Effects of Case and Transitivity on Processing Dependencies: Evidence From Niuean

We investigate the processing of wh questions in Niuean, a VSO ergative–absolutive Polynesian language. We use visual‐world eye tracking to examine how preference for subject or object dependencies is affected (a) by case marking of the subject (ergative vs. absolutive) and object (absolutive vs. oblique), and (b) by the transitivity of the verb (whether the object is obligatory). We find that Niuean exhibits (a) an effect of case, whereby dependencies of arguments with absolutive case (whether subjects or objects) are preferred over dependencies of arguments with ergative or oblique case, and (b) an effect of transitivity, whereby dependencies of obligatory objects (i.e., of transitive verbs) are preferred over dependencies of optional objects (i.e., of intransitive verbs). These results constitute evidence against theories that appeal to a universal subject advantage, or to the linear distance between filler and gap. Instead, the effect of case is consistent with a frequency‐based account: Because absolutive case has a wider syntactic distribution than ergative or oblique, absolutive dependencies are easier to process. The effect of transitivity reflects sensitivity of the parser to whether or not an argument is obligatory. We propose that these two strategies could be unified if the parser prefers dependencies with arguments that are more likely to materialize.     

Non‐adjacent Dependencies Processing in Human and Non‐human Primates

Human and non‐human primates share the ability to extract adjacent dependencies and, under certain conditions, non‐adjacent dependencies (i.e., predictive relationships between elements that are separated by one or several intervening elements in a sequence). In this study, we explore the online extraction dynamics of non‐adjacent dependencies in humans and baboons using a serial reaction time task. Participants had to produce three‐target sequences containing deterministic relationships between the first and last target locations. In Experiment 1, participants from the two species could extract these non‐adjacent dependencies, but humans required less exposure than baboons. In Experiment 2, the data show for the first time in a non‐human primate species the successful generalization of sequential non‐adjacent dependencies over novel intervening items. These findings provide new evidence to further constrain current theories about the nature and the evolutionary origins of the learning mechanisms allowing the extraction of non‐adjacent dependencies.     

Syntactic Complexity Effects in Sentence Production

Syntactic complexity effects have been investigated extensively with respect to comprehension (e.g., Demberg & Keller, 2008; Gibson, 1998, 2000; Gordon et al., 2001, 2004; Grodner & Gibson, 2005; King & Just, 1991; Lewis & Vasishth, 2005; Lewis et al., 2006; McElree et al., 2003; Wanner & Maratsos, 1978). According to one prominent class of accounts (experience‐based accounts; e.g., Hale, 2001; Levy, 2008; Gennari & MacDonald, 2008, 2009; Wells et al., 2009), certain structures cause comprehension difficulty due to their scarcity in the language. But why are some structures less frequent than others? In two elicited‐production experiments we investigated syntactic complexity effects in relative clauses (Experiment 1) and wh‐questions (Experiment 2) varying in whether or not they contained non‐local dependencies. In both experiments, we found reliable durational differences between subject‐extracted structures (which only contain local dependencies) and object‐extracted structures (which contain nonlocal dependencies): Participants took longer to begin and produce object‐extractions. Furthermore, participants were more likely to be disfluent in the object‐extracted constructions. These results suggest that there is a cost associated with planning and uttering the more syntactically complex, object‐extracted structures, and that this cost manifests in the form of longer durations and disfluencies. Although the precise nature of this cost remains to be determined, these effects provide one plausible explanation for the relative rarity of object‐extractions: They are more costly to produce.     

Depression Treatment by Non‐Mental‐Health Providers: Incremental Evidence for the Effectiveness of Listening Visits

Maternal depression is a prevalent public health problem, particularly for low‐income mothers of young children. Intervention development efforts, which often focus on surmounting instrumental barriers to care, have not successfully engaged and retained women in treatment. Task‐sharing approaches like Listening Visits (LV) could overcome key instrumental and psychological barriers by leveraging the access of trusted, community caregivers to deliver treatment. A recent randomized controlled trial (RCT) demonstrated the efficacy of LV delivered by non‐mental‐health providers as compared to usual care. The present report presents results from a follow‐up phase of that RCT during which participants who had completed LV were followed for an additional 8 weeks and completed measures of depression and quality of life. In addition, participants who were initially randomized to the wait‐list control group received LV and were assessed. Treatment gains previously observed in participants completing LV were enhanced during the 8‐week follow‐up period. Participants receiving LV during the follow‐up period experienced significant improvement in depressive symptoms. Results demonstrate the sustainability of LV delivered by non‐mental‐health providers, and provide preliminary evidence for the replicability of this approach in a sample of predominately low‐income pregnant women and mothers of young children.     

