Accuracy of Basic Knowledge of Traumatic Historical Events: The Armenian Genocide

This research assumes that accuracy of shared historical knowledge of genocide might help new generations cope with the trauma lived by previous generations, while the longer the denial of a genocide the more fragmented the macronarrative and the longer the collective trauma. The Armenian genocide (1915) is generally represented in opposite ways by the Turks and Armenians. The study explores the knowledge accuracy of the 1915 events before and after the centennial commemoration of the genocide and uses convenience samples from Bulgaria, Czech Republic, Croatia, Romania, United States, Venezuela, and a representative sample (Romania, N = 1231). The major findings suggest a very low basic knowledge of genocide, with a few exceptions, despite a significant increase of this knowledge after the 100-year commemoration.     

Increasing Psychological Capital: A Pre-Registered Meta-Analysis of Controlled Interventions

The aim of this meta-analysis was to evaluate the overall effectiveness of interventions designed to enhance psychological capital (PsyCap), well-being, and performance. We used inclusion criteria such as: to have an experimental design, the sample to be formed by employees or students, to contain a measure of PsyCap, and a control group. Forty-one trials (N_total = 3,911) met these criteria. The overall effect of the interventions on all PsyCap variables was significant but small (d = 0.34, k = 41, Z = 6.74, p < .001). Separate analyses on each of the PsyCap variables also revealed significant effects: small effects on developing PsyCap (d = 0.26, k = 9, Z = 4.37, p < .001), hope (d = 0.22, k = 5, Z = 2.26, p < .05), self-efficacy (d = 0.37, k = 18, Z = 4.11, p < .001), and optimism (d = 0.36, k = 12, Z = 2.52, p < .05), and a small to medium effect for resilience (d = 0.49, k = 12, Z = 3.61, p < .001). The effectiveness of the PsyCap interventions on well-being and performance is also significant.     

Are three-sample tasks less sensitive than two-sample tasks? Memory effects in the testing of taste discrimination

In order to provide insights into why discrimination protocols with three stimuli sometimes tend to be less sensitive than protocols with two stimuli, two experiments were conducted. In these experiments, the relative effects of memory decay and memory interference were investigated. Both experiments involved purified water and/or solutions of low NaCl concentration. In Experiment 1, three protocols were compared: the traditional same-different test (Protocol 1), the same protocol with a rinse between the two samples (Protocol 2), and Protocol 2 with an added time delay between the first sample and the intermediate rinse (Protocol 3.) The decrease in measured d' values as time delay increased indicated that memory decay might be a factor for tests with three stimuli, such as the triangle method, rendering it less sensitive than tests with two stimuli, such as the same-different method. In Experiment 2, four protocols were compared: the traditional same-different test, the two-rinse same-different test, the triangle test, and what will be called duo same-different test. The experimental design allowed the individual consideration of memory decay and interference effects. From this last experiment, the substantial effect of memory interference was uncovered. Further experimentation will be necessary to estimate the exact relative effects of memory interference and memory decay.     

Dissociating mere exposure and repetition priming as a function of word type

The mere exposure effect is defined as enhanced attitude toward a stimulus that has been repeatedly exposed. Repetition priming is defined as facilitated processing of a previously exposed stimulus. We conducted a direct comparison between the two phenomena to test the assumption that the mere exposure effect represents an example of repetition priming. In two experiments, having studied a set of words or nonwords, participants were given a repetition priming task (perceptual identification) or one of two mere exposure (affective liking or preference judgment) tasks. Repetition priming was obtained for both words and nonwords, but only nonwords produced a mere exposure effect. This demonstrates a key boundary for observing the mere exposure effect, one not readily accommodated by a perceptual representation systems (Tulving & Schacter, 1990) account, which assumes that both phenomena should show some sensitivity to nonwords and words.     

A Defence of Jury Nullification

In both Great Britain and the United States there has been a growing debate about the modern acceptability of jury nullification. Properly understood, juries do not have any constitutional right to ignore the law, but they do have the power to do so nevertheless. Juries that nullify may be motivated by a variety of concerns: too harsh sentences, improper government action, racism, etc. In this article, I shall attempt to defend jury nullification on a number of grounds. First, I discuss the use of general verdicts and reject their replacement in criminal trials by special verdicts. Second, I examine verdicts based upon mistakes and racial prejudice, turning my attention to perverse verdicts and the question of whether or not juries are guilty of legislating when nullifying the law. Finally, I look at the problem of the awarding of excessive damages by juries. My goal will be to provide a sound theoretical defence of the practice of jury nullification.R. Pound, Law in Books and Law in Action, American Law Review 44 (1910),18.The term jury nullification is synonymous with jury equity. The use of jury nullification has been suspected of playing a role in the infamous trials of O. J. Simpson and Rodney King in the last decade. See People v Simpson, No. BA097211 (Cal. Super. Ct. 1995); People v Powell, No. BA035498 (Cal. Super. Ct. 1991).     

