THE GOLEM LEGEND AND THE ENIGMA OF FACEBOOK

We are easily misguided as to the true nature of Facebook, and tend to treat it simply as a powerful technological instrument in the service of human intentions. We can, however, gain a better picture of it through recourse to the Jewish tradition of the golem, an image of human beings, created by them in a re-enactment of their own creation by God. It turns into a magic servant in modernity with an inherent dynamic running between its human and its subhuman characteristics. This dynamic is the main cause behind its becoming uncontrollable. In like manner, what is subhuman in Facebook serves its masters and functions under their total control, but also empowers Facebook's increasingly human operation, an algorithm-based capability which raises growing doubts about what counts as human. Facebook implies the crisis of humanity which coincides with the “death of God,” that is, the obsolescence of the idea of a divine creator.     

Above suspicion: Cognitive and intentional aspects of the ability to lie

This paper looks at the attribution of the ability to lie and not at lying or lies. It also departs from more familiar approaches by focussing on the appraisal of an ability and not on the ability in itself. We believe that this attribution perspective is required to bring out the cognitive and intentional basis of the ability to lie.     

Stimulus effects on concurrent performance in transition

Six experimentally naive pigeons were exposed to concurrent variable-interval variable-interval schedules in a three-key procedure in which food reinforcement followed pecks on the side keys and pecks on the center key served as changeover responses. In Phase 1, 3 birds were exposed to 20 combinations of five variable-interval values, with each variable-interval value consistently associated with a different color on the side keys. Another 3 pigeons were exposed to the same 20 conditions, but with a more standard procedure that used a nondifferential discriminative stimulus on the two side keys throughout all conditions. In Phase 2, the differential and nondifferential stimulus conditions were reversed for each pigeon. Each condition lasted for one 5-hr session and one subsequent 1-hr session. In the last 14 conditions of each phase, the presence of differential discriminative stimuli decreased the time necessary for differential responding to develop and increased the sensitivity of behavior to reinforcement distribution in the 1st hr of training; during the last hours of training in each condition, however, the effects of the differential discriminative stimuli could not be distinguished from the effects of reinforcement distribution per se. These results show the importance of studying transitions in behavior as well as final performance. They may also be relevant to discrepancies in the results of previous experiments that have used nonhuman and human subjects.     

PROMOTING LAW ENFORCEMENT FOR CHILD PROTECTION: A COMMUNITY ANALYSIS

The Colorado Occupant Protection Project (COPP) intervention provided police with brief instruction concerning the importance of citations for drivers' failure to use child safety seats and special coupons to accompany citations. Coupons were exchangeable by drivers for a safety seat and brief training in its use, plus a waiver of the $50 citation fine. Over 4.5 years of archival records were employed, using an ABA design and a comparison community to evaluate the program. Few tickets were issued for nonuse of safety seats during the 3-year baseline in either community. Citations for nonuse of safety seats increased to over 50 per month during the intervention period at the test site, whereas rates remained essentially zero at the comparison site. After the COPP intervention was removed at the intervention site, citation rates for nonuse of safety seats decreased to about 15 per month. Differences between intervention conditions and settings were statistically significant. During the intervention, officers were 44 times more likely to write citations than were controls. Results suggested that a behavioral program can increase police citation writing for child protection purposes.     

PROMOTING STIMULUS CONTROL WITH TEXTUAL PROMPTS AND PERFORMANCE FEEDBACK FOR PERSONS WITH MILD DISABILITIES

We assessed whether written task analyses would serve as textual prompts for performing functional tasks by persons with mild disabilities. Several variables that could influence the effectiveness of textual prompts to promote stimulus control were examined across four groups. A consistent finding was that written specific task analyses combined with end-of-trial performance feedback were effective for promoting the acquisition and generalization of several tasks. Performance transferred immediately to natural discriminative stimuli when the written task analyses and feedback were withdrawn for most tasks and participants. For 2 participants, transfer of stimulus control was accomplished by prompt fading, using individualized written task analyses either with or without performance feedback (Group 1). When feedback was not provided, the effectiveness of written specific task analyses was inconsistent across groups. In contrast to the controlling effects of written specific task analyses, written generic task analyses, which specified only major task outcomes, when combined with performance feedback (Group 1) did not control responding. Overall, this research demonstrated the effectiveness of written specific task analyses and performance feedback to promote stimulus control for persons with mild disabilities.     

