Differential reactions of virtual actors and observers to the triggering and interruption of psychological momentum

The present study compared virtual actors’ and observers’ perceptions of positive and negative psychological momentum (PM) and their responses to sudden interruptions of momentum. Participants with experience playing competitive table tennis imagined that they were playing a table tennis game (virtual actors), whereas participants who lacked experience playing competitive table tennis imagined that they were observing a table tennis game (observers). While viewing an audiovisual simulation of a table tennis match, participants were exposed to either an ascending (i.e., positive momentum) or descending (i.e., negative momentum) scoring sequence that was either suddenly interrupted or not interrupted at all. Participants’ PM perceptions were measured at the conclusion of the simulation. Results indicated that observers’ PM perceptions were lower than were virtual actors’ following the negative momentum sequence. More generally, interrupting positive momentum lowered PM perceptions, whereas interrupting negative momentum increased PM perceptions. Implications for the study of PM in sport are discussed.     

The French Lexicon Project: Lexical decision data for 38,840 French words and 38,840 pseudowords

The French Lexicon Project involved the collection of lexical decision data for 38,840 French words and the same number of nonwords. It was directly inspired by the English Lexicon Project (Balota et al., 2007) and produced very comparable frequency and word length effects. The present article describes the methods used to collect the data, reports analyses on the word frequency and the word length effects, and describes the Excel files that make the data freely available for research purposes. The word and pseudoword data from this article may be downloaded from http://brm.psychonomic-journals.org/content/supplemental.     

Back to the Real: Efficacy and Perception of a Modified Cognitive Interview in the Field

Since the Cognitive Interview (CI) was developed, many experiments have been published, but only two have investigated its efficacy in real criminal cases. Here, a Modified CI (MCI) is tested with real interviews in an inquisitor justice system. Several moderators and the interviewers' attitudes towards the CI/MCI are also examined. Eighty‐one witnesses were interviewed by 27 French military police officers, with a Standard Police Interview, a Structured Interview (SI), or an MCI. The MCI produced the most forensically relevant information, especially for victims. Trainees judged the SI and the MCI useful, usable, and acceptable, and felt efficient in using them, beliefs that increased after 1 year of practice. The self‐efficacy was linked with the declared use of the techniques. In all, this study confirmed the efficacy of the CI/MCI as a tool to be used in the field, with some cautions to be underlined, notably because of the small sample size considered. Copyright © 2013 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Numerical and nonnumerical estimation in children with and without mathematical learning disabilities

There are currently multiple explanations for mathematical learning disabilities (MLD). The present study focused on those assuming that MLD are due to a basic numerical deficit affecting the ability to represent and to manipulate number magnitude (Butterworth, 1999 Butterworth, B. 1999. The mathematical brain, London, , United Kingdom: Macmillan.  [Google Scholar], 2005 Butterworth, B. 2005. “Developmental dyscalculia”. In Handbook of mathematical cognition, Edited by: Campbell, J. I. D. 455–467. New York, NY: Psychology Press.  [Google Scholar]; A. J. Wilson &; Dehaene, 2007 Wilson, A. J. and Dehaene, S. 2007. “Number sense and developmental dyscalculia”. In Human behavior, learning, and the developing brain: Atypical development, 2nd, Edited by: Coch, D., Dawson, G. and Fischer, K. 212–237. New York, NY: Guilford Press.  [Google Scholar]) and/or to access that number magnitude representation from numerical symbols (Rousselle &; Noël, 2007 Rousselle, L. and Noël, M. P. 2007. Basic numerical skills in children with mathematics learning disabilities: A comparison of symbolic vs non-symbolic number magnitude processing. Cognition, 102(3): 361–395. [Crossref], [PubMed], [Web of Science ®] , [Google Scholar]). The present study provides an original contribution to this issue by testing MLD children (carefully selected on the basis of preserved abilities in other domains) on numerical estimation tasks with contrasting symbolic (Arabic numerals) and nonsymbolic (collection of dots) numbers used as input or output. MLD children performed consistently less accurately than control children on all the estimation tasks. However, MLD children were even weaker when the task involved the mapping between symbolic and nonsymbolic numbers than when the task required a mapping between two nonsymbolic numerical formats. Moreover, in the estimation of nonsymbolic numerosities, MLD children relied more than control children on perceptual cues such as the cumulative area of the dots. Finally, the task requiring a mapping from a nonsymbolic format to a symbolic format was the best predictor of MLD. In order to explain these present results, as well as those reported in the literature, we propose that the impoverished number magnitude representation of MLD children may arise from an initial mapping deficit between number symbols and that magnitude representation.     

