The Mind's "I": Children's Conception of the Mind as an Active Agent

1 hypothesis about children's developing conception of the mind is that preschoolers are limited to an understanding that persons have internal, mental contents like thoughts and beliefs, whereas older children and adults conceive of the mind itself as an independent, active structure or processor. Adults' conception of the mind in this independent active fashion seems evident in their use of personified mental metaphor (e.g., "My mind tricked me"). 3 studies examined the development and consolidation of this active, personified view. Study 1 provided an analysis of natural language data regarding 1 child's uses of vision words such as see and look from age 2 1/2 to 8 years. We examined the child's use of such words to refer literally to perception (e.g., "I see the TV") and also to refer nonliterally to active mental processes such as comprehension and inference (e.g., "I see what you mean"). Studies 2 and 3 examined 6-, 8-, and 10-year-olds' comprehension and production of mental metaphors. In a metaphor comprehension task, we asked children to interpret personified metaphoric statements about the mind (e.g., "My mind wandered") and 3 comparison domains, mechanics (e.g., "The car is dead"), nature (e.g., "The wind is howling"), and emotion (e.g., "Her heart was smiling"). In an explanation task, we asked children to explain the processes underlying the making of both instant photos and mental images. The findings reveal a developing ability to interpret and produce statements personifying the mind and provide considerable evidence about children's movement toward a conception of the mind as an independent entity deserving reference and conceptualization in its own right.     

Indian child welfare: A community team approach to protective services

The purpose of this study is threefold: first, to describe the characteristics of child abuse and neglect on a major Indian reservation; second, to examine the impact of a community team approach to child abuse and neglect as measured by the incidence of reported abuse and neglect and admissions for emergency foster care; and third, to make recommendations for actions to close the gaps in child welfare services to Indian children living on reservations.     

Introduction to the research policy 20th anniversary special issue of the publication of “Profiting from Innovation” by David J. Teece

This introductory essay reviews the key contributions of David Teece's landmark paper “Profiting from Innovation” published in research policy in 1986. It summarises the contributions of each of the papers in the special issue. It then offers some perspectives on the key themes emerging from these papers, and on the broader challenges facing researchers, strategists and policymakers in the field of technology innovation today.     

Teachers' education, classroom quality, and young children's academic skills: results from seven studies of preschool programs

In an effort to provide high-quality preschool education, policymakers are increasingly requiring public preschool teachers to have at least a Bachelor's degree, preferably in early childhood education. Seven major studies of early care and education were used to predict classroom quality and children's academic outcomes from the educational attainment and major of teachers of 4-year-olds. The findings indicate largely null or contradictory associations, indicating that policies focused solely on increasing teachers' education will not suffice for improving classroom quality or maximizing children's academic gains. Instead, raising the effectiveness of early childhood education likely will require a broad range of professional development activities and supports targeted toward teachers' interactions with children.     

论证的形式模型概述及其在哲学上的应用

论证是一个用理由支持观点以及回应其所受攻击的过程.在过去的几十年里,论证已经成为哲学和人工智能研究领域中的一个重要主题.在哲学方面,十九世纪50年代和60年代图尔敏和佩雷尔曼对形式逻辑的批判,促进了非形式逻辑这一学科的产生,它研究推理和论证的非形式模型.在人工智能方面,论证的形式模型也发展成为常识推理和多主体冲突解决的基本模型.本文将讨论后一领域中所研究发展的形式模型如何能够用以澄清一些哲学领域、以及非形式逻辑领域中的理论问题和争议.本文的一个重要观点是,图尔敏和佩雷尔曼时代的形式逻辑只关注数学化的推理,但那些非数学化的推理形式其实同样也能够被形式化.