The future is now: the impact of present fluency in judgments about the future

Recent research has emphasised the role of episodic memory in both remembering past events and in envisaging future events. On the other hand, it has been repeatedly shown that judgments about past events are affected by the fluency with which retrieval cues are processed. In this paper we investigate whether perceptual fluency also plays a role in judgments about future events. For this purpose we conducted four experiments. The first experiment replicated recent findings showing that stimuli that are processed fluently tend to be wrongly recognised as having been encountered in the past outside the laboratory walls [Brown, A. S., & Marsh, E. J. (2009). Creating illusions of past encounter through brief exposure. Psychological Science, 20, 534–538. doi:10.1111/j.1467-9280.2009.02337.x]. Two follow-up experiments using Brown and Marsh’s [(2009). Creating illusions of past encounter through brief exposure. Psychological Science, 20, 534–538. doi:10.1111/j.1467-9280.2009.02337] task tested the influence of perceptual fluency on future judgments. The fourth and last experiment was designed to rule out a potential confounding factor in the two previous experiments. Across experiments, we found that people rely on fluency when making judgments about events that are yet to come. These results suggest that fluency is an equally valid cue for past and future judgments.     

Developing a Learning Progression for Curriculum,Instruction, and Student Learning: An Example from Mathematics Education

Learning progressions have been demarcated by some for science education, or only concerned with levels of sophistication in student thinking as determined by logical analyses of the discipline. We take the stance that learning progressions can be leveraged in mathematics education as a form of curriculum research that advances a linked understanding of students learning over time through careful articulation of a curricular framework and progression, instructional sequence, assessments, and levels of sophistication in student learning. Under this broadened conceptualization, we advance a methodology for developing and validating learning progressions, and advance several design considerations that can guide research concerned with engendering forms of mathematics learning, and curricular and instructional support for that learning. We advance a two-phase methodology of (a) research and development, and (b) testing and revision. Each phase involves iterative cycles of design and experimentation with the aim of developing a validated learning progression. In particular, we gathered empirical data to revise our hypothesized curricular framework and progression and to measure change in students. thinking over time as a means to validate both the effectiveness of our instructional sequence and of the assessments designed to capture learning. We use the context of early algebra to exemplify our approach to learning progressions in mathematics education with a focus on the concept of mathematical equivalence across Grades 3-5. The domain of work on research on learning over time is evolving; our work contributes a broadened role for learning progressions work in mathematics education research and practice.     

The Satisfaction with Job Life Scale Among Immigrants

This article reports the development of a short multi-item measurement scale of satisfaction with job life (SWJLS). This scale evaluates a person’s global assessment of job satisfaction. Two studies are presented for the purpose of establishing the reliability and validity of the SWJLS. The data were gathered among immigrants. The findings of both studies demonstrated that the SWJLS presents adequate psychometric properties. Exploratory and confirmatory factor analyses of the SWJLS evidenced a single underlying dimension. The reliability was highly satisfactory. Corroboration of validity was also yielded between correlations among indicators of well-being and acculturation, and scale scores. The results indicate that the SWJLS is a short and viable instrument to measure job life satisfaction.     

The Recognition of Emotions in Music and Landscapes: Extending Contour Theory

While inanimate objects can neither experience nor express emotions, in principle they can be expressive of emotions. In particular, music is a paradigmatic example of something expressive of emotions that surely cannot feel anything at all. The Contour theory accounts for music expressiveness in terms of those resemblances that hold between its external and perceivable properties (i.e., its contour) and the typical contour of human emotional behavior. Provided that some critical aspects are emended – notably, the stress on the perception of similarity instead of the more plausible hypothesis that the listener perceives manifestations that are similar – we are inclined to endorse contour theory. In particular, we share its basic idea that expressive properties are perceived. Although other kinds of processes – high-level conceptual inferences, imagination – sometimes characterize our encounters with music, still perception constitutes the standard process underlying the detection of expressiveness. Moreover, we propose to extend contour theory to visual arts. Taking into consideration, as a case study, depicted landscapes, we observe that they frequently cannot but express emotions such as joy, sadness, liveliness or melancholy. The fact that pictures, unlike music, lack any temporal dimension is a prima facie reason for doubting the extendibility of contour theory’s conceptual arsenal to them. Nevertheless, while being obviously unable to behave somehow, we claim that depicted landscapes can perfectly convey dynamic information. If this is the case, the extension of the notion of contour to visuals art via the stress on the notion of dynamism would represent a second interesting revision of contour theory.     

How does frustration make you feel? A motivational analysis in exercise context

Not all exercisers experience the same psychological benefits. The understanding of motivational processes and their relation with emotional consequences of exercise should be considered in the context of the exercisers motivation. This was a cross-sectional study of 153 gym users (M?=?36.21 years, SD?=?8.44; 44.9% men, 55.1% women; M years exercise?=?8). Weekly attendance averaged 4.3 (SD?=?2.6) sessions per week; reported exertion intensity was 5.6 (SD?=?2.1) (scale: 0–11). The basic psychological needs (BPNs) posited by self-determination theory, motivational regulation, and emotional response to physical activity, were measured. Possible mediators of BPN-emotion relationships were analyzed. BPN satisfaction was associated with a positive emotional response to exercise which was partially mediated by the effect of autonomous regulation on positive activation and psychological well-being. Mediation models indicated that the negative effects of BPN frustration were counteracted by autonomous regulation. Exercise professionals should be able to create psychologically supportive contexts and identify behaviors associated with need frustration so as to enhance emotional responses to exercise.     

French Validation of the Overexcitability Questionnaire 2: Psychometric Properties and Factorial Structure

Overexcitability corresponds to an overall response to stimulations in 5 domains: psychomotor, sensual, intellectual, imaginational, and emotional. The aim of this study was to develop a French version of the Overexcitability Questionnaire 2 (OEQ2) and to expand its psychometric properties. Two studies were conducted: one with a sample of 474 adolescents and another with a sample of 436 adults. Internal consistency, factorial structure, and validity (correlations with intelligence, personality, and alexithymia) were examined. The French OEQ2 showed satisfactory psychometric properties, thus advocating for its use in further research on overexcitability and in clinical practice.     

Knowledge Production in Non-European Spaces of Modernity: The Society of Jesus and the Circulation of Darwinian Ideas in Postcolonial Ecuador, 1860–1890

This article is based on a perspective on circulation of knowledge that allows the consideration of science as the result of the encounter between diverse communities. We tell a story that constantly changes places, scales, and cultures in order to stress the importance of networks as an alternative to the centre/periphery trope, which entangles world histories of science. The result is a picture much more complex and intertwined than the one suggested by these simplifying dichotomies. We focus on a case study that illuminates the process of knowledge production in non-European spaces of modernity. The return of the Society of Jesus to the newly independent nation-states of Latin America is the point of departure to analyse the circulation of a specific scientific idea in Ecuador: Darwin’s theory of biological evolution through natural selection. The article follows the paths of three different knowledge makers whose encounters are seen as sites of knowledge production: a religious order, a Latin American nation-state, and a Western European Jesuit-scientist.     

Translating the QABF to Spanish with an Eye Toward Reliability and Validity

We developed a Spanish‐language version of the Questions About Behavioral Function (QABF) utilizing a forward‐adaptation and back‐adaptation translation process. Subsequently, we administered the assessment with 80 bilingual participants to assess the reliability and validity of the instrument. Results demonstrated that the Spanish version of the QABF was both reliable (i.e., was internally consistent) and valid (i.e., identified the correct function). Implications and future research are discussed. Copyright © 2014 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.