Fixed-ratio pausing: Joint effects of past reinforcer magnitude and stimuli correlated with upcoming magnitude

Pigeons responded on fixed-ratio schedules ending in small or large reinforcers (grain presentations of different duration) interspersed within each session. In mixed-schedule conditions, the response key was lit with a single color throughout the session, and pausing was directly related to the past reinforcer (longer pauses after large reinforcers than after small ones). In multiple-schedule conditions, different colors accompanied the ratios ending in small and large reinforcers, and pausing was affected by the upcoming reinforcer as well as the past one. Pauses were shorter before large reinforcers than before small ones, but they continued to be longer after large reinforcers than after small ones. The influence of the past reinforcer was modulated by the magnitude of the upcoming reinforcer; in the presence of the stimulus before the small reinforcer, the effect of the past reinforcer was enhanced relative to its effect in the stimulus before the large reinforcer. These results show that pausing between ratios is jointly determined by two competing factors: past conditions of reinforcement and stimuli correlated with upcoming conditions.     

The impact of consonant clusters on preschool children''s phonemic awareness: A comparison between readers and nonreaders

Preschool children's ability to segment and blend real words and nonsense words, with and without consonant clusters was investigated in two experiments. In the first experiment, preschool children's ability to segment real words into phonemes was examined. Readers performed better than nonreaders on a phoneme counting task and words containing consonant clusters were harder to segment compared to words without consonant clusters. In experiment two, the ability to segment and blend nonsense words was investigated. Nonreaders had significantly more difficulty with nonsense words compared to readers in both a phoneme synthesis and a phoneme analysis task. A two-way interaction between reading level and word type showed that nonsense words containing consonant clusters were particularly difficult for nonreaders. The results were discussed in relation to theories suggesting that syllables consist of an onset and a rime.     

Evaluating young children''s cognitive capacities through computer versus hand drawings

Young normal and handicapped children, aged 3 to 6 years, were taught to draw a scene of a house, garden and a sky with a computer drawing program that uses icons and is operated by a mouse. The drawings were rated by a team of experts on a 7-category scale. The children's computer- and hand-produced drawings were compared with one another and with results on cognitive, visual and fine motor tests. The computer drawing program made it possible for the children to accurately draw closed shapes, to get instant feedback on the adequacy of the drawing, and to make corrections with ease. It was hypothesized that these features would compensate for the young children's limitations in such cognitive skills, as memory, concentration, planning and accomplishment, as well as their weak motor skills. In addition, it was hypothesized that traditional cognitive ratings of hand drawings may underestimate young children's intellectual ability, because drawing by hand demands motor skills and memory, concentration and planning skills that are more developed than that actually shown by young children. To test the latter hypothesis, the children completed a training program in using a computer to make drawings. The results show that cognitive processes such as planning, analysis and synthesis can be investigated by means of a computer drawing program in a way not possible using traditional pencil and paper drawings. It can be said that the method used here made it possible to measure cognitive abilities "under the floor" of what is ordinarily possible by means of traditionally hand drawings.     

4-5年级学生的空间表征与几何能力的相关性研究

本研究是“学生空间能力和几何能力关系”研究的一部分,以小学4、5年级学生为被试(共117人),以空问表征能力测验和几何能力测验为测验工具,初步探讨了学生空间表征与几何能力的关系。对数据结果的分析表明:①就总成绩而言,五年级学生的空间表在成绩明显高于四年级学生的成绩,但并不是空间表征的所有方面都存在着显著的年级差异;②就空间测验的总成绩而言,无论是四、五年级分别考察还是总起来考察,空间成绩与几何成绩之间的相关显著,但就各个分项而言,并不是空间测验的各项都与几何测验成绩有显著相关;学生的几何成绩在一定程度上可通过回归方程:Y_i=0.5736X_i+0.7635加以预测。     

Delayed constructed-response identity matching improves the spelling performance of students with mental retardation

We assessed the effects of a computerized matching-to-sample procedure on the spelling performances of three students with mental retardation. Initially, the students could 1) match pictures and printed words to one another, and 2) match pictures and printed words to spoken words. However, they could not construct words to either pictures or spoken words (e.g., touch, in order, the letters s->h->o->e given the spoken-word sample Shoe). Word constructions then improved markedly after exposure to delayed constructed-response identity matching (e.g., touch the letters s->h->o->e given the printed-word sample shoe). One subject's oral and written spelling also improved. The results extend previous research by showing multiple positive effects of a computerized spelling intervention. These effects may have occurred in part because of the formation of stimulus classes among pictures, printed words, and spoken words.