‘He's got his father's bias’: Parental influence on weight bias in young children

Our aim was to explore the role of parents in the transmission of stereotypical body size attitudes and awareness of weight loss strategies to preschool children. Participants were 279 3‐year‐old children and their parents, who provided data at baseline and 1 year later. Parents completed self‐report body size attitude and dieting measures. Child weight bias and awareness of weight loss strategies were assessed through interview. Over time, negative associations with large bodies and awareness of weight loss strategies increased. Fathers’ attitudes prospectively predicted boys’ weight bias and awareness of weight loss strategies. Among girls, parental attitudes were less predictive. Findings confirm the importance of fathers in the development of boys’ body attitudes and inform prevention programmes.     

How big is this sound? Crossmodal association between pitch and size in infants

We examined 4- and 6-month-old infants’ sensitivity to the perceptual association between pitch and object size. Crossmodal correspondence effects were observed in 6-month-old infants but not in younger infants, suggesting that experience and/or further maturation is needed to fully develop this crossmodal association.     

Aging drivers and post delineated express lanes: Threading the needle at 70 miles per hour

Post-delineated express lanes represent a combination of driving complexities that are particularly difficult for older drivers to navigate. The narrow geometry and high speeds that are common to this treatment reflect a critical test for drivers whose depth perception, contrast sensitivity, and visual processing speed are reduced. The present study was designed to empirically examine the effects of age and color of express lane delineators on driver behavior. Three groups of participants (aged 18–39, 40–64, and 65 + years old) were required to complete a series of simulated driving scenarios consisting of combinations of single and dual lane configurations, with speed and lane position measured at the beginning and midpoint of each express lane. All drivers were pre-screened on various visual functioning abilities. Drivers in the 65 and older group show significant age-related declines in depth perception, contrast sensitivity, and phoria which were subsequently correlated with a wide range of driving measures including deceleration rate, brake time, jerk, speed, and lane position. Age related perceptual declines were statistically correlated with slower driving speed and wider lane deviations, including a statistically significant increase in the number of excursions beyond the typical 12-foot lane width. Based on these findings, the behavior of senior drivers was identified as a distinct design condition that should govern the design of high-speed, narrow geometric conditions. This age group requires wider lane widths, particularly at the beginning of single-lane post delimited sections, wider buffer areas around the post markers, and dual lane configurations wherever possible.     

偏侧化颜色范畴知觉不依赖于语言?

本研究探讨了偏左脑颜色范畴知觉依赖于语言还是范畴。三组被试分别完成无干扰、语言加工干扰和范畴加工干扰视觉搜索任务。结果发现：无干扰组、语言加工干扰组和范畴加工干扰组的视觉搜索任务中分别出现了偏左脑颜色范畴知觉、左脑劣势颜色范畴知觉和无偏侧化颜色范畴知觉。此结果表明，偏左脑颜色范畴知觉可能主要是语言范畴作为一种范畴对颜色知觉的影响效应，但语言范畴的语言属性也会对颜色知觉产生影响。     

Who buys New Energy Vehicles in China? Assessing social-psychological predictors of purchasing awareness,intention, and policy

This paper investigates the salience of social-psychological factors in explaining why drivers purchase (or fail to purchase) New Energy Vehicles (NEVs)—including hybrid electric vehicles, battery electric vehicles, and fuel cell electric vehicles—in China. A questionnaire measuring six dimensions (including attitudes, subjective norms, perceived behavioral control, personal norms, low-carbon awareness and policy) was distributed in Tianjin, where aggressive policy incentives for NEVs exist yet adoption rates remain low. Correlation analysis and hierarchical multiple regression analyses are applied data collected through 811 valid questionnaires. We present three main findings. First, there is an “awareness-behavior gap” whereby low-carbon awareness has a slight moderating effect on purchasing behavior via psychological factors. Second, subjective norms has a stronger influence on intention to purchase New Energy Vehicles than other social-psychological factors. Third, acceptability of government policies has positive significant impact on adoption of New Energy Vehicles, which can provide reference potential template for other countries whose market for New Energy Vehicles is also in an early stage.     

The effect of the emotional state on driving performance in a simulated car-following task

Emotion is an important factor that influences driving behavior, but the mechanism is unclear. This research explored the effect of the emotional state on simulated driving behavior. Thirty-five licensed drivers participated in this study and completed a car-following task. The angry, happy and neutral states were manipulated during the task. The participants’ driving performance and risk perception were recorded under each emotional state. Trait anger and driving experience were also measured to explore the possible mediating effect. The results showed that the drivers in an angry or happy emotional state tended to maintain less time to collision and take a longer time to brake while following a lead vehicle than the drivers under the neutral condition, suggesting that drivers in emotional states are more dangerous those in neutral states. Moreover, the happy state rendered the drivers more dangerous, which manifested as a lower perceived accident risk than that among the drivers in the angry and neutral states. More specifically, experienced drivers in happy states performed worse with respect to vehicle lateral position control. Recommendations and implications for safety education and further research are discussed.     

Purposive behaviour in cognition and perception: Considerations of awareness in memory

The responses to the original article by Rönnberg (1990a) provoked interesting and thoughtful points of view that are covered by Gärling (1990), Hjelmquist (1990), Montgomery (1991), and Runeson (1990). These articles do not merely present a different outlook but also provide concepts that are certainly worthy of consideration and add more substance to the general topic under discussion. The purpose of this commentary is to seek an understanding of the ideas presented by the above authors within a synthesis of our views of current conceptualizations in cognition and perception. Each of the original criteria (Rönnberg, 1990a) will be treated in turn.     

The impact of consonant clusters on preschool children''s phonemic awareness: A comparison between readers and nonreaders

Preschool children's ability to segment and blend real words and nonsense words, with and without consonant clusters was investigated in two experiments. In the first experiment, preschool children's ability to segment real words into phonemes was examined. Readers performed better than nonreaders on a phoneme counting task and words containing consonant clusters were harder to segment compared to words without consonant clusters. In experiment two, the ability to segment and blend nonsense words was investigated. Nonreaders had significantly more difficulty with nonsense words compared to readers in both a phoneme synthesis and a phoneme analysis task. A two-way interaction between reading level and word type showed that nonsense words containing consonant clusters were particularly difficult for nonreaders. The results were discussed in relation to theories suggesting that syllables consist of an onset and a rime.     

An infrared system for the detection of a pigeon''s pecks at alphanumeric characters on a TV screen: the dependency of letter detection on the predictability of one letter by another.

Three pigeons pecked at letters of the alphabet and at the symbol "?" displayed on a computer-driven cathode ray screen. A 4 by 4 matrix of infrared emitting and detecting diodes and associated circuitry identified the location of a pigeon''s responses to the screen. Responses at the target letter T were probabilistically reinforced with food whenever T appeared in a string of three letters in the middle of the screen. Responses at the symbol "?" appearing below this string were probabilistically reinforced whenever T did not appear. The letter F anywhere in the three-character string either strongly predicted the occurrence of the target letter T, in two conditions, or predicted its nonoccurrence, in a third. This manipulation of the frequency with which the familiar letter F predicted T was shown to change the function relating probability of a correct peck at the symbol "?" to the number of Fs in the string. This effect may be interpreted as an instance of the phenomenon where an organism''s acquired knowledge changes what it sees.