A validation of Amazon Mechanical Turk for the collection of acceptability judgments in linguistic theory

Amazon’s Mechanical Turk (AMT) is a Web application that provides instant access to thousands of potential participants for survey-based psychology experiments, such as the acceptability judgment task used extensively in syntactic theory. Because AMT is a Web-based system, syntacticians may worry that the move out of the experimenter-controlled environment of the laboratory and onto the user-controlled environment of AMT could adversely affect the quality of the judgment data collected. This article reports a quantitative comparison of two identical acceptability judgment experiments, each with 176 participants (352 total): one conducted in the laboratory, and one conducted on AMT. Crucial indicators of data quality—such as participant rejection rates, statistical power, and the shape of the distributions of the judgments for each sentence type—are compared between the two samples. The results suggest that aside from slightly higher participant rejection rates, AMT data are almost indistinguishable from laboratory data.     

Voice and cooperative behavior as contrasting forms of contextual performance: evidence of differential relationships with big five personality characteristics and cognitive ability

The results of a laboratory study of 276 individuals replicate past findings for cooperative behavior as a form of contextual performance and extend past research by providing evidence that voice (constructive change-oriented communication) may be another form of contextual performance. Conscientiousness, extraversion, and agreeableness related more strongly to voice behavior and cooperative behavior than to task performance. Cognitive ability related more strongly to task performance than to voice behavior or cooperative behavior. Results also demonstrate contrasting relationships for agreeableness (positive with cooperative behavior and negative with voice behavior). This supports recent research suggesting the possibility of bidirectional relationships with personality characteristics across different dimensions of job performance.     

Constraints on the perception of synthetic speech generated by rule

Within the next few years, there will be an extensive proliferation of various types of voice response devices in human-machine communication systems. Unfortunately, at present, relatively little basic or applied research has been carried out on the intelligibility, comprehension, and perceptual processing of synthetic speech produced by these devices. On the basis of our research, we identify five factors that must be considered in studying the perception of synthetic speech: (1) the specific demands imposed by a particular task, (2) the inherent limitations of the human information processing system, (3) the experience and training of the human listener, (4) the linguistic structure of the message set, and (5) the structure and quality of the speech signal.     

Psychometric Properties of a Social Skills Assessment using a Virtual Environment

Social Anxiety Disorder (SAD) is a marked and persistent fear of social and/or performance situations in which embarrassment or scrutiny from others may occur. One form of behavioral assessment is a Role Play Task (RPT). However, RPTs often are not feasible in clinical settings due to the common obstacles in implementation. Thus, the current study examines the feasibility, acceptability and psychometric properties of a virtual environment based social skills assessment compared to the traditional RPT. Forty-six children, ages 7 to 14, participated in two assessment conditions: RPT and a virtual environment behavioral assessment (VE BAT). Participants reported self-ratings of anxiety and acceptability, while blinded observers rated social skills and overall social anxiety. An ANCOVA, covarying for age, revealed (a) no significant task difference for voice volume, speech latency, number of words spoken, effectiveness, and SAM ratings; (b) that the VE BAT was more feasible to implement in terms of personnel time and costs and; (c) more overall anxiety during the RPT task than during the VE BAT task. In addition, the VE BAT demonstrated moderate concurrent validity when correlating the self-report ratings of anxiety with the Social Phobia and Anxiety Inventory for Children (SPAI-C). The current study addresses many of the impediments to conducting RPTs in a clinical setting and, overall, supports the utilization of VE BATS as a viable alternative for the behavioral assessment of social skills in children. Further implications address the potential for the armamentarium for social skills training with children with SAD.     

Clinical Aspects of Transgender Speech Feminization and Masculinization

SUMMARY

Societal norms of speech, voice, and non-verbal communication are often strongly gendered. For transgender individuals who experience a mismatch between existing communication behaviours and felt sense of self, changes to the gendered aspects of communication can help reduce gender dysphoria, improving mental health and quality of life. While peer resources are often beneficial in changing overall appearance and presentation, speech and voice modification is best facilitated by a trans-competent speech professional. In this article we review clinical research relating to transgender speech and voice change and discuss clinical protocols for trans-specific assessment, treatment, and outcome evaluation.     