Age-Related Differences in Acquisition of Perceptual-Motor Skills: Working Memory as a Mediator

ABSTRACT

Aging is associated with reduced performance on information processing speed, memory, and executive functions tasks. Although older adults are also less apt in acquiring new perceptual-motor skills, it is unclear whether and how skill acquisition difficulties are associated with age-related general cognitive differences. We addressed this question by examining structural relations among measures of cognitive resources (working memory) and indices of perceptual-motor skill acquisition (pursuit rotor and mirror tracing) in 96 healthy adults aged 19–80 years of age. Three competing structural models were tested: a single (common) factor model, a dual correlated factors model, and a hierarchical dual-factor model. The third model provided the best fit to the data, indicating age differences in simple perceptual-motor skill are partially mediated by more complex abilities.     

Working Memory in Nonsymbolic Approximate Arithmetic Processing: A Dual‐Task Study With Preschoolers

Preschool children have been proven to possess nonsymbolic approximate arithmetic skills before learning how to manipulate symbolic math and thus before any formal math instruction. It has been assumed that nonsymbolic approximate math tasks necessitate the allocation of Working Memory (WM) resources. WM has been consistently shown to be an important predictor of children's math development and achievement. The aim of our study was to uncover the specific role of WM in nonsymbolic approximate math. For this purpose, we conducted a dual‐task study with preschoolers with active phonological, visual, spatial, and central executive interference during the completion of a nonsymbolic approximate addition dot task. With regard to the role of WM, we found a clear performance breakdown in the central executive interference condition. Our findings provide insight into the underlying cognitive processes involved in storing and manipulating nonsymbolic approximate numerosities during early arithmetic.     

Self‐Priming in Production: Evidence for a Hybrid Model of Syntactic Priming

Syntactic priming in language production is the increased likelihood of using a recently encountered syntactic structure. In this paper, we examine two theories of why speakers can be primed: error‐driven learning accounts (Bock, Dell, Chang, & Onishi, 2007; Chang, Dell, & Bock, 2006) and activation‐based accounts (Pickering & Branigan, 1999; Reitter, Keller, & Moore, 2011). Both theories predict that speakers should be primed by the syntactic choices of others, but only activation‐based accounts predict that speakers should be able to prime themselves. Here we test whether speakers can be primed by their own productions in three behavioral experiments and find evidence of structural persistence following both comprehension and speakers’ own productions. We also find that comprehension‐based priming effects are larger for rarer syntactic structures than for more common ones, which is most consistent with error‐driven accounts. Because neither error‐driven accounts nor activation‐based accounts fully explain the data, we propose a hybrid model.     

Rats’ visual-spatial working memory: New object choice accuracy as a function of number of objects in the study array

When rats had to find new (jackpot) objects for rewards from among previously sampled baited objects, increasing the number of objects in the sample (study) segment of a trial from 3 to 5 and then to 7 (Experiment 1) or from 3 to 6 and 9 (Experiments 2 and 3) or from 6 to 9 and 12 (Experiment 4) did not reduce rats’ test segment performance. Increasing study segment size improved test segment performance contrary the limited-capacity hypothesis concerning rats’ spatial working memory. This effect occurred when objects either differed visually (Experiments 1, 2, 4) or only by odor (Experiment 3). Rats performed no better than chance in finding a jackpot on their first choice from among three visually different objects in Experiments 1 and 2. Furthermore, results from Experiments 2 and 3 indicate that differences in the probability of finding a jackpot by chance in Experiment 1 were not responsible for failure to find the predicted inverse relationship. Results from Experiment 4 indicate that those from Experiments 2 and 3 were not solely due to size of test arrays. We discussed whether our findings could be attributed to innate foraging or perceptual isolation processes during testing or to perceptual encoding processes during exposure to study segment arrays.     

