The differential effects of solution-focused and problem-focused coaching questions on the affect,attentional control and cognitive flexibility of undergraduate students experiencing study-related stress

Previous research has demonstrated that Solution-Focused (SF) coaching can help individuals to attain positive outcomes. However, not much is known about the processes through which these positive outcomes are achieved. In two experiments, we subjected undergraduate students to either SF or Problem-Focused (PF) questions about their study-related problems. In Experiment 1, we hypothesized and found that SF questioning (as compared to PF questioning) leads to higher positive affect (H1a) and lower negative affect (H1b). Contrary to our expectations, SF questions did not lead to higher attentional control (H2). In Experiment 2, we aimed to replicate the hypotheses for positive and negative affect and additionally hypothesized that SF questioning leads to higher cognitive flexibility (H3a). The results supported these hypotheses. However, our hypothesis that the differential effects of SF and PF questioning on cognitive flexibility are mediated by positive affect (H3b) was not supported. Theoretical and practical implications are discussed.     

Illusory inferences with quantifiers

The psychological study of reasoning with quantifiers has predominantly focused on inference patterns studied by Aristotle about two millennia ago. Modern logic has shown a wealth of inference patterns involving quantifiers that are far beyond the expressive power of Aristotelian syllogisms, and whose psychology should be explored. We bring to light a novel class of fallacious inference patterns, some of which are so attractive that they are tantamount to cognitive illusions. In tandem with recent insights from linguistics that quantifiers like “some” are treated as wh-questions, these illusory inferences are predicted by the erotetic theory of reasoning, which postulates that a process akin to question asking and answering is behind human inference making.     

Do Questions Get Infants Talking? Infant Vocal Responses to Questions and Declaratives in Maternal Speech

Maternal questions play a crucial role in early language acquisition by virtue of their special grammatical, prosodic and lexical forms, and their abundance in the input. Infants are able to discriminate questions from other sentence types and produce rising intonations in their own requests. This study examined whether caregiver questions were related to the quantity of infant vocalizations. Thirty‐six infants aged 10 and 14 months participated in a laboratory play session with their mothers. In separate blocks, mothers were instructed to ask questions and to refrain from asking questions. Both block‐level and utterance‐level analyses found no evidence that maternal questions affected the amount of infant‐response vocalizations. Mothers of 14‐month‐olds (but not 10‐month‐olds) tended to repeat questions. Copyright © 2016 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Ambiguity and explanation

This paper presents evidence that ‘because’ is importantly ambiguous between two closely related senses covering what are usually called causal explanations, on the one hand, and grounding or metaphysical explanations, on the other hand. To this end, it introduces the lexical categories of monosemy, polysemy and homonymy; describes a test for polysemy; and discusses the results of the test when applied to ‘because’. It also shows how to understand so-called hybrid explanations in light of the semantic facts established by the analysis.     

Facilitation by Variation: Right-to-Left Learning of English Yes/No Questions

This study advances the hypothesis that optional structural variation in language facilitates syntactic learning (facilitation‐by‐variation). Support for this is provided by a right‐to‐left‐elaboration acquisition model for English yes/no questions (YNQs). Previous studies have focused on the acquisition of ‘‘inverted’’ YNQs, a cornerstone of nativist theories of language development. Data from five American children (1;3 to 5;1) and their parents show that children hear a range of adult questions (Coming?You coming?Are you coming?), not all inverted. These variants are ordered from structurally least complex noncanonical forms to complex canonical inverted forms. I use state‐of‐the‐art econometric techniques to estimate breakpoints in YNQ time series and show that noncanonical questions emerge early in children’s speech and facilitate acquisition of canonical ones. This incremental structure‐building process relies on an adjunction strategy that augments noncanonical questions with initial auxiliaries and subjects. Development proceeds incrementally from right to left to derive auxiliary‐initial structures.     

