The Mathematics Anxiety Rating Scale,a brief version: psychometric data

As a measure of mathematics anxiety, the Mathematics Anxiety Rating Scale (MARS) has been a major scale used for research and clinical studies since 1972. Despite the usefulness of the original scale, researchers have sought a shorter version of the scale partly to reduce the administration time of the original 98-item scale. This study created a shorter version of the MARS and provides reliability and validity information for the new version. The Cronbach alpha of .96 indicated high internal consistency, while the test-retest reliability for the MARS 30-item was .90 (p<.001). The validity data confirm that the MARS 30-item test is comparable to the original MARS 98-item scale.     

Exploring the role of repetition and sensory elaboration in the imagination inflation effect

Two experiments were conducted to examine whether a misattribution of specific characteristics or a misattribution of global familiarity underlies false memories as assessed through imagination inflation. Using the paradigm developed by Goff and Roediger (1998), we found that the proportion of false memories increased with repeated imagination, replicating the imagination inflation effect. False memories developed through imagination were greatest in conditions that forced participants to include sensory detail in their imaginings. Finally, conscious recollection more often accompanied false memories in perceptually detailed imagination conditions, whereas feelings of familiarity more often accompanied false memories in conditions that lacked sensory cues. These results suggest that imagination that contains more perceptual information leads to more elaborate memory representations containing specific characteristics that can be confused with actually performed actions. Confusion based on these representations, as opposed to confusion based on processing fluency, is more likely to lead to false memories.     

The effect of grammatical gender and semantic context on lexical access in Italian using a timed word-naming paradigm

The effects of sentence context and grammatical gender on lexical access were investigated in Italian using a timed word-naming paradigm. Large main effects of both sentence context and the gender of the article were observed; the interaction between gender and semantics was significant over subjects. Strong facilitation by both gender and semantics was observed, relative to a neutral-control baseline condition. Results are compared with (1) a prior study with the same design, using a picture-naming paradigm, except that objects described by written words were replaced by pictures (Bentrovato, Devescovi, D'Amico, & Bates, 1999); (2) a separate norming study of timed word reading in a list format, using the same stimuli (D'Amico, Devescovi, & Bates, 2001); and (3) a prior study of German comparing word and picture naming in short, semantically neutral phrases (Jacobsen, 1999). Differences in methodology and in findings between the Italian word naming and the German word naming are compared and discussed. Findings of the present study are interpreted in support of interactive-activation models in which different sources of information are combined on-line to predict, anticipate, or preactivate lexical targets.     

The role of intent and harm in judgments of prejudice and discrimination

Four experiments examined how an actor's intent and the harm experienced by a target influence judgments of prejudice and discrimination. The presence of intent increased the likelihood that participants judged an actor as prejudiced and the actor's behavior as discriminatory. When intent was uncertain, harm influenced judgments of the behavior, which in turn influenced judgments of the actor, and participants were more cautious in their judgments about an actor than an actor's behavior. Harm also played a stronger role in targets' than observers' judgments. Understanding the role of intent and harm on perceptions of prejudice can help explain variations in targets' versus observers', and possibly targets' versus actors', judgments of discrimination and prejudice.     

Practice variability and transfer of training: the role of self-efficacy generality

Practice variability has been shown to enhance transfer of training. The purpose of the present study was to examine the role of self-efficacy generality as a motivational mechanism in explaining the relationship between practice variability and transfer. Undergraduate students (N = 82) were randomly assigned to 1 of 2 training conditions (constant or variable) for a computer decision-making task. Measures of self-efficacy (intensity and generality) and transfer (near and far) were assessed. The results provided support for some of the hypothesized relationships. Specifically, practice variability led to increased self-efficacy generality. Both self-efficacy intensity and generality influenced far transfer performance, although only self-efficacy generality served as a mediator between practice variability and far transfer.     

Age constraints on first versus second language acquisition: evidence for linguistic plasticity and epigenesis

Does age constrain the outcome of all language acquisition equally regardless of whether the language is a first or second one? To test this hypothesis, the English grammatical abilities of deaf and hearing adults who either did or did not have linguistic experience (spoken or signed) during early childhood were investigated with two tasks, timed grammatical judgement and untimed sentence to picture matching. Findings showed that adults who acquired a language in early life performed at near-native levels on a second language regardless of whether they were hearing or deaf or whether the early language was spoken or signed. By contrast, deaf adults who experienced little or no accessible language in early life performed poorly. These results indicate that the onset of language acquisition in early human development dramatically alters the capacity to learn language throughout life, independent of the sensory-motor form of the early experience.     

Event-related brain potential markers of high-language proficiency in adults

The central issue addressed is whether there are electrophysiological markers for high-language proficiency in adults. Event-related brain potentials (ERPs) were recorded in 19 young adults who demonstrated either "normal" or "high" language proficiency. ERPs were obtained during a sentence-processing task and analyzed for specific response components elicited by different word types. The ERPs in the normal and high-language proficiency groups were similar for early sensory related processing but differed in the later components thought to be more closely related to lexical access and post-lexical processing. The findings for the ERP waveforms suggest that adults with high-language proficiency show slightly faster lexical access over left anterior brain regions for closed class items, and a reduced reliance on contextual information contained in sentences.     

Location, location, location: the misprediction of satisfaction in housing lotteries

People tend to overestimate the emotional consequences of future life events, exhibiting an impact bias. The authors replicated the impact bias in a real-life context in which undergraduates were randomly assigned to dormitories (or "houses"). Participants appeared to focus on the wrong factors when imagining their future happiness in the houses. They placed far greater weight on highly variable physical features than on less variable social features in predicting their future happiness in each house, despite accurately recognizing that social features were more important than physical features when asked explicitly about the determinants of happiness. In Experiment 2, we found that this discrepancy emerged in part because participants exhibited an isolation effect, focusing too much on factors that distinguished between houses and not enough on factors that varied only slightly, such as social features.     

Elementary subtraction

Four experiments examined performance on the 100 "basic facts" of subtraction and found a discontinuous "stair step" function for reaction times and errors beginning with 11 - n facts. Participants' immediate retrospective reports of nonretrieval showed the same pattern in Experiment 3. The degree to which elementary subtraction depends on working memory (WM) was examined in a dual-task paradigm in Experiment 4. The reconstructive processing used with larger basic facts was strongly associated with greater WM disruption, as evidenced by errors in the secondary task: this was especially the case for participants with lower WM spans. The results support the R. S. Siegler and E. Jenkins (1989) distribution of associations model, although discriminating among the alternative solution processes appears to be a serious challenge.     

Search of jumping items: visual marking and discrete motion

Watson and Humphreys (1997 Psychological Review 104 90-122) showed that when searching for a target, observers can ignore a previewed set of distractors (other items), effectively decreasing the number of relevant items in a difficult search display and thus speeding performance ('visual marking'). Other researchers have more recently investigated visual marking for continuously moving items, finding that shared features, and preserved inter-item spatial relationships, are helpful. Here, we tested whether visual marking occurs for a set of initial items that moves in one discrete jump (preserving shared features and inter-item spatial relationships). Marking did not occur in these displays, and we interpret this result in the context of previous research on visual marking.