MANULEX: A grade-level lexical database from French elementary school readers

This article presents MANULEX, a Web-accessible database that provides grade-level word frequency lists of nonlemmatized and lemmatized words (48,886 and 23,812 entries, respectively) computed from the 1.9 million words taken from 54 French elementary school readers. Word frequencies are provided for four levels: first grade (G1), second grade (G2), third to fifth grades (G3-5), and all grades (G1-5). The frequencies were computed following the methods describedby Carroll, Davies, and Richman (1971) and Zeno, Ivenz, Millard, and Duwuri (1995), with four statistics at each level (F, overall word frequency;D, index of dispersion across the selectedreaders;U, estimated frequencyper million words; andSFI, standard frequency index). The database also provides the number of letters in the word and syntactic category information. MANULEX is intended to be a useful tool for studying language development through the selection of stimuli based on precise frequency norms. Researchers in artificial intelligence can also use it as a source of information on natural language processing to simulate written language acquisition in children. Finally, it may serve an educational purpose by providing basic vocabulary lists.     

On the generation and evaluation of inferences from single premises

A theory of how individuals construct mental models to draw inferences from single premises was tested in three experiments. Experiment 1 confirmed a counterintuitive prediction that it is easier to generate inferences between conditionals and disjunctions than it is to evaluate them. Experiment 2 replicated this finding, but an advantage found in the first experiment for conditional-to-disjunction over disjunction-to-conditional inferences was removed with different sentence contents. Experiment 3 showed that disjunction-to-conditional inferences were facilitated when premises expressed familiar indicative relations, whereas conditional-to-disjunction inferences were facilitated when premises expressed causal relations. The results indicate that small changes in task format can have large effects on the strategies that people use to represent and reason about different sentential connectives. We discuss the potential for theories other than mental models to account for these results. We argue that, despite the important role played by single-premise inferences in paraphrasing logical forms during inference, mental logic theories cannot account for the results reported here.     

Egocentric and geocentric frames of reference in memory of large-scale space

This experiment investigated the frames of reference used in memory to represent the spatial structure of a large-scale outdoor environment. Participants learned the locations of eight objects in an unfamiliar city park by walking through the park on one of two prescribed paths that encircled a large rectangular building. The aligned path was oriented with the building; the misaligned path was rotated by 45°. Later, participants pointed to target objects from imagined vantage points using their memories. Pointing accuracy was higher in the aligned than in the misaligned path group, and the patterns of results differed: In the aligned condition, accuracy was higher for imagined headings parallel to legs of the path and for an imagined heading oriented toward a nearby lake, a salient landmark. In the misaligned condition, pointing accuracy was highest for the imagined heading oriented toward the lake, and decreased monotonically with angular distance. These results indicated that locations of objects were mentally represented in terms of frames of reference defined by the environment but selected on the basis of egocentric experience.     

Motion sickness preceded by unstable displacements of the center of pressure

We exposed standing participants to optic flow in a moving room. Motion sickness was induced by motion that simulated the amplitude and frequency of standing sway. We identified instabilities in displacements of the center of pressure among participants who became sick; these instabilities occurred before the onset of subjective motion sickness symptoms. Postural differences between Sick and Well participants were observed before exposure to the nauseogenic stimulus. During exposure to the nauseogenic stimulus, sway increased for participants who became sick but also for those who did not. However, at every point during exposure sway was greater for participants who became motion sick. The results reveal that motion sickness is preceded by instabilities in displacements of the center of pressure.     

Nonfatal suicide-related behavior among inmates: testing for gender and type differences

Suicide-related behavior (SRB) is significantly more prevalent among female (40.8%) than among male (28%) inmates, although suicide risk is higher among the latter. When instrumental behavior (IB) is excluded and only suicidal acts (SA) considered, rates for the two groups are more comparable (11.9% and 16%, respectively). Compared with other female inmates, the SRB group is more suicidal, hostile, and impulsive and more likely to have been previously victimized and to be diagnosed with Axis I and II disorders. Women with IB are not significantly different from those with SA, except that their behavior provides significantly greater tension release.