Reliability and validity of the Leuven Perceptual Organization Screening Test (L‐POST)

Neuropsychological tests of visual perception mostly assess high‐level processes like object recognition. Object recognition, however, relies on distinct mid‐level processes of perceptual organization that are only implicitly tested in classical tests. Furthermore, the psychometric properties of the existing instruments are limited. To fill this gap, the Leuven perceptual organization screening test (L‐POST) was developed, in which a wide range of mid‐level phenomena are measured in 15 subtests. In this study, we evaluated reliability and validity of the L‐POST. Performance on the test is evaluated relative to a norm sample of more than 1,500 healthy control participants. Cronbach's alpha of the norm sample and test–retest correlations for 20 patients provide evidence for adequate reliability of L‐POST performance. The convergent and discriminant validity of the test was assessed in 40 brain‐damaged patients, whose performance on the L‐POST was compared with standard clinical tests of visual perception and other measures of cognitive function. The L‐POST showed high sensitivity to visual dysfunction and decreased performance was specific to visual problems. In conclusion, the L‐POST is a reliable and valid screening test for perceptual organization. It offers a useful online tool for researchers and clinicians to get a broader overview of the mid‐level processes that are preserved or disrupted in a given patient.     

Validation of the WHOQOL-BREF in a Sample of Male Treatment-Seeking Veterans

We examined the psychometric properties of a quality of life measure, the WHOQOL-BREF, in male treatment-seeking veterans. A sample of 131 veterans at an outpatient clinic completed a mail-in survey that included the WHOQOL-BREF as well as measures of posttraumatic stress, depression, anxiety symptoms, and functional health status. The WHOQOL-BREF showed evidence of good internal consistency and strong test-retest reliability. In addition, analysis of results demonstrated evidence of construct, convergent, and discriminant validity. The results suggest that the WHOQOL-BREF is a reliable and valid measure that can be used in the planning of psychological services provided to veterans with mental health problems.     

Production of lexical categories in French children with SLI and in normally developing children matched for MLU

Free speech recording samples of two groups of French SLI children aged 48 and 62 months (matched for MLU, 1.70) and two groups of French normally developing children aged 26 and 36 month (matched for MLU, 3.2) were compared to determine whether they showed a difference in the use of lexical categories. A category-by-category comparison showed few significant differences. For low MLU children, SLI produced significantly fewer infinitives, past participles, copulas, and demonstrative pronouns. For high MLU children, the difference persisted only in past participles use. As for English SLI children, French SLI children were delayed in their acquisition of verbs. However, the differences in the syntactic structure of English and French ruled out a syntactic explanation of the deficit. Phonetic problems seem to decrease with age, so they cannot be the only explanation behind the difficulties of SLI children, which probably involve cognitive problems such as processing limitations.     

To do or not to do? A cognitive consistency model for drawing conclusions from conditional instructions and advice

This paper investigates a cognitive consistency model of the directionality of conditional instructions and advice that use probability expressions to express uncertainty about the antecedent p. The proposed model combines world knowledge (conveyed by causal direction) with linguistic information (conveyed by polarity and negation), and predicts whether the complex sentence antecedent has a positive or negative directionality, which in turn predicts whether a positive or negative conclusion q will be drawn. The first experiment uses Do q if p conditionals to show that given a consequent q participants complete antecedents p with a probability expression in line with expected sentence directionality. The second experiment uses If p then do q conditionals to show similar effects in a reverse direction. A third experiment uses If p then do q conditionals to show that participants draw conclusions predicted by the cognitive consistency model but not by a decision-theoretic approach to reasoning.     

Experts and laymen grossly underestimate the benefits of argumentation for reasoning

Many fields of study have shown that group discussion generally improves reasoning performance for a wide range of tasks. This article shows that most of the population, including specialists, does not expect group discussion to be as beneficial as it is. Six studies asked participants to solve a standard reasoning problem—the Wason selection task—and to estimate the performance of individuals working alone and in groups. We tested samples of U.S., Indian, and Japanese participants, European managers, and psychologists of reasoning. Every sample underestimated the improvement yielded by group discussion. They did so even after they had been explained the correct answer, or after they had had to solve the problem in groups. These mistaken intuitions could prevent individuals from making the best of institutions that rely on group discussion, from collaborative learning and work teams to deliberative assemblies.