What causes failure to apply the Pigeonhole Principle in simple reasoning problems?

The Pigeonhole Principle states that if n items are sorted into m categories and if n > m, then at least one category must contain more than one item. For instance, if 22 pigeons are put into 17 pigeonholes, at least one pigeonhole must contain more than one pigeon. This principle seems intuitive, yet when told about a city with 220,000 inhabitants none of whom has more than 170,000 hairs on their head, many people think that it is merely likely that two inhabitants have the exact same number of hair. This failure to apply the Pigeonhole Principle might be due to the large numbers used, or to the cardinal rather than nominal presentation of these numbers. We show that performance improved both when the numbers are presented nominally, and when they are small, albeit less so. We discuss potential interpretations of these results in terms of intuition and reasoning.     

Standardized or simple effect size: What should be reported?

It is regarded as best practice for psychologists to report effect size when disseminating quantitative research findings. Reporting of effect size in the psychological literature is patchy – though this may be changing – and when reported it is far from clear that appropriate effect size statistics are employed. This paper considers the practice of reporting point estimates of standardized effect size and explores factors such as reliability, range restriction and differences in design that distort standardized effect size unless suitable corrections are employed. For most purposes simple (unstandardized) effect size is more robust and versatile than standardized effect size. Guidelines for deciding what effect size metric to use and how to report it are outlined. Foremost among these are: (i) a preference for simple effect size over standardized effect size, and (ii) the use of confidence intervals to indicate a plausible range of values the effect might take. Deciding on the appropriate effect size statistic to report always requires careful thought and should be influenced by the goals of the researcher, the context of the research and the potential needs of readers.     

Use of orthographic structure and reading ability: What relationship?

Previous research has shown that good readers are superior to poor readers in their use of orthographic structure. The purpose of the present study was to assess the role of experience in determining these differences. Results showed that poor sixth-grade readers used orthographic structure to speed their matching judgments just as effectively as good sixth-grade readers. The apparent discrepancy in results between the present study and previous work is explained in terms of the “partial-information hypothesis” which states that the performance of good readers is superior to that of poor readers in situations which depend on the use of partial information. Support for this view was provided by the fact that good readers recognized significantly more items on a recognition test than did the poor readers.     

What causes specificity of practice in a manual aiming movement: vision dominance or transformation errors?

The withdrawal of vision of the arm during a manual aiming task has been found to result in a large increase in aiming error, regardless of the amount of practice in normal vision before its withdrawal. In the present study, the authors investigated whether the increase in error reflects the domination of visual afferent information over the movement representation developed during practice to the detriment of other sources of afferent information or whether it reflects only transformation errors of the location of the target from an allocentric to an egocentric frame of reference. Participants (N = 40) performed aiming movements with their dominant or nondominant arm in a full-vision or target- only condition. The results of the present experiment supported both of those hypotheses. The data indicated that practice does not eliminate the need for visual information for optimizing movement accuracy and that learning is specific to the source or sources of afferent information more likely to ensure optimal accuracy during practice. In addition, the results indicated that movement planning in an allocentric frame of reference might require simultaneous vision of the arm and the target. Finally, practice in a target-only condition, with knowledge of results, was found to improve recoding of the target in an egocentric frame of reference.     

Does perceived ability to deceive = ability to deceive? Predictive validity of the perceived ability to deceive (PATD) scale

This research investigated whether the perceived ability to deceive (PATD) scale predicts ability to deceive in a vocational testing context. Using a quasi-experimental design, participants (N = 85 student and community members) completed the PATD scale and a personality measure under standard instructions before being asked to fake the personality measure as if they were applying for a job in the police force. Based on extant research, successful faking was operationalised as elevated scores on conscientiousness and extraversion and reduced scores on neuroticism. Analysis via independent t-test did not support the hypothesis that PATD predicts faking success. Future research should consider the relationship between PATD and intention to fake, as well as extend examination of PATD to other deception-related contexts.     

Depressive attributions: selection of different causes or assignment of dimensional meanings?

