Using words instead of jumbled characters as stimuli in keyboard training facilitates fluent performance

Keyboarding skill is an important target for adult education programs due to the ubiquity of computers in modern work environments. A previous study showed that novice typists learned key locations quickly but that fluency took a relatively long time to develop. In the present study, novice typists achieved fluent performance in nearly half the time when words rather than jumbled characters were used as stimuli. This suggests that using real words in the keyboarding program can enhance the efficiency of training.     

The development of preschool children's (Homo sapiens) uses of objects and their role in peer group centrality

The ways in which objects were used by preschool children (Homo sapiens) was examined by directly observing them across one school year. In the first objective we documented the relative occurrence of different forms of object use and their developmental growth curves. Second, we examined the role of different types of object use, as well as novel and varied uses of objects, in predicting peer group centrality. Results indicated that noninstrumental object play was the most frequently observed category, followed by tool use, exploration, and construction; sex moderated the growth curve of children's exploration. Noninstrumental object play, not other types of object use, was significantly related to novel and varied object uses and only the latter category predicted peer group centrality. Results are discussed in terms of the social transmission of novel object use.     

Elements of trust: Risk and perspective-taking

Trust is essential to personal well-being and economic success, but it cannot occur without accepting the possibility of betrayal. In the experimental trust game, game-theoretic rationality prescribes that trust decisions should depend on the potential risk (egocentric costs and benefits) and the probability of reciprocity (derived from the trustee's temptation to defect). The current work tests the relative weights of these elements. Experiment 1 shows that trust increases when costs decrease and benefits increase. The latter finding is critical because increasing the trustor's benefit also means increasing the trustee's temptation to defect. Hence, this finding suggests that egocentrism prevails over perspective-taking. Experiment 2 shows that the trustee's temptation to defect (negatively) affects trust, but only when the trustor's cost and benefit are favorable. Results are interpreted as reflecting a boundedly rational decision process.     

The truth and bias model of judgment

We present a new model for the general study of how the truth and biases affect human judgment. In the truth and bias model, judgments about the world are pulled by 2 primary forces, the truth force and the bias force, and these 2 forces are interrelated. The truth and bias model differentiates force and value, where the force is the strength of the attraction and the value is the location toward which the judgment is attracted. The model also makes a formal theoretical distinction between bias and moderator variables. Two major classes of biases are discussed: biases that are measured with variables (e.g., assumed similarity) and directional bias, which refers to the extent to which judgments are pulled toward 1 end of the judgment continuum. Moderator variables are conceptualized as variables that affect the accuracy and bias forces but that do not affect judgments directly. We illustrate the model with 4 examples. We discuss the theoretical, empirical, methodological, measurement, and design implications of the model.     

Optimism facilitates the utilisation of prior cues

It has been shown that optimists tend to rely more on their prior expectations than sensory input when making decisions of an intense nature (Geers & Lassiter, 2002). We investigated the degree to which this tendency persists over a range of discrepancies between prior cues and actual stimuli. Eighty‐seven participants were shown a subset of happy, sad and fearful pictures drawn from the Ekman facial expressions of emotion (Ekman & Oster, 1979). Each picture was preceded by a verbal cue indicating the impending emotional expression and intensity. The displayed pictures were either in agreement, slightly discrepant or very discrepant with the cue. Participants rated the extent to which they agreed/disagreed with the expectation cue. Probit signal detection models were used to produce acquiescence for each subject at each level of discrepancy. Correlation analysis was performed on acquiescence and dispositional optimism scores. There was a significant correlation between all acquiescence scores for levels of discrepancies and dispositional optimism. Optimism appears to be a trait associated with acquiescence. The apparent tendency of optimists to comply may be due to a cognitive style that relies on expectations, such that it takes them longer to recognise the extent of discrepancy between expectations and incoming information. Copyright © 2010 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Purpose as a form of identity capital for positive youth adjustment

Having a sense of purpose has been discussed as a developmental asset for youth and as an outgrowth of establishing a sense of identity. Using the identity capital model as a theoretical framework, 3 studies examined purpose as a mediator in the relationship between identity and well-being among adolescents and emerging adults. In Study 1A, (n = 110), purpose commitment was positively associated with positive affect, hope, happiness among adolescents, and fully mediated associations between identity commitment and these indices of well-being. These findings were replicated in Study 1B (n = 398), with a sample of emerging adults and using different measures of well-being. In Study 2, multilevel random coefficient modeling analyses examined the role of identity and purpose in the daily lives of adolescents (n = 135). Results showed that purpose commitment fully mediated the relationship between identity and changes in daily positive and negative affect. Overall, findings suggest that cultivating a sense of purpose in life may be an important mechanism through which a stable identity contributes to well-being.     

