The development of morphological representations in young readers: a cross‐modal priming study

The way children organize words in their memory has intrigued many researchers in the past 20 years. Given the large number of morphologically complex words in many languages, the influence of morphemes on this organization is being increasingly examined. The aim of this study was to understand how morphemic information influences English‐speaking children's word recognition. Children in grades 3 and 5 were asked to complete a lexical decision priming task. Prime‐target pairs varied in semantic similarity, with low (e.g., belly‐bell), moderate (e.g., lately‐late), and high similarity relations (e.g., boldly‐bold). There were also word pairs similar in form only (e.g., spinach‐spin) and in semantics only (e.g., garbage‐trash). Primes were auditory and targets were presented visually. Analyses of children's lexical decision times revealed graded priming effects as a function of the convergence of form and meaning. These results indicate that developing readers do not necessarily need to lexicalize morphological units to facilitate word recognition. Their ability to process the morphological structure of words depends on their ability to develop connections between form and meaning.     

TDQ-60 – a color picture-naming test for adults and elderly people: validation and normalization data

Word-finding difficulties are usually assessed with picture-naming tests. In this article, we present the TDQ-60, a new test designed to assess acquired lexical access deficits, taking into account semantics and psycholinguistic variables. The article includes three studies. Study 1 describes the development phase of the TDQ-60. In study 2, healthy control participants and individuals with a diagnosis of the semantic variant of primary progressive aphasia were assessed to establish the convergent and discriminant validity of the TDQ-60. Finally, in Study 3, a group of 305 young and elderly French-speaking adults from Quebec were assessed in order to provide normative data. The results demonstrate that the TDQ-60 has good convergent validity and good discriminant validity. This study also provides normative data in which were considered the effect of age and education.The TDQ-60 is a new valid picture-naming test, controlled for psycholinguistic variables and designed to identify the influence of semantics on lexical access in spoken production.     

Subjective Well-Being in an Era of Relentless Growth: The Case of Turkey Between 2004 and 2014

This paper analyses the subjective well-being levels in Turkey between 2004 and 2014 by relying on Turkish Statistical Institute’s Life Satisfaction Surveys. This is the first study ever suggesting an alternative well-being approach for Turkish population based on subjective measures. Inspired from the Bhutan’s Gross National Happiness and Cummins et al.’s (2003) Australian Unity Well-Being Index approaches, we constructed several subjective well-being indexes for the first time in Turkey. The main findings of this study are as follows: (1) Despite GDP per capita (in current $) doubles between 2004 and 2014 period, constructed indexes show slight increments or stagnate around some level. (2) We found a slight support for Frey and Stutzer’s (2002a) argument that GDP per capita is insensible after some threshold. (3) National well-being indicators are found to be more volatile than individual well-being indicators, which hints that individuals may be using their informal social networks as a shelter from the economic and politic fluctuations in the country. (4) Much of the volatility in subjective well-being indexes are caused by psychological well-being indicators. Previous results indicate that as basic requirements of a society are met after some level of per capita income, non-materialistic aspirations- like happiness, freedom or justice-started to surpass materialistic aspirations. Same is true for Turkey- this led us to conclude that the reductionist approach of delegating the solution of social and ecological problems to economic growth process may lie beneath this dismal outcome in Turkey in the last decade. Thus, we recommend policy-makers to upkeep with the reform process which would make economic and political system more transparent and competitive, which in turn, help to ameliorate the channels through which individuals fulfil their aspirations.     

Price fairness,satisfaction, and trust as antecedents of purchase intentions towards organic food

Health and environmental issues are increasingly important in consumers' decision‐making process. Accordingly, demand for organic food is rapidly growing. In this context, the objective of this study is to analyze the relationship between price fairness, satisfaction, trust, and purchase intentions towards organic food. With this aim, empirical data were collected with self‐administrated questionnaires from a convenience sample of consumers from Sakarya, Turkey. Proposed hypotheses were tested with structural equations modeling. The results indicated positive relationships between price fairness, satisfaction, trust, and purchase intentions. At the end of this study, theoretical contributions, managerial implications, limitations, and suggestions for future research are discussed.     

High Trait Cheerfulness Individuals are More Sensitive to the Emotional Environment

The aim of this paper was to study whether trait cheerfulness modulates changes in state cheerfulness as a result of exposing participants to affective stimuli. Two studies with a within-participant experimental design were carried out. Forty-eight (33 women) and sixty-four (45 women) undergraduate psychology students were selected as Sample 1 and Sample 2, respectively, for scoring high or low on the Trait Form of the State-Trait-Cheerfulness Inventory (STCI-T; Ruch et al. in Humor Int J Humor Res 9:303–339, 1996; Ruch et al. in Personal Individ Differ 22:477–491, 1997). Participants watched amusing, neutral, and sad film clips and reported their affective states before and after viewing them. In the second study, heart rate and skin conductance level were also recorded. Results showed that people with high trait cheerfulness reported greater changes in state cheerfulness when exposed to both amusing and sad film clips, showing larger increases and decreases in state cheerfulness, respectively, than participants with low trait cheerfulness. Effects were not mediated by social desirability. Furthermore, people with low trait cheerfulness showed a greater heart rate deceleration during the visioning of the clips compared to high trait cheerfulness participants, especially in an amusing scene with high emotional load. No modulation on trait cheerfulness was found for skin conductance level. Data with self-report and electrophysiological measures are discussed, highlighting that high trait cheerfulness people are more permeable to affective events, perhaps showing a better understanding and management of them.     

