Playing on the typewriter, typing on the piano: manipulation knowledge of objects

Two experiments investigated sensory/motor-based functional knowledge of man-made objects: manipulation features associated with the actual usage of objects. In Experiment 1, a series of prime-target pairs was presented auditorily, and participants were asked to make a lexical decision on the target word. Participants made a significantly faster decision about the target word (e.g. ‘typewriter’) following a related prime that shared manipulation features with the target (e.g. ‘piano’) than an unrelated prime (e.g. ‘blanket’). In Experiment 2, participants' eye movements were monitored when they viewed a visual display on a computer screen while listening to a concurrent auditory input. Participants were instructed to simply identify the auditory input and touch the corresponding object on the computer display. Participants fixated an object picture (e.g. “typewriter”) related to a target word (e.g. ‘piano’) significantly more often than an unrelated object picture (e.g. “bucket”) as well as a visually matched control (e.g. “couch”). Results of the two experiments suggest that manipulation knowledge of words is retrieved without conscious effort and that manipulation knowledge constitutes a part of the lexical-semantic representation of objects.     

Social desirability, personality questionnaires, and the “better than average” effect

It is well established that respondents are much more likely to rate themselves highly on personality questionnaire items with high social desirability (SD) than on items with low SD. However, conflicting explanations have been offered for this phenomenon. In the present study, 286 participants were randomly assigned to four groups that rated 119 items from two well-known personality questionnaires. One group of participants rated themselves, a second group rated their family and friends, a third rated “people in general,” and a fourth rated the items’ SD. It was found that mean SD ratings of personality items were highly correlated with mean self-ratings and with mean ratings of family and friends for the same items (all rs > .800), but not with mean ratings of “people in general.” In other words, participants strongly tended to rate themselves, their family, and their friends as high on socially desirable qualities, but this tendency did not extend to ratings of people in general. These results support the conclusion that respondents’ personality ratings of themselves, their family and friends, but not of people in general, are influenced by the form of self-serving bias known as the “better than average effect.”     

Inclusion in a superordinate category, in-group prototypicality, and attitudes towards out-groups

We hypothesized that group members’ attitudes towards an out-group are negatively related to the in-group’s perceived relative prototypicality for a superordinate category, but only if both the in-group and out-group are included in this superordinate category. In Experiment 1 (N=40), Germans’ attitudes towards Poles were negatively correlated with the relative prototypicality of Germans when “Europe” (including Poles), but not when “West-Europe” (excluding Poles), was the superordinate category. In Experiment 2 (N=63), female single parents’ attitudes about the competence of single parents to raise children depended on the in-group’s relative prototypicality for “single parents” (including fathers), but not on their relative similarity to “mothers” (excluding fathers). Both experiments showed that inclusion in a superordinate category had a more negative influence on attitudes towards the out-group when relative in-group prototypicality is high rather than low.     

Hans Penner, Horatio and the Terminator: a review essay of Radical Interpretation in Religion

Adaptations of Donald Davidson’s meta-methodology of “radical interpretation” by Hans Penner and colleagues create more problems than they solve. Penner’s affirmation of both holistic and naturalistic approaches to the study of religion ring true. But, making the inclusion of ‘superhuman beings’—those “that do things you and I cannot do”—sufficient to the definition of religion. It is alternately counterfactual (Theravada, Chan or Zen Buddhism, Confucianism, Jainism and others), or not restrictive enough (does every such being qualify? viz. Schwarzenegger’s Terminator?), or logically ‘uninteresting’—is reference to superhuman beings alone what makes a discourse religious, or is it their being ‘worshipful’?     

Relations between risk perceptions and socio-political ideology are domain- and ideology- dependent

Public policy intended to address risks is largely determined by government officials who are typically elected by ‘the people’. Lay people presumably support political figures most likely to tackle the risks perceived as relevant. The present research investigated whether risk perceptions vary by risk domain and socio-political ideology. American community adults (N = 387) recruited using Amazon Mechanical Turk completed measures of right-wing authoritarianism (RWA), social dominance orientation (SDO), political conservatism, and perceived domain risks. Risk perceptions of conservatives versus liberals systematically differed by domain: Increases in political conservatism (vs. liberalism) and RWA were associated with perceiving “personal danger” hazards as more risky, whereas increases in SDO were associated with perceiving “competitive” hazards as less risky. A liberal-orientation was associated with heightened risk concerning collective (shared) hazards.     