Cross‐Situational Learning: An Experimental Study of Word‐Learning Mechanisms

Cross‐situational learning is a mechanism for learning the meaning of words across multiple exposures, despite exposure‐by‐exposure uncertainty as to the word's true meaning. We present experimental evidence showing that humans learn words effectively using cross‐situational learning, even at high levels of referential uncertainty. Both overall success rates and the time taken to learn words are affected by the degree of referential uncertainty, with greater referential uncertainty leading to less reliable, slower learning. Words are also learned less successfully and more slowly if they are presented interleaved with occurrences of other words, although this effect is relatively weak. We present additional analyses of participants’ trial‐by‐trial behavior showing that participants make use of various cross‐situational learning strategies, depending on the difficulty of the word‐learning task. When referential uncertainty is low, participants generally apply a rigorous eliminative approach to cross‐situational learning. When referential uncertainty is high, or exposures to different words are interleaved, participants apply a frequentist approximation to this eliminative approach. We further suggest that these two ways of exploiting cross‐situational information reside on a continuum of learning strategies, underpinned by a single simple associative learning mechanism.     

Heterosexual romantic couples mate assortatively for facial symmetry, but not masculinity

Preferences for partners with symmetric and sex-typical faces are well documented and considered evidence for the good-genes theory of mate choice. However, it is unclear whether preferences for these traits drive the real-world selection of mates. In two samples of young heterosexual couples from the United Kingdom (Study 1) and the United States (Study 2), the authors found assortment for facial symmetry but not for sex typicality or independently rated attractiveness. Within-couple similarity in these traits did not predict relationship duration or quality, although female attractiveness and relationship duration were negatively correlated among couples in which the woman was the more attractive partner. The authors conclude that humans may mate assortatively on facial symmetry, but this remains just one of the many physical and nonphysical traits to which people likely attend when forming romantic partnerships. This is also the first evidence that preferences for symmetry transfer from the laboratory to a real-world setting.     

Accuracy in assessment of self-reported stress and a measure of health from static facial information

The human face is important for social communication and in attractiveness judgements. Previous studies indicate that several facial traits may be related to mental and physical health and there is some evidence that individuals are able to judge past health on the basis of facial appearance. The current study builds on this prior work, examining the relationship between static facial appearance and self-reported stress and health. Specifically, we examined (1) within and between individual stress (Study 1) by photographing the same participants at two times, once in a relatively stress free and once in a stressful time, and (2) between individual health (Studies 2A and 2B) by examining self-reported past number of colds as a measure of immune function. All studies demonstrated that individuals could judge the stress and physical health of others from static facial appearance alone at rates greater than chance. Such accuracy may reflect selection pressures to identify stress free and healthy social partners.     

WORSHIPPING AN UNKNOWN GOD

This paper examines the religious tradition of ‘negative theology’, and argues that it is doubtful whether it leaves room for belief in God at all. Three theologians belonging in different degrees to this tradition are discussed, namely John Scotus Eriugena, Anselm of Canterbury and Nicolas of Cusa, and it is argued that all three, in maintaining the ineffability of God, reach positions that are in effect forms of agnosticism. There is a paradox here: if God is inconceivable, is it not self‐refuting to talk about him at all, even to state his inconceivability? The final part of the paper examines the work of the nineteenth‐century poet Arthur Hugh Clough, two of whose poems, Hymnos Aumnos, and Qui Laborat Orat, explore the paradox of talking about the inconceivable Godhead. Clough gives eloquent expression to the idea that leaving God unnamed is not equivalent to disowning him. There is room for a devout agnosticism.