A mixture model for responses and response times with a higher-order ability structure to detect rapid guessing behaviour

Many educational and psychological assessments focus on multidimensional latent traits that often have a hierarchical structure to provide both overall-level information and fine-grained diagnostic information. A test will usually have either separate time limits for each subtest or an overall time limit for administrative convenience and test fairness. In order to complete the items within the allocated time, examinees frequently adopt different test-taking behaviours during the test, such as solution behaviour and rapid guessing behaviour. In this paper we propose a new mixture model for responses and response times with a hierarchical ability structure, which incorporates auxiliary information from other subtests and the correlation structure of the abilities to detect rapid guessing behaviour. A Markov chain Monte Carlo method is proposed for model estimation. Simulation studies reveal that all model parameters could be recovered well, and the parameter estimates had smaller absolute bias and mean squared error than the mixture unidimensional item response theory (UIRT) model. Moreover, the true positive rate of detecting rapid guessing behaviour is also higher than when using the mixture UIRT model separately for each subscale, whereas the false detection rate is much lower than the mixture UIRT model. The deviance information criterion and the logarithm of the pseudo-marginal likelihood are employed to evaluate the model fit. Finally, a real data analysis is presented to demonstrate the practical value of the proposed model.     

Do African American Male and Female Adolescents Differ in Technological Engagement?: The Effects of Parental Encouragement and Adolescent Technological Confidence

African Americans, especially African American women, remain one of the most underrepresented groups in technology-based degrees and careers. However, little is known about whether gender differences permeate African American adolescents’ engagement in technology in earlier development, such as in middle and high school (ages 12–18). Drawing on an ecological and intersectional framework, we examined if African American male and female adolescents differed in technological engagement and what contextual factors affected their engagement. We hypothesized that parental encouragement would be associated with greater technological confidence in adolescents, which would be linked to more experiences with and interests in technology. Further, we investigated if these associations would vary by adolescents’ and parents’ gender. Survey data from 1041 African American parent-adolescent dyads highlighted that adolescents had less experience and interest with technical activities than with creative activities, especially among female adolescents. More parents encouraged adolescent sons but limited daughters to use technology, yet female adolescents reported greater technological confidence. Moderated mediation analyses revealed that adolescents’ technological confidence mediated the positive association between parental encouragement and adolescents’ technological engagement across all parent-adolescent dyads, but with some nuances. Our findings suggest that prospective gender studies and educational programs should consider the influences of parenting and gender on promoting African American adolescents’ technological involvement and confidence.

     

Aspectual asymmetries in the mental representation of events: Role of lexical and grammatical aspect

Temporal information is important in the construction of situation models, and many languages make use of perfective and imperfective aspect markers to distinguish between completed situations (e.g., He made a cake) and ongoing situations (e.g., He is making a cake). Previous studies in which the effect of grammatical aspect has been examined have shown that perfective sentences are often processed more quickly than imperfective ones (e.g., Chan, Yap, Shirai, & Matthews, 2004; Madden & Zwaan, 2003; Yap et al., 2004; Yap et al., 2006). However, these studies used only accomplishment verbs (i.e., verbs with an inherent endpoint, such as bake a cake). The present study on the processing of Cantonese includes activity verbs (i.e., durative verbs with no inherent endpoint, such as play the piano), and the results indicate a strong interaction between lexical aspect (i.e., verb type) and grammatical aspect. That is, perfective sentences were processed more quickly with accomplishment verbs, consistent with previous findings, but imperfective sentences were processed more quickly with activity verbs. We suggest that these different aspectual asymmetries emerge as a result of the inherent associations between accomplishment verbs and the bounded features of perfective aspect and between activity verbs and the unbounded features of imperfective aspect. The sentence stimuli from this study may be downloaded from mc.psychonomic-journals.org/content/supplemental.     

Gray matter correlates of fluid,crystallized, and spatial intelligence: Testing the P-FIT model

The parieto-frontal integration theory (P-FIT) nominates several areas distributed throughout the brain as relevant for intelligence. This theory was derived from previously published studies using a variety of both imaging methods and tests of cognitive ability. Here we test this theory in a new sample of young healthy adults (N = 100) using a psychometric battery tapping fluid, crystallized, and spatial intelligence factors. High resolution structural MRI scans (3T) were obtained and analyzed with Voxel-based Morphometry (VBM). The main findings are consistent with the P-FIT, supporting the view that general intelligence (g) involves multiple cortical areas throughout the brain. Key regions include the dorsolateral prefrontal cortex, Broca's and Wernicke's areas, the somato-sensory association cortex, and the visual association cortex. Further, estimates of crystallized and spatial intelligence with g statistically removed, still share several brain areas with general intelligence, but also show some degree of uniqueness.     

