EQUIVALENCE CLASS FORMATION: A METHOD FOR TEACHING STATISTICAL INTERACTIONS

Many students struggle with statistical concepts such as interaction. In an experimental group, participants took a paper‐and‐pencil test and then were given training to establish equivalent classes containing four different statistical interactions. All participants formed the equivalence classes and showed maintenance when probes contained novel negative exemplars. Thereafter, participants took a second paper‐and‐pencil test. Participants in the control group received two versions of the paper‐and‐pencil test without equivalence‐based instruction. All participants in the experimental group showed increased paper‐and‐pencil test scores after forming the interaction‐indicative equivalence classes. Class‐indicative responding also generalized to novel exemplars and the novel question format used in the paper‐and‐pencil test. Test scores did not change with repetition for control group participants. Implications for behavioral diagnostics and teaching technology are discussed.     

Morphological priming by itself: A study of Portuguese conjugations

Does the language processing system make use of abstract grammatical categories and representations that are not directly visible from the surface form of a linguistic expression? This study examines stem-formation processes and conjugation classes, a case of ‘pure’ morphology that provides insight into the role of grammatical structure in language processing. We report results from a cross-modal priming experiment examining 1st and 3rd conjugation verb forms in Portuguese. Although items were closely matched with respect to a range of non-morphological factors, distinct priming patterns were found for 1st and 3rd conjugation stems. We attribute the observed priming patterns to different representations of conjugational stems, combinatorial morphologically structured ones for 1st conjugation and unanalyzed morphologically unstructured ones for 3rd conjugation stems. Our findings underline the importance of morphology for language comprehension indicating that morphological analysis goes beyond the identification of grammatical morphemes.     

Perception2

The article is an overview of some central philosophical problems associated with perception. It discusses what distinguishes perception from other sensory capacities and from conception. It discusses anti‐individualism, a view according to which the nature of a perceptual state is dependent not just causally but for its identity or ‘essence’ on relations to a normal environment in which systems containing that state were formed. It discusses different views about epistemic warrant. By emphasising the deep ways in which human and animal perceptual systems, especially visual systems, are similar, it criticises a dominant view of the last century, in both philosophy and large parts of psychology, according to which a range of sophisticated supplementary abilities have to be learned before a child can perceive objective features of the physical world.     

Framing the Lewinsky Affair: Third-Person Judgments by Scandal Frame

Recent studies have documented a “third-person effect” whereby people are found to judge others as more influenced than themselves by the mass media. Meanwhile, contemporary research on issue framing has demonstrated the powerful role of mass media in shaping people's political judgments. But are the perceptual judgments that define third-person effects sensitive to how the media frame an issue? Two studies investigated this question in the context of the Lewinsky-Clinton scandal, one in late August 1998 and the other during spring 1999. Several hundred undergraduates in each study were randomly assigned to one of two media frames. In the 1998 study, the political scandal was depicted as a matter of sexual indiscretion by the president or as legal wrongdoing; in the 1999 study, the recently concluded impeachment process was depicted as the consequence of partisanship or of Clinton's actions. The participants’ judgments of media influence on themselves and on the public were then recorded. The results show that third-person effects were sensitive to issue framing, but change occurred primarily in participants’ judgments about their own vulnerability to media influence.     

额叶在启动效应中的作用机制：对额叶损伤病人颜色命名和词命名任务的分析

以额叶损伤病人为被试,探讨在知觉型联想启动和知觉启动中,额叶的作用及其内在机制。实验任务包括颜色命名和词命名任务,以及相应的再认任务。结果表明,额叶损伤病人在颜色命名和词命名任务中,对旧词和重组颜色词的命名时间都没有明显差别,联想启动和颜色启动效应受损,但轻度记忆损伤病人与正常对照组之间的再认成绩相似。相关分析发现联想启动和颜色启动与额叶的多项功能有中度相关。这表明,额叶参与了知觉型联想启动效应和知觉启动,并且与其抑制和注意等执行功能有关。     

