Morphological family size in a morphologically rich language: the case of Finnish compared with Dutch and Hebrew

Finnish has a very productive morphology in which a stem can give rise to several thousand words. This study presents a visual lexical decision experiment addressing the processing consequences of the huge productivity of Finnish morphology. The authors observed that in Finnish words with larger morphological families elicited shorter response latencies. However, in contrast to Dutch and Hebrew, it is not the complete morphological family of a complex Finnish word that codetermines response latencies but only the subset of words directly derived from the complex word itself. Comparisons with parallel experiments using translation equivalents in Dutch and Hebrew showed substantial cross-language predictivity of family size between Finnish and Dutch but not between Finnish and Hebrew, reflecting the different ways in which the Hebrew and Finnish morphological systems contribute to the semantic organization of concepts in the mental lexicon.     

Changes in anabolic and catabolic activity among women taking part in an alternative labour market programme

Thirty-two female participants in a mobilising labour market programme offering temporary, alternative employment in Sweden were followed longitudinally for one year, including a six month post participation follow-up period. It can be hypothesised that an important aspect of the physiological effects of unemployment is a change in the balance between anabolic and catabolic activities in the body and that re-employment should lead to a shift towards anabolism. An earlier study of a smaller subset of the data, however, including both men and women, showed increased prolactin and decreased dehydroepiadrosterone sulphate (DHEA-s) levels, contrary to the initial hypothesis. In the present analysis, intended to elucidate these results, psychophysiological data were summarised in two indices, one connected with anabolism (made up of testosterone and DHEA-s) and one with catabolism (prolactin, γ-glutamyl transferase, aspartate amino transferase, α levuline amino transferase, and body mass index). In addition, self-rated anxiety, depression, hopelessness and personal control were analysed. The results indicate that the effect of ‘better’ activities within the programme was a temporary increase in anabolism, possibly indicating lower stress levels, and the effect of ‘worse’ activities, on the one hand, a temporary decrease in the catabolic index, probably reflecting repressed alcohol consumption, and, on the other hand, impaired anabolism. There was also a general but transient decrease in depressiveness measured by the Hospital Anxiety and Depression Scale. The results seem to imply that it is difficult to achieve lasting effects through a relatively short participation in a mobilising programme.     

Psychological responses to body shape exposure in patients with bulimia nervosa

One of the unresolved issues regarding research on bulimia nervosa concerns the question as to how patients diagnosed with bulimia nervosa respond to body image exposure. In addition, it remains unclear whether there are differential responses associated with different exposure techniques (e.g. in vivo exposure vs. exposure by visualization). The aim of the present study was to investigate psychological responses to body image exposure. Twenty participants diagnosed with bulimia nervosa (DSM IV) and twenty non-eating disordered individuals were exposed to their body image using a video recording (video confrontation). In addition, they were asked to imagine and describe the appearance of their body (imagery task). Results indicate that self-reported negative emotions increased in response to both, video confrontation and imagery task, in the clinical as well as in the control group. Furthermore, video confrontation led to more pronounced group differences than exposure by visualization (imagery task). Participants diagnosed with bulimia nervosa took less time to describe their waist, hips and bottom compared to non-eating disturbed controls. This last result could be interpreted in terms of avoidance behavior and other mechanisms during body image exposure.     

Developmental dyslexia in different languages: language-specific or universal?

Most of the research on developmental dyslexia comes from English-speaking countries. However, there is accumulating evidence that learning to read English is harder than learning to read other European orthographies (Seymour, Aro, & Erskine, 2003). These findings therefore suggest the need to determine whether the main English findings concerning dyslexia can be generalized to other European orthographies, all of which have less irregular spelling-to-sound correspondences than English. To do this, we conducted a study with German- and English-speaking children (n=149) in which we investigated a number of theoretically important marker effects of the reading process. The results clearly show that the similarities between dyslexic readers using different orthographies are far bigger than their differences. That is, dyslexics in both countries exhibit a reading speed deficit, a nonword reading deficit that is greater than their word reading deficit, and an extremely slow and serial phonological decoding mechanism. These problems were of similar size across orthographies and persisted even with respect to younger readers that were at the same reading level. Both groups showed that they could process larger orthographic units. However, the use of this information to supplement grapheme-phoneme decoding was not fully efficient for the English dyslexics.     

