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The boundary paradigm (Rayner, 1975) with a novel preview manipulation was used to examine the extent of parafoveal processing of words to the right of fixation. Words n+1 and n+2 had either correct or incorrect previews prior to fixation (prior to crossing the boundary location). In addition, the manipulation utilized either a high or low frequency word in word n+1 location on the assumption that it would be more likely that n+2 preview effects could be obtained when word n+1 was high frequency. The primary findings were that there was no evidence for a preview benefit for word n+2 and no evidence for parafoveal-on-foveal effects when word n+1 is at least four letters long. We discuss implications for models of eye-movement control in reading.
Fluid intelligence belongs to that cluster of intellectual abilities evincing aging loss. To examine further the range of intellectual reserve available to aging individuals and the question of replicability in a new cultural and laboratory setting, 204 healthy older adults (mean age = 72 years; range = 60-86) participated in a short-term longitudinal training study. For experimental subjects, 10 sessions consisted of cognitive training involving two subability tests (Figural Relations, Induction) of fluid intelligence. The pattern of outcomes replicates and expands on earlier studies. Older adults have the reserve to evince substantial increases in levels of performance in fluid intelligence tests. Transfer of training, however, is narrow in scope. Training also increases accuracy of performance and the ability to solve more difficult test items. Difficulty level was estimated in a separate study, with a comparable sample of N = 112 elderly adults. Future research is suggested to examine whether intellectual reserve extends to near-maximum levels of performance.
Earlier testing-the-limits research on age differences in cognitive plasticity of a memory skill was extended by 18 additional assessment and training sessions to explore whether older adults were able to catch up with additional practice and improved training conditions. The focus was on the method of loci, which requires mental imagination to encode and retrieve lists of words from memory in serial order. Of the original 37 subjects, 35 (16 young, ranging from 20 to 30 years of age, and 19 older adults, ranging from 66 to 80 years of age) participated in the follow-up study. Older adults showed sizable performance deficits when compared with young adults and tested for limits of reserve capacity. The negative age difference was substantial, resistant to extensive practice, and applied to all subjects studied. The primary origin for this negative age difference may be a loss in the production and use of mental imagination for operations of the mind.
On the locus of training gains in research on the plasticity of fluid intelligence in old age
(1988)
Cognitive training research has shown that many older adults have a substantial reserve capacity in fluid intelligence. Little is known, however, about the locus of plasticity. Two studies were conducted to examine whether training gains in fluid abilities are critically dependent on experimenter-guided training and/or whether older adults can achieve similar improvements by themselves on the basis of cognitive skills already available in their repertoire. Several comparisons were made: (a) between test performances after trainer-guided training in ability-specific cognitive skills and after self-guided retest practice (without feedback), (b) between performances under speeded and power conditions of assessment, (c) between performances on easy and difficult items, and (d) between the relative numbers of correct and wrong answers. Results suggest that a large share of the training improvement shown by the elderly can plausibly be explained as the result of the activation and practice of cognitive skills already available in their repertoire. The results also have implications for educational practice, pointing to the appropriateness of strategies of self-directed learning for many elderly adults.
Cognitive research on the plasticity of fluid intelligence has demonstrated that older adults benefit markedly from guided practice in cognitive skills and problem-solving strategies. We examined to what degree older adults are capable by themselves of achieving similar practice gains, focusing on the fluid ability of figural relations. A sample of 72 healthy older adults was assigned randomly to three conditions: control, tutor-guided training, self-guided training. Training time and training materials were held constant for the two training conditions. Posttraining performances were analyzed using a transfer of training paradigm in terms of three indicators: correct responses, accuracy, and level of item difficulty. The training programs were effective and produced a significant but narrow band of within-ability transfer. However, there was no difference between the two training groups. Older adults were shown to be capable of producing gains by themselves that were comparable to those obtained following tutor-guided training in the nature of test-relevant cognitive skills.
Parsing costs as predictors of reading difficulty: An evaluation using the Potsdam Sentence Corpus
(2008)
The surprisal of a word on a probabilistic grammar constitutes a promising complexity metric for human sentence comprehension difficulty. Using two different grammar types, surprisal is shown to have an effect on fixation durations and regression probabilities in a sample of German readers’ eye movements, the Potsdam Sentence Corpus. A linear mixed-effects model was used to quantify the effect of surprisal while taking into account unigram and bigram frequency, word length, and empirically-derived word predictability; the so-called “early” and “late” measures of processing difficulty both showed an effect of surprisal. Surprisal is also shown to have a small but statistically non-significant effect on empirically-derived predictability itself. This work thus demonstrates the importance of including parsing costs as a predictor of comprehension difficulty in models of reading, and suggests that a simple identification of syntactic parsing costs with early measures and late measures with durations of post-syntactic events may be difficult to uphold.
Eye fixation durations during normal reading correlate with processing difficulty but the specific cognitive mechanisms reflected in these measures are not well understood. This study finds support in German readers’ eyefixations for two distinct difficulty metrics: surprisal, which reflects the change in probabilities across syntactic analyses as new words are integrated, and retrieval, which quantifies comprehension difficulty in terms of working memory constraints. We examine the predictions of both metrics using a family of dependency parsers indexed by an upper limit on the number of candidate syntactic analyses they retain at successive words. Surprisal models all fixation measures and regression probability. By contrast, retrieval does not model any measure in serial processing. As more candidate analyses are considered in parallel at each word, retrieval can account for the same measures as surprisal. This pattern suggests an important role for ranked parallelism in theories of sentence comprehension.
This study examined relationships among interest, achievement motivation, mathematical ability, the quality of experience when doing mathematics, and mathematics achievement. One hundred eight freshmen and sophomores (41 males, 67 females) completed interest ratings, an achievement motivation questionnaire, and the Preliminary Scholastic Aptitude Test. These assessments were followed by 1 week of experience sampling. Mathematics grades were available from the year before the study started, from the same year, and from the following 3 years. In addition, a measure of the students' course level in mathematics was included. The results showed that quality of experience when doing mathematics was mainly related to interest. Grades and course level were most strongly predicted by level of ability. Interest was found to contribute significantly to the prediction of grades for the second year and to the prediction of course level. Quality of experience was significantly correlated with grades but not course level.
This study investigated the relation between interest in four different subject areas (mathematics, biology, English, history) and the quality of experience in class. The strength of interest as a predictor of experience was contrasted with that of achievement motivation and scholastic ability. A total of208 highly able freshmen and sophomores completed interest ratings, an achievement motivation questionnaire, and the Preliminary Scholastic Aptitude Test (PSAT). These assessments were followed by one week of experience sampling. In addition, grades were available for the subject areas involved. The results showed that interest was a significant predictor of the experience of potency, intrinsic motivation, self-esteem, and perception of skill. Controlling for ability and achievement motivation did not decrease the strength of these relations. Achievement motivation and ability proved to be considerably weaker predictors of the quality of experience than was interest. In addition, interest contributed significantly to the prediction of grades in mathematics, biology, and history, but not English. The main results and some limitations of the study are discussed, and suggestions for future research are made.
We examined relations between eye movements (single-fixation durations) and RSVP-based event-related potentials (ERPs; N400’s) recorded during reading the same sentences in two independent experiments. Longer fixation durations correlated with larger N400 amplitudes. Word frequency and predictability of the fixated word as well as the predictability of the upcoming word accounted for this covariance in a path-analytic model. Moreover, larger N400 amplitudes entailed longer fixation durations on the next word, a relation accounted for by word frequency. This pattern offers a neurophysiological correlate for the lag-word frequency effect on fixation durations: Word processing is reliably expressed not only in fixation durations on currently fixated words, but also in those on subsequently fixated words.
