DISCREPANCY IN FUNCTIONAL ANALYSIS RESULTS ACROSS TWO SETTINGS: IMPLICATIONS FOR INTERVENTION DESIGN

Functional analyses that were conducted in two settings (playground and classroom) indicated that problem behavior was sensitive to adult attention on the playground and tangible items in the classroom. Attention‐ and tangible‐based interventions were designed based on the results from each of the assessment environments and were compared. The attention‐based intervention was more effective on the playground, and the tangible‐based intervention was more effective in the classroom. Findings are discussed in regards to the generality of functional analysis results across environments.     

Criterion knowledge: A moderator of using the recognition heuristic?

The recognition heuristic (RH) claims that people base inferences on recognition only. This has been questioned by several studies which found that additional knowledge was influential. However, in some of these studies, participants' additional knowledge might have encompassed criterion knowledge thus rendering any inferential strategy superfluous. The present study was therefore designed to test the effect of criterion knowledge on use or non‐use of the RH. Eighty‐one participants made pair‐wise comparisons with respect to the size of Belgian cities and also provided estimates of the cities' actual size. We found that relative criterion knowledge (i.e., knowledge about the relative position of an object on the criterion dimension) did indeed play some role, but its exclusion left the main critical findings intact, nonetheless. We thus conclude that previous studies conducted in the paradigm of natural recognition should not be generally refuted by the argument of participants possessing criterion knowledge. Copyright © 2009 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

国外婴儿动词习得的两种研究范式

通过介绍国外婴儿动词习得的研究范式, 一是习惯化研究(Habituation paradigm), 二是多通道优先注视范式(IPLP), 来揭示婴儿语言前概念形成的认知心理。国外的研究表明, 婴儿的动词习得晚于名词学习; 动词的成分习得(路径成分或是方式成分)在婴儿周岁前也有时间先后; 动词完整意义的获得还与母语的输入有密切关系。综述说明, 采用这两种研究范式研究语前婴儿的语言认知是较为经济和有效的。     

Investigating the dynamics of affect: Psychological mechanisms of affective habituation to pleasurable stimuli

Affective habituation (i.e., reductions in stimulus-evoked affective reactions as a result of previous exposure) may serve a functional purpose. However, little is know about the psychological mechanisms underlying this process. To elucidate the characteristics of affective habituation, two experiments that examined affective reactions to repeated exposures of pleasurable stimuli were conducted. Results of these experiments indicated that habituation trajectories are characterized by linear decreases in affect. Results also demonstrated that habituation can be slowed by the introduction of novel stimuli (i.e., “novelty effects”), effects that are dimensional (rather than taxonic) in nature. Experiment 2 demonstrated that habituation is mediated by conceptual rather than perceptual processes. Depressed and anhedonic individuals were not more susceptible to habituation in either experiment. The current findings and previous theorizing suggest that habituation may be an important component of an adaptive affective processing system that promotes effective responses to salient stimuli and prevents compulsive reward-seeking behavior.

Exposure-based treatment to control excessive blood glucose monitoring.

We investigated an exposure‐based procedure for reducing excessive checking of blood glucose by a child with diabetes. In a changing criterion design, an exposure‐based procedure was implemented by systematically exposing the child to decreasing amounts of information about blood sugar levels (checking) and thereby increasing exposure to potential hypoglycemia. Access to information was reduced in graduated increments, with the parents setting criteria to levels at which they were willing to adhere. Results demonstrated that the procedure was effective in reducing excessive blood glucose checking and in improving metabolic control.     

Young infants' perception of unity and form in occlusion displays

Young infants have been reported to perceive the unity of a center-occluded object when the visible ends of the object are aligned and undergo common motion but not when the edges of the object are misaligned (Johnson & Aslin, 1996). Using a recognition-based paradigm, the authors investigated the possibility that past research failed to provide sufficiently sensitive assessments of infants' perception of the unity of misaligned edges in partial occlusion displays. Positive evidence was obtained in 4-month-olds for veridical perception of the motion and location of a hidden region but not its orientation, whereas 7-month-olds, in contrast to the younger infants, appeared to respond to the orientation of the hidden region. Overall, the results suggest that habituation designs tapping recognition processes may be particularly efficacious in revealing infants' perceptual organization. In addition, the findings provide corroborative evidence for the importance of both motion and orientation in young infants' object segregation and for the difficulty in achieving percepts of the global form of a partly occluded object.     

Getting off the Wheel

Roderick Chisholm argues that in giving an account of knowledge, we must either begin with an account of what knowledge is, and proceed on that basis to identify the particular things that we know, or else start with instances of knowledge, and proceed on that basis to formulate a definition of knowledge. Either approach begs the question against the other. This is the epistemic wheel. This article responds to Chisholm's challenge. It begins with cases of knowledge attribution and builds its account from there, identifying those features that we take to be present in the cases where we have attributed knowledge and those features that seem important when we want to withhold an attribution of knowledge. The proposal does not beg the question against either particularists or methodists; it takes the best features of each view, without beginning with either, and thereby removes us from the wheel.     

Religion,reason and non-directive teaching: a reply to Trevor Cooling

In other work I have argued that decisions about what to teach directively and what non-directively should be governed by an epistemic criterion. Trevor Cooling has recently advanced some objections to my defence and application of the epistemic criterion and proposed an alternative to it. Here I reply to his objections and comment on his proposed alternative.     

Age,criterion flexibility,and item recognition

We examined young and older adults' ability to flexibly adapt response criterion on a recognition test when the probability that a test item had been studied was cued by test color. One word color signaled that the probability of the test item being old was 70% and a second color signaled that the probability of the test item being new was 70%. Young and older adults demonstrated similar levels of criterion shifting in response to color cues. Moreover, although both young and older adults were slowed when test-item color incorrectly predicted test-item status, the extent of slowing did not differ across age group. Putative measures of cognitive control predicted recognition accuracy but not the degree to which criterion changed with test-item color. These results suggest that adaptive criterion shifting does not tax cognitive control or, if it does require effort, may be no more onerous for older than for young adults.     

话语共识:后形而上学社会的实质正义标准

在后形而上学社会中,正义标准因传统形而上学基础的丧失而困境重重。哈贝马斯提出的话语理论的正义观只关注正义的形式,而不涉及到正义的实质内容,更不涉及实质正义的标准。正义是形式与内容的统一,在话语形式中达成的共识,就是内容,也是后形而上学社会的实质正义标准。