Aphasia in a polyglot

A Greek-born aphasic who had been able to speak four languages (Romanian, Russian, Greek, German) was tested quantitatively for verbal expression (standard interview indexes) and verbal reception (fifth part of the Token Test). The form of aphasia (qualitative aspect) was found to be identical for all four languages. Quantitatively, his performance in the four languages was different, with the languages used most during the past 20 years (Romanian and Russian) being less impaired. Nevertheless, verbal reception was equally impaired quantitatively in all four languages. Treatment with semantic-syntagmatic methods performed in Romanian had a beneficial effect on speech in the other languages as well. The authors feel that the expressive disturbance noted in aphasia reflects involvement of deep as well as of surface structures of language, but the receptive disturbance reflects involvement of the deep structures only. This may account for quantitative discrepancies in expression without discrepancy in reception among the four languages, as well as the qualitatively identical features of the disturbance in verbal expression and reception.     

Neural correlates of a default response in a delayed go/no-go task

Working memory, the ability to temporarily retain task-relevant information across a delay, is frequently investigated using delayed matching-to-sample (DMTS) or delayed Go/No-Go tasks (DGNG). In DMTS tasks, sample cues instruct the animal which type of response has to be executed at the end of a delay. Typically, performance decreases with increasing delay duration, indicating that working memory fades across a delay. However, no such performance decrease has been found when the sample cues exist of present vs. absent stimuli, suggesting that pigeons do not rely on working memory, but seem to respond by default in those trials. We trained 3 pigeons in a DGNG task and found a similar default response pattern: The diverging slopes of the retention functions on correct Go and No-Go trials suggested that pigeons by default omitted their response following No-Go stimuli, but actively retained task-relevant information across the delay for successful responses on Go trials. We conducted single-cell recordings in the avian nidopallium caudolaterale, a structure comparable to the mammalian prefrontal cortex. On Go trials, many neurons displayed sustained elevated activity during the delay preceding the response, replicating previous findings and suggesting that task-relevant information was neurally represented and maintained across the delay. However, the same units did not show enhanced delay activity preceding correct response suppressions in No-Go trials. This activation-inactivation pattern presumably constitutes a neural correlate of the default response strategy observed in the DGNG task.     

How Norms (Might) Guide Belief

Abstract

Belief normativism is roughly the view that judgments about beliefs are normative judgments. Kathrin Glüer and Åsa Wikforss (G&W) suggest that there are two ways one could defend this view: by appeal to what might be called ‘truth-norms’, or by appeal to what might be called ‘norms of rationality’ or ‘epistemic norms’. According to G&W, whichever way the normativist takes, she ends up being unable to account for the idea that the norms in question would guide belief formation. Plausibly, if belief normativism were true, the relevant norms would have to offer such guidance. I argue that G&W’s case against belief normativism is not successful. In section 1, I defend the idea that truth-norms can guide belief formation indirectly via epistemic norms. In section 2, I outline an account of how the epistemic norms might guide belief. Interestingly, this account may involve a commitment to a certain kind of expressivist view concerning judgments about epistemic norms.     

The Role of Demographics and Opportunities to Learn in Predicting Performance on a High-Stakes Test

Abstract

High-stakes testing has emerged as a central feature of the educational landscape in primary and secondary schools in the United States. Despite this prominence, there is a paucity of guidance available to practitioners on how they can best make predictions about student performance based on available test data. While achievement gaps based on demographics are widely known, less commonly analyzed are differences in opportunities to learn. Results from the first group of students in Massachusetts required to take a state-created exam in order to graduate from high school indicated that both demographics and courses taken were significant predictors of performance. Recommendations for analyzing test data and for promoting more comprehensive and culturally responsive assessment and curriculum practices are offered.     