Response Latencies and Attitude‐Behavior Consistency in a Direct Democratic Setting: Evidence from a Subnational Referendum in Germany

This article addresses the role of response latencies in affecting the attitude‐behavior consistency in a German subnational referendum. As voters faced a comparatively easy choice in this referendum, it puts the hypothesis concerning the role of attitude accessibility in increasing attitude‐behavior consistency to a particularly hard test. Utilizing data from a two‐wave panel survey, the analysis examines the effect of response latencies on the attitude‐behavior consistency concerning participation and vote choice. The evidence confirms hypotheses derived from attitude‐consistency theory only in a limited number of cases. The institutional setting and the nature of choice thus appear to make a difference. Moreover, substantive findings depend partially upon the procedure to measure response latencies. Accordingly, sensitivity tests should be employed by default. Irrespective of operationalization, response latencies play a crucial role when it comes to respondents who answered that they would “perhaps” participate. Whereas a quickly uttered “perhaps” was indicative of a rather low likelihood of participation, a slowly given “perhaps” indicated a considerably high probability.     

When Language Gives Out: Conceptualization,and Aspect‐Seeing as a Form of Judgment

This article characterizes aspect‐perception as a distinct form of judgment in Kant's sense: a distinct way in which the mind contacts world and applies concepts. First, aspect‐perception involves a mode of thinking about things apart from any established routine of conceptualizing them. It is thus a form of concept application that is essentially reflection about language. Second, this mode of reflection has an experiential, sometimes perceptual, element: in aspect‐perception, that is, we experience meanings—bodies of norms. Third, aspect‐perception can be “preparatory”: it may help us to decide what linguistic norms to develop and how to conceptualize—make the world thinkable. Fourth, the article discusses the forms of justification for which aspect‐perception allows—the necessity and normativity involved in employing this form of judgment.     

Ecology of Sites of Confinement: Everyday Life in a Detention Center for Illegalized Non‐citizens

Drawing on almost 3 years of fieldwork, comprising qualitative interviews and ethnographic observations, this study provides an exploration into the detention of illegalized non‐citizens in Italy. Taking the largest detention center as a case study, the fabric of everyday life and the lived experiences of people, both detainees and professional actors, are the focus of examination. An ecological community psychology framework, with a focus on justice, guided the data collection, analysis, and interpretation. Findings highlight the oppressive qualities of detention, and its ripple effects on people's life spaces. Scarcity of resources, activities, and information created a very distressing environment for detainees, also enhancing feelings of powerlessness and frustration in professionals willing to assist them. Uncertainty and instability, rather than coercion or discipline, emerged as modes of governing and dominating. Bound in a different space and time, detainees were turned into unwanted and expendable others, their confinement becoming a means to extract profit from them. Yet, people languishing in these sites displayed an extraordinary ability to cope with, resist, and challenge the persisting conditions of injustice they endured. We conclude by highlighting the potential of the proposed framework, and discussing broader implications of our findings and avenues for research and action.     

Keeping the Result in Sight and Mind: General Cognitive Principles and Language‐Specific Influences in the Perception and Memory of Resultative Events

We study how people attend to and memorize endings of events that differ in the degree to which objects in them are affected by an action: Resultative events show objects that undergo a visually salient change in state during the course of the event (peeling a potato), and non‐resultative events involve objects that undergo no, or only partial state change (stirring in a pan). We investigate general cognitive principles, and potential language‐specific influences, in verbal and nonverbal event encoding and memory, across two experiments with Dutch and Estonian participants. Estonian marks a viewer's perspective on an event's result obligatorily via grammatical case on direct object nouns: Objects undergoing a partial/full change in state in an event are marked with partitive/accusative case, respectively. Therefore, we hypothesized increased saliency of object states and event results in Estonian speakers, as compared to speakers of Dutch. Findings show (a) a general cognitive principle of attending carefully to endings of resultative events, implying cognitive saliency of object states in event processing; (b) a language‐specific boost on attention and memory of event results under verbal task demands in Estonian speakers. Results are discussed in relation to theories of event cognition, linguistic relativity, and thinking for speaking.     

First‐hand sensory experience plays a limited role in children's early understanding of seeing and hearing as sources of knowledge: Evidence from typically hearing and deaf children

One early‐developing component of theory of mind is an understanding of the link between sensory perception and knowledge formation. We know little about the extent to which children's first‐hand sensory experiences drive the development of this understanding, as most tasks capturing this early understanding target vision, with less attention paid to the other senses. In this study, 64 typically hearing children (M_age = 4.0 years) and 21 orally educated deaf children (M_age = 5.44 years) were asked to identify which of two informants knew the identity of a toy animal when each had differing perceptual access to the animal. In the ‘seeing’ condition, one informant saw the animal and the other did not; in the ‘hearing’ condition, one informant heard the animal and the other did not. For both hearing and deaf children, there was no difference between performance on hearing and seeing trials, but deaf children were delayed in both conditions. Further, within both the hearing and deaf groups, older children outperformed younger children on these tasks, indicating that there is a developmental progression. Taken together, the pattern of results suggests that experiences other than first‐hand sensory experiences drive children's developing understanding that sensory perception is associated with knowledge.     

