Zebra finches and Dutch adults exhibit the same cue weighting bias in vowel perception

Vocal tract resonances, called formants, are the most important parameters in human speech production and perception. They encode linguistic meaning and have been shown to be perceived by a wide range of species. Songbirds are also sensitive to different formant patterns in human speech. They can categorize words differing only in their vowels based on the formant patterns independent of speaker identity in a way comparable to humans. These results indicate that speech perception mechanisms are more similar between songbirds and humans than realized before. One of the major questions regarding formant perception concerns the weighting of different formants in the speech signal (“acoustic cue weighting”) and whether this process is unique to humans. Using an operant Go/NoGo design, we trained zebra finches to discriminate syllables, whose vowels differed in their first three formants. When subsequently tested with novel vowels, similar in either their first formant or their second and third formants to the familiar vowels, similarity in the higher formants was weighted much more strongly than similarity in the lower formant. Thus, zebra finches indeed exhibit a cue weighting bias. Interestingly, we also found that Dutch speakers when tested with the same paradigm exhibit the same cue weighting bias. This, together with earlier findings, supports the hypothesis that human speech evolution might have exploited general properties of the vertebrate auditory system.     

Measuring Productivity in Primary Care Behavioral Health: A Delphi Study

High productivity by behavioral health consultants (BHC) is a defining aspect of the primary care behavioral health (PCBH) model to maximize access to care and is often measured by patient volume. Studies of productivity in health care settings suggest a single productivity target may not be optimal. We used a Delphi method to obtain expert consensus on an operational definition of high productivity by BHCs in the PCBH model. Clinicians, managers, and researchers in PCBH were recruited to participate in a multi-round survey using a modified Delphi technique and develop consensus on PCBH productivity metrics. Ten participants completed all three survey rounds and rated 28 metrics. After three rounds, two direct metrics (average number of billable BHC visits each day; number of patients seen per day) received at least 80% consensus as “Essential”, two received at least 50%, and five received less than 50%. One influencer (level of integration at the practice) received at least 80% consensus as “Very Much” influential, 19 received at least 50%, and eight items received less than 50%. Several themes arose from participant comments. PCBH productivity can be interpreted as being high volume. Numerous practice factors influence how productive a BHC may be. Future studies should determine the feasibility of our metrics in clinical practice, establish productivity expectations based on patient needs and clinic resources, and identify patient-, clinician-, or practice-level moderators of productivity.

     

Interparental Conflict Appraisals and Adolescents’ Maladaptation in Siblings: An Actor-Partner Interdependence Model

Journal of Child and Family Studies - The aim of this study was to evaluate dyadic effects among siblings by testing an actor–partner interdependence model of associations between...     

Not just playing around: Infants’ behaviors with objects reflect ability,constraints, and object properties

This study describes infants’ behaviors with objects in relation to age, body position, and object properties. Object behaviors were assessed longitudinally in 22 healthy infants supine, prone, and sitting from birth through 2 years. Results reveal: (1) infants learn to become intense and sophisticated explorers within the first 6 months of life; (2) young infants dynamically and rapidly shift among a variety of behavioral combinations to gather information; (3) behaviors on objects develop along different trajectories so that behavioral profiles vary across time; (4) object behaviors are generally similar in supine and sitting but diminished in prone; and (5) infants begin matching certain behaviors to object properties as newborns. These data demonstrate how infants learn to match their emerging behaviors with changing positional constraints and object affordances.     

The role of working memory in inferential sentence comprehension

Existing literature on inference making is large and varied. Trabasso and Magliano (Discourse Process 21(3):255–287, 1996) proposed the existence of three types of inferences: explicative, associative and predictive. In addition, the authors suggested that these inferences were related to working memory (WM). In the present experiment, we investigated whether WM capacity plays a role in our ability to answer comprehension sentences that require text information based on these types of inferences. Participants with high and low WM span read two narratives with four paragraphs each. After each paragraph was read, they were presented with four true/false comprehension sentences. One required verbatim information and the other three implied explicative, associative and predictive inferential information. Results demonstrated that only the explicative and predictive comprehension sentences required WM: participants with high verbal WM were more accurate in giving explanations and also faster at making predictions relative to participants with low verbal WM span; in contrast, no WM differences were found in the associative comprehension sentences. These results are interpreted in terms of the causal nature underlying these types of inferences.     

Personality Disorders Are Not as We Thought: Hierarchical Factor Structure at the Criterion Level

The use of personality disorder (PD) categories persists, despite the evidence against them. An often overlooked reason for this is the fact that the true structure underlying the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders (DSM) taxonomy is still unknown: We cannot be certain which disorders are valid, and which ones are arbitrary mixtures of heterogeneous traits. To address this gap, we factor analyzed the Personality Diagnostic Questionnaire (PDQ–4+; Hyler, 1994 Hyler, S. E. (1994). PDQ–4+ Personality Diagnostic Questionnaire–4+. New York, NY: New York State Psychiatric Institute. [Google Scholar]) at the criterion level in a mixed clinical and nonclinical sample of 2,519 individuals. The resulting structure was more similar to current dimensional taxonomies than to the DSM classification at all hierarchical levels. Whereas paranoid and antisocial PDs—and to a lesser extent avoidant, dependent, depressive, and schizoid PDs—were fairly homogeneous, all other disorders turned out to be combinations of 2 or 3 unrelated dimensions. Our results strongly support the structure of empirically based dimensional taxonomies and relocate DSM criteria within this emerging framework, thus contributing to preserving much of the knowledge accumulated to date.     

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.