FUNCTIONAL COMMUNICATION TRAINING WITH AND WITHOUT EXTINCTION AND PUNISHMENT

Functional communication training has been reported to be a promising treatment for severe behavior problems. In this study, functional communication training alone and combined with extinction and/or punishment was evaluated for 4 clients with severe retardation, behavior problems, and communication deficits. The participants were inpatients on a hospital unit for treatment of severe behavior disorders. They received individualized interventions based on functional assessment that included reinforcement of a communication response with the same function as their destructive behavior. Results showed that for some patients, functional communication training was not sufficient to produce clinically significant reductions in destructive behavior, and the combination of training plus punishment produced the largest and most consistent reductions.     

Confirmation holism and semantic holism

Fodor and Lepore, in their recent book Holism, maintain that if an inference from semantic anatomism to semantic holism is allowed, certain fairly deleterious consequences follow. In Section 1 Fodor and Lepore's terminology is construed and amended where necessary with the result that the aforementioned deleterious consequences are neither so apparent nor straightforward as they had suggested. In Section 2 their Argument A is considered in some detail. In Section 3 their argument attributed to Quine is examined at length and a shorter and more perspicacious argument suggested which avoids their charge that the Quinean argument is guilty of an equivocation on the word statement.     

略论《周易》对中国古代历法的影响--兼与李申先生商榷

在古代历法的发展过程中,<周易>起了积极的作用,而且这种作用在不同时期有着不同的特征.早期主要表现为用易数解释历数,这种作用在唐以后逐渐消失;"卦气说"曾在一段时期内被作为历法的内容;而<周易>的"治历明时"思想对于历法研究一直起着积极的作用,成为重要的治历原则之一.无论如何,<周易>对于古代历法发展的作用是不可低估的.     

An information theory analysis of duration of lifeguards' scanning

Observers recorded the duration of scanning by six lifeguards in three indoor swimming pools. Duration of scanning was significantly predicted by the absolute numbers of child swimmers (< 17 years) in the pools and when numbers of child swimmers were represented in terms of bits of information. Duration of scanning increased as a linear function of both numbers of children and child bits of information. These results are interpreted in terms of the Hick-Hyman law of information theory. Lifeguards appear to simplify the task of information processing and decision-making by concentrating on children as a more at-risk group of swimmers. Duration of scanning was not significantly related to changes in number of adult swimmers.     

民国时期白寿彝的朱熹易学研究

白寿彝以史学而著称,同时在民国时期对朱熹易学也有深入的研究。他对朱熹易学文献的考辨,对程、朱易学差异的论述,对朱熹《周易本义》与《河图》、《洛书》关系的分析,对朱熹《周易本义》基本观念的阐发,以及对朱熹易学贡献的概括,都具有相当的学术分量。而且从今天的朱熹易学研究来看,他所提出的学术问题以及对于问题的研究和所提出的观点,仍具有重要的学术价值。     

Personality trait inferences of Turkish immigrant and neutral targets: An experimental study

Sandal, G. M. Bye, H. H. & Pallesen, S. (2012). Personality trait inferences of Turkish immigrant and neutral targets: An experimental study. Scandinavian Journal of Psychology 53, 528–533. The study investigated whether personality traits attributed to immigrant targets differ from personality inferences made for a neutral target, and whether trait attributions differ for assimilated and integrated immigrant targets. Participants (n = 340) were randomized to one of three conditions in which they read the same story about a person, but where the person was described as either: (a) an assimilated Turkish immigrant; (b) an integrated Turkish immigrant; or (c) neutral (no nationality or religious practice indicated). Subsequently, they rated the personality of the described person on the NEO‐Five Factor Inventory (observer rating version) and completed the Balanced Inventory of Desirable Responding (Impression Management scale) with reference to themselves. Both immigrant targets were rated as significantly higher on extraversion and lower on neuroticism than the neutral target. The integrated target was rated as more open than the neutral target, and as higher than the assimilated target on neuroticism when controlling for impression management.     

Representing the Structure of a Debate

In this article I aim to use the 1948 Russell-Copleston debate to highlight some recent problems I have experienced teaching argument analysis in my philosophy courses. First, I will use argument diagramming to represent the arguments in the debate while reflecting on the use of this approach use to teach argument analysis skills. Then, I will discuss the tools and methods scholars have proposed to represent debates, rather than just individual arguments. Finally, I will argue that there is not, but needs to be, a good way to represent argumentative debates in a way that neither obscures the essential details of the exchange nor becomes too unwieldy to extract a sense of the overall debate.