Are the spoken durations of rare words longer than those of common words?

The effects of word frequency, word length, and practice were examined in oral productions of subjects reading lists of 25 rare or common monosyllabic words. Articulation and pause durations, their ratio, and total reading durations were derived from recordings of subjects’ speech. Recorded speech was sampled at 10 kHz, and a criterion of eight times the mean noise level was used to classify productions as articulation or pause. Lists of high frequency words were read more quickly than lists of low-frequency words. No differences were observed in the articulation component. Pause duration was greater for rare than for common words. The ratio of pause to articulation varied with length and word type. No differences were found for high-frequency words, but the ratio of five-letter words was significantly greater than that of three- or four-letter rare words. Results were discussed in relation to the nature and locus of the word-frequency effect. Criteria for defining and measuring speech productions were also raised.     

Does brand spelling influence memory? The case of auditorily presented brand names

We present a framework based on psycholinguistic theory to explain how individuals spell auditorily-presented information. We use the framework to predict and test how spelling-related characteristics of brand names and factors related to the context in which brand names are presented (e.g., spelling primes) will make the brands more or less memorable. Further, we reveal the process through which spelling-related linguistic variables influence brand recall: the dual-code (both written and auditory) that results from spelling a brand correctly leads to greater ability to later recall the brand. Our framework identifies two routes that interact when individuals have to transcribe a brand: the lexical (top-down) route and the sublexical (bottom-up) route.     

Serial,parallel, or holistic identification of single words in the two visual fields?

Subjects made timed manual responses in judging whether laterally presented four-letter words were identical to targets. In Experiment 1, nontargets differed by a single letter from targets. A right-field superiority occurred only for targets (which were detected fastest of all) and for nontargets where a letter changed at Position 2 or Position 3. Changes at initial and final positions were detected faster than the two middle positions, and there were no significant field differences. In Experiment 2, ascenders and descenders were controlled and changes were made in nontargets at all four letter positions, at Positions 1 and 4, at Positions 2 and 3, or at 2 alone. Response times for nontargets varied inversely with the number of differing letters, regardless of position. Significant field differences again only appeared for changes in the two middle positions. Letters at the beginning and end of a word seem to be processed faster than and differently from those within, where field differences are strongest. Vowel-consonant differences probably do not account for these effects, which are more compatible with some form of parallel, rather than either serial or holistic, processing.     

TMS to the “occipital face area” affects recognition but not categorization of faces

The human cortical system for face perception is comprised of a network of connected regions including the middle fusiform gyrus (“fusiform face area” or FFA), the inferior occipital cortex (“occipital face area” or OFA), and the superior temporal sulcus. The traditional hierarchical feedforward model of visual processing suggests information flows from early visual cortex to the OFA for initial face feature analysis to higher order regions including the FFA for identity recognition. However, patient data suggest an alternative model. Patients with acquired prosopagnosia, an inability to visually recognize faces, have been documented with lesions to the OFA but who nevertheless show face-selective activation in the FFA. Moreover, their ability to categorize faces remains intact. This suggests that the FFA is not solely responsible for face recognition and the network is not strictly hierarchical, but may be organized in a reverse hierarchical fashion. We used transcranial magnetic stimulation (TMS) to temporarily disrupt processing in the OFA in neurologically-intact individuals and found participants’ ability to categorize intact versus scrambled faces was unaffected, however face identity discrimination was significantly impaired. This suggests that face categorization but not recognition can occur without the “earlier” OFA being online and indicates that “lower level” face category processing may be assumed by other intact face network regions such as the FFA. These results are consistent with the patient data and support a non-hierarchical, global-to-local model with re-entrant connections between the OFA and other face processing areas.     

No role for lightness in the perception of black and white? Simultaneous contrast affects perceived skin tone, but not perceived race

Faces of individuals with African and European heritage (henceforth referred to as Black and White respectively) feature two major differences: those of skin tone and morphological characteristics. Although considerations of perceived race are important to various psychological subdisciplines, to date the relative influence of morphological versus photometric characteristics has not been investigated. We attempted to influence the perceived racial typicality of a central target face by manipulating perceived skin tone using the well-known lightness contrast illusion. As expected, ratings of skin tone were influenced by surround faces, yet ratings of perceived racial typicality were not, suggesting a dissociation between the two judgments. Surprisingly, skin tone contributes little to perceived race, leaving facial morphology as the dominant cue. These results may shed light on failures to find effects of racial typicality in studies of prejudice where judgments were based on photographs with altered skin tone alone.     

Does humor in radio advertising affect recognition of novel product brand names?