Elderly adults (N = 116; average age = 73 years) were randomly assigned to one of four treatment groups varying in the amount of training and testing on fluid intelligence tests. They were compared before and after treatment on self-efficacy and utility beliefs for intelligence tests and everyday competence. Although both ability training and extended retest practice resulted in significant gains in objective test performance (Baltes, Kliegl, & Dittmann-Kohli, 1988), only ability training resulted in positive changes in self-efficacy. However, these changes were restricted to testrelated self-efficacy. Training had no impact on perceived utility or on everyday self-efficacy beliefs. Implications of the results are discussed with regard to interventions to increase intellectual self-efficacy in elderly persons.
Computational models such as E-Z Reader and SWIFT are ideal theoretical tools to test quantitatively our current understanding of eye-movement control in reading. Here we present a mathematical analysis of word skipping in the E-Z Reader model by semianalytic methods, to highlight the differences in current modeling approaches. In E-Z Reader, the word identification system must outperform the oculomotor system to induce word skipping. In SWIFT, there is competition among words to be selected as a saccade target. We conclude that it is the question of competitors in the “game” of word skipping that must be solved in eye movement research.
Mathematical models have become an important tool for understanding the control of eye movements during reading. Main goals of the development of the SWIFT model (Engbert, Longtin, & Kliegl, 2002)were to investigate the possibility of spatially distributed processing and to implement a general mechanism for all types of eye movements we observe in reading experiments. Here, we present an advanced version of SWIFT which integrates properties of the oculomotor system and effects of word recognition to explain many of the experimental phenomena faced in reading research. We propose new procedures for the estimation of model parameters and for the test of the model’s performance. A mathematical analysis of the dynamics of the SWIFT model is presented. Finally, within this framework, we present an analysis of the transition from parallel to serial processing.
We investigate the cognitive control in polyrhythmic hand movements as a model paradigm for bimanual coordination. Using a symbolic coding of the recorded time series, we demonstrate the existence of qualitative transitions induced by experimental manipulation of the tempo. A nonlinear model with delayed feedback control is proposed, which accounts for these dynamical transitions in terms of bifurcations resulting from variation of the external control parameter. Furthermore, it is shown that transitions can also be observed due to fluctuations in the timing control level. We conclude that the complexity of coordinated bimanual movements results from interactions between nonlinear control mechanisms with delayed feedback and stochastic timing components.
Team diversity
(2007)
Team diversity refers to the differences between team members on any attribute that may lead each single member of the group to perceive any other member of the group as being different from the self of this particular member. These attributes and perceptions refer to all dimensions people can differ on, such as age, gender, ethnicity, religious and functional background, personality, skills, abilities, beliefs, and attitudes.
The authors used the frameworks of reciprocal determinism and occupational socialization to study the effects of work characteristics (consisting of control and complexity of work) on personal initiative (PI)--mediated by control orientation (a 2nd-order factor consisting of control aspiration, perceived opportunity for control, and self-efficacy) and the reciprocal effects of PI on changes in work characteristics. They applied structural equation modeling to a longitudinal study with 4 measurement waves (N = 268) in a transitional economy: East Germany. Results confirm the model plus 1 additional, nonhypothesized effect. Work characteristics had a synchronous effect on PI via control orientation (full mediation). There were also effects of control orientation and of PI on later changes in work characteristics: As predicted, PI functioned as partial mediator, changing work characteristics in the long term (reciprocal effect); unexpectedly, there was a 2nd reciprocal effect of an additional lagged partial mediation of control orientation on later work characteristics.
Criticisms of the integration of psychotherapy-outcome research performed by Smith, Glass, and Miller (1980) are reviewed and answered. An attempt is made to account for the conflicting points of view in this disagreement in terms of certain issues that have engaged philosophers of science in the 20th century. It is hoped that, in passing, something useful is learned about research of many types on psychotherapy.
Eye movements in reading are sensitive to foveal and parafoveal word features. Whereas the influence of orthographic or phonological parafoveal information on gaze control is undisputed, there has been no reliable evidence for early parafoveal extraction of semantic information in alphabetic script. Using a novel combination of the gaze-contingent fast-priming and boundary paradigms, we demonstrate semantic preview benefit when a semantically related parafoveal word was available during the initial 125 ms of a fixation on the pre-target word (Experiments 1 and 2). When the target location was made more salient, significant parafoveal semantic priming occurred only at 80 ms (Experiment 3). Finally, with short primes only (20, 40, 60 ms) effects were not significant but numerically in the expected direction for 40 and 60 ms (Experiment 4). In all experiments, fixation durations on the target word increased with prime durations under all conditions. The evidence for extraction of semantic information from the parafoveal word favors an explanation in terms of parallel word processing in reading.
A package of five FORTRAN programs that provides for fast user-controlled analyses of reading eye fixations is described. The package requires the data to be in a fixation format and to be rescaled to screen dimensions. OLDEYE identifies six types of fixations and calculates descriptive statistics on each of them, on their associated saccades, and on their average pupil diameter. CONVRT represents the text as a string of words that can be coded according to experimentally relevant variables. PLTFIX prints fixation durations by letter position and sequence of occurrence. MODDAT is an interactive program for marking parts of the text in which the data quality is below acceptable standards. It also allows the correction of systematic errors due to calibration or drift. MATCH combines the outputs from OLDEYE, CONVRT, and MODDAT and calculates 11 dependent measures for every word. The output of MATCH is suitable for input to conventional multivariate statistical programs.
EMAN is an eye-movement analysis program that consists of four modules. The first module rescales eye positions to coordinates of the display. The second and third modules reduce data to a fixation format and identify areas of bad measurement by means of iterative passes over the data. In the fourth module iterative algorithms are employed for the identification of line numbers and for achieving congruence between fixations and display.
Manipulations of presentation time have a long history in research on the development of memory, with a number of paradoxical results deriving from methodological shortcomings as well as from insufficient theoretical specifications. After a look at some of the problems in earlier research, a psychophysics approach to investigate episodic memory functions is presented in which criterion-referenced manipulation of presentation time is used to estimate the effects of experimental manipulations and the effects of individual differences. Criterion'referenced presentation time (CRPT), defined as the time required to score at an a priori specified level of accuracy, is interpreted as a preliminary indicator of internal processing time. CRPTs are shown to be valid predictors of traditional measures of memory accuracy. Moreover, an extension of this psychophysics approach yields estimates of complete condition-specific timeaccuracy functions and of function-specific processing times (plus other parameters) for individual subjects. It is argued that both from a cognitive and a developmental perspective it is often advantageous to trade experimental equivalence in presentation times for functional equivalence in accuracy of performance; this applies not only to episodic memory processes.
Content: 1 Introduction 2 Theoretical background - Expertise and Reserve Capacity - Testing-the-Limits and Research on Expertise - Cognitive Processes and Knowledge - Age Comparisons of Peak Performance - Advantages of Constructed Versus Naturally Acquired Expertise - Hypotheses Related to Aging and Expertise: Toward Magnification and Identification of Age Differences and Aging-Sensitive Components 3 Theory-guided synthesis of memory expertise - Theoretical Framework - Procedure - Subjects - Results 4 Adaptivity testing of expert memory - Increasing Task Difficulty Within an Extant System - Selective Componential Interference - Toward the Study of Compensatory Processes 5 Conclusions
There has been a substantial increase in the percentage for publications with co-authors located in departments from different countries in 12 major journals of psychology. The results are evidence for a remarkable internationalization of psychological research, starting in the mid 1970s and increasing in rate at the beginning of the 1990s. This growth occurs against a constant number of articles with authors from the same country; it is not due to a concomitant increase in the number of co-authors per article. Thus, international collaboration in psychology is obviously on the rise.
We question the assumption of serial attention shifts and the assumption that saccade programs are initiated or canceled only after stage one of word identification. Evidence: (1) Fixation durations prior to skipped words are not consistently higher compared to those prior to nonskipped words. (2) Attentional modulation of microsaccade rate might occur after early visual processing. Saccades are probably triggered by attentional selection.
