Spatial distinctiveness effect in categorisation

The aim of the present study was to show that the probability of an item being retrieved is proportional to its spatial distinctiveness, and that this distinctiveness effect can be obtained in an implicit memory task. The participants were presented with two phases in which they had to categorise pictures of objects as either “kitchen utensils” or “do-it-yourself tools”. In our encoding phase, the pictures were successively presented in different positions on the screen. The positions were arranged in one of two different configurations: a “distinctive condition” in which the pictures were placed in two circles, one central and one peripheral, such that the distance between the pictures was greater when they were in a peripheral position than in a central position, and a “nondistinctive” condition, in which the distance between the pictures was constant irrespective of their central or peripheral position. In the test phase, the same pictures were presented for categorisation, mixed with new pictures at the centre of the screen. The results clearly confirmed our expectations.     

Two sets of twins with selective mutism: neuropsychological findings.

Neuropsychological data are reviewed from two sets of dizygotic twins presenting with selective mutism characterized by situation specific anxiety, extreme passive behavior, lack of responsivity, lack of peer interaction, and a chronic course of selective mutism. Both sets of twins had a history of prematurity and delayed speech development. One set of twins presented with normal intelligence and normal receptive language skills but with expressive language and oral motor sequencing difficulties. The second set of twins presented with Verbal IQ deficits and significant receptive and expressive language deficits. A summary of current conceptualizations regarding etiology and treatment of selective mutism is provided.     

Probability matching: encouraging optimal responding in humans.

Two hundred undergraduate students participated in a repeated-trials binary choice procedure in which choice of one outcome was correct on 75% of trials. Subjects received 192 trials and were divided into five conditions: (1) control; (2) subjects were given the actual probabilities; (3) subjects were told if they did well they could leave early; (4) competition condition; (5) midway through the task subjects were asked to recommend a strategy for another subject. Half of the subjects in each group were told that the best they could do was to be correct on 75% of the trials. This manipulation permitted assessment of the hypothesis that subjects in probability-matching tasks are seeking a strategy that will be correct on 100% of the trials. The results partially confirmed this hypothesis. In addition, two of the variables improved performance significantly (giving probabilities and asking subjects to recommend a strategy). However, while subjects in all groups improved significantly over trials, optimal choice did not occur in this task.     

Is politician A or politician B more persuasive? recipients' source preference and the direction of biased message processing

Participants' preference for one of two politicians running for the post of Chancellor in Germany was measured. Under conditions conducive to effortful processing, participants were then presented with a persuasive message ascribed to one of these two sources. The message was either unambiguous strong, unambiguous weak, or ambiguous. Different from previous research on the role of message ambiguity for attitude change, the ambiguous message consisted of arguments rated as moderately convincing in a pretest rather than of a mixture of strong and weak arguments. The results were in line with predictions derived from the heuristic‐systematic model (HSM). Indicating unbiased systematic processing, an unambiguous strong message led to more agreement than an unambiguous weak message. In the case of an ambiguous message, in line with the HSM's bias hypothesis, more agreement was found among participants preferring the source politician as compared to participants preferring the other politician. Copyright © 2003 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Orthography shapes the perception of speech: The consistency effect in auditory word recognition

Inconsistency in the spelling-to-sound mapping hurts visual word perception and reading aloud (i.e., the traditional consistency effect). In the present experiment, we found a consistency effect in auditory word perception: Words with phonological rimes that could be spelled in multiple ways produced longer auditory lexical decision latencies and more errors than did words with rimes that could be spelled only one way. This finding adds strong support to the claim that orthography affects the perception of spoken words. This effect was predicted by a model that assumes a coupling between orthography and phonology that is functional in both visual and auditory word perception.     

A note on item analysis with an electronic computer

An electronic computer with large capacity memory, and employing binary numbers, is ideally suited for large-scale item analysis. The adaptation and use of one computer, SWAC, is described. A research project of the American Council on Education and The Grant Foundation.     

Knowledge,Attitude, and Practice of Clerical Students with Respect to HIV/AIDS in Iran, 2011

In this study, knowledge and attitude of Iranian clerical students toward HIV and AIDS was assessed. Through a cross-sectional study, 367 clerical students were surveyed, in convenience sampling method, in the Qom seminary in 2011, utilizing a self-administered structured questionnaire. The questionnaire was piloted on 20 clerical student volunteers, internal consistency measured with Cronbach’s alpha was 0.89. Participants’ scores of knowledge and attitude were calculated out of 100. The level of knowledge in 37.33 % of participants was good (scores >80), whereas 46.05 and 16.62 % had moderate (40 < scores ≤ 80) and poor (scores ≤40) levels of knowledge, respectively. The mean score of knowledge and attitude was 58.29 (95 % CI 56.11–60) and 77.26 (95 % CI 75.92–78.59) out of 100, respectively. A significant correlation was observed between level of knowledge and attitude (r = 0.33, P < 0.001). Knowledge score appeared to be significantly higher in women compared to men (p = 0.04). With an increase in age, the level of knowledge significantly decreased (r = ?0.10, P = 0.02). We could also detect a statistically significant relationship between attending educational courses on HIV/AIDS and inclusion of HIV/AIDS topics in the individual’s sermons (P < 0.001). Although clerical students had shown some sort of positive attitudes toward HIV, their knowledge still needs to be improved to enable them to deliver more accurate information to the community during the course of their speeches. Having HIV-related courses as part of their curriculum or aside may contribute a lot to this.