This paper collects ideas from causal analysis, analogical reasoning, empirical learning, and presents an integrated methodology to refining causal and social theories. Its major contribution is that the theory validation meth<Xl, which consists of an incremental process of generation and pruning of examples and counter­ examples, can work in the face of the two following limitations: (a) lack ...

The natural processes affecting spontaneous speech production and the natural processes of spoken-word recognition combine to cause significant activation of irrelevant lexical competitors. Using eye-tracking, we show that reduced forms of words that occur in casual speech cause listeners to activate lexical candidates that resemble the reduced form but are quite unlike the canonical form of th...

Heart rate (HR), systolic (SBP), and diastolic (DBP) blood pressure levels were compared in 60 young males during various resting and stressful conditions. Subjects included 29 who had and 31 who had not shown occasional casual SBP readings greater than or equal to 135 mm Hg under low stress conditions. These groups were further divided into those who showed above-average and below-average HR i...

We explored the prevalence and predictors of transactional sex with casual partners and main girlfriends among 1288 men aged 15-26 from 70 villages in the rural Eastern Cape province of South Africa. Data were collected through face-to-face interviews with young men enroling in the Stepping Stones HIV prevention trial. A total of 17.7% of participants reported giving material resources or money...

In recent years, voice recognition agents such as NTT DOCOMO’s “Shabette Concier” have become popular. ShabetteConcier is a voice agent capable of responding to task-related utterances such as “send mail” or “call,” and can answer questions such as “how high is Mount Fuji?” or “what is the highest mountain in the world?” It can also respond to casual conversation with utterances such as “I love...