A model for correct recall and intrusions in cued recall of word lists is introduced. Intrusions are false responses that were correct in an earlier list. The model assumes 3 exclusive states for memory traces after encoding: with a list tag (i.e., with information about list origin), without list tags, and missing. Across lists, a trace can lose its list tag or its content. For retrieval, an optimal strategy of response selection was assumed. Younger and older laboratory-trained mnemonists participated in 2 experiments in which recall of permutations of a single word list across a single set of cues was held constant with individually adjusted presentation times. With correct recall equated to younger adults, older adults were more susceptible to intrusions. Age differences were restricted to model parameters estimating the probability of generation of list tags. Alternative accounts of age differences in context memory are discussed.
We examined individual differences in masked repetition priming by re-analyzing item-level response-time (RT) data from three experiments. Using a linear mixed model (LMM) with subjects and items specified as crossed random factors, the originally reported priming and word-frequency effects were recovered. In the same LMM, we estimated parameters describing the distributions of these effects across subjects. Subjects’ frequency and priming effects correlated positively with each other and negatively with mean RT. These correlation estimates, however, emerged only with a reciprocal transformation of RT (i.e., -1/RT), justified on the basis of distributional analyses. Different correlations, some with opposite sign, were obtained (1) for untransformed or logarithmic RTs or (2) when correlations were computed using within-subject analyses. We discuss the relevance of the new results for accounts of masked priming, implications of applying RT transformations, and the use of LMMs as a tool for the joint analysis of experimental effects and associated individual differences.
One undisputed finding of cognitive aging research is that the two main clusters of intellectual abilities, fluid and crystallized abilities, exhibit differential age-related trends. Healthy older adults perform less well than young adults on almost any task that requires fast responses or taps the fluid or mechanical aspects of intelligence; they show much less of a decline, if any at all, in tasks requiring the access of their crystallized knowledge (Baltes, 1987; Horn, 1970). These age-differential trends are the prototype of what we will refer to as a process dissociation. We will show how process dissociations can be established within the domain of fluid intelligence that pass more stringent tests than is customary in experimental research on cognitive aging.
A paradigm for the determination of time-accuracy functions (TAFs) for individual participants is introduced for two pairs of tasks differing in cognitive complexity, that is, word scanning vs cued recognition and figural scanning vs figural reasoning. TAFs can be used to test dissociations of cognitive processes beyond scale-related ambiguities of ordinal interactions. The approach is applied to examine the cognitive-aging hypothesis that a single slowing factor can account for interactions between adult age and cognitive task complexity. Twenty young and 20 old adults participated in 17 sessions. Presentation times required for 75, 87.5, and 100% accuracies were determined for each task with a variant of the psychophysical method of limits. Accuracy was fit by negatively accelerated functions of presentation time. State-trace analyses showed that different slowing factors are required for high- and low-complexity tasks. Relations to speed-accuracy and performance-resource functions are discussed.
Reading requires the orchestration of visual, attentional, language-related, and oculomotor processing constraints. This study replicates previous effects of frequency, predictability, and length of fixated words on fixation durations in natural reading and demonstrates new effects of these variables related to previous and next words. Results are based on fixation durations recorded from 222 persons, each reading 144 sentences. Such evidence for distributed processing of words across fixation durations challenges psycholinguistic immediacy-of-processing and eye-mind assumptions. Most of the time the mind processes several words in parallel at different perceptual and cognitive levels. Eye movements can help to unravel these processes.
Just and Carpenter (1980) presented a theory of reading based on eye fixations wherein their "psycholinguistic" variables accounted for 72% of the variance in word gaze durations. This comment raises some statistical and theoretical problems with their use of simultaneous regression analysis of gaze duration measures and with the resulting theory of reading. A major problem was the confounding of perceptual with psycholinguistic factors. New eye fixation data are presented to support these criticisms. Analysis of fixations within words revealed that most gaze duration variance was contributed by number of fixations rather than by fixation duration.
The present paper presents FORTRAN programs for reducing eye monitor output to fixations and for mapping these fixations to locations in the stimulus space. Flexible parameters of the fixations program allow for determination of the beginning and end of fixations under different resolution criteria and for indicating loss of accurate measurement. The calibration program is based on a rectangular 9-point fixation grid. Each fixation is rescaled within this grid by solving for a quadratic equation. The rescaled values are output in a flexibly determined rectangular coordinate system that is related to the stimulus space, such as character position on the screen. The programs were developed for the 60-Hz Applied Sciences corneal reflection eye monitor, but they may be used with a number of other systems.
Using the gaze-contingent boundary paradigm with the boundary placed after word n, we manipulated preview of word n+2 for fixations on word n. There was no preview benefit for first-pass reading on word n+2, replicating the results of Rayner, Juhasz, and Brown (2007), but there was a preview benefit on the three-letter word n+1, that is, after the boundary, but before word n+2. Additionally, both word n+1 and word n+2 exhibited parafoveal-on-foveal effects on word n. Thus, during a fixation on word n and given a short word n+1, some information is extracted from word n+2, supporting the hypothesis of distributed processing in the perceptual span.
Covert shifts of attention are usually reflected in RT differences between responses to valid and invalid cues in the Posner spatial attention task. Such inferences about covert shifts of attention do not control for microsaccades in the cue target interval. We analyzed the effects of microsaccade orientation on RTs in four conditions, crossing peripheral visual and auditory cues with peripheral visual and auditory discrimination targets. Reaction time was generally faster on trials without microsaccades in the cue-target interval. If microsaccades occurred, the target-location congruency of the last microsaccade in the cuetarget interval interacted in a complex way with cue validity. For valid visual cues, irrespective of whether the discrimination target was visual or auditory, target-congruent microsaccades delayed RT. For invalid cues, target-incongruent microsaccades facilitated RTs for visual target discrimination, but delayed RT for auditory target discrimination. No reliable effects on RT were associated with auditory cues or with the first microsaccade in the cue-target interval. We discuss theoretical implications on the relation about spatial attention and oculomotor processes.
Investigated the range and limits of cognitive reserve capacity as a general approach to the understanding of age differences in cognitive functioning. Testing-the-limits is proposed as a research strategy, Data are reported from 2 training studies involving old (65 to 83 years old) and young adults (19 to 29 years old). The training, designed to engineer an expertise in serial word recall, involved instruction and practice in the Method of Loci. Substantial plasticity was evident in pretest to posttest comparisons. Participants raised their serial word recall several times above that of pretest baseline. Age-differential limits in reserve capacity were evident in amount of training gain but not in responses to conditions of increased test difficulty (speeded stimulus presentation). Group differences were magnified by the training to such a degree that age distributions barely overlapped at posttests. Testing-the-limits offers promise in terms of understanding the extent and nature of cognitive plasticity.
This research has three interrelated foci: (i) engineering and testing a cognitive model of expert memory, (ii) the study of intellectual reserve capacity and (iii) the use of a testing-the-limits methodology to magnify and delineate age differences in limits of reserve capacity. The assumption is that age differences are magnified if studied at high levels of expertise or task difficulty. Results from age-comparative point training studies in expert memory are reported. Both young and elderly subjects reached high levels of skilled memory, confirming the model. However, despite this sizeable reserve capacity, when compared to IQ-eguivalent young adults, superior elderly showed decline in upper limits of function.
The focus of this study was on developmental reserve capacity in old age as revealed by testing-thelimits. We examined (a) the time course of training-related magnification of age differences in serial word recall and (b) predictability of training gains by pretest individual differences in cognitive abilities. In 20 sessions, young (n = 18) and old (n = 19) adults were taught to recall lists of 30 words using the Method of Loci. Age differences were magnified early in practice at long presentation times (20 s and 15 s per word) and later at 5 s per word. Regression of posttraining scores on various pretraining abilities revealed significant effects of digit symbol substitution. Also, consistent with the assumption of age-related decline in developmental reserve capacity, the unique variance in serial word recall associated with age group became more salient as the training unfolded.
