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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.
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.
Cognitive resources contribute to balance control. There is evidence that mental fatigue reduces cognitive resources and impairs balance performance, particularly in older adults and when balance tasks are complex, for example when trying to walk or stand while concurrently performing a secondary cognitive task.
We conducted a systematic literature search in PubMed (MEDLINE), Web of Science and Google Scholar to identify eligible studies and performed a random effects meta-analysis to quantify the effects of experimentally induced mental fatigue on balance performance in healthy adults. Subgroup analyses were computed for age (healthy young vs. healthy older adults) and balance task complexity (balance tasks with high complexity vs. balance tasks with low complexity) to examine the moderating effects of these factors on fatigue-mediated balance performance.
We identified 7 eligible studies with 9 study groups and 206 participants. Analysis revealed that performing a prolonged cognitive task had a small but significant effect (SMDwm = −0.38) on subsequent balance performance in healthy young and older adults. However, age- and task-related differences in balance responses to fatigue could not be confirmed statistically.
Overall, aggregation of the available literature indicates that mental fatigue generally reduces balance in healthy adults. However, interactions between cognitive resource reduction, aging and balance task complexity remain elusive.
Theoretischer Hintergrund: Eine frühzeitige Gesundheitsförderung wird als wesentliches Bestimmungsstück zur Prävention körperlicher und psychischer Erkrankungen angesehen. Als ideales Setting für eine gezielte Gesundheitsförderung wird der Lebensraum Kita angesehen. Fragestellungen: Welche Aktivitäten zur Gesundheitsförderung gibt es bisher in den Brandenburger Kitas? Spielt hier die Bildungsnähe/-ferne der betreuten Kinder eine Rolle? In welchen Bereichen gibt es den größten Fort- und Weiterbildungsbedarf der Mitarbeiterinnen? Methode: Untersuchung einer Stichprobe von 269 Brandenburger Kitas mit insgesamt 21 653 betreuten Kindern. Erfassung struktureller Rahmenbedingungen, pädagogischer Konzepte, Aktivitäten zur Gesundheitsförderung, Partizipation und Fortbildungsbedarf. Ergebnisse: Es zeigte sich eine nachhaltige Umsetzung von Aktivitäten und große Kreativität. Dabei standen vor allem Angebote der Bereiche Bewegung und Ernährung im Zentrum. Psychosoziale Themen wurden seltener als Schwerpunkt benannt, wohingegen hierfür der größte Fortbildungbedarf (Ranking der Fortbildungsthemen: 1. Psychosoziale Entwicklung, 2. Psychische Probleme, 3. Stressbewältigung) vorlag.
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.
The Covid-19 pandemic imposed new constraints on empirical research and forced researchers to transfer from traditional laboratory research to the online environment. This study tested the validity of a web-based episodic memory paradigm by comparing participants’ memory performance for trustworthy and untrustworthy facial stimuli in a supervised laboratory setting and an unsupervised web setting. Consistent with previous results, we observed enhanced episodic memory for untrustworthy compared to trustworthy faces. Most importantly, this memory bias was comparable in the online and the laboratory experiment, suggesting that web-based procedures are a promising tool for memory research.
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.