The authors proposed that item selection during shopping is based on brand name recognition rather than recall. College students rated advertisements and news stories of a simulated radio program for level of amusement (orienting activity) before participating in a surprise recognition test. Humor level of the advertisements was varied systematically, and content was controlled. According to signal detection analysis, humor did not affect the strength of recognition memory for brand names (nonsense units). However, brand names and product types were significantly more likely to be associated when appearing in humorous advertisements than in nonhumorous advertisements. The results are compared with prior findings concerning humor and recall.     

The processing of non-target words: Semantic or not?

It is known that people reacting to visual words may be affected by the meaning of accompanying non-target words. On the approach to perception developed by Treisman (e.g. 1986), this is surprising, because meaning might be thought to require analysis of conjunctions of physical features and so should remain uncomputed for non-target words. Treisman's approach does, however, assert that analysis of the target may unleash further processes that would prime the system for detection of related words. If this were so, then presentation of the target earlier than the distractors would increase the effect of the latter; whereas if analysis of non-targets were independent of priming, they might be expected to have a smaller effect when delayed. Further, if the sets of words involved are small and familiar, then individual features of primed non-targets, rather than conjunctions of features, might trigger interference. They might especially do so when spatial separation of target and non-target is small.

Five experiments using a paradigm developed by Shaffer and LaBerge confirm that the meaning of non-target words affects response to targets; but (1) this is more true for early than for late arrival of the target; (2) it is affected by target/non-target separation in space; (3) it is true for familiar sets of repeated words but not, in these data, for words used once only in the experiment. It is therefore concluded that the results are more consistent with a Treisman type of explanation than with a theory of universal and automatic full analysis.     

Spiritual,but not religious?: On the nature of spirituality and its relation to religion

Recent years have seen a rise in those who describe themselves as “spiritual, but not religious”. At a popular level, there has been a lot of debate about this label and what it represents. But philosophers have in general paid little attention to the conceptual issues it raises. What is spirituality, exactly, and how does it relate to religion? Could there be a non-religious spirituality? In this paper, I try to give an outline account of the nature of spirituality and of religion, and then close with some thoughts on the prospects for a non-religious spirituality.     

Do frequency characteristics of nonfixated words influence the processing of fixated words during reading?

Are readers capable of lexically processing more than one word at a time? In five eye movement experiments, we examined to what extent lexical characteristics of the nonfixated word to the right of fixation influenced readers' eye behaviour on the fixated word. In three experiments, we varied the frequency of the initial constituent of two‐noun compounds, while in two experiments the whole‐word frequency was manipulated. The results showed that frequency characteristics of the parafoveal word sometimes affected eye behaviour prior to fixating it, but the direction of effects was not consistent and the effects were not replicated across all experiments. Follow‐up regression analyses suggested that foveal and parafoveal word length as well as the frequency of the word‐initial trigram of the parafoveal word may modulate the parafoveal‐on‐foveal effects. It is concluded that low‐frequency words or lexemes may under certain circumstances serve as a magnet to attract an early eye movement to them. However, further corroborative evidence is clearly needed.     

The effects of good moods on systematic processing: “Willing but not able,or able but not willing?”

Previous research has indicated that good moods may disrupt systematic processing of persuasive messages (e.g., Worth & Mackie, 1987). Three experiments were conducted to attempt a replication of this disruptive effect and determine whether this effect is attributable either to cognitive capacity deficits (i.e., ability) or to motivational concerns (e.g., mood maintenance, desire to think about something other than the experimental topic). Several similarities were noted across the experiments. First, no interactions between mood and argument strength emerged on measures of message-based persuasion. Similarly, the quantity of message-related thoughts generated by our subjects was not consistently influenced by the manipulation of mood. Most importantly, consistent findings regarding the relationship between polarity of message elaborations and message-based persuasion implied that good moods may have disrupted message processing when (a) the message was low in personal relevance, (b) source information preceded the message itself, or (c) subjects were led to believe that their moods were stabilized by a drug. These results call into question the robustness of the alleged disruptive effect of positive mood on systematic processing, and are incompatible with the view that such effects are attributable to cognitive capacity deficits.Portions of this research were presented at the Annual Meetings of the American Psychological Association, Boston, August 1990, and San Francisco, August 1991. The authors wish to thank Richard E. Petty and several anonymous reviewers for their helpful comments.     

Are the facial gender and facial age variants of the composite face illusion products of a common mechanism?

Psychonomic Bulletin & Review - When the upper half of one face (‘target region’) is spatially aligned with the lower half of another (‘distractor region’), the two...     

