. This review deals with the nature of the Oedipus legend and its folk tale analogs. There are 25 examples of Oedipus folk tales that are known to be from Finland – a high prevalence compared to other regions of the world. From Scandinavia, for instance, they are virtually absent. The most of Finnish Oedipus stories have a special feature that is unique in the world.: a peculiar prophecy of a sheep that will be born at the same time and eaten by a wolf. An example of these Finnish folk tales is told. Possible interpretations of this tale are offered and discussed. The specific feature of the Finnish Oedipus tales stimulates a discussion on the different opinions regarding the timing of the Oedipus complex, especially considering its oral precursors.     

On the Nature of Philosophy

This paper claims that what philosophy primarily does is interpret our notions, offer ways of understanding these notions that are not scientific in nature but not contrary to science either. The paper draws a distinction between conceptual analysis, a highly constrained enterprise that is supposed to bring to light what was in the concept all along, and the interpretation of notions, a creative enterprise that offers ways of understanding notions that were not already prefigured by the content of these notions—philosophy consists in the latter, not the former. It explains how these interpretations are justified and what the difference is between better and worse interpretations. The remainder of the paper is organized around three headings: philosophy and science, philosophy and language, and philosophy and progress. It claims that in philosophy there is no real progress, but that philosophy does move forward because the notions at issue are endlessly interpretable.     

Conceptual engineering as concept preservation

In the burgeoning philosophical literature on conceptual engineering improving our concepts is typically portrayed as the hallmark activity of the field. However, Herman Cappelen has challenged the idea that we can know how and why conceptual changes occur well enough to actively intervene in revising our concepts; the mechanisms of conceptual change are typically inscrutable to us. If the ‘inscrutability challenge’ is correct, the practical aspect of conceptual engineering may seem to be undermined, but I argue that endorsing such pessimism would be a mistake. Even if the inscrutability challenge is correct, conceptual engineers often have good reasons to try to preserve existing concepts. I examine several cases where concept preservation is important and draw lessons about this activity for conceptual engineers.     

Show me the meaning! The contextual relevance of images influences the recall and understanding of multimedia RSVP paragraphs

ABSTRACT

This study examined whether images facilitate contextual grouping as effectively as words. College students (N?=?102) read RSVP paragraphs with topics located at the beginning, middle, or end of the paragraph. Paragraph topic was presented as a topic-related image, topic-unrelated image, or written explicitly in text. Topic identification was equally accurate for topic-related images and topic sentences, and less accurate for unrelated images. Paragraphs from the text condition were recalled more accurately than the related and unrelated image conditions. Further, recognition of unrelated images was a positive predictor of the number of logical errors committed during recall. Therefore, related images did not improve memory and comprehension as much as text, and paragraphs with unrelated images negatively affected understanding of the meaning of the paragraph, but not recall. These findings have implications for multimedia information sources such as textbooks or articles that use images to clarify the meaning of the material.     

Children's conceptions of physical events: Explicit and tacit understanding of horizontal motion

The conceptual understanding that children display when predicting physical events has been shown to be inferior to the understanding they display when recognizing whether events proceed naturally. This has often been attributed to differences between the explicit engagement with conceptual knowledge required for prediction and the tacit engagement that suffices for recognition, and contrasting theories have been formulated to characterize the differences. Focusing on a theory that emphasizes omission at the explicit level of conceptual elements that are tacitly understood, the paper reports two studies that attempt clarification. The studies are concerned with 6‐ to 10‐year‐old children's understanding of, respectively, the direction (141 children) and speed (132 children) of motion in a horizontal direction. Using computer‐presented billiards scenarios, the children predicted how balls would move (prediction task) and judged whether or not simulated motion was correct (recognition task). Results indicate that the conceptions underpinning prediction are sometimes interpretable as partial versions of the conceptions underpinning recognition, as the omission hypothesis would imply. However, there are also qualitative differences, which suggest partial dissociation between explicit and tacit understanding. It is suggested that a theoretical perspective that acknowledges this dissociation would provide the optimal framework for future research.