一致性、相关性对记忆生存优势效应的影响

对词语进行生存加工能提高记忆成绩,这种记忆的生存优势效应已得到不少研究的验证,且大多数研究表明生存优势是一种独特的编码方式(Nairne&Pandeirada,2011)。但是,Butler等人(2009)的研究结果表明实验中生存加工带来的记忆优势可能是一致性效应(即编码任务与编码的材料之间具有一致性)的作用。本文在2个实验中选用与生存和抢劫加工条件相关程度不同的词(高中低)为实验材料,采用生存加工、抢劫加工、愉悦度和有意学习为实验条件,研究一致性和相关性在记忆生存优势中的作用。结果发现:(1)生存条件下的记忆效果显著优于愉悦度条件和有意学习条件,这说明的确存在记忆的生存优势效应;(2)高生存相关词在生存加工条件下产生了记忆优势,而中、低生存相关词在2种加工条件下记忆成绩差异不显著,这说明加工条件的一致性只在一定程度上影响着记忆的生存优势效应;(3)词语自身的生存相关性没有表现出较强的记忆优势,当然这也可能与实验材料的词频有关。研究结果支持了Nairne和Pandeirada(2011)的观点。     

数学困难儿童的数学估计能力

对数学困难儿童(简称数困)的数学估计进行探讨有助于理解数困的成因和寻找适当的干预措施。本文在简要回顾数困和估计的概念基础上, 重点对近年来国内外关于数困儿童数学估计(主要是估算和估数)的表现及影响因素、神经基础和相关的干预研究进行了回顾和梳理, 并强调未来对数困儿童的数学估计研究应注重从选取被试、扩展研究范围和加强干预方案设计等方面开展探讨。     

公正判断中的“非理性”：加工特征、主要表现和影响因素

公正判断中的“非理性”研究是社会认知双过程加工理论在公正领域的拓展, 也是不确定性管理和道德心理研究的延续。就加工过程而言, 个体的公正判断可能同时依存“理性”和“非理性”两个结构和进化都不同的认知体系。置换过程、首因效应、极端判断、补偿偏见、责备无辜受害者和道德命令效应是公正判断中“非理性”的主要表现。自我因素、公正敏感性、道德认同、情绪状态和公正世界信念等个体变量是其主要影响因素。综合来看, 目前公正判断的“非理性”研究还比较庞杂, 其进化根源、生理机制、如何与理性过程交互作用等还有待深入研究。此外, 结合社会现实问题、关注第三方视角、多理论解释的整合及多水平因素的交互影响可能是未来的研究方向。     

Cultural Effects on English Language Teachers’ Judgments of Metaphoric Creativity: A Mixed‐Methods Approach

This study explored cultural influences on English language teachers’ judgments of English metaphors created by Taiwanese learners of English. Based on a mixed‐methods approach, it delved into the rating severity and implicit evaluation criteria of two cultural groups of teachers: Taiwanese and Americans. Ten Taiwanese teachers and 10 American teachers evaluated 120 novel metaphoric expressions using the Consensual Assessment Technique (Amabile, 1996). Creativity in context: Update to the social psychology of creativity. They further filled out a creativity evaluation survey, which was designed to bring to light what qualities within the metaphors influenced their judgments of metaphoric creativity. With the teachers’ ratings being analyzed by means of many‐facet Rasch measurement, this study first indicated that the American teachers were more severe raters than the Taiwanese teachers, but no significant difference was found between them. Analysis of the evaluation survey further demonstrated that both cultural groups shared largely similar evaluation criteria; yet, two contrasts emerged between them. Specifically, the American teachers seemed to favor metaphors that expressed the creator's thoughts; by contrast, the Taiwanese teachers preferred metaphors that relied on readers’ imagination to work out the meanings. These findings shed light on implications for teaching creativity in English L2 classrooms and assessing learners’ creative language artifacts in an English L2 context.     

青少年公正世界信念的发展轨迹及其影响因素:一项多水平分析

为探讨青少年公正世界信念的发展轨迹及其影响因素,采用公正世界信念量表（BJW）、友谊质量量表（FQ）和网络社会支持量表（OSS）对来自河南省某3所高中的518名高一学生进行两年追踪调查。结果发现：（1）青少年一般公正世界信念高于个人公正世界信念;（2）青少年一般公正世界信念呈逐步下滑趋势,而个人公正世界信念的发展趋势则相对平稳;（3）友谊质量和网络社会支持均能分别解释个人公正世界信念和一般公正世界信念发展过程中的个体差异。研究结果揭示了青少年公正世界信念发展的轨迹,为引导青少年树立正确的世界观和人生观,培养积极的社会心态提供了有益建议。     

Framing effects of per‐person versus aggregate prices in group meals

This research draws on regulatory focus theory and applies it to the context of price framing in group meals. Specifically, it examines the possibility that a per‐person framing of price (an aggregate price) may activate a promotion focus (prevention focus) in consumers. The results of five experiments show that participants (a) generated more promotion‐relevant (vs. prevention‐relevant) thoughts, (b) were more inclined to consume the group meal when a persistent focus on promotion (vs. prevention) was exhibited, (c) rated promotion‐focused (vs. prevention‐focused) messages more favorably, and (d) reported a higher intention to opt for an offer where the chance of obtaining a positive goal was enhanced, in response to a per‐person price rather than an aggregate price. Mediation analyses provide additional evidence for the notion that pursuit of promotion goals (prevention goals), which relate to obtaining value (avoiding loss) primed by a per‐person price (an aggregate price), had the effect of regulating one's choices. Managerial implications of the findings are discussed, followed by recommendations for future research.