This article outlines a research strategy for investigating, in a laboratory setting, the acquisition and the "limits" of a cognitive skill. Expert digit memory is used as an illustration. Two participants with initial average digit- and word-span memory were trained to memorize and reproduce strings of 80 to 90 digits presented at 10- to 1-sec rates. The instruction and training program, based on a theory of skilled memory, focused on three components: (a) acquisition of a mnemonic system (i.e., recoding digits into historical dates or concrete nouns), (b) use of a long-term memory retrieval structure (i.e., instruction in the Method of Loci), and (c) improvement in processing speed. After 86 experimental sessions, one participant recalled 90 random digits presented at a 1-sec rate. The digits were, however, constrained to be compatible with the participant's historical knowledge. The second participant recalled 80 random digits presented at a 5-sec rate after 70 sessions. Speed of encoding and retrieval processing was the only component that required extensive practice for skilled digit-memory acquisition.
Protanopie, deuteranopic and tritanopic neutral points were computed by determining the wavelength of light that produced the same quantal-catch ratio in the photopigments as that produced by a broad-band light of specified color temperature (range: 2 800—6 600 K). The Vos-Walraven primaries were used as photopigment absorption spectra that were screened by varying densities of ocular (0.5—2.5 at 400 nm) and macular (0.0—1.0 at 460 nm) pigmentation. The computations were carried out in 1 nm steps for the wavelength range of 380 to 720 nm. Most of the empirically determined mean, neutral-point loci in the literature were predicted from these computations to within 1—2nm when average ocular and macular pigment densities were used. The neutral-point range associated with the extreme values of the prereceptoral screening pigments was up to 25 nm for protanopes and deuteranopes and up to 13 nm for tritanopes.
Linear mixed models (LMMs) provide a still underused methodological perspective on combining experimental and individual-differences research. Here we illustrate this approach with two-rectangle cueing in visual attention (Egly et al., 1994). We replicated previous experimental cue-validity effects relating to a spatial shift of attention within an object (spatial effect), to attention switch between objects (object effect), and to the attraction of attention toward the display centroid (attraction effect), also taking into account the design-inherent imbalance of valid and other trials. We simultaneously estimated variance/covariance components of subject-related random effects for these spatial, object, and attraction effects in addition to their mean reaction times (RTs). The spatial effect showed a strong positive correlation with mean RT and a strong negative correlation with the attraction effect. The analysis of individual differences suggests that slow subjects engage attention more strongly at the cued location than fast subjects. We compare this joint LMM analysis of experimental effects and associated subject-related variances and correlations with two frequently used alternative statistical procedures
Objective: Childhood overweight is related to higher sensitivity for external food cues and less responsiveness towards internal satiety signals. Thus, cognitive psychological models assume an enhanced food attention bias underlying overeating behavior. Nevertheless, this question has only been sparsely investigated so far in younger children and it remains open whether restrained eating behavior plays a correlative role.
Methods: The present study investigated this specific information processing bias for food relevant stimuli in 34 overweight children between 6 and 10 years and 34 normal weight children matched for age, sex and socioeconomic status. Children completed a computerized Food Picture Interference task that assessed reaction time interference effects towards high and low calorie food pictures. Level of hunger and restrained eating were assessed via self-report.
Results: Results indicated that while finding no group difference in general processing speed or hunger level before the task, overweight children showed a higher attentional bias to food pictures than normal weight children. No effect of caloric density was found. However, surprisingly, the interference effect was negatively related to restrained eating in the overweight group only.
Conclusion: The found hypersensitivity for food cues independent of calorie content in overweight children appears to be related to dysfunctional eating, so that future research should consider strategies for attentional retraining.
The study investigates police officers' definitions of different rape situations. On the basis of the concept of 'cognitive prototypes' a methodology is developed which elicits consensual feature lists describing six rape situations: the typical, i.e. most common rape, the credible, dubious, and false rape complaints as weil as the rape experiences that are particularly hard vs. relatively easy for the victim to cope with. Qualitative analysis of the data allows the identification of the characteristic features defining the prototype of each rape situation, as weil as comparisons between the situations in terms of their common and distinctive features. It is shown that police officers, while sharing some of the widely held stereotypes about rape, generally perceive rape as a serious crime with long-term negative consequences for the victim. The quantitative analysis of prototype similarity between the six situations corroborates this conclusion by demonstrating a high similarity between the prototypes of the typical and the credible rape situation: In addition, subjects' general attitude towards rape victims is measured to compare the prototypes provided by respondents holding a positive vs. negative attitude towards rape victims. Findings for the two groups, however, reveal more similarities than differences in their descriptions of rape prototypes. The paper concludes with a discussion of the feasibility of the prototype approach presented in this study as a strategy for investigating implicit or common-sense theories of rape.
Personality and language
(1992)
Two field studies were conducted lo investigate the influence of observer and victim characteristics on attributions of victim and assailant responsibility in a rape case. In the first study, male and female subjects completed a measure of rape myth acceptance and were presented with a rape account after which they were asked to attribute responsibility to victim and assailant. In the second study, a new sample was asked to attribute responsibility to victim and assailant on the basis of one of two rape accounts in which victim's pre-rape behavior was manipulated. Results showed that both rape myth acceptance and victims' pre-rape behavior in influenced the degree of responsibility attributed to victims and assailants. No significant effects of subject gender were found. A more complex conceptualization is suggested of the link between observer and victim characteristics in social reactions to and evaluations of rape victims.
This volume reexamines the long-standing controversy about consistency in personality from a social psychological perspective. Barabara Krahé reconsiders the concept of consistency in terms of the systematic coherence of situation cognition and behaviour across situations. In the first part of the volume she undertakes an examination of recent social psychological models of situation cognition for their ability to clarify the principles underlying the perception of situational similarities. She then advances an individual-centred methedology in which nomothetic hypotheses about cross-situational coherence are tested on the basis of idiogrphic measurement of situation cognition and behaviour. In the second part of the volume, a series of empirical studies is reported which apply the individual-centred framework to the analysis of cross-situational coherence in the domain of anxiety-provoking situations. These studies are distinctive in that they extend over several months and use free-response data; they are based on idiographic sampling; and they employ explicit theoretical models to capture the central features of situation perception. The results demonstrate the benefits of integrating idiographic and nomothetic research strategies and exploiting the advantages of both perspectives.
The chapter presents a social psychological approach to the study of rape and sexual assault. Two issues are at the core of this approach: identifying the critical variables that affect attributions of responsibility to victims of rape. and exploring people's subjective definitions of rape, which may differ markedly from legal definitions. Following a review of the American evidence, a series of studies conductcd in two European countries is presented to address these issues.
Similar perceptions, similar reactions : an idiographic approach to cross-situational coherence
(1986)
The study provides a test of the interactionist concept of behavioral coherence across situations. Following an approach suggested by D. Magnusson and B. Ekehammer (1978, Journal of Research in Personality, 12, 41-48), individual correlations between self-reported behavior patterns and perceived similarity ratings across anxiety-provoking situations are obtained as measures of coherence. Unlike the Magnusson and Ekehammar study, the present measures of situation cognition and behavior are based on an idiographic sampling of anxiety-provoking situations. As a step toward concept-based measurement of situation cognition, further measures of perceived situational similarity are derived from the script, prototype, and social episodes models in social psychology and correlated with cross-situational similarity of behavioral profiles. It is demonstrated, in comparison with the findings of Magnusson and Ekehammar, that correlations between similarity ratings and behavior patterns increase substantially as a result of an idiographic sampling of situations. Moreover, it is shown that "script," "prototype," and "social episode" measures can be utilized to investigate the covariation between situation cognition and behavior, thus contributing to the clarification of the principles of cognitive representation of situational experience.
