No role for lightness in the perception of black and white? Simultaneous contrast affects perceived skin tone, but not perceived race

Faces of individuals with African and European heritage (henceforth referred to as Black and White respectively) feature two major differences: those of skin tone and morphological characteristics. Although considerations of perceived race are important to various psychological subdisciplines, to date the relative influence of morphological versus photometric characteristics has not been investigated. We attempted to influence the perceived racial typicality of a central target face by manipulating perceived skin tone using the well-known lightness contrast illusion. As expected, ratings of skin tone were influenced by surround faces, yet ratings of perceived racial typicality were not, suggesting a dissociation between the two judgments. Surprisingly, skin tone contributes little to perceived race, leaving facial morphology as the dominant cue. These results may shed light on failures to find effects of racial typicality in studies of prejudice where judgments were based on photographs with altered skin tone alone.     

Monitoring same/different discrimination behavior in time and space: Finding differences and anticipatory discrimination behavior

Discrimination behavior in a standard, two-alternative forced choice same/different task is usually measured by the pigeon’s pecking one or the other of two arbitrary report areas. We found that pigeons make anticipatory, discriminative responses to the visual display during the stimulus observing period prior to the availability of the report areas; the spatial distribution of these anticipatory discriminative responses strongly correlated with the upcoming choice response. These anticipatory pecks provide evidence that the process of discrimination occurs well before the moment of choice and that key aspects of this process can be revealed by looking at the distribution of observing responses. We also manipulated the variability of the displayed items to study the nature of these anticipatory responses; again, the spatial distribution of responding during the stimulus observing period strongly correlated with the upcoming choice response. The distribution of these prechoice pecks supports the theory that pigeons search for differences in the displayed items. If differences are found, then pigeons prepare to report “different”; if not, then they report “same.”     

The facing bias in biological motion perception: Effects of stimulus gender and observer sex

Under orthographic projection, biological motion point-light walkers offer no cues to the order of the dots in depth: Views from the front and from the back result in the very same stimulus. Yet observers show a bias toward seeing a walker facing the viewer (Vanrie, Dekeyser, & Verfaillie, 2004). Recently, we reported that this facing bias strongly depends on the gender of the walker (Brooks et al., 2008). The goal of the present study was, first, to examine the robustness of the effect by testing a much larger subject sample and, second, to investigate whether the effect depends on observer sex. Despite the fact that we found a significant effect of figure gender, we clearly failed to replicate the strong effect observed in the original study. We did, however, observe a significant interaction between figure gender and observer sex.     

Tier 1 and Tier 2 early intervention for handwriting and composing

Three studies evaluated Tier 1 early intervention for handwriting at a critical period for literacy development in first grade and one study evaluated Tier 2 early intervention in the critical period between third and fourth grades for composing on high stakes tests. The results contribute to knowledge of research-supported handwriting and composing instruction that informs practice as school psychologists are empowered to embrace the role of intervention specialist. The first study found that neurodevelopmental training (orthographic-free motor activities and motor-free orthographic activities) led to improved accuracy and legibility of letter formation, but that direct handwriting instruction with visual cues and verbal mediation led to improved automatic handwriting (rate of writing legible letters) and transfer to improved word reading. The second study found that neither motor training nor orthographic training alone added value to direct instruction in automatic letter writing and composing practice in developing handwriting skills, which transferred to improved word reading; but the added motor training did improve performance on a grapho-motor planning task for sequential finger movements that is relevant to composing. A related analysis showed that direct instruction with visual cues and memory delays may reduce reversals. A third study found that adding handwriting to reading instruction improved handwriting but did not add value to reading outcomes for at risk readers; reading instruction alone was beneficial for word reading, decoding, and comprehension. The fourth study showed that comprehensive, explicit instruction in the processes of composition led to more significant improvement, based on group and individual data, than did the regular fourth grade program, on high stakes writing assessment.     

Evaluating anxiety and depression symptoms in children and adolescents with prior mild traumatic brain injury: Agreement between methods and respondents

Psychological functioning can be adversely impacted after a mild traumatic brain injury (mTBI) and may be a potential target for intervention. Despite the use of symptom ratings or structured diagnostic interview to assess long-term anxiety and depression symptoms in children and adolescents post-injury, no known studies have considered the agreement between different assessment methods and between respondents. The objectives of this study were to investigate the agreement between symptom ratings and structured diagnostic interview and between children and parents’ symptom reporting. Participants (N = 33; 9–18 years old) were recruited from the Emergency Department and assessed on average 22.8 months (SD = 5.6) after their mTBI. Anxiety and depression symptoms were evaluated via subscales of a questionnaire (Behavior Assessment System for Children) and parts of a computerized structured diagnostic interview (generalized anxiety disorder and major depressive episode; Diagnostic Interview Schedule for Children – C-DISC-IV) administered individually to children and their parents. Results showed that the inter-method agreement to identify high levels of anxiety and depression was moderate to perfect in children while it was lower in parents. Although a similar percentage of participants with elevated anxiety or depression were identified by both children and parents, the agreement between youth and parents was variable, ranging from poor to good for anxiety and poor to moderate for depression. These results highlight the importance of collecting youth and parents’ reports of anxiety and depression symptoms and considering potential discrepancies between informants’ answers.     

Is there a bilingual advantage on interference-control tasks? A multiverse meta-analysis of global reaction time and interference cost

A contentious issue in contemporary psycholinguistics is whether bilingualism enhances executive functions. Here, we report a meta-analysis of 80 studies (253 effect sizes) comparing performance of monolinguals and bilinguals on non-verbal interference-control tasks, while examining potential moderators of effects on two dependent variables (DVs): global reaction time (RT) and interference cost. We used a multiverse approach to determine how robust conclusions were to several dataset construction and analysis decisions. In our “preferred” analysis, using a broad definition of bilinguals and standard versions of interference-control tasks, there was a very small but significant bilingual advantage for global RT (g =.13), which became non-significant once corrected for publication bias. For interference cost, there was a very small but significant bilingual advantage (g =.11). Effects were not significantly moderated by task or participant age, but were moderated by an interaction between age of second language acquisition (AoA) and the DV. Unexpectedly, larger effect sizes for interference cost were observed for studies involving bilinguals with late as opposed to early AoA. The multiverse analysis produced results largely consistent with the preferred analysis, confirming our conclusion that evidence for a bilingual advantage on interference-control tasks is weak.

     

大学生特质焦虑与网络成瘾的关系:一个有调节的中介模型

通过对530名大学生的问卷调查,考察特质焦虑、压力知觉、未来时间洞察力和网络成瘾之间的关系。结果发现：（1）压力知觉在特质焦虑和网络成瘾之间起部分中介作用,特质焦虑既对网络成瘾产生直接影响,也通过压力知觉产生间接影响;（2）未来时间洞察力对压力知觉的中介作用起调节作用,压力知觉对网络成瘾的影响随着个体未来时间洞察力的增加而减少。大学生特质焦虑、压力知觉、未来时间洞察力和网络成瘾共同构成一个有调节的中介模型。