Attributional models of depression suggest that depression is associated with internal, stable, and global causal explanations of events. However, the models do not specify whether the depressive attributional process involves the selection of certain causes, the assignment of dimensional meanings to those causes, or both. A distinction between these two processes was suggested by the findings that the choice of causes does not reliably indicate the perceived dimensions and that there is poor convergence between existing methods that assess causes and those that assess dimensions. When causes and dimensions were each measured in a manner that avoided confounding by the other, each made a unique contribution to the prediction of depression scores. Cause ratings alone were significantly associated with depression scores, but the optimal prediction of depression included both causes and dimensions. The implications of the distinction between these two processes for experimental manipulations of attributions and for reattribution training programs are discussed.     

Aging of attention: Does the ability to divide decline?

Previous research has yielded conflicting results regarding the relationship between adult age and the ability to divide attention between two concurrent tasks. At least some of the inconsistency is probably attributable to methodological variations, such as the manner in which divided-attention ability has been assessed, how single-task performance has been considered, and the degree of control over relative emphasis placed on each task. Two experiments employing procedures sensitive to these concerns were conducted in which a speeded decision task was performed during the retention interval of a letter-memory task. The results of both experiments indicated that there were relatively few age-related influences on dual-task performance vis-à-vis those on single-task performance.     

Attention shifts or volatile representations: What causes binding deficits in visual working memory?

The current study tested two hypotheses of feature binding memory: The attention hypothesis, which suggests that attention is needed to maintain feature bindings in visual working memory (VWM) and the volatile representation hypothesis, which suggests that feature bindings in memory are volatile and easily overwritten, but do not require sustained attention. Experiment 1 tested the attention hypothesis by measuring shifts of overt attention during the study array of a change detection task; serial shifts of attention did not disrupt feature bindings. Experiments 2 and 3 encouraged encoding of more volatile (Experiment 2) or durable (Experiment 3) representations during the study array. Binding change detection performance was impaired in Experiment 2, but not in Experiment 3, suggesting that binding performance is impaired when encoding supports a less durable memory representation. Together, these results suggest that although feature bindings may be volatile and easily overwritten, attention is not required to maintain feature bindings in VWM.     

The genesis of reading ability: What helps children learn letter-sound correspondences?

Knowledge of letter-sound correspondences underpins successful reading acquisition, and yet little is known about how young children acquire this knowledge and what prior information they bring to the learning process. In this study, we used an experimental training design to examine whether either prior letter awareness or prior phonemic awareness directly assists preliterate children in subsequently learning letter-sound correspondences. Here 76 preschoolers received 6 weeks of training in either letter awareness, phonemic awareness, or control tasks and then received a further 6 weeks of training in either letter-sound correspondences or control tasks. There was limited evidence that prior training in either phoneme or letter awareness directly assisted learning of letter-sound correspondences, although phonemically trained children appeared to show some advantage on recognition tasks. Overall, the data suggest that there is little value in training preschoolers in either letter forms or sounds in isolation in advance of providing instruction on the links between the two.     

Career or marriage?: Aspirations and achievements of able young women

Women who won National Merit Scholarships during the years 1956–1960 were followed up in 1965 to determine their marriage and/or career plans. Each of the 883 women was classified into one of five groups: marriage only, marriage with deferred career, marriage with immediate career, career only, or uncertain. Altogether, 85% of them said that they definitely planned on having a career. The educational and career field aspirations of these groups differed considerably, however, and those seeking an immediate career scored higher on scholastic ability tests than those who either planned no career or who planned to delay entering them. The groups also differed in their expression of problems encountered in making and implementing their plans as well as problems experienced because of being a woman.     

Spatial representation by young infants: Categorization of spatial relations or sensitivity to a crossing primitive?

The spatial representation abilities of 3- to 4-month-old infants were examined in four experiments. Experiments 1 and 2 showed that infants familiarized with a diamond appearing in distinct locations to the left or right of a vertical bar subsequently preferred a stimulus depicting the diamond on the opposite side of the bar over a stimulus depicting the diamond in a novel location on the same side of the bar. Experiment 3 was a replication of Experiment 1, except that the bar was oriented at 45 degrees. In this instance, infants divided their attention between the stimulus depicting the diamond on the opposite side of the bar and the stimulus depicting the diamond in a novel location on the same side of the bar. Experiment 4 demonstrated that the results of Experiment 3 were not a consequence of a failure to process the diagonal bar. When considered with previous reports that infants can represent the categories of above and below (Quinn, 1994), the present results suggest that (1) infants can also represent the categories of left and right, and (2) performance cannot be interpreted as a response to an arbitrary crossing of one object relative to another. Although recent discussions of the relation between language and cognition have pointed to the ways in which spatial language influences spatial cognition (Bowerman & Levinson, 2001), the present findings are consistent with an influence in the opposite direction: Spatial cognition may in some instances shape spatial language.     