Content: 1 Persons and Situations: Cornerstones of Modern Personality Psychology 2 The Issue of Consistency in Personality:Sixty Years of Controversy 3 In Defence of Traits: New (and Revived) Perspectives 4 Modern Interactionism: An Alternative Framework for Personality Research 5 Implementing the Interactionist Programme:Three Exemplary Areas of Research 6 Improving Personality Measurement:The Nomothetic Road to the Study of Consistency 7 Personality Psychology is about Individuals:Rediscovering the Idiographic Legacy 8 The Role of the Situation in Personality Research 9 Personality Psychology in the Nineties: An Outlook
A study is reported which investigates the fakeability of personality profiles as measured by a standard personality inventory, the Freiburger Persönlichkeitsinventar (FPI). Unlike previous studies investigating laypersons' ability to fake a global good or bad impression, the present study examined individuals' ability to fake a specific personality profile. Four groups of subjects were instructed to fake their FPI scores so as to present themselves as high vs low scorers on the "social orientation" dimension or high vs low scorers on the "achievement orientation" dimension. The results clearly demonstrate that subjects are successful in manipulating their scores on the critical dimensions according to instruction. Moreover, they also fake related scales in a way that corroborates the intended image of a person with a high (or low) achievement (or social) orientation. The overall pattern of results reveals that subjects were able to distort their responses in a way that reflects their intuitive understanding of the dimensional structure of the FPI. The implications of the present findings for the use of personality inventories as valid diagnostic instruments are discussed.
Two studies are reported which examine the availability of scientific propositions of personality in lay conceptions of personality. It is argued from a social constructivist perspective that models of personality must derive from and refer to lay conceptions of persons. Eysenck's trait-type model of introversion-extroversion, containing specific propositions about phenotypic and genotypic differences between extraverts and introverts, was utilized as the scientific model of personality and its availability in lay conceptions of personality was examined in two studies. In the first study, subjects were presented with a genotypic characterization of either an introvert or an extravert target person and asked to infer corresponding phenotypic differences. In the second study, the inference process was reversed with subjects being asked to infer genotypic characteristics of introverts versus extraverts on the basis of phenotypic target person descriptions of the two types. Results from both studies show a high degree of accuracy in subjects' inferences, suggesting that laypersons have well-formed conceptions about personality containing 'higher-order' psychogenetic propositions corresponding to Eysenck's trait-type model. The implications of the findings for theory construction are discussed.
Explaining perceived cross-situational consistency : intuitive psychometrics or semantic mediation?
(1988)
Recent studies at the interface of social cognition and personality theory have stressed lay persons' ability to 'function as intuitive psychometricians' (Epstein and Teraspulsky, 1986). This research argues that lay persons not only show a substantial degree of accuracy in estimating cross-situational generality of behaviour, but also take into account principles of aggregation over time. In contrast, it is argued here that lay persons' perceptions of the degree of relatedness of different behaviours are mediated largely by the decontextualized semantic relationships between behavioural descriptions. This argument finds support in two experimental studies which demonstrate that the main source for subjects' judgments of 'cross-situational consistency' can be found in an abstracted knowledge base which is represented and mediated through language. The implications of the findings are drawn out for personality research. in particular with reference to domain and item selection in questionnaires for research.
The main points raised by Borkenau against our challenge of the 'intuitive psychometrics' view of personality judgements are discussed, in particular his example of the link between school grades and intelligence. It is argued that the semantic similarity interpretation advanced in our paper is more adequate and more parsimonious than explanations in terms of psychometric reasoning.
Reading is a complex cognitive task based on the analyses of visual stimuli. Due to the physiology of the eye, only a small number of letters around the fixation position can be extracted with high visual acuity, while the visibility of words and letters outside this so-called foveal region quickly drops with increasing eccentricity. As a consequence, saccadic eye movements are needed to repeatedly shift the fovea to new words for visual word identification during reading. Moreover, even within a foveated word fixation positions near the word center are superior to other fixation positions for efficient word recognition (O’Regan, 1981; Brysbaert, Vitu, and Schroyens, 1996). Thus, most reading theories assume that readers aim specifically at word centers during reading (for a review see Reichle, Rayner, & Pollatsek, 2003). However, saccades’ landing positions within words during reading are in fact systematically modulated by the distance of the launch site from the word center (McConkie, Kerr, Reddix, & Zola, 1988). In general, it is largely unknown how readers identify the center of upcoming target words and there is no computational model of the sensorimotor translation of the decision for a target word into spatial word center coordinates. Here we present a series of three studies which aim at advancing the current knowledge about the computation of saccade target coordinates during saccade planning in reading. Based on a large corpus analyses, we firstly identified word skipping as a further factor beyond the launch-site distance with a likewise systematic and surprisingly large effect on within-word landing positions. Most importantly, we found that the end points of saccades after skipped word are shifted two and more letters to the left as compared to one-step saccades (i.e., from word N to word N+1) with equal launch-site distances. Then we present evidence from a single saccade experiment suggesting that the word-skipping effect results from highly automatic low-level perceptual processes, which are essentially based on the localization of blank spaces between words. Finally, in the third part, we present a Bayesian model of the computation of the word center from primary sensory measurements of inter-word spaces. We demonstrate that the model simultaneously accounts for launch-site and saccade-type contingent modulations of within-word landing positions in reading. Our results show that the spatial saccade target during reading is the result of complex estimations of the word center based on incomplete sensory information, which also leads to specific systematic deviations of saccades’ landing positions from the word center. Our results have important implications for current reading models and experimental reading research.
Using a testing-the-limits paradigm, the authors investigated the modulation (attenuation) o f negative adult age differences in imagery-based memory performance as a function of professional expertise. Six older graphic designers, 6 normal older adults, 6 younger graphic design students, and 6 normal younger students participated in a 19-session program with a cued-recall variant of the Method of Loci. Older graphic designers attained higher levels o f mnemonic performance than normal older adults but were not able to reach younger adults' level of performance; a perfect separation of age groups was achieved. Spatial visualization was a good predictor of mnemonic performance. Results suggest that negative adult age differences in imagery-based memory are attenuated but not eliminated by the advantages associated with criterion-relevant ability (talent) and experience.
Past research suggests that age differences in measures of cognitive speed contribute to differences in intellectual functioning between young and old adults. To investigate whether speed also predicts age-related differences in intellectual performance beyond age 70 years, tests indicating 5 intellectual abilities—speed, reasoning, memory, knowledge, and fluency—were administered to a close-to-representative, age-stratified sample of old and very old adults. Age trends of all 5 abilities were well described by a negative linear function. The speed-mediated effect of age fully explained the relationship between age and both the common and the specific variance of the other 4 abilities. Results offer strong support for the speed hypothesis of old age cognitive decline but need to be qualified by further research on the reasons underlying age differences in measures of speed.
Linguistic and psycholinguistic accounts based on the study of English may prove unreliable as guides to sentence processing in even closely related languages. The present study illustrates this claim in a test of sentence interpretation by German-, Italian-, and English-speaking adults. Subjects were presented with simple transitive sentences in which contrasts of (1) word order, (2) agreement, (3) animacy, and (4) stress were systematically varied. For each sentence, subjects were asked to state which of the two nouns was the actor. The results indicated that Americans relied overwhelming on word order, using a first-noun strategy in NVN and a second-noun strategy in VNN and NNV sentences. Germans relied on both agreement and animacy. Italians showed extreme reliance on agreement cues. In both German and Italian, stress played a role in terms of complex interactions with word order and agreement. The findings were interpreted in terms of the “competition model” of Bates and MacWhinney (in H. Winitz (Ed.), Annals of the New York Academy of Sciences Conference on Native and Foreign Language Acquisition. New York: New York Academy of Sciences, 1982) in which cue validity is considered to be the primary determinant of cue strength. According to this model, cues are said to be high in validity when they are also high in applicability and reliability.