What makes a hypothetical construct “hypothetical”? Tracing the origins and uses of the ‘hypothetical construct’ concept in psychological science

The “hypothetical construct” has been an important concept in philosophy of science for the past half century. References to the concept date as far back as 1943 (Loomba, 1943). Inconsistencies in the use of the term and the related ‘intervening variable’ concept prompted MacCorquodale and Meehl (1948) to distinguish the two concepts and propose conventions for their employment in psychological discourse. They recommended that ‘hypothetical construct’ designates theoretical concepts that “refer to processes or entities that are not directly observed” and, thus, fail to meet the requirements of intervening variables (p. 104). It is interesting to speculate what makes a hypothetical construct “hypothetical.” The motivation for attaching “hypothetical” to constructs is not always immediately apparent. The aim of this paper is to trace the origins of the expression ‘hypothetical construct’, delineate its employment in psychology, and explore the ontological and epistemological presuppositions that underlie conceptions of hypothetical constructs.     

The ‘circumstances’ of gestures: Proto-interrogatives and private gestures

The later Wittgenstein's emphasis on the social usage of language has been very influential in psychology, particularly in language acquisition research. This move toward a pragmatic position should also be applied to gestures in pre-linguistic children and to objects in the everyday contexts of use. The shared ‘forms of life’ presupposed by language involve pre-linguistic gestures and material ‘things’.Research on early communication has focused on proto-declarative and proto-imperative gestures. I extend this focus and propose further types of gestures: ‘proto-interrogatives’ - in which children “ask” for help or regulation from adults, and three types of ‘private gestures’ - ostensive, indexical and symbolic - in which children regulate their own behaviour. This diversity of gestures becomes apparent when objects are taken seriously. Wittgenstein's ‘language-games’ necessarily apply to games with objects and gestures as well: social meaning in all cases is emergent within the context of these ‘sign games’ and ‘circumstances.’     

公正世界信念对记忆偏差的影响

公正世界信念指人们需要相信他们所处的世界是一个公正有序的世界。本研究考察的是公正世界信念是否影响人们的记忆,让人产生记忆偏差。实验一中,被试首先阅读一则彩票中奖的新闻,然后阅读关于中奖者人品的描述,最后被试需要回忆中奖金额。结果发现,中奖者的个性品质影响对奖金数额的记忆。实验二中,两组被试分别阅读一则维护公正世界信念或威胁公正世界信念的无关故事,接下来程序与实验一相同。结果发现,预先激活的公正世界信念状态与中奖者个性品质在记忆结果上存在显著的交互效应。结果表明,公正世界信念能够导致记忆偏差。     

Perceived benefits of using an Internet-based interactive career planning system

Making Better Career Decisions (MBCD) is an Internet-based interactive career planning system designed to help deliberating individuals. The present research examined the benefits of a dialogue with MBCD, by analyzing 712 users’ perceptions of its contribution to their career decision-making process, and locating variables associated with these perceptions. A pre-dialogue and a post-dialogue questionnaire were used to collect the users’ perceptions of its benefits and measure the change in the degree of decidedness. Perceived benefit was derived from participants’ ratings of the degree of progress they had made in their career decision-making process, whether they had learned about additional factors to be considered and their career-related preferences, as well as their ratings of the quality of the list of “promising” career alternatives presented to them during their dialogue with MBCD. This composite perceived benefit was found to be positively associated with the users’ decidedness at the completion of the dialogue with MBCD. Users’ satisfaction with the length and variety of their personal “promising alternatives” list was associated with a higher perceived benefit.     

Developing the therapeutic relationship: from 'expert' professional to 'expert' person who stutters

This article looks back over the years and identifies some of the most influential thinkers, writers, and researchers who have had a profound effect on the way the therapy at the Michael Palin Centre for Stammering Children in London has evolved. It tracks the changes that have occurred in theoretical perspective, treatments offered, and the delivery of therapy. In particular this author is interested in the changing nature of the therapeutic relationship between professionals and people who stutter (PWS), and describes the way it has developed from the “expert professional” towards a more collaborative relationship that recognises the “expert patient”. It was inspired by a book written in 1902 by Mr Beasley, a person who stammered. After several unsuccessful attempts to find a ‘cure’ he found his own solution to his stuttering and then used what he had learned to help many others. Much of what he wrote was well ahead of his time and reminds us, the professionals, of the importance of listening to and taking account of the views of PWS in therapy and designing treatment that meets the needs of the individual. This article also looks briefly at evidence based practice (EBP) and the issues involved in measuring outcomes that reflect the complex and individual nature of the problem. Finally the importance of the research in developing the knowledge and skill base of clinicians as well as PWS is acknowledged and discussed and the way ahead signposted.Educational objectives: The reader will learn about (1) the early history and development of stuttering therapy, (2) the influence of a variety of psychotherapeutic approaches, (3) the relevance of designing therapy to meet the needs of the PWS, and (4) discuss the role of ‘common’ factors in EBP.     