时间修饰词内隐记忆的实验研究

用词汇线索联想的内隐记忆实验范型,对48个时间修饰词进行概念启动效应的实验研究,探讨时间修饰词内隐记忆的特点和内隐时间表征存在的可能性。结果表明：学过的词和末学过的词之间词汇线索联想的启动值有显著差异;词汇线索联想和词汇线索回忆两种作业平均击中率的差异效应显著;被试完成两种作业依据的判定标准依次为：词的意义、词的时间属性(长度、时间单位)、过去生活经验等。对时间修饰词的内隐表征进行了初步讨论。     

中文读写能力及其相关因素研究

使用5点量表,本研究在北京地区调查了2187名小学一、三、五年级儿童的中文读写能力及其相关因素。因素分析抽取了8个因素：书面语意义理解、基本知觉能力、书写技能、家庭阅读背景、动作技能、口语能力、朗读和听写、书面表达。对上述因素进行多元逐步回归分析发现,各种读写能力内部相关显著。基本知觉能力、口语能力、家庭阅读背景和动作技能分别对中文读写能力的不同成分有显著解释作用。这个结果对于理解阅读能力发展及其与家庭阅读背景、口语、基本知觉一动作能力之间的关系,以及阅读障碍的内在机制具有重要的理论意义。     

MUSIC AND METAPHYSICS

Abstract: In this article, I assume that musical works are abstract types, and I raise and address a new question concerning musical ontology that may take the types view at least a step further: When do musical works cease to exist? I then propound my view about musical works as types, which is somewhat like the Aristotelian Realist position concerning universals. Next, I address some objections to that view. Finally, I provide some grounds for rejecting alternative views that see Western classical musical works before 1950 (the sorts of musical works the discussion here is restricted to) either as classes or else as kinds.     

The CHIC Model: A Global Model for Coupled Binary Data

Often problems result in the collection of coupled data, which consist of different N-way N-mode data blocks that have one or more modes in common. To reveal the structure underlying such data, an integrated modeling strategy, with a single set of parameters for the common mode(s), that is estimated based on the information in all data blocks, may be most appropriate. Such a strategy implies a global model, consisting of different N-way N-mode submodels, and a global loss function that is a (weighted) sum of the partial loss functions associated with the different submodels. In this paper, such a global model for an integrated analysis of a three-way three-mode binary data array and a two-way two-mode binary data matrix that have one mode in common is presented. A simulated annealing algorithm to estimate the model parameters is described and evaluated in a simulation study. An application of the model to real psychological data is discussed. T. Wilderjans is a Research Assistant of the Fund for Scientific Research—Flanders (Belgium). The research reported in this paper was partially supported by the Research Council of K.U. Leuven (GOA/2005/04). We are grateful to Kristof Vansteelandt for providing us with an interesting data set. We also thank three anonymous reviewers for their useful comments.     

The effect of verb semantic class and verb frequency (entrenchment) on children's and adults' graded judgements of argument-structure overgeneralization errors

Participants (aged 5-6 yrs, 9-10 yrs and adults) rated (using a five-point scale) grammatical (intransitive) and overgeneralized (transitive causative)(1) uses of a high frequency, low frequency and novel intransitive verb from each of three semantic classes [Pinker, S. (1989a). Learnability and cognition: The acquisition of argument structure. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press]: "directed motion" (fall, tumble), "going out of existence" (disappear, vanish) and "semivoluntary expression of emotion" (laugh, giggle). In support of Pinker's semantic verb class hypothesis, participants' preference for grammatical over overgeneralized uses of novel (and English) verbs increased between 5-6 yrs and 9-10 yrs, and was greatest for the latter class, which is associated with the lowest degree of direct external causation (the prototypical meaning of the transitive causative construction). In support of Braine and Brooks's [Braine, M.D.S., & Brooks, P.J. (1995). Verb argument strucure and the problem of avoiding an overgeneral grammar. In M. Tomasello & W. E. Merriman (Eds.), Beyond names for things: Young children's acquisition of verbs (pp. 352-376). Hillsdale, NJ: Erlbaum] entrenchment hypothesis, all participants showed the greatest preference for grammatical over ungrammatical uses of high frequency verbs, with this preference smaller for low frequency verbs, and smaller again for novel verbs. We conclude that both the formation of semantic verb classes and entrenchment play a role in children's retreat from argument-structure overgeneralization errors.