Sequential and coordinative complexity : age-based processing limitations in figural transformations
(1993)
Dimensions of cognitive complexity in figural transformations were examined in the context of adult age differences. Sequential complexity was manipulated through figural transformations of single objects in a multiple-object array. Coordinative complexity was induced through spatial or nonspatial transformations of the entire array. Results confirmed the prediction that age-related slowing is larger in coordinative complexity than in sequential complexity conditions. The effect was stable across 8 sessions (Experiment 1), was obtained when age groups were equated in accuracy with criterion-referenced testing (Experiment 2), and was corroborated by age-differential probabilities of error types (Experiments 1 and 2). A model is proposed attributing age effects under coordinative complexity to 2 factors: (a) basic-level slowing and (b) time-consuming reiterations through the processing sequence due to age-related working memory failures.
Parafoveal Load of Word N+1 Modulates Preprocessing Effectivenessof Word N+2 in Chinese Reading
(2010)
Preview benefits (PBs) from two words to the right of the fixated one (i.e., word N+2)and associated parafoveal-on-foveal effects are critical for proposals of distributed lexical processing during reading. This experiment examined parafoveal processing during reading of Chinese sentences, using a boundary manipulation of N+2-word preview with low- and high-frequency words N+1. The main findings were (a) an identity PB for word N+2 that was (b) primarily observed when word N+1 was of high frequency (i.e., an interaction between frequency of word N+1 and PB for word N+2), and (c) a parafoveal-on-foveal frequency effect of word N+1 for fixation durations on word N. We discuss implications for theories of serial attention shifts and parallel distributed processing of words during reading.
The development of phonetic codes in memory of 141 pairs of normal and disabled readers from 7.8 to 16.8 years of age was tested with a task adapted from L. S. Mark, D. Shankweiler, I. Y. Liberman, and C. A. Fowler (Memory & Cognition, 1977, 5, 623–629) that measured false-positive errors in recognition memory for foil words which rhymed with words in the memory list versus foil words that did not rhyme. Our younger subjects replicated Mark et al., showing a larger difference between rhyming and nonrhyming false-positive errors for the normal readers. The older disabled readers' phonetic effect was comparable to that of the younger normal readers, suggesting a developmental lag in their use of phonetic coding in memory. Surprisingly, the normal readers' phonetic effect declined with age in the recognition task, but they maintained a significant advantage across age in the auditory WISC-R digit span recall test, and a test of phonological nonword decoding. The normals' decline with age in rhyming confusion may be due to an increase in the precision of their phonetic codes.
Contents: I. Introduction II. Word Coding Processes A. Word Recognition B. Orthographic Coding C. Phonological Coding III. Eye Monitor and Reading Task IV. Group Differences V. Dimensions of Individual Differences A. Regressive Fixation Index and Word Recognition B. Regressive Fixation Index and IQ C. Regressive Fixation Index and Saccade Length D. Regressive Fixation Index and Relative Phonological Skill VI. Multiple Regression Models of Individual Differences A. Disabled Readers in the Aloud Condition B. Disabled Readers in the Silent Condition C. Normal Readers in Silent and Aloud Conditions VII. Conclusions
Dyslexic and normal readers' eye movements were compared while tracking a moving fixation point and in reading. Contrary to previous reports, the dyslexic and normal readers did not differ in their number of saccades, percentage of regressions, or stability of fixations in the tracking task. Thus, defective oculomotor control was not associated with or a causal factor in dyslexia, and the dyslexics' abnormal eye movements in reading must be related to differences in higher cognitive processes. However, individual differences in oculmotor efficiency, independent of reading ability, were found within both the dyslexic and normal groups, and these differences were correlated in reading and tracking tasks.
I. Introduction A. Theoretical Framework and Selection of Tests B. Related Studies of Reading Disability Subtypes C. Overview of Specific Questions and Article Outline II. Selection criteria nd performance on standardized measures III. Group differences between disabled and normal readers A. Phonetic Memory B. Picture-Naming Speed and Automatic Responses to Print C. Phonological and Orthographic Skill D. Easy Regular and Exception Word Reading E. Difficult Regular and Exception Words IV. Individual diferences in reading disability A. Phonological Skill, Orthographic Skill, and the Regularity Effect B. Phonological Skill, Orthographic Skill, and Spelling Errors V. Eye movement reading style A. The "Plodder-Explorer" Dimension of Eye Movement Reading Style B. Eye Movements, Coding Skills, and Spelling Ratings C. Verbal Intelligence and the Plodder-Explorer Dimension D. Eye Movements in a Nonreading Task and the "Visual-Spatial" Subtype VI. Distribution and etiology of reading disabilities A. Distribution Issues B. Etiology of Reading Disabilities VII. Summary and new directions in research
Following up on research suggesting an age-related reduction in the rightward extent of the perceptual span during reading (Rayner, Castelhano, & Yang, 2009), we compared old and young adults in an N+2-boundary paradigm in which a nonword preview of word N+2 or word N+2 itself is replaced by the target word once the eyes cross an invisible boundary located after word N. The intermediate word N+1 was always three letters long. Gaze durations on word N+2 were significantly shorter for identical than nonword N+2 preview both for young and for old adults with no significant difference in this preview benefit. Young adults, however, did modulate their gaze duration on word N more strongly than old adults in response to the difficulty of the parafoveal word N+1. Taken together, the results suggest a dissociation of preview benefit and parafoveal-on-foveal effect. Results are discussed in terms of age-related decline in resilience towards distributed processing while simultaneously preserving the ability to integrate parafoveal information into foveal processing. As such, the present results relate to proposals of regulatory compensation strategies older adults use to secure an overall reading speed very similar to that of young adults.
When the eyes fixate at a point in a visual scene, small saccades rapidly shift the image on the retina. The effect of these microsaccades on the latency of subsequent large-scale saccades may be twofold. First, microsaccades are associated with an enhancement of visual perception. Their occurrence during saccade target perception should, thus, decrease saccade latencies. On the other hand, microsaccades likely indicate activity in fixation-related oculomotor neurons. These represent competitors to saccade-related cells in the interplay of gaze holding and shifting. Consequently, an increase in saccade latencies after microsaccades would be expected. Here, we present evidence for both aspects of microsaccadic impact on saccade latency. In a delayed response task, participants made saccades to visible or memorized targets. First, microsaccade occurrence up to 50 ms before target disappearance correlated with 18 ms (or 8%) faster saccades to memorized targets. Second, if microsaccades occurred shortly (i.e., < 150 ms) before a saccade was required, saccadic reaction times in visual and memory trials were increased by about 40 ms (or 16%). Hence, microsaccades can have opposite consequences for saccade latencies, pointing at a differential role of these fixational eye movements in preparation of motor programs.
