Reading aloud: The cumulative lexical interference effect

Picture naming shows a cumulative semantic interference effect: Latency for naming a target picture increases as a function of the number of pictures semantically similar to the target that have previously been named (Howard, Nickels, Coltheart, & Cole-Virtue, Cognition 100:464-482, 2006). Howard and colleagues, and also Oppenheim, Dell, and Schwartz (Cognition 114:227-252, 2010), argued that this occurs because of the joint presence in the picture-naming system of three critical properties: shared activation, priming, and competition. They also discussed the possibility that whenever any cognitive system possesses these three properties, a cumulative similarity-based interference effect from repeated use of that cognitive system will occur. We investigated this possibility by looking for a cumulative lexical interference effect when the task is reading aloud: Will the latency of reading a target word aloud increase as a function of the number of words orthographically/phonologically similar to the target that have previously been read aloud? We found that this was so. This supports the general idea that cumulative similarity-based interference effects will arise whenever any cognitive system that possesses the three key properties of shared activation, priming, and competition is repeatedly used.     

Transtheoretical Model Constructs for Physical Activity Behavior are Invariant across Time among Ethnically Diverse Adults in Hawaii

OBJECTIVES: Physical activity (PA) research applying the Transtheoretical Model (TTM) to examine group differences and/or change over time requires preliminary evidence of factorial validity and invariance. The current study examined the factorial validity and longitudinal invariance of TTM constructs recently revised for PA. METHOD: Participants from an ethnically diverse sample in Hawaii (N=700) completed questionnaires capturing each TTM construct. RESULTS: Factorial validity was confirmed for each construct using confirmatory factor analysis with full-information maximum likelihood. Longitudinal invariance was evidenced across a shorter (3-month) and longer (6-month) time period via nested model comparisons. CONCLUSIONS: The questionnaires for each validated TTM construct are provided, and can now be generalized across similar subgroups and time points. Further validation of the provided measures is suggested in additional populations and across extended time points.     

Care vs Food as an Emotional Regulation Strategy in Elementary School Children: The Role of the Attachment Style

Abstract

According to attachment theory, potentially threatening stimuli tend to activate the attachment system for the search of the protective figure. In secure attachments, the experience of responsive relationships increases the probability of resorting to available figures as a strategy for regulating emotions in stressful situations. The aim of the research was to verify whether, in conditions of mild threat, children’s attachment styles affect the choice between caring relationships and food as a form of emotion regulation. We used a mixed experimental design to perform this research. Here, we presented children (N?=?65; M_age= 9.4) with threatening and neutral images and, afterwards, asked them to select from images of caring relationship or images of food. The results indicate that securely and ambivalently attached but not avoidantly attached children under both the neutral and threatening image conditions chose the care pictures over the food pictures. Second, only the securely attached increased their choice of care over food images in the threatening condition, and third, this difference was significant when compared with the avoidant children. In conclusion, the results show that although in general the choice of care is primary with respect to food, children with insecure attachments differ from secure children between the two options of emotional regulation.     

'I'm Thinking'

This paper aims to show that the 'I'm thinking', to really be the awareness of an act of thought, must refer to or indicate particular thought-contents that are not actually being focused on in the consciousness. A consequence of this is that the 'I'm thinking' lacks the absolute incorrigibility necessary to justify its role as a premise for the cogito.     

Quantum metaphysical indeterminacy

Philosophical Studies - On a wide variety of presently live interpretations, quantum mechanics violates the classical supposition of ‘value definiteness’, according to which the...