Adolescents' perception of bullying: who is the victim? Who is the bully? What can be done to stop bullying?

The main aim of this study was to describe adolescents' perceptions and experiences of bullying: their thoughts about why children and adolescents are bullied, their ideas about why some bully others, and what they believe is important in order to stop bullying. The adolescents were asked about experiences throughout their school years. The study group was comprised of 119 high school students, with a mean age of 17.1 (SD = 1.2). Of the adolescents who reported, 39% indicated that they had been bullied at some time during their school years and 28% said that they had bullied others; 13% reported being both victims and bullies. The ages during which most students had been bullied at school were between 7 and 9 years. Bullies reported that most of the bullying took place when they were 10 to 12 years old. The most common reason as to why individuals are bullied was that they have a different appearance. The participants believe that those who bully suffer from low self-esteem. The most common response to the question "What do you think makes bullying stop?" was that the bully matures. The next most frequent response was that the victim stood up for himself/herself. Those who were not involved in bullying during their school years had a much stronger belief that victims can stand up for themselves than did the victims themselves.     

What do the young (old) people think of me? Content and accuracy of age-based metastereotypes

Increasing age diversity in the workforce points to the need to understand the dynamics of interpersonal relations across age groups. An important element of these interactions involves interpersonal perceptions, including both what an individual believes about members of other age groups (stereotypes) and what individuals believe other age groups think of their own group (metastereotypes). We explore the content and accuracy of the stereotypes and metastereotypes in a sample of 247 younger, middle-aged, and older workers. We compare the stereotypes and metastereotypes of and by different groups in terms of their affective valence (positive/negative) and compare the results produced by open-ended and closed-ended methods. We map out the usefulness of these data for future work towards enhancing cross-aged interactions in the workplace.     

To reach or not to reach? Perception of body effectivities by young infants

Two experiments compared 6‐month‐old infants as they reach for an object. All were proficient reachers but with different levels of sitting ability. The object was presented at various distances, within and beyond reach of the infant. In the first experiment, the scaling of perceived reachability in infants with different postural abilities (i.e. non‐sitter, near‐sitter, and sitter infants) was explored. The second experiment investigated the role of proprioception in the scaling of perceived reachability by non‐sitter and sitter infants. In general, results suggest that perceived reachability is calibrated in relation to the degree of postural control achieved by the infant. Infants demonstrate a sense of their own situation in the environment as well as a sense of their own body effectivities. Both determine the execution, or non‐execution, of reaching for a distal object by young infants. Copyright © 1999 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Age-related decline in the ability to decode emotional prosody: Primary or secondary phenomenon?

Emotion processing deficits can cause catastrophic damage to a person's ability to interact socially. While it is known that older adults have difficulty identifying facial emotions, it is still not clear whether this difficulty extends to identification of the emotion conveyed by prosody. This study investigated whether the ability of older adults to decode emotional prosody falls below that of young adults after controlling for loss of hearing sensitivity and key features of cognitive ageing. Apart from frontal lobe load, only verbal IQ was associated with the age-related reduction in performance displayed by older participants, but a notable deficit existed after controlling for its effects. It is concluded that older adults may indeed have difficulty deducing the emotion conveyed by prosody, and that while this difficulty can be exaggerated by some aspects of cognitive ageing, it is primary in origin.     

From Assessment to Design: What Is Really Needed in Technology Accompaniment to Achieve Subject Constitution?

