On Philosophy

In this article the author holds that progress in philosophy is a vague concept. Its criteria are not universally acknowledged. All that is clear is that philosophy does not develop in a linear way. Philosophy is polydiscoursive. As for the past fifty years, the author believes three important things happened in philosophy. (1) It has been shown that consciousness exists not within one individual but spreads within a community of people; (2) philosophy has discovered autism, a result that helps us to understand a human being as neither a biological nor a social individual but a third thing—a dreaming being who is not only asocial but also tongueless, where speech and consciousness are separated; and (3) contemporary philosophy has learned to distinguish between sign and symbol. And it has been realized that the human mind is neither an instinct nor a computer but an objectified suffering, a transformed emotion.     

ACTION,AGENCY, AND EMPATHY: SCHAFER ON THE ANALYST'S DILEMMA

Throughout his career, a central feature of Roy Schafer's theorizing has been to highlight the role of activity and personal agency in every facet of human experience. This theme has remained at the forefront of Schafer's work, despite being embedded within different frames of reference. In this paper, the author highlights Schafer's focus on activity, notes some clinical problems to which it can give rise, and suggests the way that Schafer has attempted to deal with these difficulties.     

Inter‐religious Encounter

This article examines Robert A. Yelle's Semiotics of Religion. The author argues that the project is weakened by an over-privileging of language as the only mode of semiosis. Using the figure of Orpheus and the semiotic exteriority of music, the author suggests that a semiotics of religion must escape this most fundamental logocentrism if it is not simply to perpetuate the ideological gestures Yelle works hardest to expose.     

The neural correlates of statistical learning in a word segmentation task: An fMRI study

Functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) was used to assess neural activation as participants learned to segment continuous streams of speech containing syllable sequences varying in their transitional probabilities. Speech streams were presented in four runs, each followed by a behavioral test to measure the extent of learning over time. Behavioral performance indicated that participants could discriminate statistically coherent sequences (words) from less coherent sequences (partwords). Individual rates of learning, defined as the difference in ratings for words and partwords, were used as predictors of neural activation to ask which brain areas showed activity associated with these measures. Results showed significant activity in the pars opercularis and pars triangularis regions of the left inferior frontal gyrus (LIFG). The relationship between these findings and prior work on the neural basis of statistical learning is discussed, and parallels to the frontal/subcortical network involved in other forms of implicit sequence learning are considered.     

Language aptitude for pronunciation in advanced second language (L2) Learners: Behavioural predictors and neural substrates

Individual differences in second language (L2) aptitude have been assumed to depend upon a variety of cognitive and personality factors. Especially, the cognitive factor phonological working memory has been conceptualised as language learning device. However, strong associations between phonological working memory and L2 aptitude have been previously found in early-stage learners only, not in advanced learners. The current study aimed at investigating the behavioural and neurobiological predictors of advanced L2 learning. Our behavioural results showed that phonetic coding ability and empathy, but not phonological working memory, predict L2 pronunciation aptitude in advanced learners. Second, functional neuroimaging revealed this behavioural trait to be correlated with hemodynamic responses of the cerebral network of speech motor control and auditory-perceptual areas. We suggest that the acquisition of L2 pronunciation aptitude is a dynamic process, requiring a variety of neural resources at different processing stages over time.     

How Do Children Restrict Their Linguistic Generalizations? An (Un‐)Grammaticality Judgment Study

A paradox at the heart of language acquisition research is that, to achieve adult‐like competence, children must acquire the ability to generalize verbs into non‐attested structures, while avoiding utterances that are deemed ungrammatical by native speakers. For example, children must learn that, to denote the reversal of an action, un‐ can be added to many verbs, but not all (e.g., roll/unroll; close/*unclose). This study compared theoretical accounts of how this is done. Children aged 5–6 (N = 18), 9–10 (N = 18), and adults (N = 18) rated the acceptability of un‐ prefixed forms of 48 verbs (and, as a control, bare forms). Across verbs, a negative correlation was observed between the acceptability of ungrammatical un‐ prefixed forms (e.g., *unclose) and the frequency of (a) the bare form and (b) alternative forms (e.g., open), supporting the entrenchment and pre‐emption hypotheses, respectively. Independent ratings of the extent to which verbs instantiate the semantic properties characteristic of a hypothesized semantic cryptotype for un‐ prefixation were a significant positive predictor of acceptability, for all age groups. The relative importance of each factor differed for attested and unattested un‐ forms and also varied with age. The findings are interpreted in the context of a new hybrid account designed to incorporate the three factors of entrenchment, pre‐emption, and verb semantics.     

