On the role of regular phonological variation in lexical access: evidence from voice assimilation in French

The present study investigated whether lexical access is affected by a regular phonological variation in connected speech: voice assimilation in French. Two associative priming experiments were conducted to determine whether strongly assimilated, potentially ambiguous word forms activate the conceptual representation of the underlying word. Would the ambiguous word form [sud] (either assimilated soute 'hold' or soude 'soda') facilitate "bagage" 'luggage', which is semantically related to soute but not to soude? In Experiment 1, words in either canonical or strongly assimilated form were presented as primes. Both forms primed their related target to the same extent. Potential lexical ambiguity did not modulate priming effects. In Experiment 2, the primes such as assimilated soute pronounced [sud] used in Experiment 1 were replaced with primes such as soude canonically pronounced [sud]. No semantic priming effect was obtained with these primes. Therefore, the effect observed for assimilated forms in Experiment 1 cannot be due to overall phonological proximity between canonical and assimilated forms. We propose that listeners must recover the intended words behind the assimilated forms through the exploitation of the remaining traces of the underlying form, however subtle these traces may be.     

Risky sexual behavior among married alcoholic men.

The current study explored whether the wives of men entering alcoholism treatment are at risk for sexually transmitted infections (STIs) exposure as a result of their husbands' sexual risk behaviors. The extramarital relationships of married alcoholic men entering outpatient treatment (n = 125) were compared with those of a demographically matched community sample of nonalcoholic married men (n = 125). The proportion of alcoholic men who reported 1 or more extramarital affairs in the previous year (14%) was significantly higher than that of the community sample (4%). Additionally, only 2 alcoholic husbands and 1 nonalcoholic husband reported that his wife was aware of the extramarital relationship. For both groups, none of the men who engaged in extramarital relationships reported consistent use of condoms when having sexual intercourse with their wives or with their extramarital partners. These results suggest that wives of alcoholic men are unknowingly placed at risk for indirect exposure to STIs as a result of their husbands' sexual risk behaviors. Thus, infidelity in treatment-seeking alcohol-abusing men represents a significant public health issue.     

Familialism, social support, and stress: positive implications for pregnant Latinas

This study examined the association of familialism, a cultural value that emphasizes close family relationships, with social support, stress, pregnancy anxiety, and infant birth weight. Foreign-born Latina (n = 31), U.S.-born Latina (n = 68), and European American (n = 166) women living in the United States participated in a prospective study of pregnancy in which they completed measures of familialism, social support, stress, and pregnancy anxiety during their second trimester. As expected, Latinas scored higher on familialism than European Americans. Familialism was positively correlated with social support and negatively correlated with stress and pregnancy anxiety in the overall sample. As predicted, however, the associations of familialism with social support and stress were significantly stronger among Latinas than European Americans. Moreover, higher social support was associated with higher infant birth weight among foreign-born Latinas only. Implications of cultural values for relationships and health are discussed.     

NONVERBAL BEHAVIOR, STATUS, AND GENDER: HOW DO WE UNDERSTAND THEIR RELATIONS?

The causes of gender differences in nonverbal behavior are not well understood. The present article discusses status as a possible explanation and analyzes some of the methodological and conceptual challenges associated with testing that hypothesis. The study by Helweg-Larsen, Cunningham, Carrico, and Pergram (2004) , which investigated gender in relation to nodding toward peers versus professors in college classes, is highlighted to demonstrate some of the difficulties facing researchers when testing the status explanation.     

Otherness and the problem of evil: How does that which is other become evil?

In seeking to answer the question “How does that which is other become evil?” the author provides a discussion of four entwined aspects of the issue at stake; (1) difficulty in achieving clarity on the grammar of evil; (2) genocide as a striking illustration of otherness becoming evil; (3) the challenge of postnationalism as a resource for dealing with otherness in the socio-political arena; and (4) the ethico-religious dimension as it relates to the wider problem of evil.     

Attributing the sources of accuracy in unequal-power dyadic communication: Who is better and why?

A study was conducted to assess accuracy of deliberate nonverbal communication of affective messages between individuals assigned to different power roles within dyads. In phase 1, participants (N = 158) were assigned to unequal- or to equal-power roles and asked to send positive, negative, and neutral messages to their partner using nonverbal cues while the partner guessed which kind of message it was. In phase 2, naïve decoders (N = 294) made judgments of the videotapes from phase 1 to resolve the confounding of sender and decoder factors in the within-dyad communication paradigm. Results showed that subordinates were more accurate at decoding superiors than vice versa, and that this difference was due to subordinates sending less clear messages to superiors than superiors sent to subordinates. Comparison with the equal-power group’s expressions revealed that the subordinates’ expressions were also less clear than those sent by the equal-power group.     

Processing Evidence for the Grammatical Encoding of the Mass/Count Distinction in Mandarin Chinese

Journal of Psycholinguistic Research - Using the Visual World Paradigm, the current study aimed to explore whether the mass/count distinction is determined by syntax in Mandarin Chinese, focusing...     

THE DEFENSIVE NATURE OF BENEFIT FINDING DURING ONGOING TERRORISM: AN EXAMINATION OF A NATIONAL SAMPLE OF ISRAELI JEWS

A study examining the effects of terrorism on a national sample of 1,136 Jewish adults was conducted in Israel via telephone surveys, during the Second Intifada. The relationship between reports of positive changes occurring subsequent to terrorism exposure (i.e., Benefit finding), posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD) symptom severity, and negative outgroup attitudes toward Palestinian citizens of Israel (PCI) was examined. Benefit finding was related to greater PTSD symptom severity. Further, Benefit finding was related to greater threat perception of PCI and ethnic exclusionism of PCI. Findings were consistent with hypotheses derived from theories of outgroup bias and support the anxiety buffering role of social affiliation posited by terror management theory. This study suggests that benefit finding may be a defensive coping strategy when expressed under the conditions of ongoing terrorism and external threat.     

Semantic Compositionality and Truth-Conditional Content

It is widely held that hearers grasp an utterance's truth conditions by assigning contents to the linguistic expressions used, and combining these contents according to semantic composition rules. To preserve compositionality of truth-conditional content while accounting for context-sensitivity that is not traceable to overt linguistic form, semanticists posit covert linguistic structure. The strongest justification for this approach is the allegedly unconstrained nature of the alternative, whereby a process of 'free pragmatic enrichment' supplies constituents of content that are not traceable to (overt or covert) encoded meaning. This paper argues that free enrichment is tightly constrained by purely pragmatic factors, thus undermining the motivation for semantic compositionality.