Letter legibility and visual word recognition

Word recognition performance varies systematically as a function of where the eyes fixate in the word. Performance is maximal with the eye slightly left of the center of the word and decreases drastically to both sides of thisoptimal viewing position. While manipulations of lexical factors have only marginal effects on this phenomenon, previous studies have pointed to a relation between the viewing position effect (VPE) and letter legibility: When letter legibility drops, the VPE becomes more exaggerated. To further investigate this phenomenon, we improved letter legibility by magnifying letter size in a way that was proportional to the distance from fixation (e.g., TABLE). Contrary to what would be expected if the VPE were due to limits of acuity, improving the legibility of letters has only a restricted influence on performance. In particular, for long words, a strong VPE remains even when letter legibility is equalized across eccentricities. The failure to neutralize the VPE is interpreted in terms of perceptual learning: Since normally, because of acuity limitations, the only information available in parafoveal vision concerns low-resolution features of letters; even when magnification provides better information, readers are unable to make use of it.     

The Role of Defense in the Life Story

In modern societies, adults typically provide their lives with some sense of unity and purpose by constructing self-defining life stories that serve as their identities. Such stories are told to others and to an internalized audience or listener who serves as an ultimate judge and interpreter of the narrative. Defense mechanisms specify narrative strategies that persons use to shape how their lives are told to others and to their internalized audiences. Life events and experiences are incorporated into a life story to the extent that the internalized audience can make sense of the telling. Defenses function to make some stories more tellable than they might otherwise be and to keep other potentially storied accounts from ever reaching the status of being told.     

The Multiculturally Responsive Versus the Multiculturally Reactive: A Study of Perceptions of Counselor Trainees

Findings suggest that the completion of or exposure to multicultural counseling coursework or literature does not necessarily indicate an acceptance of or valuing of multicultural counseling literature. Survey results of counselor trainees' observations and perceptions of peers whose perspectives on diversity differ are presented and discussed. Implications for training and supervision are addressed.     

The internal representation of numbers

A principle of second-order isomorphism asserts that the functional similarities among internal representations parallel the structural similarities among the external objects to which those representations correspond. In accordance with this principle, subjects were asked to rate the similarities of all pairs of the numbers 0 through 9 in each of 24 conditions distinguished by the forms into which they were to be mentally transformed and then judged-including the visual forms of rows of dots and Arabic numerals, the auditory form of spoken English names, and the amodal form of the abstract concepts of the integers themselves. Similarity ratings were found to depend entirely upon the form in which the numbers were to be judged and not at all upon the form in which they were actually presented. Regardless of the form presented, multidimensional scaling solutions for each of the 24 conditions were readily interpretable in terms of structural properties of the form judged-curvature and closure for visual numerals; number of syllables, initial consonant, and vowel phoneme for auditory names; and numerical magnitude, odd-evenness, etc., for abstract concepts. Reanalyses of chronometric data are presented to illustrate how a fuller understanding of human cognitive processes may be attainable by using such structural models of internal representation in conjunction with studies of overt confusion and reaction time.     

HELPLESSNESS AND THE ANALYST’S WAR AGAINST FEELING IT

In our view helplessness is a primal, often intolerable feeling. It underlies and intensifies other feelings that are also hard to bear. Both analyst and patients face helplessness, and both resort to defenses, often intensely, in order to avoid it. The intensity of this battle can merit calling it a war. The analyst’s war is conducted using distancing, anger, blaming and disparaging as well as by intellectualizing the patient’s struggles. Patients then find themselves abandoned and helplessly alone. We analysts, of course, want not to fall into the trap of war, and we try to free ourselves from waging it. A major way we accomplish this is through continuously working, often with the help of analysis and self-analysis, to increase our capacity to maintain our emotional stability in the face of these intensities. We learn to find new forms of awareness, beyond words and ideas. It requires a new understanding of what is threatening to us, which fosters a deeper capacity to empathize with the patient. This helps us to find the psychic, physical and emotional space within ourselves in which to hold our helplessness and other profound affective experiences. In this way we become an increasingly steady resource for our patients as well as for ourselves.     

HARKing's Threat to Organizational Research: Evidence From Primary and Meta‐Analytic Sources

We assessed presumed consequences of hypothesizing after results are known (HARKing) by contrasting hypothesized versus nonhypothesized effect sizes among 10 common relations in organizational behavior, human resource management, and industrial and organizational psychology research. In Study 1, we analyzed 247 correlations representing 9 relations with individual performance in 136 articles published in Journal of Applied Psychology and Personnel Psychology and provide evidence that correlations are significantly larger when hypothesized compared to nonhypothesized. In Study 2, we analyzed 281 effect sizes from a meta‐analysis on the job satisfaction–job performance relation and provide evidence that correlations are significantly larger when hypothesized compared to nonhypothesized. In addition, in Study 2, we documented that hypothesized variable pairs are more likely to be mentioned in article titles or abstracts. We also ruled out 13 alternative explanations to the presumed HARKing effect pertaining to methodological (e.g., unreliability, publication year, research setting, research design, measure contextualization, publication source) and substantive (e.g., predictor–performance pair, performance measure, satisfaction measure, occupation, job/task complexity) issues. Our results suggest that HARKing seems to pose a threat to research results, substantive conclusions, and practical applications. We offer recommended solutions to the HARKing threat.     

A novel tool-use mode in animals: New Caledonian crows insert tools to transport objects

New Caledonian crows (Corvus moneduloides) rely heavily on a range of tools to extract prey. They manufacture novel tools, save tools for later use, and have morphological features that facilitate tool use. We report six observations, in two individuals, of a novel tool-use mode not previously reported in non-human animals. Insert-and-transport tool use involves inserting a stick into an object and then moving away, thereby transporting both object and tool. All transported objects were non-food objects. One subject used a stick to transport an object that was too large to be handled by beak, which suggests the tool facilitated object control. The function in the other cases is unclear but seems to be an expression of play or exploration. Further studies should investigate whether it is adaptive in the wild and to what extent crows can flexibly apply the behaviour in experimental settings when purposive transportation of objects is advantageous.