Microstructure of eating behavior associated with Rorschach characteristics in obesity

The relationship between the microstructure of eating behavior and personality aspects according to the Rorschach Comprehensive System (Exner, 1991, 1993) was investigated among obese participants (N = 32). Eating behavior was measured using a computerized eating monitor, VIKTOR (Cabmek, Stockholm, Sweden), calculating initial eating rate and the eating curve. A higher initial eating rate reflecting eating drive was associated with Rorschach signs of stress overload according to the D Score and higher affective responsiveness to external stimuli seen in the Affective ratio. The stress overload may prompt eating, and affective responsiveness may be linked to appetite through a higher sensitivity to food stimuli, thus increasing eating drive. An accelerating rate of consumption during the meal was associated with intense emotionality and oral dependency, suggested by Pure C and Food responses.     

On the behavioral consequences of infrahumanization: the implicit role of uniquely human emotions in intergroup relations

Four experiments confirmed the hypothesis that people discriminate the out-group on the basis of the expression of uniquely human emotions. In Study 1, using a lost e-mail paradigm, the expression of a uniquely human emotion resulted in "nicer" replies when the sender was an in-group compared with an out-group member. The same pattern of results was obtained in Studies 2 and 3 using a conformity paradigm. In addition, perceived similarity was measured and proposed as a potential underlying mechanism (Study 3). Finally, using an approach-avoidance procedure, Study 4 showed that people not only deprive the out-group of positive consequences as in the former studies but that people also act against the out-group. The role of infrahumanization underlying prejudice and discrimination is discussed.     

The role of locomotion in the acquisition and transfer of spatial knowledge in children

The role of locomotion in the acquisition and transfer of spatial knowledge was investigated in 144 five-, seven- and eleven-year-old children. Two experiments were conducted in the Kiel locomotor maze. In the first experiment, one group of children explored the spatial layout by walking through the maze, while another learned the maze by surveying the layout. In the second experiment, children were exposed to one of two orientation tests in the maze, one of which could be solved using "landmark orientation", the other only using a "relational place orientation". Children sitting by the side of the experimental chamber surveying the maze needed fewer trials to learn the spatial layout than children exploring the environment in the locomotion condition, but in the orientation test demanding the "relational place orientation" children who had explored the maze in the locomotion condition outperformed the children in the non-locomotion condition. Results are discussed in the context of cognitive mapping models.     

Bimanual interference associated with the selection of target locations

Four experiments were conducted to identify the locus of interference observed during the preparation of bimanual reaching movements. Target locations were specified by color, and the right-hand and left-hand targets could be either the same or a different color. Movements of different amplitudes (Experiment 1) or different directions (Experiment 2) to targets of the same color were initiated more quickly than symmetric movements to targets of different colors. These results indicate that costs observed during bimanual movements arise during target selection rather than during motor programming. Experiments 3 and 4 further examined the interference associated with target selection. Reaction time costs were found with unimanual movements when the target was presented among distractors associated with responses for the other hand. Interference observed during bimanual reaching appears to reflect difficulty in segregating the response rules assigned to each hand.     

Modularity as a fish (Xenotoca eiseni) views it: conjoining geometric and nongeometric information for spatial reorientation

When disoriented in a closed rectangular tank, fish (Xenotoca eiseni) reoriented in accord with the large-scale shape of the environment, but they were also able to conjoin geometric information with nongeometric properties such as the color of a wall or the features provided by panels located at the corners of the tank. Fish encoded geometric information even when featural information sufficed to solve the spatial task. When tested after transformations that altered the original arrangement of the panels, fish were more affected by those transformations that modified the geometric relationship between the target and the shape of the environment. Finally, fish appeared unable to use nongeometric information provided by distant panels. These findings show that a reorientation mechanism based on geometry is widespread among vertebrates, though the joint use of geometric and nongeometric cues by fish suggest that the degree of information encapsulation of the mechanism varies considerably between species.