Response delays and the timing of discrete motor responses

A model for the timing of repetitive discrete motor responses is proposed, and a prediction of negative dependency between successive interresponse intervals is confirmed by data from a Morse key tapping task. A method that makes use of the first-order serial correlation between interresponse intervals is used to distinguish between variance due to a timekeeping process and variance in motor response delays subsequent to the timekeeper. These two quantities are examined as a function of mean interresponse interval.     

The Contribution of Worry Behaviors to the Diagnosis of Generalized Anxiety Disorder

Worry behaviors (i.e., overt acts to avoid or cope with worry-induced distress) have been recognized as being important in the psychopathology and treatment of generalized anxiety disorder (GAD). This study evaluated the worry behaviors criterion proposed for DSM-5 GAD, but was ultimately not adopted due to insufficient evidence. In 800 outpatients with emotional disorders (366 with GAD), most patients with GAD (92.6%) met the proposed worry behaviors criterion, which was at a rate significantly higher than other patient groups (e.g., patients with mood disorders). Patients who met the worry behaviors criterion had more severe GAD than patients who did not. The worry behaviors criterion, and 3 of its 4 constituent behaviors, were associated with no better than “fair” interrater reliability. Diagnostic reliability of GAD was not improved in cases where both interviewers agreed the worry behaviors criterion was met. The worry behaviors criterion significantly predicted DSM-5 GAD holding core GAD features constant (e.g., excessive worry), but this contribution was weak and did not appreciably improve the classification accuracy of GAD diagnostic status. Mixed support was obtained for the discriminant validity of the worry behaviors criterion in relation to mood disorders. Raising the proposed threshold of the criterion (requiring 2 instead of 1 behaviors) did not result in a substantial improvement in reliability, prediction, and classification accuracy. Although additional research is warranted (e.g., importance of worry behaviors in the treatment and natural course of GAD), the results raise questions about the role of worry behaviors in the diagnostic classification of GAD.     

Aspectual asymmetries in the mental representation of events: Role of lexical and grammatical aspect

Temporal information is important in the construction of situation models, and many languages make use of perfective and imperfective aspect markers to distinguish between completed situations (e.g., He made a cake) and ongoing situations (e.g., He is making a cake). Previous studies in which the effect of grammatical aspect has been examined have shown that perfective sentences are often processed more quickly than imperfective ones (e.g., Chan, Yap, Shirai, & Matthews, 2004; Madden & Zwaan, 2003; Yap et al., 2004; Yap et al., 2006). However, these studies used only accomplishment verbs (i.e., verbs with an inherent endpoint, such as bake a cake). The present study on the processing of Cantonese includes activity verbs (i.e., durative verbs with no inherent endpoint, such as play the piano), and the results indicate a strong interaction between lexical aspect (i.e., verb type) and grammatical aspect. That is, perfective sentences were processed more quickly with accomplishment verbs, consistent with previous findings, but imperfective sentences were processed more quickly with activity verbs. We suggest that these different aspectual asymmetries emerge as a result of the inherent associations between accomplishment verbs and the bounded features of perfective aspect and between activity verbs and the unbounded features of imperfective aspect. The sentence stimuli from this study may be downloaded from mc.psychonomic-journals.org/content/supplemental.     

Seeing the forest and not the trees: When impact uncertainty heightens causal complexity

This study attempts to isolate the effects of experiencing uncertainty on people's cognitive processes. I argue that people can believe that their actions affect the outcome (i.e. outcome control), but still face uncertainty regarding the extent to which actions will make a difference (i.e. impact uncertainty). To this end, I introduce a novel experimental paradigm which isolates the effects of impact uncertainty from outcome control. The findings revealed that after experiencing impact uncertainty, participants demonstrated greater causal complexity (i.e. more likely to make situational attributions and judge outcomes as having a “ripple effect”), but did not make fewer effort attributions for the outcomes. These findings demonstrate how the experience of impact uncertainty can affect cognitive processing, without compromising outcome control. Implications of these findings for developing more nuanced theories on control and uncertainty are discussed.     

Home environmental influences on children's language and reading skills in a genetically sensitive design: Are socioeconomic status and home literacy environment environmental mediators and moderators?

This twin study examined how family socioeconomic status (SES) and home literacy environment (HLE) contributes to Chinese language and reading skills. It included 312 Chinese twin pairs aged 3 to 11. Children were individually administered tasks of Chinese word reading, receptive vocabulary and reading‐related cognitive skills, and nonverbal reasoning ability. Information on home environment was collected through parent‐reported questionnaires. Results showed that SES and HLE mediated shared environmental influences but did not moderate genetic influences on general language and reading abilities. Also, SES and HLE mediated shared environmental contributions to receptive vocabulary and syllable and rhyme awareness, but not orthographic skills. The findings of this study add to past twin studies that focused on alphabetic languages, suggesting that these links could be universal across languages. They also extend existing findings on SES and HLE's contributions to reading‐related cognitive skills.     

Predicting the psychological health of older adults: Interaction of age-based rejection sensitivity and discriminative facility

We hypothesize that older adults who anxiously expect, readily perceive, and intensely react to social rejection because of their old age (i.e., have high age-based rejection sensitivity) are vulnerable to depression and poor social functioning. We further hypothesize that the association between age-based rejection sensitivity and poor psychological health would be attenuated among older adults who possess adequate cognitive coping ability—they can discern and respond discriminatively to subtle variations in situational demands (i.e., have high discriminative facility). Based on the results of a focus group study, we constructed an age-based rejection sensitivity measure, which predicts greater depression, poorer social functioning, greater loneliness, and lower life satisfaction among individuals in late adulthood. As hypothesized, the relationship between age-based rejection sensitivity and poor psychological health was weaker among older adults with high (vs. low) discriminative facility.     

Folkbiology meets microbiology: a study of conceptual and behavioral change

Health education can offer a valuable window onto conceptual and behavioral change. In Study 1, we mapped out 3rd-grade Chinese children’s beliefs about causes of colds and flu and ways they can be prevented. We also explored older adults’ beliefs as a possible source of the children’s ideas. In Study 2, we gave 3rd- and 4th-grade Chinese children either a conventional cold/flu education program or an experimental “Think Biology” program that focused on a biological causal mechanism for cold/flu transmission. The “Think Biology” program led children to reason about cold/flu causation and prevention more scientifically than the conventional program, and their reasoning abilities dovetailed with their mastery of the causal mechanism. Study 3, a modified replication of Study 2, found useful behavioral change as well as conceptual change among children who received the “Think Biology” program and documented coherence among knowledge enrichment, conceptual change, and behavioral change.