Linking sounds to meanings: Infant statistical learning in a natural language

The processes of infant word segmentation and infant word learning have largely been studied separately. However, the ease with which potential word forms are segmented from fluent speech seems likely to influence subsequent mappings between words and their referents. To explore this process, we tested the link between the statistical coherence of sequences presented in fluent speech and infants’ subsequent use of those sequences as labels for novel objects. Notably, the materials were drawn from a natural language unfamiliar to the infants (Italian). The results of three experiments suggest that there is a close relationship between the statistics of the speech stream and subsequent mapping of labels to referents. Mapping was facilitated when the labels contained high transitional probabilities in the forward and/or backward direction (Experiment 1). When no transitional probability information was available (Experiment 2), or when the internal transitional probabilities of the labels were low in both directions (Experiment 3), infants failed to link the labels to their referents. Word learning appears to be strongly influenced by infants’ prior experience with the distribution of sounds that make up words in natural languages.     

What did the early American presidents really look like? Gilbert Stuart portraits as a "Rosetta Stone" to the pre-photography era

The American painter Gilbert Stuart (1755 - 1828) painted many prominent individuals, including the first six presidents of the United States, and several of his later subjects were also photographed. We compared these photographs to Stuart's portraits of the same individuals and characterized the differences between Stuart's representations and his subjects' actual appearances. This allows us to create more photographic likenesses of other Stuart subjects, including individuals who lived before the invention of photography.     

Mechanisms of change: exploring not only when and what,but also how declarative memory develops

Age‐related changes in representational flexibility are a characteristic feature of declarative memory development. The authors suggest that a qualitative shift in the nature of infants' memory representations accounts for increasing memory flexibility with age. We will argue that a comprehensive theory of declarative memory development must (1) account for the effect of experience on flexibility, (2) be empirically separable from more parsimonious explanations, and (3) propose a mechanism by which the transition takes place. We will argue that a converging‐methods approach is necessary to understand not only when and what develops in declarative memory, but also how developmental change occurs. Copyright © 2006 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Motivations for emotional expression and emotion regulation strategies in Chinese school-aged children

Motivation and Emotion - This mixed-methods study investigated cognitive appraisal, emotional experience, motivations for showing and hiding emotions, and strategies for emotional regulation in...     

Happy Like a Fish in Water? The Role of Personality–Situation Fit for Momentary Happiness in Social Interactions across the Adult Lifespan

Growing research on personality–relationship dynamics demonstrates that people's personality and their (enjoyment of) social relationships are closely intertwined. Using experience sampling data from 136 adults (aged 18–89 years) who reported on more than 50 000 social interactions, we zoom into everyday real‐world social interactions to examine how Big Five personality traits and social context characteristics shape people's happiness in social encounters across the adult lifespan. Results revealed that interactions that were social (vs. task‐oriented) and with close (vs. less close) others were associated with higher momentary happiness as were higher levels of the target person's extraversion, agreeableness, and conscientiousness, and lower neuroticism. Of the 10 personality × situation interactions tested, only one reached significance (with p = .041): Individuals with higher levels of neuroticism benefitted more from interactions with friends than did individuals low in neuroticism. The role of social context characteristics for momentary happiness changed with age, but the role of personality or personality × social context did not, suggesting that personality effects on happiness in social context manifest in similar ways across the adult lifespan. We discuss implications for personality–situation research and the understanding of affective dynamics in everyday social interactions. © 2019 European Association of Personality Psychology     

Facebook use and sleep quality: Light interacts with socially induced alertness

It has been demonstrated that the use of social networking sites late at night can lead to sleep‐related problems that extend into the next day. A common explanation is that the light emitted from screens is disrupting the users’ circadian rhythms. An alternative explanation is that the social cognition inherent in the use of social networking sites is responsible. Here, the two factors were looked at together. Participants used Facebook on iPad tablets before sleep. This was done on different nights with two lighting conditions and with two levels of content. In the ‘light’ condition, blue wavelength light was manipulated so that it was either full wavelength or blue light filtered. In the ‘alertness’ condition, the personal significance of the content was changed from personally relevant to irrelevant. A modified version of the Pittsburgh Sleep Quality Index was used to measure sleep‐related problems. No evidence was found that simply filtering blue light or simply removing relevant content improved sleep quality. However, the two factors interacted. The results suggest that the light emitted from screens can affect sleep quality under some conditions but this is behaviourally irrelevant in the context of normal Facebook usage.     

Mind over matter: internalization of the thinness norm as a moderator of responsiveness to norm misperception education in college women.

The authors examine the effectiveness of norm misperception education in decreasing disordered eating. One hundred seven 1st-year college women completed questionnaires assessing their own and others' actual and ideal body size as well as their own disordered eating and were then randomly assigned to read either a norm misperception or a control brochure. Participants completed questionnaires immediately after reading the brochures and again 3 months later. Although there were no main effects of brochure condition at the follow-up, participants who primarily compared themselves with other college women and who read the norm misperception brochure had higher actual and ideal weight as well as less frequent disordered eating. The discussion focuses on the theoretical and applied implications of these findings.     

Memory for television advertisements as a function of advertisement–programme congruity

An experiment tested memory for a beer advertisement (placed either at the beginning or the end of the centre advertisement break) within four programme contexts featuring beer drinking either before and after, before or after the centre break, or not at all. The relationship between subjective audience evaluation of the programme and memory for advertisements was also investigated. The sample consisted of students (N = 79) aged 17 to 26 years. Brand recognition of the beer advertisement was significantly related to programme content, showing memory for the advertisement being enhanced when relevant programme material followed the break. Congruent material shown before the centre break had the reverse effect of impairing memory for the advertisement. Increased levels of programme involvement were found to be associated with improved recall and recognition of embedded advertisements but higher rated ‘happiness’ of the programme was associated with poorer memory for advertisement content. Copyright © 2002 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Confirmatory factor analysis and job burnout correlates of the Health Professions Stress Inventory

Previous research in 1994 by Gupchup and Wolfgang identified four factors from Wolfgang's Health Professions Stress Inventory (1988) that were common among a sample of practicing pharmacists. The factors were labeled Professional Recognition. Patient Care Responsibilities, Job Conflicts, and Professional Uncertainty, respectively. We used confirmatory factor analysis to assess whether this factor structure was generalizable to nurses. To examine concurrent validity, we correlated the factors with Maslach and Jackson's three dimensions of job burnout, i.e., Emotional Exhaustion, Depersonalization, and Personal Accomplishment. Data were collected through a questionnaire survey of a random sample of 9,380 nurses from across 43 public hospitals in Hong Kong, from which 2,267 (24.2%) responded. Analysis indicated statistically acceptable goodness of fit indices for the four-factor solution. Except for the factor Patient Care Responsibilities. all other factors had moderate correlations between .44 and .53 with Emotional Exhaustion and Depersonalization. Correlations between the factors of Stress Inventory and Personal Accomplishment were small but significant, ranging from -.25 to .13. Areas for further improving the psychometric properties of the inventory are discussed.