Aging is accompanied by a decline in associative memory, whereas item memory remains relatively stable compared to young adults. This age-related associative deficit is well replicated, but its mechanisms and influencing factors during learning are still largely unclear. In the present study, we examined mediators of the age-related associative deficit, including encoding intentionality, strategy instructions, the timing of the memory test and the material being learned in a within-subject design. Older and younger adults performed seven encoding tasks on word pairs (...) and picture pairs on two consecutive days, followed by item and associative recognition tests. The associative deficit was evident after all encoding tasks. We found no evidence for a difference in the magnitude of the associative deficit between incidental vs. intentional learning conditions. However, there was some evidence for a larger associative memory deficit with pictures versus words when the encoding task was held equal. Sentence generation and interactive imagery instructions in which participants generated their own mediators reduced the magnitude of the associative deficit. However, increased encoding guidance through the provision of mediators did not lead to an alleviation of the deficit, potentially because the specified mediators were implausible or difficult for the older adults to reconcile with prior knowledge. Finally, we found some evidence for a reduced age-related associative deficit with a test delay of 24 h. These results contribute to a better understanding of the factors affecting the relative difficulty of older adults with encoding and retrieving novel associations. (shrink)

Humans preferentially remember information processed for their survival relevance, a memorial benefit known as the survival processing effect. Memory is also biased towards information associated with the prospect of reward. Given the adaptiveness of these effects, they may depend on similar mechanisms. We tested whether motivation drives both effects, with reward incentives that are known to boost extrinsic motivation and survival processing perhaps stimulating intrinsic motivation. Accordingly, we manipulated survival processing and reward incentive independently during an incidental-encoding task in which (...) participants chose between pairs of words concerning their relevance for a scenario, and examined the effects on encoding event-related potentials activity and later performance on a surprise recall test. We hypothesized that if survival processing fosters intrinsic motivation, it should reduce the beneficial effects of extrinsic motivation. In contrast to this prediction, we found that reward incentive and survival processing independently improved memory and that the P300, a measure of lower-level cognitive resource allocation, was increased by reward incentive independent of survival processing. Further, survival processing and reward incentive independently increased the frontal slow wave, a measure of higher-level elaboration. These findings suggest that while survival processing and reward incentive may both increase encoding elaboration, the memory-enhancing effect of survival processing does not depend on increased intrinsic motivation. Additionally, we replicated a recent finding whereby the survival processing effect generalizes to a choice-based encoding task and further showed that the beneficial effect of choice on memory likely does not interact with either survival processing or reward. (shrink)

In the present paper, we explore the impact of singing for girls in rural Bangladesh. Previous findings in this field-based interview study (with 18 girls) have demonstrated that singing can act as a driving force in young girls’ psychological individuation processes, implying increased agency and autonomy. A critical question, however, is to what extent the village girls will manage to maintain a feeling of agency as they pass through puberty. How do they navigate between their own wish to continue singing (...) and pressure from cultural norms (such as getting married)? Using Margareth Archer’s morphogenetic approach and Arjun Appadurai’s approach to culture as a capacity as analytical tools, we connect different modes of reflexivity to the girls’ capacity to aspire. We discuss specific mechanisms that emerge as relevant for the girls/young women as they navigate their way through the Bengali rural society. (shrink)

Hamm, Kamp, and van Lambalgen 2006 (hereafter HLK) propose to relate NL discourse to cognitive representations that also deal with world knowledge, planning, belief revision, etc. Surprisingly, to represent human cognition they use an event calculus "which has found applications in robotics". This comment argues that the robotics-based theory of HLK attributes too much to world knowledge and not enough to the ontology, centering, and other universals of NL semantics. It is also too Anglo-centric to generalize to languages of (...) other linguistic types. (shrink)

The standard way to represent anaphoric dependencies is to co-index the anaphor with its antecedent in the syntactic input to semantic rules, which then interpret such indices as variables. Dynamic theories (e.g. Kamp’s DRT, Heim’s File Change Semantics, Muskens’s Compositional DRT, etc) combine syntactic co-indexation with semantic left-to-right asymmetry. This captures the fact that the anaphor gets its referent from the antecedent and not vice versa. Formally, a text updates the input state of information to the output state. In (...) particular, an indexed antecedent updates the entity assigned to its index, and the output entity is then picked up as the referent by any subsequent co-indexed anaphor. (shrink)