Based on the argument that technologies mediate human experience and praxis, the idea of technology accompaniment has been suggested as an approach to developing human-tech relations. In light of this idea, this paper argues, firstly, that when technologies inevitably have moral relevance in influencing human perceptions and actions, the constitution of a moral subject has much to do with shaping technological mediation deliberately and creatively. While there is not always a direct connection between what humans know and what humans do, technological mediation can help to strengthen people’s motivation to do the right thing. Subsequently, we examine two approaches that have often been suggested for realizing subject-constitution-with-technology: one is Technology Assessment, and the other is Mediation Design. Although the former can equip people with knowledge about technological mediation, it is relatively weak when it comes to directly producing moral behavior. In contrast, the latter not only exerts a more direct impact on user behavior but may also improve people’s moral knowledge. Nonetheless, both approaches face the general challenge of moral education. As moral knowledge does not guarantee moral behavior, knowing facts and theories about technological mediation may not lead to subject constitution as a result of the development of the human-tech relationship. To overcome this difficulty, an extension of the latter approach is proposed. The design of meta-mediation has great potential to shift users’ attention to the aforementioned mediating effect of technology-in-use and, thereby, users’ subject constitution can be enabled.     

What determines the speed of lexical access: homophone or specific-word frequency? A reply to Jescheniak et al. (2003)

A. Caramazza, A. Costa, M. Miozzo, and Y. Bi (2001) reported a series of experiments showing that naming latencies for homophones are determined by specific-word frequency (e.g., frequency of nun) and not homophone frequency (frequency of nun + none). J. D. Jescheniak, A. S. Meyer, and W. J. M. Levelt (2003) have challenged these studies on a variety of grounds. Here we argue that these criticisms are not well founded and try to clarify the theoretical issues that can be meaningfully addressed by considering the effects of frequency on homophone production. We conclude that the evidence from homophone production cannot be considered to provide support to 2-layer theories of the lexical system.     

Sex differences in motor performance of young children: Fact or fiction?

Prepubescent boys and girls who had participated for one or more years in a coeducational physical education program were classified by grade (3, 4, and 5) and year (1977, 1978, and 1979). Scores from the AAHPER Youth Fitness Test were analyzed for differences. Results indicated that females at prepubescent ages may be expected to perform at similar levels to boys of the same age on most test items. While differences were not significant, girls in 1979 were actually better than boys of the same age from the two previous years.     

Threats to the Internal Validity of Spinal Surgery Outcome Assessment: Recalibration Response Shift or Implicit Theories of Change?

A recalibration response shift will cause the patient to think about a self-report measure’s response options differently after a health state change. Commonly assessed using the retrospective-pretest design (“then-test”), recent guidelines suggest adjusting then-test estimates for competing explanations. This prospective longitudinal study investigated recalibration response shift after adjusting for implicit theories of change in patients undergoing spinal surgery. The Oswestry Disability Index (ODI) and Short Form-36 (SF-36) were collected before surgery and at 6 weeks and 3 months after spinal decompression surgery. Then-tests of the measures were also collected at all post-tests. Recalibration response shift was operationalized as the then-minus-pre difference score on the evaluative SF-36. Implicit theories of change were operationalized as the then-minus-pre difference score on the perception-based ODI. Improved vs. No-Effect patient groups were compared using the Minimally Important Difference (±15 points) as a cut-off on the Visual Analogue Scale (VAS) items for back and leg pain. Logistic regression analyses investigated whether recalibration response shift had an independent effect distinguishing patient groups, after adjusting for implicit theories of change. The sample (baseline n?=?169, mean age 52, 39 % female) was well-educated, and 1/3 were working. All then-minus-pre difference scores were non-zero at each time point and were stable over time. In the adjusted models distinguishing Improved versus No Effect groups, then-minus-pre ODI difference scores were significant in the majority of the adjusted models at all timepoints, but only one then-minus-pre SF-36 difference score—for physical functioning recalibration—was significant and only at 6-weeks post-surgery. This suggests that implicit theories of change bias the estimation of post-surgical outcomes, but that recalibration response shift biased only the estimation of physical functioning and only at 6 weeks post-surgery. Recalibration response shift and implicit theories of change can both be sources of bias in patient-reported outcome assessment. Our findings suggest that implicit theories of change are a greater threat to validity in this patient sample. Future research using the then-test should control for implicit theories of change to minimize misspecification of effects.