Accounts of the scalar inference from "some X-ed" to "not all X-ed" are central to the debate between contemporary theories of conversational pragmatics. An important contribution to this debate is to identify contexts that decrease the endorsement rate of the inference. We suggest that the inference is endorsed less often in face-threatening…

Two experiments examined whether preschoolers' difficulties on tasks that required relating pretending and knowledge (e.g., Lillard, A. S. (1993a). "Young children's conceptualization of pretense: Action or mental representational state?" "Child Development, 64," 372-386) were due to children's inability to appreciate the causal mechanism behind…

Purpose: To investigate the effects of 4 fluency-inducing (FI) conditions on self-rated speech effort and other variables in adults who stutter and in normally fluent controls. Method: Twelve adults with persistent stuttering and 12 adults who had never stuttered each completed 4 ABA-format experiments. During A phases, participants read aloud…

We have introduced the study of synthesis pathways using two experiments: 1--the determination of the glycemic index (GI) of some foods and the effects of fiber and fat on the GI; 2--the determination of blood glucose levels after the ingestion of meals with high and low glycemic loads (GL). After a practice assembly, when the foods and meals that…

The relationship between attention and awareness is complex, because both concepts can be understood in different ways. Here we review our recent series of experiments which have tracked the independent contributions of different types of visual attention and awareness to electrophysiological brain responses, and then we report a new experiment…

The lexical bias effect (the tendency for phonological speech errors to create words more often than nonwords) has been debated for over 30 years. One account attributes the effect to a lexical editor, a strategic component of the production system that examines each planned phonological string, and suppresses it if it is a nonword. The…

Human observers take longer to re-direct gaze to a previously fixated location. Although there has been some exploration of the characteristics of inhibition of saccadic return (ISR), the exact mechanisms by which ISR operates are currently unknown. In the framework of accumulation models of response times, in which evidence is integrated over…

Purpose: To develop and evaluate a rat excised larynx model for the measurement of acoustic, aerodynamic, and vocal fold vibratory changes resulting from vocal fold scar. Method: Twenty-four 4-month-old male Sprague-Dawley rats were assigned to 1 of 4 experimental groups: chronic vocal fold scar, chronic vocal fold scar treated with 100-ng basic…

An electronic circuit for controlling "RLC" experiments is shown. This arrangement does not employ a function generator, which makes it more suitable when a wide range of "R," "L" and "C" values is required and a relatively high current is involved. This circuit can be used for driven and undriven DC…

Young typically developing children can reason about abstract depictions if they know the intention of the artist. Children with autism spectrum disorder (ASD), who are notably impaired in social, "intention monitoring" domains, may have great difficulty in decoding vague representations. In Experiment 1, children with ASD are unable to use…

Thought experiments enable students to think about persistent social issues by drawing on both knowledge and imagination. In this article, the author provides examples of thought experiments found in literature for adults and middle school students, a rationale for doing thought experiments in the classroom, a step-by-step procedure to follow, and…

Existing models of causal induction primarily rely on the contingency between the presence and the absence of a causal candidate and an effect. Yet, classification of observations into these four types of covariation data may not be straightforward because (a) most causal candidates, in real life, are continuous with ambiguous, intermediate values…

Academic skills are frequent concerns in K-12 schools that could benefit from the application of applied behavior analysis (ABA). Brief experimental analysis (BEA) of academic performance is perhaps the most promising approach to apply ABA to student learning. Although research has consistently demonstrated the effectiveness of academic…

Scalar implicature has served as a test case for exploring the relations between semantic and pragmatic processes during language comprehension. Most studies have used reaction time methods and the results have been variable. In these studies, we use the visual-world paradigm to investigate implicature. We recorded participants' eye movements…

Conditioned odor avoidance (COA) results from the association between a novel odor and a delayed visceral illness. The present experiments investigated the role of the basolateral amygdala (BLA) in acquisition and retrieval of COA memory. To address this, we used the GABAA agonist muscimol to temporarily inactivate the BLA during COA acquisition…