Affect intensity in voice recognized by tree shrews (Tupaia belangeri)

Shared acoustic cues in speech, music, and nonverbal emotional expressions were postulated to code for emotion quality and intensity favoring the hypothesis of a prehuman origin of affective prosody in human emotional communication. To explore this hypothesis, we examined in playback experiments using a habituation-dishabituation paradigm whether a solitary foraging, highly vocal mammal, the tree shrew, is able to discriminate two behaviorally defined states of affect intensity (low vs. high) from the voice of conspecifics. Playback experiments with communication calls of two different types (chatter call and scream call) given in the state of low affect intensity revealed that habituated tree shrews dishabituated to one call type (the chatter call) and showed a tendency to do so for the other one (the scream call), both given in the state of high affect intensity. Findings suggest that listeners perceive the acoustic variation linked to defined states of affect intensity as different within the same call type. Our findings in tree shrews provide first evidence that acoustically conveyed affect intensity is biologically relevant without any other sensory cue, even for solitary foragers. Thus, the perception of affect intensity in voice conveyed in stressful contexts represents a shared trait of mammals, independent of the complexity of social systems. Findings support the hypothesis that affective prosody in human emotional communication has deep-reaching phylogenetic roots, deriving from precursors already present and relevant in the vocal communication system of early mammals.     

Overt expression of experimenter expectancies,interaction with subject expectancies,and performance on a psychomotor task

Subsequent to success or failure experience, 48 subjects attempted a psychomotor task in order to escape or avoid an aversive stimulus (tone). Their attempts at solving the task over 24 trials were made in the presence of subject-experimenters each of whom had expectancies instilled regarding the solution to the task. The job of the subject-experimenters was to “offer information” on every third trials as the subjects attempted to solve the task. It was hypothesized that the expectancies of the subject-experimenters would be communicated to the subjects via periodic comments, that these expectancies would differentially affect the subjects' performance on the task, and that prior experience on a similar task would differentially affect subjects' performances on the task. The results demonstrated that the expectancies instilled in the subject-experimenters were communicated and influenced the performances of subjects as predicted. It appears that consistency with respect to the expectancies communicated played a major role in producing significant effects. Prior experience failed to produce significant differences on task performance, a finding conflicting with that of D.S. Hiroto (Journal of Experimental Psychology, 1974, 102, 187–193). The results are discussed from the perspective of using the overt, explicit communication of expectancies as a means for exploring the illusive phenomenon of the experimenter expectancy effect.     

Shielding voices: The modulation of binding processes between voice features and response features by task representations

Vocal events offer not only semantic-linguistic content but also information about the identity and the emotional-motivational state of the speaker. Furthermore, most vocal events have implications for our actions and therefore include action-related features. But the relevance and irrelevance of vocal features varies from task to task. The present study investigates binding processes for perceptual and action-related features of spoken words and their modulation by the task representation of the listener. Participants reacted with two response keys to eight different words spoken by a male or a female voice (Experiment 1) or spoken by an angry or neutral male voice (Experiment 2). There were two instruction conditions: half of participants learned eight stimulus-response mappings by rote (SR), and half of participants applied a binary task rule (TR). In both experiments, SR instructed participants showed clear evidence for binding processes between voice and response features indicated by an interaction between the irrelevant voice feature and the response. By contrast, as indicated by a three-way interaction with instruction, no such binding was found in the TR instructed group. These results are suggestive of binding and shielding as two adaptive mechanisms that ensure successful communication and action in a dynamic social environment.     

Covert communication in laboratories, classrooms, and the truly real world

Hundreds of research studies have demonstrated that one person's expectations for the behavior of another person can actually affect that other person's behavior. These studies implicate the operation of processes of covert communication, communication that is subtle, largely nonverbal, and ordinarily unintended. The earliest studies of these processes showed that through their expectations, laboratory researchers unwittingly affected the responses of their research participants. Later studies showed that teachers' experimentally induced expectations about their pupils affected the pupils' intellectual performance. Most recently, studies of covert communication processes have extended to diverse contexts, such as the judicial and health care systems. For example, research indicates that judges' beliefs about the guilt of trial defendants can be unwittingly communicated to juries by the judges' nonverbal behavior during jury instruction. In addition, studies of covert communication in medical contexts show that physicians' effectiveness in persuading their patients to enter into treatment can be predicted from their tone of voice in talking to or about their patients. For example, one study showed that surgeons who used a bossy tone of voice when talking to their patients were more likely to be sued by their patients than were surgeons who used a more respectful tone. In sum, then, we have learned a great deal about the importance of subtle processes of nonverbal communication, but a great deal more is yet to be learned about these processes as they occur in the relatively sheltered context of laboratories and classrooms and in the rough-and-tumble of the truly real world beyond.     

ATTRIBUTIONS FOR THE POORLY PERFORMING BLACKJACK DEALER: IN THE CARDS OR INABILITY?