It sometimes happens that we finish reading a passage of text just to realize that we have no idea what we just read. During these episodes of mindless reading our mind is elsewhere yet the eyes still move across the text. The phenomenon of mindless reading is common and seems to be widely recognized in lay psychology. However, the scientific investigation of mindless reading has long been underdeveloped. Recent progress in research on mindless reading has been based on self-report measures and on treating it as an all-or-none phenomenon (dichotomy-hypothesis). Here, we introduce the levels-of-inattention hypothesis proposing that mindless reading is graded and occurs at different levels of cognitive processing. Moreover, we introduce two new behavioral paradigms to study mindless reading at different levels in the eye-tracking laboratory. First (Chapter 2), we introduce shuffled text reading as a paradigm to approximate states of weak mindless reading experimentally and compare it to reading of normal text. Results from statistical analyses of eye movements that subjects perform in this task qualitatively support the ‘mindless’ hypothesis that cognitive influences on eye movements are reduced and the ‘foveal load’ hypothesis that the response of the zoom lens of attention to local text difficulty is enhanced when reading shuffled text. We introduce and validate an advanced version of the SWIFT model (SWIFT 3) incorporating the zoom lens of attention (Chapter 3) and use it to explain eye movements during shuffled text reading. Simulations of the SWIFT 3 model provide fully quantitative support for the ‘mindless’ and the ‘foveal load’ hypothesis. They moreover demonstrate that the zoom lens is an important concept to explain eye movements across reading and mindless reading tasks. Second (Chapter 4), we introduce the sustained attention to stimulus task (SAST) to catch episodes when external attention spontaneously lapses (i.e., attentional decoupling or mind wandering) via the overlooking of errors in the text and via signal detection analyses of error detection. Analyses of eye movements in the SAST revealed reduced influences from cognitive text processing during mindless reading. Based on these findings, we demonstrate that it is possible to predict states of mindless reading from eye movement recordings online. That cognition is not always needed to move the eyes supports autonomous mechanisms for saccade initiation. Results from analyses of error detection and eye movements provide support to our levels-of-inattention hypothesis that errors at different levels of the text assess different levels of decoupling. Analyses of pupil size in the SAST (Chapter 5) provide further support to the levels of inattention hypothesis and to the decoupling hypothesis that off-line thought is a distinct mode of cognitive functioning that demands cognitive resources and is associated with deep levels of decoupling. The present work demonstrates that the elusive phenomenon of mindless reading can be vigorously investigated in the cognitive laboratory and further incorporated in the theoretical framework of cognitive science.
How distinct implicit and explicit motive systems differ has long been unclear. Schultheiss' (2001) information processing account of implicit motive arousal hypothesized that implicit motives respond to nonverbal stimuli to influence non-declarative measures of motivation and that explicit motives respond to verbal stimuli to influence declarative measures of motivation. Moreover, in individuals high in referential competence, i.e., with the ability to quickly translate non-verbal stimuli into a verbal representation, implicit motives are thought to respond to verbal stimuli and influence declarative measures of motivation and explicit motives are thought to respond to nonverbal stimuli and to influence non-declarative measures of motivation. The present study tested these hypotheses by assessing liking ratings as a declarative response format and an affective stroop task as a non-declarative response format using emotion words as verbal and emotional facial expressions as non-verbal stimuli. Individual power, affiliation, and achievement motive dispositions were assessed via the Picture Story Excercise for implicit motives and via questionnaires for explicit motives. Referential competence was assessed via a colour-naming/-reading task. I found that as expected explicit and implicit motives overall were not correlated across subjects. Moreover, implicit and explicit motives affected declarative and non-declarative responses for verbal and non-verbal stimuli. As predicted, however, implicit motives responded to verbal stimuli and influenced declarative responses more strongly for individuals high compared to those low in referential competence. Likewise, explicit motive effects were moderated by referential competence in some - but not all - of the predicted conditions. These results show that implicit and explicit motives can influence declarative and non-declarative responses to verbal and non-verbal stimuli. They support the hypothesis that referential processing is needed for implicit motives to respond to verbal stimuli and influence declarative response formats, and they partly support the hypothesis that referential processing plays a role for the influence of explicit motives. Results for explicit motives may suggest that new measures are needed to assess the referential competence to translate verbal stimuli into non-verbal representations. Overall, the findings provide support to the information processing account of implicit motive arousal by Schultheiss' (2001), suggesting that a non-verbal and non-declarative implicit motive system and a distinct verbal and declarative explicit motive system interact via referential processing, i.e., by translating information between representational formats.
Motivational conditions have been thus far largely neglected by contemporary theoretical approaches in knowledge psychology. The present article attempts to demonstrate the necessity for the greater integration of both. Suggestions are made regarding the choice and conceptualization of relevant motivational factors. Two possible groups of factors can be distinguished: (1) motivational factors of personality, and (2) motivational effects of action. Available theoretical approaches (e.g., the "levels of processing" approach) and examples are used to clarify the potential effects of these factors on the acquisition and representation of knowledge. Finally, a review is made of empirical studies allowing confirmatory allegations about the posited relationships between motivational factors and processes related to knowledge. This review reveals substantial research deficits on this topic.
The influence of topic interest, prior knowledge, and cognitive capabilities on text comprehension
(1990)
The present study investigated the influence of topic interest on the comprehension of texts. The primary goals of the study were as follows: (1) to formulate a new definition of the concept "topic interest", (2) to control for cognitive capabilities (intelligence, short-term memory) and prior knowledge, and(3) to assess different levels of comprehension. A total of 53 male students, majoring in computer science, took part in the study. Subjects were presented with a text on "Psychology of Emotion". Prior to reading the text, they were asked to indicate their level of interest in the topic. After reading the text, subjects were given a test of comprehension involving open-ended questions. The questions were designed to represent different levels of comprehension. The results show that the effect of topic interest on text comprehension is especially pronounced when a deeper level of understanding is required. Surprisingly, prior knowledge had no effect on the level of comprehension. Verbal intelligence, on the other hand, showed a clear effect on comprehension, especially in answering questions of simple knowledge. The effects of interest and verbal intelligence could be shown to be independent of one another.
Prevalence and Predictors of Sexual Aggression Victimization and Perpetration in Chile and Turkey
(2017)
Background: Although sexual aggression is recognized as a serious issue worldwide, the current knowledge base is primarily built on evidence from Western countries, particularly the U.S. For the present doctoral research, Chile and Turkey were selected based on theoretical considerations to examine the prevalence as well as predictors of sexual aggression victimization and perpetration. The first aim of this research project was to systematically review the available evidence provided by past studies on this topic within each country. The second aim was to empirically study the prevalence of experiencing and engaging in sexual aggression since the age of consent among college students in Chile and Turkey. The third aim was to conduct cross-cultural analyses examining pathways to victimization and perpetration based on a two-wave longitudinal design.
Methods: This research adopted a gender-inclusive approach by considering men and women in both victim and perpetrator roles. For the systematic reviews, multiple-stage literature searches were performed, and based on a predefined set of eligibility criteria, 28 studies in Chile and 56 studies in Turkey were identified for inclusion. A two-wave longitudinal study was conducted to examine the prevalence and predictors of sexual aggression among male and female college students in Chile and Turkey. Self-reports of victimization and perpetration were assessed with a Chilean Spanish or Turkish version of the Sexual Aggression and Victimization Scale. Two path models were conceptualized in which participants’ risky sexual scripts for consensual sex, risky sexual behavior, sexual self-esteem, sexual assertiveness, and religiosity were assessed at T1 and used as predictors of sexual aggression victimization and perpetration at T2 in the following 12 months, mediated through past victimization or perpetration, respectively. The models differed in that sexual assertiveness was expected to serve different functions for victimization (refusal assertiveness negatively linked to victimization) and perpetration (initiation assertiveness positively linked to perpetration).
Results: Both systematic reviews revealed that victimization was addressed by all included studies, but data on perpetration was severely limited. A great heterogeneity not only in victimization rates but also in predictors was found, which may be attributed to a lack of conceptual and methodological consistency across studies. The empirical analysis of the prevalence of sexual aggression in Chile revealed a victimization rate of 51.9% for women and 48.0% for men, and a perpetration rate of 26.8% for men and 16.5% for women. In the Turkish original data, victimization was reported by 77.6% of women and 65.5% of men, whereas, again, lower rates were found for perpetration, with 28.9% of men and 14.2% of women reporting at least one incident. The cross-cultural analyses showed, as expected, that risky sexual scripts informed risky sexual behavior, and thereby indirectly increased the likelihood of victimization and perpetration at T2 in both samples. More risky sexual scripts were also linked to lower levels of refusal assertiveness in both samples, indirectly increasing the vulnerability to victimization at T2. High sexual self-esteem decreased the probability of victimization at T2 through higher refusal assertiveness as well as through less risky sexual behavior also in both samples, whereas it increased the odds of perpetration at T2 via higher initiation assertiveness in the Turkish sample only. Furthermore, high religiosity decreased the odds of perpetration and victimization at T2 through less risky sexual scripts and less risky sexual behavior in both samples. It reduced the vulnerability to victimization through less risky sexual scripts and higher refusal assertiveness in the Chilean sample only. In the Turkish sample only, it increased the odds of perpetration and victimization through lower sexual self-esteem.