Electrophysiological correlates of emotional crossmodal processing in binge drinking

Emotional crossmodal integration (i.e., multisensorial decoding of emotions) is a crucial process that ensures adaptive social behaviors and responses to the environment. Recent evidence suggests that in binge drinking—an excessive alcohol consumption pattern associated with psychological and cerebral deficits—crossmodal integration is preserved at the behavioral level. Although some studies have suggested brain modifications during affective processing in binge drinking, nothing is known about the cerebral correlates of crossmodal integration. In the current study, we asked 53 university students (17 binge drinkers, 17 moderate drinkers, 19 nondrinkers) to perform an emotional crossmodal task while their behavioral and neurophysiological responses were recorded. Participants had to identify happiness and anger in three conditions (unimodal, crossmodal congruent, crossmodal incongruent) and two modalities (face and/or voice). Binge drinkers did not significantly differ from moderate drinkers and nondrinkers at the behavioral level. However, widespread cerebral modifications were found at perceptual (N100) and mainly at decisional (P3b) stages in binge drinkers, indexed by slower brain processing and stronger activity. These cerebral modifications were mostly related to anger processing and crossmodal integration. This study highlights higher electrophysiological activity in the absence of behavioral deficits, which could index a potential compensation process in binge drinkers. In line with results found in severe alcohol-use disorders, these electrophysiological findings show modified anger processing, which might have a deleterious impact on social functioning. Moreover, this study suggests impaired crossmodal integration at early stages of alcohol-related disorders.     

Nonparametric tests for equality of psychometric functions

Many empirical studies measure psychometric functions (curves describing how observers’ performance varies with stimulus magnitude) because these functions capture the effects of experimental conditions. To assess these effects, parametric curves are often fitted to the data and comparisons are carried out by testing for equality of mean parameter estimates across conditions. This approach is parametric and, thus, vulnerable to violations of the implied assumptions. Furthermore, testing for equality of means of parameters may be misleading: Psychometric functions may vary meaningfully across conditions on an observer-by-observer basis with no effect on the mean values of the estimated parameters. Alternative approaches to assess equality of psychometric functions per se are thus needed. This paper compares three nonparametric tests that are applicable in all situations of interest: The existing generalized Mantel–Haenszel test, a generalization of the Berry–Mielke test that was developed here, and a split variant of the generalized Mantel–Haenszel test also developed here. Their statistical properties (accuracy and power) are studied via simulation and the results show that all tests are indistinguishable as to accuracy but they differ non-uniformly as to power. Empirical use of the tests is illustrated via analyses of published data sets and practical recommendations are given. The computer code in matlab and R to conduct these tests is available as Electronic Supplemental Material.     

Sexism and sexual risk behavior in adolescents: Gender differences

Background/Objective: This study examines whether there are differences in the maintenance of ambivalent sexist beliefs on the basis of gender and sexual experience in adolescents. The study also investigates whether the sexist beliefs themselves are linked to sexual risk behaviors. Method: A representative sample of 2,703 Spanish adolescents was carried out in public and private secondary schools, with an age range of 14 to 20 years old (M = 15.89; SD = 1.29). Results: Males maintain more hostile, benevolent and ambivalent sexist beliefs compared to females. Sexual experience (both coital and non-coital) is linked to a greater degree of hostile and benevolent sexist beliefs, but only within the male group. In males, greater benevolent sexism is linked to vaginal sex initiation at an earlier age, while greater hostile sexism is linked to a lower proportion of condom use. In females, greater hostile sexism is linked to a greater number of sex partners. Conclusions: It is necessary to include specific actions on sexist beliefs in programs for the prevention of sexually transmitted infections and HIV.     

Is the Ambivalence a Sign of the Multiple-Self Nature of the Human Being? Interdisciplinary Remarks

Ambivalence is a constituent feature of human beings. The aim of this article is to systematise the fundamental sources of ambivalence (neuropsychic, socio-cultural and situational) and highlight that ambivalence can be considered as an external sign or manifestation of a complex and multiple internal human nature; that is, a human being constituted by multiple selves. In this paper the self is viewed as a principle of organization and integration for action, that is, as a complex neurological process and not as a static entity. The purpose is to show how by assuming ambivalence and the multiple-self, social and anthropological theories can offer a more realistic view of human beings.