This study examined the effects of task and supervisory experience on causal attributions and recommendations for corrective action following poor performance. One hundred twenty subjects employed in a casino reviewed an evaluation form describing the poor performance of a blackjack dealer in the casino. Subjects included first-and second-level supervisors with task and supervisory experience, dealers with task experience only, and employees with neither task nor supervisory experience. Subjects were told that the dealer being evaluated had 2, 6, or 12 months of task experience. Results indicate that task and supervisory experience did affect attributions to specific causal factors; however, the effects were not consistently in the predicted direction. Specifically, supervisors viewed lack of effort and poor supervision as more important and task difficulty as less important causes of poor performance than did dealers. Subjects without task experience viewed poor work conditions and task difficulty as stronger causes of poor performance than did dealers. Task experience of the ratee interacted with rater task experience such that dealers and controls differed in their attributions for employees with 12 months' experience but did not differ if the ratee had 2 or 6 months' experience. Causal attributions for an employee's poor performance were related to subsequent corrective recommendations.     

Distinctiveness helps when matching static faces and voices

Three experiments are reported which examined the capacity to match a voice with a static image of a face. When using a simultaneous same/different matching task, performance was significantly better than chance (Experiments 1 and 2). However, it did not appear to depend either on sex of speaker, sex of listener, stimulus distinctiveness, or self-reported strategies (Experiment 2). Concerns over floor effects as well as a significant response bias prompted a change of task, and when performance was examined through matching a voice to a face lineup, a more interesting pattern emerged. Again, performance was significantly better than chance, but in addition, it was demonstrably affected by the distinctiveness of the speaker’s voice. These results are considered in the context of theoretical discussions regarding face–voice integration, and in the context of more applied considerations regarding multimodal benefits in witness scenarios.     

When customers exhibit verbal aggression, employees pay cognitive costs

In 4 experimental studies, we show that customer verbal aggression impaired the cognitive performance of the targets of this aggression. In Study 1, customers' verbal aggression reduced recall of customers' requests. Study 2 extended these findings by showing that customer verbal aggression impaired recognition memory and working memory among employees of a cellular communication provider. In Study 3, the ability to take another's perspective attenuated the negative effects of customer verbal aggression on participants' cognitive performance. Study 4 linked customer verbal aggression to quality of task performance, showing a particularly negative influence of aggressive requests delivered by high-status customers. Together, these studies suggest that the effects of even minor aggression from customers can strongly affect the immediate cognitive performance of customer service employees and reduce their task performance. The implications for research on aggression and for the practice of customer service are discussed. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2012 APA, all rights reserved).     

Growth curve models in retrospective memory and prospective memory: the relationship between prediction and performance with task experience

Older adults commonly experience declines in episodic memory that affect their daily lives. The aim was to examine whether the acquired metacognitive awareness that comes with task experience, indexed by meta-retrospective memory (meta-RM)/meta-prospective memory (meta-PM), influences how older adults predict performance on later trials. Participants were 178 community-dwelling older adults. RM performance and predictions were measured using a multi-trial word-list learning task. Predictions and performance for PM were measured using a PM paradigm. Change in RM/PM performance and predictions over the trials/blocks were modelled using latent growth curve analyses. For RM, both predictions and performance increased with task experience. However, for PM, neither performance nor predictions changed with task experience. Hierarchical multiple regressions revealed that metacognitive awareness acquired during the RM and PM tasks influenced how older adults’ modified their predictions of subsequent task performance. Findings are consistent with [Toglia and Kirk’s (2000). Understanding awareness deficits following brain injury. NeuroRehabilitation, 15(1), 57–70] hypothesis that individuals compare ongoing performance to expectations based on metacognitive knowledge, such that a discrepancy between actual and expected performance may influence emergent awareness.     

Talking About Behaviors in the Passive Voice Increases Task Performance

Self‐talk can help people redirect their attention focused on themselves to the tasks they are working on with important consequences for their task performance. Across four experiments and two different types of languages, Turkish and Slovak, people describing their own behaviors to themselves, as well as merely reading or writing sentences depicting some fictitious events, in the passive (vs. the active) voice performed better on various tasks of motor and verbal performance. The effect was present to the extent that people maintained their control over task‐distracting thoughts or felt more responsible for their task success/failure. In sum, talking about task behaviors in the passive voice may increase the perceived role of task‐related factors while decreasing the role of agent‐related factors in achieving task success, whereby the task focus, hence performance, increases. The results are important for understanding the role of self‐talk in performance with implications for changing important outcomes. Copyright © 2014 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

The role of task difficulty and affect activation level in the use of affect as information

The current research examined task difficulty and affect activation level as factors that determine the relevance of affect as information in a performance context. Participants viewed a series of pictures designed to elicit an affective state that was high or low in activation and positive or negative in valence. They completed an easy or difficult anagram task and then rated their satisfaction with their performance. Analyses revealed that low activation affect was used as information for judging one's performance on the difficult task and high activation affect was used as information for judging one's performance on the easy task. In these cases, the valence of participants' affect influenced their judgments about their performance, such that positive affect resulted in greater satisfaction. These findings suggest that affective states with activation levels that match one's typical level of energy after a particular task are seen as more relevant for judging one's performance.     

