Age and gender differences in adolescents' homework experiences

Extant data collected through the Experience Sampling Method were analyzed to describe adolescents' subjective experiences of homework. Analyses explored age and gender differences in the time adolescents spend doing homework, and the situational variations (location and companions) in adolescents' reported concentration, effort, interest, positive affect and stress while doing homework. Regarding age differences, middle school students reported more positive experiences when homework was done with companions and in locations other than home, whereas high school students reported more positive experiences when homework was done alone and at home. Regarding gender differences, girls, regardless of age, reported greater stress than boys when doing homework alone, and lower stress when doing homework with friends. High school girls reported lower interest than middle school boys when doing homework alone. Findings provide an understanding of age and gender differences in adolescents' perceptions of homework, which might help educators and parents structure engaging homework environments.     

Musicians and tone-language speakers share enhanced brainstem encoding but not perceptual benefits for musical pitch

Behavioral and neurophysiological transfer effects from music experience to language processing are well-established but it is currently unclear whether or not linguistic expertise (e.g., speaking a tone language) benefits music-related processing and its perception. Here, we compare brainstem responses of English-speaking musicians/non-musicians and native speakers of Mandarin Chinese elicited by tuned and detuned musical chords, to determine if enhancements in subcortical processing translate to improvements in the perceptual discrimination of musical pitch. Relative to non-musicians, both musicians and Chinese had stronger brainstem representation of the defining pitches of musical sequences. In contrast, two behavioral pitch discrimination tasks revealed that neither Chinese nor non-musicians were able to discriminate subtle changes in musical pitch with the same accuracy as musicians. Pooled across all listeners, brainstem magnitudes predicted behavioral pitch discrimination performance but considering each group individually, only musicians showed connections between neural and behavioral measures. No brain-behavior correlations were found for tone language speakers or non-musicians. These findings point to a dissociation between subcortical neurophysiological processing and behavioral measures of pitch perception in Chinese listeners. We infer that sensory-level enhancement of musical pitch information yields cognitive-level perceptual benefits only when that information is behaviorally relevant to the listener.     

Évaluation de l’orthographe des élèves dysphasiques en situation de narration communicative : variations selon le type d’orthographe,lexicale versus morphologique

IntroductionThe overall goal of the study was to draw, in French language, a complete picture of spelling abilities in young students with SLI, enrolling in ordinary classes.ObjectiveThe main aim was to show how the developmental trajectories of lexical spelling and the morphological spelling are different when a large age span is observed (7 to 18 years old).MethodsThe spelling abilities were evaluated through a narrative communicative. Two groups of students with SLI (7–11 years and 12–18 years) were compared with two groups of typical students matched on chronological age.ResultsThe lexical spelling was acquired before the morphological spelling for SLI and typical participants. At 12–18 of age, the SLI participants did not produce more lexical errors than the typical group. For the lexical spelling, at 7–11 years, the SLI participants had a specific difficulty with the segmentation of the words: they produced words that do not exist in the language and which by definition have no morphological markers.ConclusionThe SLI participants need more time to learn than the typical participants. At 7–11 years, before learning of morphology, they must be able to control segmentation the segmentation of words. The low number of morphological errors in the school SLI group of 7–11 years is not necessarily a sign of difficulty. The increase in the number of errors at 12–18 years is the sign that this problem has been exceeded and that the learning of the written morphological markers can really begin.     

Intentional transaction

The second person is often set in contrast to the first person. And there is a contrast. It does not reside in a difference of what is thought as I from what is thought as you. For that is not different. The contrast is that of monadic and dyadic predication, action and transaction. It is the contrast, not of I and You, but of I and I–You. The second person does not add a You to an I. It divides the I and makes it a relation. We consider, first, the form of predication that is common to first- and second-person thought. Then, we define the second person as a species of this form of thought. Last, we find the source and condition of this form of thought in a thought of this very form. This thought, being the source of its own form, is one of which one cannot be conscious from outside it. It is a last word, or, better, a first word.¹1. Compare Thomas Nagel's notion of a last word (Nagel 2001 Nagel, Thomas. 2001. The Last Word. Oxford: Oxford University Press. [Google Scholar]). Nagel's development of the notion reveals no reason why he should call what is last a word. From what he writes in the book, one would think its title to be “The Last Thought”. (Indeed, chapter 2 bears the title “Why We Can't Understand Thought from the Outside”.) However, if the last thought is I–You, then the last thought is a word; indeed, it is the word. In reaching for “The Last Word”, Nagel may express an inchoate appreciation of this.     

The moral obligations of trust

Moral obligation, Darwall argues, is irreducibly second personal. So too, McMyler argues, is the reason for belief supplied by testimony and which supports trust. In this paper, I follow Darwall in arguing that the testimony is not second personal ‘all the way down’. However, I go on to argue, this shows that trust is not fully second personal, which in turn shows that moral obligation is equally not second personal ‘all the way down’.     

仡佬语借用汉语词的历史文化背景

仡佬族有悠久的历史,自古以来就与外民族互通往来,接触频繁,因而仡佬语中舍有丰富的借词,其中绝大部分是汉语借词。本文参考民族学、历史学的研究成果,概述仡佬族向汉族借词的历史背景,认为仡佬族与汉族的长期交往史是其借用汉族语言词汇的主要原因,汉语、汉文化对仡佬族语言、文化的影响自古就有并且一直延续至今,导致仡佬语中存在大量的借自不同历史时期的汉语借词。     

统计学习与双语认知的关系

统计学习是提取环境输入潜在规则的一种认知机制,其与语言的关联已得到证实。双语认知是学界关注的热点之一。统计学习与双语认知的关系如何?文章先介绍统计学习认知机制及其与语言的关系,然后从“统计学习能力可否预测二语学习表现”、“统计学习训练能否促进二语学习”和“双语经验能否提高统计学习能力”三个维度述评相关文献,并指出未来可从输入特征、个体差异和神经科学角度进一步探讨统计学习与双语认知的关系。     

Skepticism,naturalism, pyrrhonism

Skepticism and naturalism bear important connections with one another. Do they conflict or are they different sides of the same coin? In this paper, by considering the ways in which Sextus and Hume have examined these issues, I offer a Pyrrhonian response to Penelope Maddy's attempt to reject skepticism within the form of naturalism that she calls “second philosophy” (Maddy, 2007, 2017) and to Timothy Williamson's attempt to avoid skepticism from emerging within his knowledge-first approach (Williamson, 2000). Some lessons about Pyrrhonism result.     

Verbal irony processing: How do contrast and humour correlate?

Verbal irony relies on contrast, that is, incongruity between the situational context and the ironic assertion. But is the degree of contrast related to the perceived humorousness of ironic comments? We answered this question by conducting two experiments. In the first experiment, participants were asked to read a list of sentence pairs (ironic or control) and judge the extent to which the meaning of the first sentence contrasted with that of the second. In the second experiment, participants were invited to rate the humorousness of ironic comments compared with their literal counterparts. Results showed that ironic remarks were rated as more contrasting and more humorous than their literal counterparts, but that humour only emerged from a moderate contrast.