Lexical status of inflectional and derivational suffixes: Evidence from Finnish

The present study tested whether Finnish inflectional or derivational suffixes have lexical access units separate from word roots. In three lexical decision experiments, pseudowords carrying a case-inflection required significantly longer rejection times than nonaffixed pseudowords. This suggests that case-inflections have separate lexical access units. Similar effects were obtained for productive derivational suffixes, too. A specific lexical architecture, being able to account for both the present pseudoword results as well as earlier ones obtained with real Finnish nouns, is proposed.     

Observations about Family Interaction and the Effect of Therapy: Interviews with Families Eight Years after the Onset of Schizophrenia

This study focused on the development of and changes in the interaction within a family after the onset of schizophrenia in a family member. Special attention is given to the possible effects of various treatments on the interaction. Our method was a circular interview of all family members in a joint session 8 years after the onset of schizophrenia. We observed that changes in family interaction usually had taken place during the first year of the illness. Thereafter, family conditions and interactions seem to have remained relatively unchanged. On the other hand, in addition to actual family-centered therapy, all other treatment modes--individual therapy, medication, hospitalization--seemed to have acted as systemic interventions on the family level. Our observation that family interactions and models of therapy often had a surprisingly strong resemblance led us to consider the idea of their coevolution over the years and the possible significance of this. This article aims at calling the reader's attention to the manifold influences that the onset of schizophrenia and its various treatments seem to have had on family system.     

Hospital-Treated Psychiatric Disorders in Adults with a Single-Parent and Two-Parent Family Background: A 28-Year Follow-up of the 1966 Northern Finland Birth Cohort

This study investigates the relationship between the family type (two-parent and 4 different single-parent types, mainly divorced) during childhood up to 14 years of age and adult hospital-treated psychiatric disorders in a sample from the unselected, general population Northern Finland 1966 Birth Cohort (N = 11,017). Up to the end of 1994, a total of 387 individuals (3.5%) had a hospital-treated psychiatric disorder, with 3.1% in two-parent families and 5.4% in single-parent families (p < .001). The single-parent family was not associated with the child's schizophrenia or other psychotic disorders. The adjusted odds ratios (OR) for personality disorders were highest among individuals without a father before the age of 14 years (OR 4.8), or at birth only (OR 4.0), or with a history of parental divorce (OR 2.8). Parental divorce was also associated with alcoholism (OR 3.7) and parental death with depressive disorders (OR 3.4). In conclusion, we found an elevated risk of hospital-treated nonpsychotic disorder among individuals from a single-parent family background. It is likely that a combination of the single-parent family and psychosocial and/or genetic risk may influence the development of these disorders.     

Psychological tests as indicators of excessive exposure to carbon disulfide

Twelve psychological tests including a standardized questionnaire were administered to 20 male viscose rayon workers with long-term exposure to carbon disulfide and to 152 nonexposed men. With the method of multiple discriminant analysis the number of tests was reduced from 12 to 5 and the number of variables from 30 to 7. The variable setting of the obtained discriminant function contained measures of different types of psychomotor performances, emotional behaviour and subjective symptoms. Sensitivity and specificity of the tests and the criteria for a detected effected were evaluated a posteriori. In general, the sensitivity of the methods was better than its specificity. Sufficient specificity could be obtained when a higher probability level for belonging to the exposed group was applied as the criterion, but even then, the application of other, reference diagnostic methods seems necessary to separate the false positive cases.     

Utilitarianism, Human Rights and the Redistribution of Health through Preventive Medical Measures

ABSTRACT  Public health authorities sometimes have to make decisions about the use of preventive medical measures—e.g. vaccination programmes—which could, if realised, save millions of lives, but could also kill a certain (small) number of those subjected to the measures. According to a rough-and-ready utilitarian calculation, such measures should be taken, but there are also possible objections to this view.
A liberal objection to the use of mandatory preventive measures which might harm human beings is that people have a right to decide for themselves whether or not they want to participate in the programme. A further objection is based on the claims that first, the authorities are directly killing those who die because of, say, vaccination programmes, and second, directly killing human beings is forbidden (since every human being has a right to live).
The latter objection is discussed at length in the present paper. The validity of three doctrines, the doctrines of the double effect, of acts and omissions, and of killing and letting die, are considered with reference to the use of preventive measures, and found inapplicable. The objection is, however, refuted by comparing some hypothetical examples, and the initial utilitarian calculation is reinforced.     

Fiction,Indifference, and Ontology*

In this paper I outline an alternative to hermeneutic fictionalism, an alternative I call indifferentism, with the same advantages as hermeneutic fictionalism with respect to ontological issues but avoiding some of the problems that face fictionalism. the difference between indifferentism and fictionalism is this. the fictionalist about ordinary utterances of a sentence S holds, with more orthodox views, that the speaker in some sense commits herself to the truth of S. It is only that for the fictionalist this is truth in the relevant fiction. According to the indifferentist, by contrast, we are simply non‐committal—or indifferent—with respect to some aspects of what is literally said in our assertive utterances (specifically, with respect to the ontologically committing aspects).     

Social skills of aggressive and nonaggressive adolescents

Abstract.— Forty 14-year-old boys were selected on the basis of peer ratings to represent characteristic aggressive, controlled extravert, anxious, and controlled introvert patterns of behaviour. Each boy was asked to play the role of either a son or a chum with the corresponding father's or chum's role played by the male E in four tape recorded dialogues. The topics were "getting more pocket money", "holiday making", "choosing a TV channel", and "agreeing on a favourite make of car". The boys' ability to persuade the opponent and to express their disagreement in a socially acceptable manner was studied. In accordance with the hypotheses the results showed that the controlled extraverts were sensible negotiators while the aggressive belittled the other's proposals and showed disagreement and indifference. The controlled introverts conformed passively and the anxious had signs of blocking in their speech. A discriminant analysis revealed that the differences were also very clear on the individual level.     

Psychological tests specific to individual carbon disulfide exposure

Psychological tests including 26 variables were administered to 206 male viscose rayon workers with long-term exposure to carbon disulfide and 152 nonexposed men. The purpose of the analysis was to examine the reciprocal validity of the various variables as indicators of carbon disulfide effect on mental functions. All the subjects were classified either as normal or deviant in regard to the results. Twenty-five % of all results was classified as abnormal for every variable. Five variables, i.e., Bourdon-Wiersma speed, Santa Ana right, form level of the straight lines in the Mira test, and the Rorschach test variables for detecting emotionality and originality were significantly ( p <0.05) more frequent among the exposed subjects. A combination of an abnormal finding for all five variables, or all variables except Santa Ana right occurred for 6% of the exposed group but not at all among the nonexposed. These combinations are suggested as specific for the psychological effects of carbon disulfide.     

SCHIFFER ON VAGUENESS

Abstract:  I go through, and criticize, Stephen Schiffer's account of vagueness and the sorites paradox. I discuss his notion of a happy-face solution to a paradox, his appeal to vagueness-related partial belief, his claim that indeterminacy is a psychological notion, and his view that the sorites premise and the inference rule of modus ponens are indeterminate.