Familiarity increases subjective positive affect even in non-affective and non-evaluative contexts

Previous research shows that the experience of familiarity involves the experience of positive affect. In two experiments we clarify and extend this research by showing that the experience of familiarity involves the experience of positive affect even when the nature of the experimental task is non-affective and non-evaluative and even when participants are actively performing other cognitive operations—that the association of familiarity and positive affect is not disrupted by (non-affective and non-evaluative) judgments regardless of whether familiarity does or does not play a role in those judgments. Experiment 1 used a non-affective but evaluative task and Experiment 2 a completely non-evaluative task. Both studies manipulated familiarity through re-exposure and showed that processing familiar stimuli induced a pleasurable subjective experience.     

Age-related changes in discrimination of unfamiliar odors

If odor perception involves mnemonic processes, differences in olfactory experience should affect discriminative ability. This was examined here by comparing discriminative performance in children and adults. Using an oddity test of discrimination, in Experiment 1 we tested 6-year-olds (G1), 11-year-olds (G6), and adults (A) on their ability to discriminate unfamiliar odors that varied either in quality (Q) or in quality and intensity (QI). G1 participants were poorer at discriminating the QI set, relative to G6 and A. In Experiment 2, we used an analogous visual procedure and confirmed that this age-related difference was olfactory specific. In Experiment 3, we repeated Experiment 1 but used an articulatory suppression task. G1 participants were poorer than G6 and A participants for both the Q and the QI sets. The implications of these findings for experiential accounts of odor perception and olfactory working memory are discussed.     

Towards defining a unified concept for the acceptability of Intelligent Transport Systems (ITS): A conceptual analysis based on the case of Intelligent Speed Adaptation (ISA)

A key success factor in the future implementation of new in-vehicle technologies is in understanding how users will experience and respond to these devices. Although it is recognized that acceptance, acceptability and/or support is important, consistency in the definition of acceptability, and how it can be measured, is absent. In this paper we conceptualize acceptance as the attitudes towards a new device after its introduction and acceptability as the attitudes to it before its introduction. It is our goal to describe and conceptualize the most common and relevant socio-psychological factors that can influence acceptance and acceptability of Intelligent Speed Adaptation (ISA). By analysing the different theories and methods used in ISA trials we arrived at the 14 most potential indicators that could influence the definition of acceptability and acceptance. A test survey was conducted to determine if these indicators are relevant and if they affect acceptability. The use of a factor analysis helped to single out those questions that were deemed relevant in doing our conceptual acceptability analysis, and to allocate correlations between the different items. We conclude that we have found a concept with some main possible indicators that directly influence the acceptability of ISA.     

CROWDING,TASK PERFORMANCE,AND COMMUNICATIVE INTERACTION IN YOUTH AND OLD AGE

Following Altman's privacy regulation model, this research was based on the assumption that the relationship between achieved and desired levels of privacy is a major determinant of the experience of crowding in small groups. Further, on the basis of evidence that advancing age is associated with a chronic lack of communicative interaction, it was assumed that the achieved level of privacy among elderly persons generally is greater than that experienced by young adults. Given these assumptions, it was predicted that the crowding threshold of young adults would be significantly lower than that of older persons. To test this hypothesis, the research varied conversation distance (close, far) and density (small room, large room) and assessed the quality of communicative interaction and task performance among small groups of college-age females and retired women over 60 years of age. Results showed that task performance among younger subjects deteriorated in close interaction conditions, whereas the performance of older subjects was improved by spatial intrusion. Further, older subjects exhibited positive communication behaviors in response to close conversation, high-density conditions, while younger subjects responded either with negative communication behaviors or were unaffected by spatial restriction. Finally, the research confirmed previous findings that conversation distance is a more important determinant of the experience of crowding in small groups than physical density. The significance of the results for Altman's privacy regulation model and their implications for the study of human communication behaviors were discussed.     

Effectiveness in top management group meetings: The role of goal clarity,focused communication,and learning behavior

Bang, H., Fuglesang, S. L., Ovesen, M. R. & Eilertsen, D. E. (2010). Effectiveness in top management group meetings: The role of goal clarity, focused communication, and learning behavior. Scandinavian Journal of Psychology, 51, 253–261. To explore the relationship between goal clarity, focused communication, learning behavior, and team effectiveness (i.e., task performance, relationship quality, and member satisfaction), self‐report and observer data from eight top management groups that processed 56 agenda items during meetings were analyzed. We found that goal clarity and focused communication was positively related to team effectiveness. The effect of goal clarity on team effectiveness was partially mediated by focused communication. Speaking up when a goal was unclear increased focused communication, task performance and relationship quality. Speaking up when the discussion was off track was not related to task performance and member satisfaction, and was negatively related to relationship quality. These findings have implications for how to conduct an effective management meeting.