Deeper attentional masking by lateral objects in children with autism

Autism spectrum disorder (ASD) is often associated with a detail-oriented perception and overselective attention in visual tasks, such as visual search and crowding. These results were obtained manipulating exclusively the spatial properties of the stimuli: few is known about the spatio-temporal dynamics of visual processing in ASD. In this study we employed an attentional masking (AM) paradigm comparing children with ASD and IQ-matched typically developing (TD) controls. The AM effect refers to an impaired identification of a target followed by a competitive masking object at different proximities in space and time. We found that ASD and TD groups did not differ in the AM effect provoked by the competitive object displayed in the same position of the target. In contrast, children with ASD showed a deeper and prolonged interference than the TD group when the masking object was displayed in the lateral position. These psychophysical results suggest that the inefficient attentional selection in ASD depends on the spatio-temporal interaction between competitive visual objects. These evidence are discussed in the light of the ASD altered neural connectivity hypothesis and the reentrant theory of perception.     

Psychometric evaluation of the eating disorder inventory (edi) in a clinical group

Abstract

This study examined the psychometric properties of the Eating Disorder Inventory (EDI) with a clinical sample of 79 female clients seen at an outpatient eating disorder program. The means and standard deviations for the bulimia nervosa subgroup in this study (n = 48) compared favorably with the bulimia group in the EDI Manual Supplement (1986) on all eight subscales, except Drive for Thinness. The present non-student sample had significantly lower scores on this particular subscale than did the norm group (mostly students). Another difference was that the local bulimic subgroup had significantly higher present and minimum weights (as a percentage of the expected average weight according to height). The EDI subscales also displayed respectable internal consistency reliability with this sample. In contrast to previous research, however, only five factors were found in a factor analysis rather than eight corresponding to the original subscales for the EDI. Differences between bulimic and a not-otherwise-specified (NOS) diagnostic groups were also found on both the EDI Ineffectiveness and Bulimia subscales (NOS had lower scores). The results of this study are discussed in terms of the importance of undertaking local standardization of tests in clinical settings.     

Psychosocial consequences of recurrent vertigo

Abstract

Chronic vertigo is known to be associated with anxiety and depression in a significant proportion of patients, but there have been no systematic investigations into beliefs and behaviour related to recurrent vertigo. Twenty-three individuals with vertigo of various types were interviewed, generating over two thousand statements about vertigo and its psychosocial consequences. By means of progressive categorisation these were condensed into four tables of summary statements representing prevalent reactions to and effects of vertigo. Vertigo is viewed as intrinsically frightening and potentially stigmatising. In an attempt to avoid provoking attacks, particularly in public, subjects tended to impose restrictions on their activities and lifestyle which generated further feelings of helplessness and frustration. The statements obtained in this study provide an empirical basis for the development of a model that may be used to formulate predictions about the relationship between vertigo, handicap and distress, and the benefits of intervention.     

A comparison of working memory profiles in school-aged children with Specific Language Impairment,Attention Deficit/Hyperactivity Disorder,Comorbid SLI and ADHD and their typically developing peers

The association between specific language impairment (SLI), attention deficit/hyperactivity disorder (ADHD), and working memory (WM) was examined. WM has been implicated in language acquisition and models of ADHD; however, evidence for WM deficits in SLI and ADHD has been inconsistent. The components of Baddeley's WM model were investigated in 18 children with SLI, 16 children with ADHD, 11 children with comorbid SLI+ADHD, and 24 typically developing (TD) children. The presence of SLI resulted in deficits in more components of WM than the presence of ADHD indicating that children with SLI are more vulnerable to WM deficits than those with ADHD.