Ambiguity and gratuitous concurrence in inter-cultural communication

A: Excuse me, but we're just trying to find the right bus that takes us to the boat for Upolu. We were told that it stops here in front of the village store, but we've been waiting since 9 o'clock this morning and we'd like to know if there is going to be a bus before this evening or if we'll have to wait until tomorrow for a bus. I: Yes.     

No need for inhibitory tagging of locations in visual search

Participants find it no harder to search for a T among Ls when the items move around at velocities of up to 10.8°/sec than when the items remain static. This result demonstrates that inhibitory tagging of locations is not necessary for successful search, and it provides a challenge to any models of visual search that use a fixed location as the index during accumulation and storage of information about search items.     

The need for accuracy in historiography.

Historiographers must be especially accurate in their citations and references. An article by Wettersten contained numerous incorrect references and citations, and factual errors. Corrections are provided.     

Learning to like or dislike by association: No need for contingency awareness

One way to learn to like or dislike a neutral target stimulus is through associations with positive or negative context stimuli. The present research investigates whether people need to be aware of the association between a target and a context stimulus (i.e., contingency aware) in order for associative learning of likes and dislikes to occur. We predicted that awareness of the association between context and target is necessary when target novelty is low, but not when target novelty is high. We conducted two experiments in which we varied target novelty and measured contingency awareness using a picture-bound recognition task. This allowed us to separately investigate evaluative conditioning for “contingency awareness” and “contingency unawareness” context–target pairs. The results show, as predicted, that awareness of the association between context and target is needed for low-novelty targets but not needed for high-novelty targets.     

On the need for negative local item dependence

While negative local item dependence (LID) has been discussed in numerous articles, its occurrence and effects often go unrecognized. This is due in part to confusion over what unidimensional latent trait is being utilized in evaluating the LID of multidimensional testing data. This article addresses this confusion by using an appropriately chosen latent variable to condition on. It then provides a proof that negative LID must occur when unidimensional ability estimates (such as number right score) are obtained from data which follow a very general class of multidimensional item response theory models. The importance of specifying what unidimensional latent trait is used, and its effect on the sign of the LIDs are shown to have implications in regard to a variety of foundational theoretical arguments, to the simulation of LID data sets, and to the use of testlet scoring for removing LID.This paper is based in part on a chapter in the first author's doctoral dissertation, written at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign under the supervision of William Stout. Part of this research has been presented at the annual meeting of the National Council on Measurement in Education, San Diego, California, April 14–16, 1998.The research of the first author was partially supported by a Harold Gulliksen Psychometric fellowship through Educational Testing Service and by a Research and Productive Scholarship award from the University of South Carolina.     

No crossed wires: cell phone communication in parent-adolescent relationships

Parents' ability to parent their adolescents may be extended by using a cell phone. At the same time, using the cell phone, adolescents can seek out parental interaction. The outcomes of parent-adolescent interactions via cell phone are not well understood. In this study, 196 parent-adolescent dyads (13 percent father-son, 11 percent father-daughter, 30 percent mother-son, and 46 percent mother-daughter) completed questionnaires about their cell phone calls to one another, parenting processes, self-esteem, and self-efficacy. Parents reported greater communication and closeness when adolescents initiated calls seeking social support. Adolescents reported greater conflict when parents called for monitoring activity, for tracking schoolwork, and when upset. Calls to ask and confer by adolescents and to track school work positively related, but parental calls when upset negatively related to parental self-esteem. Adolescent self-esteem is predicted by calls seeking support and negatively associated with parents calling when upset.     

Illusory contours: On the efficacy of their need for expression

When an illusory-figure pattern is presented against a physical lightness gradient, the illusory figure’s lightness relative to the surround is often the reverse of the usual effect, a fact that suggests that, rather than the figure’s depending upon illusory lightness, real lightness differences can be utilized in its expression. A second demonstration suggests that the apparent strength of the lightness effect may be greater where there is relatively less physical expression of the contour. Again, the establishment of the contour seems to involve more than merely “capturing” illusory lightness.     

Linking level of care to level of need. Assessing the need for mental health care for nursing home residents

What are the mental health status and active treatment needs of nursing home residents? A stratified random sample of 828 residents in 25 facilities serving Medicaid recipients was assessed for levels of physical and psychosocial functioning. Although 91.2% had sufficiently high levels of medical and physical care needs to justify nursing home placement, 79.6% also had moderate to intense needs for mental health care. Older residents, relative to their younger counterparts, had more intense medical and mental health care needs. It was also found that psychiatric diagnosis was a poor indicator of mental health service needs, particularly among elderly individuals.     

Nonverbal communication affect in children.

A paradign was tested for measuting the tendency of children to send accurate nonverbal signals to others via spontaneous facial expressions and gestures. This paradign was derived from studies on adults that suggest that women are more accurate nonverbal "sendres" than men in certain situations. Eighteeen male and 11 female preschoolers (aged 4 to 6 years) watched a series of emotionally loaded color slides while they were observed via a hidden television camera by their mothers. Results indicated that significant overall communciation occurred, with large individual differences in "sending ability" between children. There was no evidence of a large sex difference in sending ability in choldren, although on one measure girls were more accurate senders than boys when viewed by undergraduates. Sending ability was positively related to teacher's ratings of activity level, aggressiveness, impulsiveness, bossiness, sociability, etc., and negatively related ti shyness, cooperation, emotional inhibition and control, etc.     

Testing the need for novelty as a candidate need in basic psychological needs theory

Motivation and Emotion - The purpose of this research was to test novelty as a candidate basic psychological need according to the inclusion criteria established within basic psychological needs...     

《管子》“城郭不必中规矩”探析

《管子》倡导“城郭不必中规矩”,体现出因地制宜、“和而不同”的务实精神,广为我国古代城址规划建设所“兼容”。“不规矩”与“规矩”是互补而非替代关系,通常表现为“中体西用”,“体”即“规矩”;“用”则“不规矩”。研究表明,城址规划被环境所限定,环境则透过城址规划的“不规矩”而被解释,并表现出阶段性差异。一般而言,在地形完整的新建城市中,受礼制思想影响,采用“规矩”方整的布局方式;而在有山川河流或改建城市中,则根据地形随宜变通,凸现“不规矩”形态。