Conclusions: The findings showed that sexual aggression is a widespread problem in both Chile and Turkey, contributing cross-cultural evidence to the international knowledge base and indicating the clear need for implementing policy measures and prevention strategies in each country. Based on the results of the prospective analyses, concrete implications for intervention efforts are discussed.
This paper presents a new methodology for examining the phenomenon of subitizing. Subjects were presented with a standard numerosity-detection task but for a range of presentation times to allow Task-Accuracy Functions to be computed for individual subjects. The data appear to show a continuous change in processing for numerosities from 2 to 5 when the data are aggregated across subjects. At the level of individual subjects, there appear to be qualitative shifts in enumeration processing after 3 or 4 objects. The approach used in this experiment may be used to test the claim that subitizing is a distinct enumeration process that can be used for small numbers of objects.
To investigate the relationship between implicit psychological hypotheses and explicit empirical findings, summaries of twenty published studies on attitude-behaviour consistency were presented to a sample of forty-eight psychology undergraduates. Subjects were asked to estimate the percentage of agreement between attitudes and behaviour obtained by each study. Correlations between subjects' covariation judgements and empirically obtained attitude-behaviour consistencies were minimal and nonsignificant. Results are discussed in the light of more recent research on attitudebehaviour relationship.
We present an approach to generate (multivariate) twin surrogates (TS) based on recurrence properties. This technique generates surrogates which correspond to an independent copy of the underlying system, i. e. they induce a trajectory of the underlying system starting at different initial conditions. We show that these surrogates are well suited to test for complex synchronisation and exemplify this for the paradigmatic system of R¨ossler oscillators. The proposed test enables to assess the statistical relevance of a synchronisation analysis from passive experiments which are typical in natural systems.
In this paper we present an approach to recover the dynamics from recurrences of a system and then generate (multivariate) twin surrogate (TS) trajectories. In contrast to other approaches, such as the linear-like surrogates, this technique produces surrogates which correspond to an independent copy of the underlying system, i. e. they induce a trajectory of the underlying system visiting the attractor in a different way. We show that these surrogates are well suited to test for complex synchronization, which makes it possible to systematically assess the reliability of synchronization analyses. We then apply the TS to study binocular fixational movements and find strong indications that the fixational movements of the left and right eye are phase synchronized. This result indicates that there might be one centre only in the brain that produces the fixational movements in both eyes or a close link between two centres.
We investigated the role of training-induced knowledge Schemas and encoding time on adult age differences in recall. High-plausible (schema coherent) words were recalled better than lowplausible (schema discrepant) words in both age groups. This difference was larger for old-adults than for young adults for presentation times ranging from 3 s to 11 s per word. After equating participants in overall recall (i.e., at 50% correct) by dynamic adjustment of presentation time, old adults again showed a stronger plausibility effect than young adults when recall was above criterion. In a second experiment with self-paced encoding, old adults used more time than young adults only for low-plausible pairs, yet they still remembered fewer of them. In a third experiment, both age groups preferred to imagine high- rather than low-plausible words, but this effect was more pronounced in old adults. The results indicate that, compared with young adults, old adults find it particularly difficult to form elaborative mental images of schema-discrepant information under a wide variety of time constraints during encoding. Results are discussed in relation to explanations based on age-related mental slowing.
It has recently been demonstrated that the presentation of a rare target in a visual oddball paradigm induces a prolonged inhibition of microsaccades. In the field of electrophysiology, the amplitude of the P300 component in event-related potentials (ERP) has been shown to be sensitive to the stimulus category (target vs. non target) of the eliciting stimulus, its overall probability, and the preceding stimulus sequence. In the present study we further specify the functional underpinnings of the prolonged microsaccadic inhibition in the visual oddball task, showing that the stimulus category, the frequency of a stimulus and the preceding stimulus sequence influence microsaccade rate. Furthermore, by co-recording ERPs and eye-movements, we were able to demonstrate that, despite being largely sensitive to the same experimental manipulation, the amplitude of P300 and the microsaccadic inhibition predict each other very weakly, and thus constitute two independent measures of the brain’s response to rare targets in the visual oddball paradigm.
Content: Synopsis The Attitudes toward Rape Victims Scale: Psychometric Data from 14 Countries Scale Construction and Validation - Study One: Preliminary Analyses - Study Two: Test-Retest Reliability - Study Three: Construct Validity Cross-cultural Extensions - United States - United Kingdom - Germany - New Zealand - Canada - West Indies - Israel - Turkey - India - Hong Kong - Malaysia - Zimbabwe - Mexico - Metric Equivalence Discussion
The spectral efficiency of blackness induction was measured in three normal trichromatic observers and in one deuteranomalous observer. The psychophysical task was to adjust the radiance of a monochromatic 60–120′ annulus until a 45′ central broadband field just turned black and its contour became indiscriminable from a dark surrounding gap that separated it from the annulus. The reciprocal of the radiance required to induce blackness with annulus wavelengths between 420 and 680 nm was used to define a spectral-efficiency function for the blackness component of the achromatic process. For each observer, the shape of this blackness-sensitivity function agreed with the spectral-efficiency function based on heterochromatic flicker photometry when measured with the same 60–120′ annulus. Both of these functions matched the Commission Internationale de l'Eclairage Vλ function except at short wavelengths. Ancillary measurements showed that the latter difference in sensitivity can be ascribed to nonuniformities of preretinal absorption, since the annular field excluded the central 60′ of the fovea. Thus our evidence indicates that, at least to a good first approximation, induced blackness is inversely related to the spectral-luminosity function. These findings are consistent with a model that separates the achromatic and the chromatic pathways.
The optical density of human macular pigment was measured for 50 observers ranging in age from 10 to 90 years. The psychophysical method required adjusting the radiance of a 1°, monochromatic light (400–550 nm) to minimize flicker (15 Hz) when presented in counterphase with a 460 nm standard. This test stimulus was presented superimposed on a broad-band, short-wave background. Macular pigment density was determined by comparing sensitivity under these conditions for the fovea, where macular pigment is maximal, and 5° temporally. This difference spectrum, measured for 12 observers, matched Wyszecki and Stiles's standard density spectrum for macular pigment. To study variation in macular pigment density for a larger group of observers, measurements were made at only selected spectral points (460, 500 and 550 nm). The mean optical density at 460 nm for the complete sample of 50 subjects was 0.39. Substantial individual differences in density were found (ca. 0.10–0.80), but this variation was not systematically related to age.
Interdisciplinary studies on information structure : ISIS ; Working papers of the SFB 632 - Vol. 5
(2006)
In this paper we compare the behaviour of adverbs of frequency (de Swart 1993) like usually with the behaviour of adverbs of quantity like for the most part in sentences that contain plural definites. We show that sentences containing the former type of Q-adverb evidence that Quantificational Variability Effects (Berman 1991) come about as an indirect effect of quantification over situations: in order for quantificational variability readings to arise, these sentences have to obey two newly observed constraints that clearly set them apart from sentences containing corresponding quantificational DPs, and that can plausibly be explained under the assumption that quantification over (the atomic parts of) complex situations is involved. Concerning sentences with the latter type of Q-adverb, on the other hand, such evidence is lacking: with respect to the constraints just mentioned, they behave like sentences that contain corresponding quantificational DPs. We take this as evidence that Q-adverbs like for the most part do not quantify over the atomic parts of sum eventualities in the cases under discussion (as claimed by Nakanishi and Romero (2004)), but rather over the atomic parts of the respective sum individuals.