Language and mathematical problem solving among bilinguals

Does using a bilingual's 1st or 2nd language have an effect on problem solving in semantically rich domains like school mathematics? The author conducted a study to determine whether Filipino-English bilingual students' understanding and solving of word problems in arithmetic differed when the problems were in the students' 1st and 2nd languages. Two groups participated-students whose 1st language was Filipino and students whose 1st language was English-and easy and difficult arithmetic problems were used. The author used a recall paradigm to assess how students understood the word problems and coded the solution accuracy to assess problem solving. The results indicated a 1st-language advantage; that is, the students were better able to understand and solve problems in their 1st language, whether the 1st language was English or Filipino. Moreover, the advantage was more marked with the easy problems. The theoretical and practical implications of the results are discussed.     

Brain stimulation techniques in the treatment of obsessive-compulsive disorder: current and future directions

Recent studies on the epidemiology of obsessive-compulsive disorder (OCD) estimate 50 million patients suffer from OCD worldwide, thus making it a global problem. The treatment of OCD has changed substantially over the last 2 decades following the introduction of selective serotonin reuptake inhibitors, which provide symptom improvement in approximately 60% of patients. However, some patients remain resistant to the standard pharmacologic and behavioral treatments. Although some treatment-resistant patients respond to pharmacologic augmentations, others do not, and there is evidence that some of the most severe cases benefit from treatment with neurosurgical interventions. Besides pharmacologic, behavioral, and neurosurgical approaches, different brain stimulation methods-transcranial magnetic stimulation, deep brain stimulation, and electroconvulsive therapy-have been investigated in treatment-resistant patients with OCD. However, available data about the use of these techniques in OCD treatment are quite limited in terms of sample size and study design, given the difficulty in conducting standard blinded trials for these procedures. In addition, none of the mentioned treatments have received Food and Drug Administration approval for the treatment of OCD. Nevertheless, promising findings regarding efficacy, tolerability, and non-invasiveness and/or reversibility of these techniques have increased interest in investigating their use in treatment-resistant OCD.     

Language Format and Analogical Transfer among Bilingual Problem Solvers in the Philippines

Is analogical problem solving of bilinguals affected by the language in which the problem is given? Three experiments study whether the language used for the problem affects analogical transfer between word problems among Filipino-English bilinguals. Subjects were given a set of study problems all of which were either in Filipino or English. They were then given a set of analogous transfer-test problems either in Filipino or in English. Experiment 1 showed a language-compatibility effect; transfer was better when the language of the study and transfer-test problems were the same. Experiments 2 to 3 studied the locus of the effect. The data suggest that language compatibility facilitates the retrieval of relevant, superficially similar problem information but does not affect the process of applying the same problem information to the new problem. The results are discussed in terms of their implications to problem-solving behaviour of bilinguals and to the education of bilingual students.     

Workers' self‐objectification and tendencies to conform to others

Recent research showed that workers' self‐objectification—their self‐perception as objects rather than human beings—leads to detrimental intrapersonal consequences. In the present research, we explored whether this phenomenon may also affect interpersonal relations, by increasing workers' tendencies to conform. In a correlational study, Italian workers who perceived their work as more objectifying self‐objectified more—self‐attributed less human mental states and self‐perceive as more instrument‐like than human‐like—and, in turn, were more inclined to conform with others. The second study experimentally confirmed this pattern, showing that British workers who recalled an objectifying (vs. a non‐objectifying) work experience self‐objectified more. Self‐perception as instrument‐like was associated, in turn, with an increased tendency to adapt to others' opinions. The implications for organizational and social psychology are discussed.     

Objective age of acquisition norms for a set of 328 words in Spanish

Age of acquisition is one of the most important variables in picture naming. For this reason, a large number of findings concerning age-of-acquisition data have been published in recent years in a number of different languages. In this article, objective age-of-acquisition data in Spanish for 328 pictures were collected from a pool of 760 children, half of whom were boys and the other half girls. A total of 246 pictures were selected from the Snodgrass and Vanderwart (1980) set, and 82 were new pictures. Like the results of other studies, we found that objective age of acquisition correlates less than rated age of acquisition with familiarity and frequency, which indicates that the objective measure is less contaminated by other variables than are rated estimates. A very high correlation was obtained between the norms from this study and those published in English, French, Icelandic, and Italian. These norms will be very useful to Spanish psycholinguists and clinicians. Related materials may be downloaded from the Psychonomic Society Web archive at www.psychonomic.org/archive/.     

Negative intergroup contact and support for social policies toward the minority outgroup in the aftermath of a natural disaster

In this field study, we tested whether negative intergroup contact experienced by majority (Italian) survivors in the aftermath of the earthquakes that struck Northern Italy in 2012 was associated with policy attitudes toward minority (immigrant) survivors. Results revealed a negative association between negative contact and support for social policies aimed at favoring immigrant survivors. Moreover, social policies toward immigrant survivors mediated the effect of negative contact on social policy attitudes toward the minority group as a whole. We discuss the theoretical and practical implications of findings.     

Acquiring Foreign Language Vocabulary Through Meaningful Linguistic Context: Where is the Limit to Vocabulary Learning?

The present studies examined the effects of varying degrees of unfamiliar vocabulary within written discourse on individuals’ abilities to use linguistic context for the purposes of translation and comprehension (i.e., lexical inferencing). Prose varied in the number of foreign words introduced into each sentence (e.g., 0 through 7 content words per sentence). Furthermore, Krashen’s Input Hypothesis and the Evaluation component of the Involvement Load Hypothesis were tested to determine the degree at which non-comprehensible input hinders the ability of a learner to successfully use linguistic context for translation and comprehension. Results indicated that, as the number of foreign words per sentence, i.e., non-comprehensible input, increased the ability to successfully translate foreign words and create situational models for comprehension begins to decrease especially beyond five unfamiliar words per sentence. This result suggests that there is an optimal level of effectiveness in the use of a linguistic context strategy for learning foreign language vocabulary, but also that there is a limit to the strategy’s effectiveness. Implications and applications to the field of foreign language learning are discussed.