Capacities underlying word learning

Children are strikingly good at learning the meanings of words. Current controversy focuses on the relative importance of different capacities in this learning process including principles of association, low-level attentional mechanisms, special word learning constraints, syntactic cues and theory of mind. We argue that children succeed at word learning because they possess certain conceptual biases about the external world, the ability to infer the referential intentions of others and an appreciation of syntactic cues to word meaning. Support for this view comes from studies exploring the phenomena of fast mapping, the whole object bias, the acquisition of names for entities belonging to different ontological kinds and the effect of lexical contrast. Word learning is not the result of a general associative learning process, nor does it involve specialized constraints. The ability to learn the meanings of words depends on a number of capacities, some of which are specific to language and unique to humans, others of which are potentially shared with other species.     

Use of the test scoring machine and the graphic item counter for statistical work

The graphic item-counter is described and its use as a statistical device is explained. Procedures are presented for obtaining Pearson product-moment correlations by means of the graphic item-counter.     

Take a break! Benefits of sleep and short breaks for daily work engagement

The current study investigates the benefits of a good night’s sleep and short work breaks for employees’ daily work engagement. It is hypothesized that sleep and self-initiated short breaks help restore energetic and self-regulatory resources which, in turn, enable employees to experience high work engagement. A daily diary study was conducted with 107 employees who provided data twice a day (before lunch and at the end of the working day) over 5 workdays (453 days in total). Multilevel regression analyses showed that sleep quality and short breaks were beneficial for employees’ daily work engagement. After nights employees slept better, they indicated higher work engagement during the day. Moreover, taking self-initiated short breaks from work in the afternoon boosted daily work engagement, whereas taking short breaks in the morning failed to predict daily work engagement. Taking short breaks did not compensate for impaired sleep with regard to daily work engagement. Overall, these findings suggest that recovery before and during work can foster employees’ daily work engagement.     

You get what you give: children's karmic bargaining

Do children believe in karma – the notion that life events occur to punish or reward our moral behavior? In three experiments, we investigate 4–6‐year‐old children's willingness to endorse and engage in the practice of performing good acts in order to secure an unrelated future desired outcome, so‐called ‘karmic bargaining’. Most children agreed that performing a morally good social behavior, but not a morally negative or morally neutral non‐social behavior, would increase the chances that future desired outcomes would occur, in both first‐party and third‐party contexts. About half of children also engaged in karmic bargaining behavior themselves. We conclude that a belief in karma may therefore reflect a broad, early‐emerging teleological bias to interpret life events in terms of agency, purpose, and design.     

Does Corporate Sponsorship of a Socially‐Oriented Message Make a Difference? An Investigation of the Effects of Sponsorship Identity on Responses to an Anti‐Drinking and Driving Message

The sponsorship of social messages is becoming increasingly popular among corporations. Despite the growing involvement of corporations in the marketing of causes, little research has been done to guide these initiatives. Before corporations become more actively involved in the sponsorship of social messages, it is important to understand whether sponsor identity impacts the effectiveness of these messages. This article presents a preliminary investigation into the differences created by corporate versus nonprofit sponsorship of a social message. Results from two experiments suggest that consumers process socially‐oriented messages differently based on the identity of the sponsor. Participants who viewed an anti‐drinking and driving message sponsored by the nonprofit organization, MADD, tended to infer more positive, society‐serving motives of the sponsor, whereas those who viewed the same ad sponsored by Budweiser, a corporation, inferred more negative, self‐serving (ulterior) motives of the sponsor. However, neither message affected the participant's attitude toward the sponsor of the message.     

Preschoolers' perspective taking in word learning: do they blindly follow eye gaze?

When learning new words, do children use a speaker's eye gaze because it reveals referential intent? We conducted two experiments that addressed this question. In Experiment 1, the experimenter left while two novel objects were placed where the child could see both, but the experimenter would be able to see only one. The experimenter returned, looked directly at the mutually visible object, and said either, "There's the [novel word]!" or "Where's the [novel word]?" Two- through 4-year-olds selected the target of the speaker's gaze more often on there trials than on where trials, although only the older children identified the referent correctly at above-chance levels on trials of both types. In Experiment 2, the experimenter placed a novel object where only the child could see it and left while the second object was similarly hidden. When she returned and asked, "Where's the [novel word]?" 2- through 4-year-olds chose the second object at above-chance levels. Preschoolers do not blindly follow gaze, but consider the linguistic and pragmatic context when learning a new word.