Spoken word recognition by eye

Spoken word recognition is thought to be achieved via competition in the mental lexicon between perceptually similar word forms. A review of the development and initial behavioral validations of computational models of visual spoken word recognition is presented, followed by a report of new empirical evidence. Specifically, a replication and extension of Mattys, Bernstein & Auer's (2002) study was conducted with 20 deaf participants who varied widely in speechreading ability. Participants visually identified isolated spoken words. Accuracy of visual spoken word recognition was influenced by the number of visually similar words in the lexicon and by the frequency of occurrence of the stimulus words. The results are consistent with the common view held within auditory word recognition that this task is accomplished via a process of activation and competition in which frequently occurring units are favored. Finally, future directions for visual spoken word recognition are discussed.     

How malleable is comparative self‐positivity? The effects of manipulating judgemental focus and accessibility

The present research investigated accessibility effects on comparative self‐positivity in the environmental domain. In a pretest we established comparative self‐positivity and a focus effect for environmental awareness. In the main study we aimed at shifting these effects by manipulating the accessibility of harmful behaviours of either the self or the typical student before obtaining comparative judgements. Specifically, we used two types of accessibility manipulations: anchoring and ease of retrieval. We predicted that judgements would be affected by content in the anchoring paradigm but by subjective ease in the ease of retrieval paradigm. We found the predicted pattern of effects, but it was strongest when participants focused on the typical student. The findings contribute to our understanding of the mechanisms underlying comparative biases and may have applied implications. Copyright © 2006 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

LITURGICALLY TRAINED MEMORY: A READING OF SUMMA THEOLOGIAE III.83

Drawing on Ciceronian rhetorical tropes, Thomas Aquinas treats the rite of the Eucharist in terms of the classical ars memoriae. The Eucharist, for Aquinas, is the schooling in desire whereby we are trained to order the associations of our memory to their proper objects in terms of their relations to God. He thus conceives of the liturgy of the Mass as rhetoric proper, which truly teaches, moves and delights. Since memory is the condition of all thought, as both Thomas and Augustine claim, the Eucharist is the “site” of all theological production, and therefore the liturgy is the art of memory of which all other similar arts are derivative.     

The supermom trap: Do involved dads erode moms' self‐competence?

Increasingly, husbands have been expected to share equally in the task of childrearing, especially when their wives are employed. This study examined reactions to these changes in a sample of 78 dual-earner couples with 8-month-old infants. When wives felt that their husbands were skillful caregivers, greater husbands' contribution to caregiving was associated with lower self-competence among wives. In contrast, wives' caregiving behavior was unrelated to their husbands' self-competence. None of these effects emerged for the self-liking component of self-esteem. Thus, despite increasingly egalitarian sex roles, employed mothers (but not their husbands) seem to be trapped between their desire for help with childrearing and the threat to their personal competence posed by failure to meet socially constructed ideals of motherhood.     

Global Changes and Local Accidents: Consistency in Attributions for Environmental Effects1

A questionnaire concerning environmental issues was administered to 462 tourists visiting beaches in southwestern England. One set of items concerned the greenhouse effect, and measured the extent to which global warming was seen as attributable to individual behavior or corporate industrial activity, controllable by changes in behavior and policy, and having an immediate impact on the local climate. Other items concerned a recent shipping accident that had resulted in oil pollution of beaches in the region. Attributing the greenhouse effect to individual or corporate behavior, and interpreting climatic events as signs of this effect, were associated with a belief that the consequences of global warming could be disastrous, but also controllable through international and/or individual action. These responses covaried significantly with those concerning the oil spillage. Thus, greater perceptions of the urgency of dealing with global warming were associated with more negative views of the impact of the oil spillage, and with a greater tendency to attribute the shipping accident as due to bad seamanship, rather than chance. Those who saw individual behavior as contributing to the greenhouse effect were more likely to attribute the accident to bad seamanship, whereas those who felt that ordinary people could do little to stop the effects of global warming regarded the accident as one which could have happened to any tanker. It is suggested that cross-situational consistencies in attributional style and normative beliefs may contribute to associations between attitudes on distinct environmental issues.     

Nuclear Waste: Facts,Fears, and Attitudes1

This study examined the effects of a television documentary about the safety of the Sellafield nuclear reprocessing plant in the Northwest of England upon public attitudes. In a study of 805 respondents from four districts in the Southwest of England, we assessed attitudes and beliefs both before and after the documentary about Sellafield. Results indicated a significant attitude change in a more antinuclear direction. Respondents who had seen or heard about the events at Sellafield tended to be more antinuclear after the broadcast. Finally, respondents living close to the existing nuclear power stations in the Southwest of England tended to see the events at Sellafield as less serious than the remaining respondents. Furthermore, this difference in perceived seriousness between respondents living near a nuclear power station and the remaining respondents was much more pronounced in ratings of the environmental risks of the local nuclear power stations in Southwest England.