The meaning of “significance” for different types of research [translated and annotated by Eric-Jan Wagenmakers,Denny Borsboom,Josine Verhagen,Rogier Kievit,Marjan Bakker,Angelique Cramer,Dora Matzke,Don Mellenbergh,and Han L. J. van der Maas]

Adrianus Dingeman de Groot (1914–2006) was one of the most influential Dutch psychologists. He became famous for his work “Thought and Choice in Chess”, but his main contribution was methodological — De Groot co-founded the Department of Psychological Methods at the University of Amsterdam (together with R. F. van Naerssen), founded one of the leading testing and assessment companies (CITO), and wrote the monograph “Methodology” that centers on the empirical-scientific cycle: observation–induction–deduction–testing–evaluation. Here we translate one of De Groot's early articles, published in 1956 in the Dutch journal Nederlands Tijdschrift voor de Psychologie en Haar Grensgebieden. This article is more topical now than it was almost 60 years ago. De Groot stresses the difference between exploratory and confirmatory (“hypothesis testing”) research and argues that statistical inference is only sensible for the latter: “One ‘is allowed’ to apply statistical tests in exploratory research, just as long as one realizes that they do not have evidential impact”. De Groot may have also been one of the first psychologists to argue explicitly for preregistration of experiments and the associated plan of statistical analysis. The appendix provides annotations that connect De Groot's arguments to the current-day debate on transparency and reproducibility in psychological science.     

‘At home in the uncanny’: Freud's account of das Unheimliche in the context of his theory of religious belief

This paper serves as an exploration of Freud's comment that one of the functions of religious belief is to make humanity feel ‘at home in the uncanny’ (heimisch im Unheimlichen). The first section examines the context of Freud's comment within The Future of an Illusion. Attention is then shifted to Freud's essay on ‘The “Uncanny”’, and to his conclusion that the ‘uncanny’ is the name for everything that ought to have remained secret and hidden but has come to light. A number of interpretations of the ‘at home’ remark are discussed, and it is suggested that religion might fruitfully be viewed as an attempt to come to terms with humanity's ‘transcendental homelessness’.     

Language can mediate eye movement control within 100 milliseconds, regardless of whether there is anything to move the eyes to

The delay between the signal to move the eyes, and the execution of the corresponding eye movement, is variable, and skewed; with an early peak followed by a considerable tail. This skewed distribution renders the answer to the question “What is the delay between language input and saccade execution?” problematic; for a given task, there is no single number, only a distribution of numbers. Here, two previously published studies are reanalysed, whose designs enable us to answer, instead, the question: How long does it take, as the language unfolds, for the oculomotor system to demonstrate sensitivity to the distinction between “signal” (eye movements due to the unfolding language) and “noise” (eye movements due to extraneous factors)? In two studies, participants heard either ‘the man…’ or ‘the girl…’, and the distribution of launch times towards the concurrently, or previously, depicted man in response to these two inputs was calculated. In both cases, the earliest discrimination between signal and noise occurred at around 100 ms. This rapid interplay between language and oculomotor control is most likely due to cancellation of about-to-be executed saccades towards objects (or their episodic trace) that mismatch the earliest phonological moments of the unfolding word.     

Knowing what, where, and when: Event comprehension in language processing

We investigated the retrieval of location information, and the deployment of attention to these locations, following (described) event-related location changes. In two visual world experiments, listeners viewed arrays with containers like a bowl, jar, pan, and jug, while hearing sentences like “The boy will pour the sweetcorn from the bowl into the jar, and he will pour the gravy from the pan into the jug. And then, he will taste the sweetcorn”. At the discourse-final “sweetcorn”, listeners fixated context-relevant “Target” containers most (jar). Crucially, we also observed two forms of competition: listeners fixated containers that were not directly referred to but associated with “sweetcorn” (bowl), and containers that played the same role as Targets (goals of moving events; jug), more than distractors (pan). These results suggest that event-related location changes are encoded across representations that compete for comprehenders’ attention, such that listeners retrieve, and fixate, locations that are not referred to in the unfolding language, but related to them via object or role information.     

Managerial Work, Job Analysis, and Holland's RIASEC Vocational Environment Dimensions

We examined relations between the environmental dimensions underlying Holland's theory of vocational choice and skill requirements, context characteristics, and task frequency ratings for managerial jobs. The Holland environmental constructs were measured by the recently developedPosition Classification Inventory(PCI). The task, skill requirement, and context variables were measured using traditional job analysis surveys. Ten judges provided estimates of the expected correlations between the job analysis variables and the Holland constructs. The profile of observed correlations was generally consistent with the judges’ expectations based on Holland's theory, providing support for both that framework and the construct validity of the PCI. The one Holland dimension for which the data were least consistent with predictions was “Realistic.” Results provide a detailed picture of the work content, skills, and context variables within managerial work that are likely to be associated with the RIASEC dimensions. Implications for management development are discussed.     