Abstract According to an influential theory, English tenses are anaphoric to an aforementioned reference point. This point is sometimes construed as a time (e.g. Reichenbach 1947, Partee 1973, Stone 1997) and sometimes as an event (e.g. Kamp 1979, 1981, Webber 1988). Moreover, some researchers draw semantic parallels between tenses and pronouns (e.g. Partee 1973, 1984, Stone 1997), whereas others draw parallels between tenses and anaphorically anchored (in)definite descriptions (e.g. Webber 1988). This paper proposes a unified approach.

Committee: Maria Bittner (chairperson), Hans Kamp (external member), Roger Schwarzschild and Matthew Stone.

La realización de homenajes a figuras apreciadas del mundo académico impone el reto de seleccionar cuál sea el contenido de lo presentado en el evento para que éste se constituya en una auténtica muestra de reconocimiento de sus méritos.En ocasión de la mesa de homenaje a Gregorio Klimovsky, organizada por la Universidad Torcuato Di Tella a instancias de Guillermo Ranea, y convocada en el seno de las XX Jornadas de Epistemología e Historia de la Ciencia, el 26 de noviembre de (...) 2009, en La Falda (Córdoba), Alberto Moretti y Alejandro Cassini, plasmaron la mejor opción. Ambos eligieron analizar tesis filosóficas defendidas por el recordado y querido maestro, tanto en su obra como en las distintas ocasiones de diálogo que mantuvo con pares y discípulos. Se trató de la mejor elección porque de este modo no sólo ambos contribuyen a la difusión de las ideas de Klimovsky sino también, y con gran cuidado analítico, las conjugan con otras doctrinas presentes en el escenario filosófico contemporáneo, destacando así su actualidad y valía. (shrink)

This paper seeks a legal approach to the question of the implications of various religious beliefs in food. To begin with, it will be made a descriptive analysis of how the religious event influences and conditions the food consumption of believers, approaching both the three majoritarian or most representative religions of our country as well as several minority religions. Next, we will go on to observe and point out the obligations arising from Spanish Law regarding this aspect. Finally, once these (...) two areas have been analyzed and with what they illustrate, we will focus the main objective of this study giving our opinion on whether this is an issue that depends on the Law and that depend on a legislator or if, on the contrary, it is a question that belongs more to the internal sphere of citizens. (shrink)

This paper proposes a method for computing the temporal aspects of the interpretations of a variety of Germa sentences. The method is strictly modular in the sense that it allows each meaning-bearing sentence constituent to make its own, separate, contribution to the semantic representation of any sentence containing it. The semantic representation of a sentence is reached in several stages. First, an ‘initial semantic representation’ is constructed, using a syntactic analysis of the sentence as input. This initial representation is then (...) transformed into the definitive representation by a series of transformations which reflect the ways in which the contributions from different constituents of the sentence interact. Since the different constituents which make their respective contributions to the meaning of the sentence are in most instances ambiguous, the initial representations are typically of a high degree of underspecification. (shrink)

Partindo da idéia de que nos documentários feitos em primeira pessoa o diretor constrói uma personagem de si próprio, este artígo analisa esta “personagem” em dois documentários argentinos sobre as experiências traumáticas pós-ditadura: Papá Iván, de María Inés Roque (2000), resgata a história de seu pai Iván Roqué, morto pela ditadura militar; e Los Rubios (2003), de Albertina Carri, explora as sequelas deixadas em sua vida pelo desaparecimento seguido de morte de seus pais.