Dissociation and memory suppression: A comparison of high and low dissociative individuals’ performance on the Think–No Think task

The present study examined whether high and low dissociative individuals differ in their ability to keep target stimuli out of their awareness (suppression) and how this relates to their memory of those targets during a later cued recall task. The prediction was that high dissociators display a general inability to focus attention and that their distractibility undermines successful suppression, thereby enhancing memory for suppressed items. College students with high (n = 35) and low (n = 33) scores on the Dissociative Experiences Scale participated in a Dutch version of Anderson and Green’s (2001) Think–No Think (TNT) task. Overall, a significant suppression effect emerged. However, no differences between high and low dissociators were observed. Thus, the present results do not confirm that dissociation is linked to heightened distractibility.     

THE OTHER SIDE OF SILENCE: RACHEL CARSON'S VIEWS OF ANIMALS

Abstract The publication of Rachel Carson's Silent Spring, a compelling blend of stories, natural history, human values, and biological facts, in 1962 was instrumental in launching the modern environmental movement. We consider Carson's attitude toward animals in Silent Spring and in her other writings. Carson favored responsible stewardship and was more of an animal welfarist and environmentalist/conservation biologist who privileged ecosystems and species than an animal activist who privileged individuals, and she did not advocate an animal‐rights agenda. There is clear tension in Carson's writings. Often she seems troubled by attempting to come across as a moderate and practical scientist, and some of her words, when considered out of context, could lead one to label her as an animal‐rightist. While some of Carson's writing favors human‐centered interests, she did not believe that only humans counted. Her warnings about silent springs must be taken seriously, perhaps even more seriously than when they were penned more than four decades ago. Carson was a passionate and extremely influential activist and if a world of persons like her were in charge of our global environmental policies, we and our fellow animals would be in much better shape than we currently are.     

The mismeasure of morals: antisocial personality traits predict utilitarian responses to moral dilemmas

Researchers have recently argued that utilitarianism is the appropriate framework by which to evaluate moral judgment, and that individuals who endorse non-utilitarian solutions to moral dilemmas (involving active vs. passive harm) are committing an error. We report a study in which participants responded to a battery of personality assessments and a set of dilemmas that pit utilitarian and non-utilitarian options against each other. Participants who indicated greater endorsement of utilitarian solutions had higher scores on measures of Psychopathy, machiavellianism, and life meaninglessness. These results question the widely-used methods by which lay moral judgments are evaluated, as these approaches lead to the counterintuitive conclusion that those individuals who are least prone to moral errors also possess a set of psychological characteristics that many would consider prototypically immoral.     

A semantics-based approach to the "no negative evidence" problem

Previous studies have shown that children retreat from argument-structure overgeneralization errors (e.g., * Don't giggle me ) by inferring that frequently encountered verbs are unlikely to be grammatical in unattested constructions, and by making use of syntax-semantics correspondences (e.g., verbs denoting internally caused actions such as giggling cannot normally be used causatively). The present study tested a new account based on a unitary learning mechanism that combines both of these processes. Seventy-two participants (ages 5–6, 9–10, and adults) rated overgeneralization errors with higher (* The funny man's joke giggled Bart ) and lower (* The funny man giggled Bart ) degrees of direct external causation. The errors with more-direct causation were rated as less unacceptable than those with less-direct causation. This finding is consistent with the new account, under which children acquire—in an incremental and probabilistic fashion—the meaning of particular constructions (e.g., transitive causative = direct external causation) and particular verbs, rejecting generalizations where the incompatibility between the two is too great.     

The distracting effect of material reward: An alternative explanation for the superior performance of reward groups in probability learning

To determine whether the distraction effect associated with material rewards in discrimination learning can account for the superior performance of reward groups in probability learning, the performance of 144 school children (preschool, second, and fifth grades) on a two-choice successive discrimination task was compared under three reinforcement conditions (material reward, marker, and knowledge of results). The two events in the task had different frequencies of occurrence, as in probability learning, yet they appeared in a constant order to make 100% payoff possible. The subjects in the reward and marker groups learned the task more slowly, and the nonlearners among them used stereotyped alternation patterns to a greater degree than subjects in the knowledge-of-results condition. These findings suggest that a distracting effect of material reward is present in probability learning and may explain the superior performance of reward groups typically found in probability learning studies.