Beyond words: evidence for automatic language–gesture integration of symbolic gestures but not dynamic landscapes

Understanding actions based on either language or action observation is presumed to involve the motor system, reflecting the engagement of an embodied conceptual network. We examined how linguistic and gestural information were integrated in a series of cross-domain priming studies. We varied the task demands across three experiments in which symbolic gestures served as primes for verbal targets. Primes were clips of symbolic gestures taken from a rich set of emblems. Participants responded by making a lexical decision to the target (Experiment 1), naming the target (Experiment 2), or performing a semantic relatedness judgment (Experiment 3). The magnitude of semantic priming was larger in the relatedness judgment and lexical decision tasks compared to the naming task. Priming was also observed in a control task in which the primes were pictures of landscapes with conceptually related verbal targets. However, for these stimuli, the amount of priming was similar across the three tasks. We propose that action observation triggers an automatic, pre-lexical spread of activation, consistent with the idea that language–gesture integration occurs in an obligatory and automatic fashion.     

Why a common commemoration of the Reformation?

This article provides information about the fact that today any commemoration of the Reformation can only be celebrated in ecumenical communion. In contrast to earlier Reformation jubilees, the commemoration of the Reformation in 2017 is taking place, for the first time, in an ecumenical era. The year 2017 refers back to the year 1517, that is, to a time when the break with the Catholic Church had not yet happened. Martin Luther himself did not intend the division of the Church, nor did he visualise the founding of a new church, but the renewal of all Christendom. This failed in his time. Therefore one should regard the ecumenical search for the restoration of unity as the – indeed very belated – success of the Reformation. The commemoration of ??a reformation is an ecumenical opportunity, if it is committed to living the triad of gratitude for the reformation’s positive aims, of repentance for the sins of division and subsequent confessional wars, and of hope for a greater unity between Lutherans and Catholics.     

Are measures of self-esteem,neuroticism, locus of control,and generalized self-efficacy indicators of a common core construct?

The authors present results of 4 studies that seek to determine the discriminant and incremental validity of the 3 most widely studied traits in psychology-self-esteem, neuroticism, and locus of control-along with a 4th, closely related trait-generalized self-efficacy. Meta-analytic results indicated that measures of the 4 traits were strongly related. Results also demonstrated that a single factor explained the relationships among measures of the 4 traits. The 4 trait measures display relatively poor discriminant validity, and each accounted for little incremental variance in predicting external criteria relative to the higher order construct. In light of these results, the authors suggest that measures purporting to assess self-esteem, locus of control, neuroticism, and generalized self-efficacy may be markers of the same higher order concept.     

Measuring aggressiveness and anger,but not aggression? A response to the CAAS critique

ObjectivesThe Competitive Aggressiveness and Anger Scale (CAAS) was developed to measure antecedents of aggression in sport. The critique attacks the CAAS on three points: (1) the definition of aggression in sport adopted, (2) the “one size fits all” element in the thinking behind the scale's development, (3) the nature of the CAAS Anger and Aggressiveness items. The objectives of this response is to address misunderstandings in the critique.MethodsWe identified a number of false assumptions that undermine the validity of the critique and attempt to clarify our position with respect to the criticisms made.Results(1) The CAAS is being criticised for a definition that it did not use. (2) We accepted that the CAAS may not be suitable for everyone in our limitations section and fully accept the limitations of any scale. We have since undertaken a large research project to establish whether the scale is valid across and within specific sports. (3) The fundamental misunderstanding inherent throughout the critique is that the CAAS was designed as a measure of aggression, rather than anger and aggressiveness, rendering the critique of its items redundant.ConclusionsThe critique misrepresents the authors of the CAAS and fails to present a coherent argument against its use. We hope to clarify our position here. The evidence to date suggests that the CAAS is a valid measure of anger and aggressiveness in many sports and that these concepts reliably differentiate players who admit unsanctioned aggression from those who do not.     

Does the advantage of the upper part of words occur at the lexical level?

Several recent studies have shown that the upper part of words is more important than the lower part in visual word recognition. Here, we examine whether or not this advantage arises at the lexical or at the letter (letter feature) level. To examine this issue, we conducted two lexical decision experiments in which words/pseudowords were preceded by a very brief (50-ms) presentation of their upper or lower parts (e.g., ). If the advantage for the upper part of words arises at the letter (letter feature) level, the effect should occur for both words and pseudowords. Results revealed an advantage for the upper part of words, but not for pseudowords. This suggests that the advantage for the upper part of words occurs at the lexical level, rather than at the letter (or letter feature) level.     

Does mindfulness attenuate thoughts emphasizing negativity,but not positivity?

The current research investigated whether mindfulness is differentially associated with thoughts that emphasize positive or negative valence. In Study 1, trait mindfulness was inversely associated with negative rumination but unassociated with positive rumination, controlling for state affect. In Study 2, participants completed either a mindful breathing meditation or a comparable control exercise, followed by a thought listing while viewing affective images. Compared to the control condition, the mindfulness condition listed proportionately fewer negative thoughts, particularly in response to negative images, and more non-valenced thoughts. The conditions did not differ in their proportions of positive thoughts. These results suggest that mindfulness may attenuate thoughts that emphasize negativity but not those that emphasize positivity.