Everyday‐like memory for objects in ageing and Alzheimer's disease assessed in a visually complex environment: The role of executive functioning and episodic memory

To investigate everyday memory, more and more studies rely on virtual‐reality applications to bridge the gap between in situ approaches and laboratory settings. In this vein, the present study was designed to assess everyday‐like memory from the virtual reality‐based Human Object Memory for Everyday Scenes (HOMES) test (Sauzéon et al., 2012 , Exp. Psychol., 59, 99) in ageing and in Alzheimer's disease (AD). Two aims motivated this study: the first was to assess multiple processes of episodic memory (EM) functioning embedded within contexts closely related to real life in ageing and AD using the multi‐trial free‐recall paradigm, and the second aim was to evaluate the mediating effects of executive functioning (EF), EM, and subjective memory complaints (SMCs) on age differences in the HOMES measures and in AD. To this end, the HOMES test and neurocognitive tests of EF and EM were administered to 23 younger adults, 23 older adults, and 16 patients with AD. The results were: firstly, compared to young adults, elderly adults presented only free‐recall decline that almost disappeared in recognition condition whereas AD patients exhibited a poor clustering, learning, and recognition performance, and also a high amount of false recognition; secondly, age differences as well as AD related deficits on the HOMES test were mediated by both memory and EF measure while those observed on false memory indices were only mediated by EM measure; thirdly, the HOMES indices are related to SMCs even when episodic or EF measures are controlled. Overall, the results supported the fact that the VR‐based memory test is an appropriate device to capture age‐related differences as well as the AD effect with respect to both in situ and laboratory settings.     

Areas of Interest as a Signal Detection Problem in Behavioral Eye‐Tracking Research

Decision researchers frequently analyze attention to individual objects to test hypotheses about underlying cognitive processes. Generally, fixations are assigned to objects using a method known as area of interest (AOI). Ideally, an AOI includes all fixations belonging to an object while fixations to other objects are excluded. Unfortunately, due to measurement inaccuracy and insufficient distance between objects, the distributions of fixations to objects may overlap, resulting in a signal detection problem. If the AOI is to include all fixations to an object, it will also likely include fixations belonging to other objects (false positives). In a survey, we find that many researchers report testing multiple AOI sizes when performing analyses, presumably trying to balance the proportion of true and false positive fixations. To test whether AOI size influences the measurement of object attention and conclusions drawn about cognitive processes, we reanalyze four published studies and conduct a fifth tailored to our purpose. We find that in studies in which we expected overlapping fixation distributions, analyses benefited from smaller AOI sizes (0° visual angle margin). In studies where we expected no overlap, analyses benefited from larger AOI sizes (>.5° visual angle margins). We conclude with a guideline for the use of AOIs in behavioral eye‐tracking research. Copyright © 2015 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Alexithymia as a potential source of symptom over‐reporting: An exploratory study in forensic patients and non‐forensic participants

The traditional interpretation of symptom over‐reporting is that it indicates malingering. We explored a different perspective, namely that over‐reporting of eccentric symptoms is related to deficits in articulating internal experiences (i.e., alexithymia). Given that alexithymia has been linked to sleep problems and that fatigue may fuel inattentive responding to symptom lists, we administered measures of alexithymia (TAS ‐20) and symptom over‐reporting (SIMS ), but also sleep quality (SLEEP ‐50) to forensic psychiatric outpatients (n = 40) and non‐forensic participants (n = 40). Forensic patients scored significantly higher on all three indices than non‐forensic participants. In the total sample as well as in subsamples, over‐reporting correlated positively and significantly with alexithymia, with r s being in the 0.50–0.65 range. Sleep problems were also related to over‐reporting, but in the full sample and in the forensic subsample, alexithymia predicted variance in over‐reporting over and above sleep problems. Although our study is cross‐sectional in nature, its results indicate that alexithymia as a potential source of over‐reporting merits systematic research.     

