Age differences in vocal emotion perception: on the role of speaker age and listener sex

Older adults have greater difficulty than younger adults perceiving vocal emotions. To better characterise this effect, we explored its relation to age differences in sensory, cognitive and emotional functioning. Additionally, we examined the role of speaker age and listener sex. Participants (N?=?163) aged 19–34 years and 60–85 years categorised neutral sentences spoken by ten younger and ten older speakers with a happy, neutral, sad, or angry voice. Acoustic analyses indicated that expressions from younger and older speakers denoted the intended emotion with similar accuracy. As expected, younger participants outperformed older participants and this effect was statistically mediated by an age-related decline in both optimism and working-memory. Additionally, age differences in emotion perception were larger for younger as compared to older speakers and a better perception of younger as compared to older speakers was greater in younger as compared to older participants. Last, a female perception benefit was less pervasive in the older than the younger group. Together, these findings suggest that the role of age for emotion perception is multi-faceted. It is linked to emotional and cognitive change, to processing biases that benefit young and own-age expressions, and to the different aptitudes of women and men.     

The Familial Context of Creativity: Patterns of Nurturance in Families of Creative Children

This article presents the results of a longitudinal research study undertaken to understand the familial context of creative children. The objective was to identify commonalities and specifics in patterns of nurturance present in the home environments of creative children. The participants, identified using intensity sampling, comprised four children in the age group three to 16 years at the time of selection, who had received public recognition for their creative pursuits; their families, and each child’s guru/coach. Qualitative semi-structured interviews and naturalistic observations were used to understand the dynamic nature of the relationships within the family setting that led to the discovery of the child’s creativity and its subsequent nurturance. Detailed case profiles were developed over a three year period. The case profiles reflected commonalities in the basic processes of nurturance. All the families were cohesive, with the members sharing a commonality of purposes. Parents actively fostered their children’s creativity by allocating resources—money, time and effort; introducing the child to the domain and the field; being closely involved in the learning process; and expressing praise. The uniqueness of the cases lay in the specifics – in the quality of cultural capital available to the families, in the parents’ experiences as children which were the motivational source for parenting. The key feature in nurturance was the synchronicity of purpose created by strong parental motivation to nurture their child’s creativity and the strong internal motivation of the child to persevere in the creative domain.     

Do You Know What I Feel? Partners' Predictions and Judgments of Each Other's Emotional Reactions to Emotion-Eliciting Situations

The goal of the present study was to investigate empathic accuracy in couples, specifically the partners' ability to predict each other's emotional reactions to social situations. For this, 36 French Canadian couples aged from 18 to 34 years predicted their own reactions as well as their partner's reactions to a series of emotional situations. They then role-played these emotional situations while being videotaped. At a later time, the taped role-play segments were rated by the role-play actors themselves, by their partners, and by 5 individuals who did not know the actors. Results revealed high levels of empathic accuracy when we compared the partners' predictions of each other's reactions. However, when these predictions were compared with the participants' self-evaluations of their role-plays or with evaluations by individuals who did not know the actors, partners showed a positive bias in that they predicted more appropriate and fewer inappropriate reactions to the social situations for their partners than were self-rated by the partners themselves or rated by individuals who did not know the actors. Finally, the existence of couple-specific private meaning systems could not be confirmed in the present context as the evaluations of emotional expressions by unknown others, the actors' partners, and the actors themselves were largely congruent.     

论相对于生产力的"自然破坏力"

从历史到现代,人类实践体系中总是不时地孕育出某种破坏性力量(本文称之为“自然破坏力”),这种破坏力与一直被视为实践积极成果的物质生产力密切相关,共同影响社会发展。以前我们仅仅正面地看待实践,遗忘了孕育出“自然破坏力”的实践的负面性。其实,引入“生产力”与“自然破坏力”的对立,才能使生产力和生产关系的理论对于现代发展更富有解释力。     

Servant Leadership Behaviour Scale: A hierarchical model and test of construct validity

Servant leadership is widely believed to be a multidimensional construct. However, existing measures of servant leadership typically suffer from highly correlated dimensions, raising concerns over discriminant validity. We set out in this study to examine the dimensionality of the hypothesized six-factor Servant Leadership Behaviour Scale (SLBS) and validate a hierarchical model of servant leadership. Using structural equation modelling, convergent and discriminant validity of the higher-order servant leadership construct was examined in relation to measures of character-related behaviour, Machiavellian leadership orientation, and social desirability. Our findings suggest that the SLBS assesses a single, higher-order construct of servant leadership with evidence of construct validity and absence of social desirability bias. The high correlation between servant leadership and character-related behaviour supports our expectation that servant leadership reflects in large part the character strength of the leader.     

语文学习困难儿童的短时记忆、工作记忆和加工速度

短时记忆、工作记忆和加工速度反映了不同的认知加工.采用多因素混合实验设计,在严格控制条件下,比较了语文学习困难和控制组儿童的工作记忆、短时记忆和加工速度的差异.结果发现,与控制组相比,语文学习困难儿童在工作记忆、短时记忆和加工速度方面均存在明显的不足,但短时记忆和加工速度不能解释不同能力组之间的差异,语文学习困难儿童的缺陷在于工作记忆能力的下降.工作记忆的缺陷在于言语工作记忆的不足,与视空间工作记忆能力无关,语文学习困难与特定的工作记忆(言语工作记忆)能力的不足有关.工作记忆缺陷的原因在于存储能力的不足,而不是加工效率的缺陷造成的.     

Spurious Latent Class Problem in the Mixed Rasch Model: A Comparison of Three Maximum Likelihood Estimation Methods under Different Ability Distributions

Recent research has shown that over-extraction of latent classes can be observed in the Bayesian estimation of the mixed Rasch model when the distribution of ability is non-normal. This study examined the effect of non-normal ability distributions on the number of latent classes in the mixed Rasch model when estimated with maximum likelihood estimation methods (conditional, marginal, and joint). Three information criteria fit indices (Akaike information criterion, Bayesian information criterion, and sample size adjusted BIC) were used in a simulation study and an empirical study. Findings of this study showed that the spurious latent class problem was observed with marginal maximum likelihood and joint maximum likelihood estimations. However, conditional maximum likelihood estimation showed no overextraction problem with non-normal ability distributions.     

Beyond a Paycheck: The Influence of Workforce Participation on Women’s Cancer Screening in Turkey

The present study investigates the influence of workforce participation on women’s cancer screening behaviors in Turkey. In cultures with predominantly Muslim populations like Turkey, emphasis is typically placed on a woman’s traditional role as a child bearer. Although the impact of workforce participation on women’s welfare has been studied in various contexts, the relationship between workforce participation and health protective behavior has received scant attention. Using quantitative data from a survey of women aged 40 and above from 33 urban cities in Turkey (N?=?483), we examine the influence of workforce participation on breast and cervical cancer screening behaviors. Homemakers were less likely than working/retired women to be up-to-date on screenings. Women with lower income and education screened less; however, workforce participation seemed to have a positive effect on screening among these women. Additionally, working/retired women and homemakers differed from each other in terms of their perceptions regarding their risk of developing cancer (perceived susceptibility). In addition, both perceived susceptibility and women's perceptions regarding their ability to get cancer screening (self-efficacy) were significant predictors of intention to engage in screening in future. In Turkey, homemakers are in a vulnerable position due to lower rates of cancer screening. Furthermore, targeting homemakers for interventions may be easier than trying to identify other low screening groups of women such as those with lower education or income. Interventions raising perceptions of susceptibility to cancer, possibly by targeting neighborhoods during working hours, could be useful in increasing screening rates at risk women.