Reliability and Validity of the Gamblers Anonymous Twenty Questions

One of the earliest instruments to screen for problem gambling, the Twenty Questions (20Q), was developed within Gamblers Anonymous. This instrument has not received serious research attention, however, and its psychometric properties are generally unknown. This study reports reliability and validity data for this instrument in 3 independent samples totaling 456 participants: two samples of problem gamblers in treatment and a non-treatment sample of problem gamblers. The Twenty Questions was shown to possess high reliability as measured by Cronbach’s alpha. Concurrent, convergent and predictive validity of the 20Q supported the use of this instrument as an acceptable screening instrument. Classification analyses indicated that the 20Q is comparable to the DSM-IV diagnostic criteria for pathological gambling in specificity, sensitivity and rates of false negatives and false positives. The 20Q appears to be a reliable and valid measure of problem gambling and warrants continued research attention.     

乙肝抗病毒治疗存在的问题及其对策

对乙肝的治疗,抗病毒是核心和关键,但抗病毒治疗自身存在着诸多问题:费用高、疗程长、疗效有限、治疗时机和条件难以掌控;药物有潜在或者明确的不良反应;医患认知不足;疗效评价极端化;治疗中不可预测因素的干扰等。通过细致的分析,探讨了乙肝治疗中的难点,并针对这些问题和难点就未来乙肝的治疗提出了一些有益的建议。     

The fallacy of fallacies

Several of the so-called fallacies in Aristotle are not in fact mistaken inference-types, but mistakes or breaches of rules in the questioning games which were practiced in the Academy and in the Lyceum. Hence the entire Aristotelian theory of fallacies ought to be studied by reference to the author's interrogative model of inquiry, based on his theory of questions and answers, rather than as a part of the theory of inference. Most of the fallacies mentioned by Aristotle can in fact be diagnosed by means of the interrogative model, including petitio principii, multiple questions, babbling, etc., and so can Aristotle's alleged anticipation of the fallacy of argumentum ad hominem. The entire Aristotelian conception of inquiry is an interrogative one. Deductive conclusions caught Aristotle's attention in the form of answers that every rational interlocutor must give, assuming only his own earlier answers. Several features of Aristotle's methodology can be understood by means of the interrogative model, including the role of endoxa in it. Theoretically, there is also considerable leeway as to whether fallacies are conceived of as mistakes in questioning or as breaches of the rules that govern questioning games.     

Summarizing information by means of causal sentences through causal graphs

The objective of this work is to propose a complete system able to extract causal sentences from a set of text documents, select the causal sentences contained, create a causal graph in base to a given concept using as source these causal sentences, and finally produce a text summary gathering all the information connected by means of this causal graph. This procedure has three main steps. The first one is focused in the extraction, filtering and selection of those causal sentences that could have relevant information for the system. The second one is focused on the composition of a suitable causal graph, removing redundant information and solving ambiguity problems. The third step is a procedure able to read the causal graph to compose a suitable answer to a proposed causal question by summarizing the information contained in it.     

Effects of Case and Transitivity on Processing Dependencies: Evidence From Niuean

We investigate the processing of wh questions in Niuean, a VSO ergative–absolutive Polynesian language. We use visual‐world eye tracking to examine how preference for subject or object dependencies is affected (a) by case marking of the subject (ergative vs. absolutive) and object (absolutive vs. oblique), and (b) by the transitivity of the verb (whether the object is obligatory). We find that Niuean exhibits (a) an effect of case, whereby dependencies of arguments with absolutive case (whether subjects or objects) are preferred over dependencies of arguments with ergative or oblique case, and (b) an effect of transitivity, whereby dependencies of obligatory objects (i.e., of transitive verbs) are preferred over dependencies of optional objects (i.e., of intransitive verbs). These results constitute evidence against theories that appeal to a universal subject advantage, or to the linear distance between filler and gap. Instead, the effect of case is consistent with a frequency‐based account: Because absolutive case has a wider syntactic distribution than ergative or oblique, absolutive dependencies are easier to process. The effect of transitivity reflects sensitivity of the parser to whether or not an argument is obligatory. We propose that these two strategies could be unified if the parser prefers dependencies with arguments that are more likely to materialize.