Concrete and Formal Operations in very Bright 6- to 11-Year-Olds

The Situation Scale for Adolescents (SISA), a Dutch extended version of the Imaginary Audience Scale, was administered to several hundreds of youngsters at the 7th, 9th and 12th grade levels. The scale, assessing self-consciousness in two types of social situations, proved to be reliable, but yielded confused results regarding age and sex differences. In addition, concern about the imaginary audience was not associated with formal operational thought. These results are in line with previous studies on these topics. When taken together, they clearly indicate that Elkind's theory on the imaginary audience is in need of revision. Findings on the cognitive origin of the imaginary audience are discussed in the light of recent research on formal operations, and suggestions are made for future research.

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Agreement processes in English and Spanish

Functions of Language ◽

10.1075/fol.19.1.03riv ◽

2012 ◽

Vol 19 (1) ◽

pp. 58-88 ◽

Cited By ~ 5

Author(s):

Sara María Riveiro Outeiral ◽

Juan Carlos Acuña-Fariña

Keyword(s):

Constraint Satisfaction ◽

Recent Literature ◽

Morphological Characteristics ◽

Grammatical Encoding ◽

Linguistic Influences ◽

Shed Light ◽

Formal Operations

The nature of agreement has been the topic of extensive debate in the recent literature of both linguistics and psycholinguistics. In contrast to either fully syntactic or fully semantic accounts, so-called ‘constraint-satisfaction models’ (Haskell et al. 2010, among others) posit that all grammatical encoding is subject to a number of influences (syntax, semantics, pragmatics, frequency, etc.) which compete to dominate every computation, including agreement processes. After briefly considering psycholinguistic work on attraction (Wagers et al. 2009 and references therein), we try to shed light on this debate by observing how agreement operates in certain structures which were previously tested by Berg (1998) in a comparison of German and English. Here, we establish the same type of comparison between Spanish and English, and conclude that: 1. agreement is resolved after a constant tug-of-war between the syntactic and the semantic, a process in which semantics is likely to interfere in formal operations when these are performed in the context of a weak morphology; 2. agreement resolution is effectively subject to various linguistic influences, including the morphological characteristics of each language, but also the domain in which agreement is realised; and 3. agreement is responsible for shaping overall linguistic systems in the sense that, as noted by Berg, it may motivate left–orientation (as in English) or not (as in Spanish) as a general default strategy for locating subjects.

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The Relationship Between Formal Operations Cognition and Suitability for Psychoanalytic Treatment

Journal of the American Academy of Psychoanalysis ◽

10.1521/jaap.1.1993.21.1.21 ◽

1993 ◽

Vol 21 (1) ◽

pp. 21-32 ◽

Cited By ~ 1

Author(s):

John F. Fielder

Keyword(s):

Psychoanalytic Treatment ◽

The Relationship ◽

Formal Operations

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Oz Never Did Give Nothing to the Scarecrow: Neurophenomenology and Critical Pedagogy

Phenomenology & Practice ◽

10.29173/pandpr19828 ◽

2010 ◽

Vol 4 (1) ◽

Cited By ~ 1

Author(s):

Robert Garfield McInerney

Keyword(s):

Critical Pedagogy ◽

Embodied Cognition ◽

Situated Learning ◽

Educational System ◽

Learning Experiences ◽

Human Learning ◽

Wizard Of Oz ◽

Subjugated Knowledge ◽

The Brain ◽

Formal Operations

Using the film the Wizard of Oz, an illustrative comparison is made between the Scarecrow's learning experiences and our own. Like we often do, the Scarecrow reduces his potential learning and thinking abilities to nothing more than the formal operations presumably at work in the brain. Ostensibly lacking this brain, the Scarecrow solves nearly all the problems encountered in the journey to Oz. A neurophenomenological description of the Scarecrow's experiences reveals his prereflective, situated learning, and embodied cognition. These ways of learning are often ignored and devalued in our educational system. Can this same method reveal our own subjugated knowledges? Herein, neurophenomenology is demonstrated as a critical pedagogy that critiques and liberates subjugated knowledge and supports a richer assessment of human learning and thinking.

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