The Author traces the modern history of political concept of utopia from the publication of More’ Utopia. The historic-philosophical analysis shows that the opposition utopia vs realism and its transformations was central to develop the dialectic between reality and imagination, which is one of the axis of the western political Modernity. But, the epistemic and socio-political crisis of the XXth Century reveals the aporia and contradictions within this dialectic. However, in front of fear and angst ruling our present, the Author (...) shows that a possible way out of our crisis could be in starting up again this dialectic along giving birth to new forms of our political coexistence. (shrink)

In proposing this reflection about the relationship between dogmatic theology and Christian spiritual experience, we want to demonstrate in this article how a great 20 th century theologian, Hans Urs von Balthasar, invites the reader to enter into the reading and understanding of the historical and theological reasons that have guided some options and postures assumed, as well as to recognize the impacts caused both in the theology and in the spiritual experience and yet, more widely, in Christianity and its (...) mission. The path chosen for this study starts from one of his works, L’amour seul est digne de foi, and relies, then, in the impressive intellectual patrimony of the author, by researching in the same the transversality of the theme. We will be, in the present work, vigilant to the threat of disruptions, particularly analyze the conception and the possibility of the Christian spiritual experience by inquiring the Old Testament, the New Testament and the Holy Fathers. What is the hope delineated in this dialogue? It will be possible to infer partial conclusions from the route made. Further researches will be essential in order to reach the understanding of everything that is at stake in the search for intelligibility of the Theology and of the Christian experience itself. (shrink)

This edited collection considers how feminist strategies and philosophies might initiate, reshape, and critique approaches to library reference services.

The starting point of this paper is that both J Rawls's work "A theory of Justice" and feminist theory have contributed greatly to the revival of the moral and political philosophy. My aim here is to show the relationships between Rawls's and feminist theories, and particularly to analyze feminist criticism of "justice as fairness" in the context of a more general study on contemporary theories of justice and on the relevance of justice in feminist theories.

El objetivo de este trabajo fue demostrar la utilidad de los problemas de reparto para el aprendizaje de las fracciones. El enfoque de la investigación fue cuasi-experimental; los instrumentos utilizados fueron un cuestionario y una entrevista. Los resultados de la investigación demostraron que los problemas de reparto son una estrategia útil para mejorar el aprendizaje de las fracciones. Palabras clave: Fracciones, problemas de reparto, enseñanza de las matemáticas.

The aim of this article is to reveal how care workers in the home-help services handle the process when older people’s relocation to a residential home is under consideration. Since the care workers are engaged daily in defining care receivers’ needs and yet have no formal influence on care decisions in Sweden, the focus is on how they solve this dilemma. In this inductive study, the theoretical framework is based on occupational alliances, relationship-based practice, and discretion. Thirty-three care workers in (...) home-help services are included in open semi-structured interviews. Prominent features in the findings are that the care workers take their stand at the borderland of care management, when they know or try to find out what is right. The conclusions drawn are that care workers find ways to informally influence the decision-making process, quite contrary to the idea of approaches referred to as purchaser/provider models. The implications for social work policy and practice are that a distinction between assessment and intervention may not benefit the field of eldercare and should therefore be regarded as an area in need of thorough reconsideration. (shrink)

Se realiza una lectura de algunos relatos de Jorge Luis Borges para trazar, a partir de ellos, la pregunta acerca de los lí­mites y la superación del lenguaje. Se ha afirmado que, ante la insuficiencia del lenguaje para reproducir una experiencia determinada, se abre el ámbito del silencio que trasciende la palabra en el éxtasis. El silencio, entonces, no aniquilarí­a la palabra sino que engendrarí­a la posibilidad de la polisemia. Además, se agrega que ésta apertura a la ausencia del verbo (...) va más allá de las múltiples significaciones y expresa la presencia de un sentido imposible de ser englobado y contenido dentro de las estructuras racionales de la conciencia."œBorges: The silent word"A reading of some of Jorge Luis Borges "™ short stories is done in order to trace, using these stories as a starting point, the question about the limits and the triumph over language. It has been stated that, faced with the insuficiency of language to reproduce a certain experience, the sphere of silence is opened that transcends the word in extasis. Silence, thus, would not annihilate the word but instead it would engender the possibility of polysemy. In addition, it is added that this opening to the absence of the verb goes beyond multiple meanings and expresses the presence of a meaning which is impossible to be included and contained within the rational structures of the consciousness. (shrink)

Argues that academics’ intellectual engagement with a public beyond the walls of their own specialties, and even beyond the walls of the academy, was long a commonplace and significant part of the work of professors and writers in the humanities.