Trust in organization as a moderator of the relationship between self‐efficacy and workplace outcomes: A social cognitive theory‐based examination

Drawing on a social cognitive theory perspective, we contend that an employee's trust in oneself, or self‐efficacy, will interact with the individual's trust in the system, or trust in organization, to predict job attitudes and behaviours. Specifically, we expected that self‐efficacy would have stronger effects on job attitudes (job satisfaction and turnover intentions) and behaviours (task performance and organizational citizenship behaviours) to the degree to which employees perceive high levels of trust in organization. Using data collected from 300 employees and their respective supervisors at a manufacturing organization in Turkey across three waves, we found that self‐efficacy had more positive effects on job satisfaction, task performance, and citizenship behaviours when trust in organization was high. Interestingly, self‐efficacy had a positive effect on turnover intentions when trust in organization was low, indicating that high trust in organization buffered the effects of self‐efficacy on intentions to leave. The results suggest that the motivational value of trust in oneself is stronger to the degree to which employees also have high trust in the system, whereas low trust in system neutralizes the motivational benefits of self‐efficacy.

Practitioner points

• Practicing managers should not only invest in increasing self‐efficacy of their employees, but also invest in building trust to improve employees’ attitudes, behaviours, and performance. This is because when employee trust in organization is high, employee self‐efficacy has greater potential to have a positive influence over job satisfaction, task performance, and organizational citizenship behaviours.
• Self‐efficacy may actually increase an employee's desire to leave the organization when organizational conditions are unfavourable, such as in the case of low trust in the organization. Practicing managers should be aware that employees who have high levels of confidence may be at higher risk of turnover when they are unhappy with the organization.

     

Revisiting the crisis in Freud's libido theory and Abraham's concept of the oral‐sadistic phase as a way out of it

The now available unabridged correspondence between Freud and Abraham leads to a re‐evaluation of the significance of Abraham's work. The author proposes the thesis that clinical observations by Karl Abraham of the ambivalence of object relations and the destructive‐sadistic aspects of orality have an important influence on the advancement of psychoanalytical theory. The phantasy problem of the Wolf Man and the question of the pathogenic relevance of early actual, or merely imagined traumata led Freud to doubt the validity of his theory. He attempted repeatedly to solve this problem using libido theory, but failed because of his problematic conception of oral erotics. The pathogenic effect of presymbolic traumatizations cannot be demonstrated scientifically because of the still underdeveloped brain in the early stage of the child's development. Consequently, the important empirical evidence of a scientific neurosis theory could not be provided. A revision of the theory of the instincts thus became necessary. With Abraham's clinical contributions and other pathologic evidence, Freud was, with some reservation, forced to modify his idea of oral erotics by ascribing to it a status of a merely constructed and fictive phase of oral organization. A solution was eventually facilitated via recognition of non‐erotic aggression and destruction, thereby opening libido theory to fundamental revisions. Driven by the desire to develop a scientific theory, Freud initially had, in his first theory of the instincts, assumed a strongly causal‐deterministic view on Psychic Function. His third revision of theory of the instincts, Beyond the Pleasure Principle including the death instinct hypothesis, considered the hermeneutic aspect of psychoanalytic theory, which had previously existed only implicitly in his theory. Further development of the death instinct hypothesis by Melanie Klein and her successors abandoned quantitative‐economic and causal‐deterministic principles, and instead focused on the practical utility of the psychoanalytic theory.     

Effects of syntactic information on semantic access of ambiguous verbs in spoken language comprehension: Evidence from a cross‐modal priming experiment1

Abstract: The aim of this study was to examine how syntactic information affects the semantic processing of ambiguous verbs in spoken Japanese. The effect of a postpositional particle on semantic access of an ambiguous verb at the end of the sentence was demonstrated in two kinds of sentences, S‐ga‐V sentences (subject, subjective postpositional particle, and ambiguous verb) and O‐wo‐V sentences (object, objective postpositional particle, and ambiguous verb). A cross‐modal priming method was used in which a target noun was presented visually in Kanji (Chinese) characters either one syllable before the end or immediately after the end of the ambiguous verb. Weak multiple priming occurred in the one‐syllable‐before condition, followed by selective access in the immediately after condition, but this multiple access was partially constrained by the preceding postpositional particle. A brief occurrence of multiple access and rapid transition to selective access were detected. Furthermore, objective particles were found to have stronger constraints on multiple access than on subjective particles. A connectionist model using a constraint‐based lexical approach was consistent with the experimental results.