German norms for semantic typicality, age of acquisition, and concept familiarity

The present study introduces the first substantial German database with norms for semantic typicality, age of acquisition, and concept familiarity for 824 exemplars of 11 semantic categories, including four natural (ANIMALS, BIRDS, FRUITS,: and VEGETABLES: ) and five man-made (CLOTHING, FURNITURE, VEHICLES, TOOLS: , and MUSICAL INSTRUMENTS: ) categories, as well as PROFESSIONS: and SPORTS: . Each category exemplar in the database was collected empirically in an exemplar generation study. For each category exemplar, norms for semantic typicality, estimated age of acquisition, and concept familiarity were gathered in three different rating studies. Reliability data and additional analyses on effects of semantic category and intercorrelations between age of acquisition, semantic typicality, concept familiarity, word length, and word frequency are provided. Overall, the data show high inter- and intrastudy reliabilities, providing a new resource tool for designing experiments with German word materials. The full database is available in the supplementary material of this file and also at www.psychonomic.org/archive .     

Self- and social perception of physical appearance in chest wall deformity

This study analyzes self- and social perception of physical appearance in patients with chest wall deformity (CWD), including both pectus carinatum and pectus excavatum. Self-perception of appearance in 76 patients with CWD and social perception of patients' appearance by 20 adult and 20 adolescent raters was assessed using the Appearance Rating Scale (Stangier et al., 2000) and evaluated for agreement and multivariate correlates. Results indicate no agreement between self- and social rating. Based on mean scores patients rated their appearance significantly more negatively than adult raters but only slightly different than adolescent raters. Adolescent raters' judgment of the patients' appearance was related to CWD characteristics, while self-rating rather seems to be related to psychosocial factors. Because adolescents are a relevant peer group for adolescent patients with CWD their evaluation of the appearance might influence patients' self-image and might affect their psychological functioning. Effective interventions focusing on social interactions are needed.     

Haptic pop-out of movable stimuli

When, in visual and haptic search, a target is easily found among distractors, this is called a pop-out effect. The target feature is then believed to be salient, and the search is performed in a parallel way. We investigated this effect with movable stimuli in a haptic search task. The task was to find a movable ball among anchored distractors or the other way round. Results show that reaction times were independent of the number of distractors if the movable ball was the target but increased with the number of items if the anchored ball was the target. Analysis of hand movements revealed a parallel search strategy, shorter movement paths, a higher average movement speed, and a narrower direction distribution with the movable target, as compared with a more detailed search for an anchored target. Taken together, these results show that a movable object pops out between anchored objects and this indicates that movability is a salient object feature. Vibratory signals resulting from the movable ball were found to be a reasonable explanation regarding the sensation responsible for the pop-out of movability.     

Do expansive or contractive body postures affect feelings of self-worth? High power poses impact state self-esteem

Current Psychology - The aim of the present studies was to investigate how high and low power posing influence self-esteem. High power posing is understood as the nonverbal expression of power...     

A Comparative Study on Storytelling Perceptions of Chinese,Vietnamese, American,and German Education Students

The study compared the perceptions of adults from four countries about storytelling. Americans (N = 153), Germans (N = 163), Chinese (N = 324), and Vietnamese (N = 356) completed a survey. Americans' scores on measures of storytelling experiences were the highest overall. Americans and Germans reported having significantly more childhood experiences of storytelling than the Chinese and Vietnamese. Vietnamese reported that storytelling experiences have impacted their resilience and propensity to use storytelling for teaching more than Chinese and Germans. Practical implications are that educators should investigate their students' stance on storytelling so they may leverage culturally responsive literacy practices.