Myths, models, and metaphors: Religion as model and the philosophy of science

Clifford Geertz's widely-used paper ‘Religion as a Cultural System’, makes the claim that ‘the importance of religion lies in its capacity to serve … as a source of general, yet distinctive conceptions of the world, the self and the relations between them …—its model of aspect—and of rooted, no less distinctive “mental” dispositions—its model for aspect’. However, apart from a highly critical article by Nancy Frankenberry and Hans Penner (1999) little attempt has been made to investigate this understanding of religion as model. This paper briefly considers the validity of Frankenberry and Penner's criticism and investigates possible applications of the elaborate analysis of models and metaphors in the philosophy of science since the time of Mary Hesse to the analysis of religious phenomena.     

Styles of pulling in trichotillomania: exploring differences in symptom severity, phenomenology, and functional impact

Previous research has examined possible phenomenological differences between “focused” (i.e., with a compulsive quality) and “automatic” (i.e., with decreased awareness) pulling associated with trichotillomania (TTM), but these constructs have not been assessed using psychometrically sound measures. In the current study, differences in TTM severity, phenomenology, comorbid psychiatric symptoms, and functional impact were examined across individuals with varying combinations of “focused” and “automatic” pulling styles. Participants aged 18 and older were recruited via an internet-based survey. Those meeting inclusion criteria and completing the Milwaukee Inventory for Subtypes of Trichotillomania-Adult Version (MIST-A; n=1545) were classified as either high- or low-focused and either high- or low-automatic based on scores obtained from the focused and automatic scales of the MIST-A using a median split procedure. Results showed some significant differences between pulling styles. For example, “high-automatic” pullers reported more severe TTM and greater stress than “low-automatic” pullers, and “high-focused” pullers reported more severe TTM, greater stress and depression, and greater functional impact than “low-focused” pullers. Subsequent analyses suggest that, in comparison to individuals experiencing low levels of both automatic and focused pulling, those experiencing high levels of each pulling style reported greater severity, psychological impact, and functional impact. Clinical and research implications, study limitations, and future areas of research are discussed.     

Mere acceptance produces apparent attitude in the Implicit Association Test

Two experiments examined mere acceptance effects in the Implicit Association Test (IAT). They tested whether accepting a stimulus as conforming to a rule produces responding consistent with positive attitude in the IAT. In Experiment 1, accepted stimuli were more easily categorized with pleasant personality characteristics than rejected stimuli; they were preferred according to the logic of the IAT. Accepted word stimuli were also responded to faster overall, suggesting that it was easier to make the accept than the reject response. In Experiment 2, numerical stimuli that conformed to a rule showed the same IAT preference effect over non-confirming stimuli, even when the rule conforming stimuli were more difficult to categorize. Three sources of this apparent preference for rule-conforming stimuli are considered: (1) the semantic relatedness of the concepts “accept” and “pleasant” on the one hand, and “reject” and “unpleasant” on the other; (2) that rejected non-category members are more salient (‘pop-out’) and thus are more easily categorized with the more salient unpleasant personality characteristics; or (3) that accepting rule-conforming stimuli is experienced as a pleasant event. Regardless of the mechanism underlying the mere acceptance effect, the IAT can produce apparent preferences for stimuli towards which participants have no positive attitude.     

Is the go/no-go lexical decision task preferable to the yes/no task with developing readers?

The lexical decision task is probably the most common laboratory visual word identification task together with the naming task. In the usual setup, participants need to press the “yes” button when the stimulus is a word and the “no” button when the stimulus is not a word. A number of studies have employed this task with developing readers; however, error rates and/or response times tend to be quite high. One way to make the task easier for young readers is by employing a go/no-go procedure: “If word, press ‘yes’; if not, refrain from responding.” Here we conducted a lexical decision experiment that systematically compared the yes/no and go/no-go variants of the lexical decision task with developing readers (second- and fourth-grade children). Results showed that (a) error rates for words and nonwords were much lower in the go/no-go task than in the yes/no task, (b) lexical decision times were substantially faster in the go/no-go task, and (c) there was less variability in the latency data of the go/no-go task for high-frequency words. Thus, the go/no-go lexical decision task is preferable to the “standard” yes/no task when conducting experiments with developing readers.