The Leadership of Service

Using experiences at Memorial University of Newfoundland as a basis, this essay suggests that leadership should be an expectation of professional academics in all the categories of their work, namely teaching, research and service. The desirability of developing the leadership of service in particular is advanced as an appropriate expectation for faculty members career progress. Developing a general leadership ethos is both philosophically appropriate and practically advantageous in collegial organisations.     

Strategic processes in false recognition memory

In two experiments, the response signal technique (Reed, 1973) was combined with the DRM paradigm (e.g., McDermott & Roediger, 1998) to investigate the time course of false recognition memory— in particular, how this effect varies along the time course of generating a recognition judgment. Across the experiments, in addition to standard instructions, there were forewarning instructions encouraging the participants to avoid this effect, as well as inclusion instructions intended to enhance this tendency. It was found that the false memory effect was at its strongest at earlier response signals, diminishing when more time was given to make a recognition judgment. The forewarning instructions led to a more conservative overall response bias, rather than to a reduction of the effect. However, the participants were able to exaggerate this effect in the inclusion condition. The results are discussed in terms of the role of strategic processing in recognition memory. Part of this research was presented at the 42nd Annual Meeting of the Psychonomic Society, Orlando, in November 2001. It was supported by a grant from the Biotechnology and Biological Sciences Research Council of the United Kingdom.     

Feature-sampling and random-walk models of individual-stimulus recognition

Traditional process models of old-new recognition have not addressed differences in accuracy and response time between individual stimuli. Two new process models of recognition are presented and applied to response time and accuracy data from 3 old-new recognition experiments. The 1st model is derived from a feature-sampling account of the time course of categorization, whereas the 2nd model is a generalization of a random-walk model of categorization. In the experiments, a new technique was used, which yielded reliable individual-stimulus data through repeated presentation of structurally equivalent items. The results from the experiments showed reliable differences in accuracy and response times between stimuli. The random-walk model provided the better account of the results from the 3 experiments. The implications of the results for process models of recognition are discussed.     

Assessing Adolescent and Adult Attachment: An Update

This article provides an update on two significant contributions to the assessment of attachment in adolescents and adults. Two measures of adult attachment, both based on modifications of Hazan and Shaver's (1987) model of adult attachment, are reviewed. The conceptual bases for the development of each measure are discussed, current research involving each measure is presented, and implications of attachment assessment for counseling research and practice are offered.     

Testing the status-legitimacy hypothesis: Predicting system justification using objective and subjective socioeconomic status in China and the United States

The status-legitimacy hypothesis proposes that those who are most disadvantaged by unequal social systems are even more likely than members of more advantaged groups to provide ideological support for the very social system that is responsible for their disadvantages. Li, Yang, Wu, and Kou (2020, Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin) sought to expand the generalizability of this hypothesis by testing it in China, addressing inconsistencies surrounding the empirical support for this hypothesis by postulating that the construct of status should be separated into an objective and subjective status marker. They reported that objective socioeconomic status (SES; income and education) negatively predicted system justification, while subjective SES positively predicted system justification. In the present study we attempt to replicate and extend the work of Li et al. in a cross-cultural comparison of demographic stratified quota online samples in China and the United States. We test the status-legitimacy hypothesis using objective and subjective SES to predict system justification using cross-sectional and cross-lagged regression analyses. We received partial support for Li et al.'s findings. Specifically, subjective SES positively predicted system justification for both societies during cross-sectional and cross-lagged longitudinal analyses. However, we failed to replicate Li et al.'s findings surrounding objective SES in China during cross-sectional and cross-lagged analyses.     

Statistically Induced Chunking Recall: A Memory-Based Approach to Statistical Learning

The computations involved in statistical learning have long been debated. Here, we build on work suggesting that a basic memory process, chunking, may account for the processing of statistical regularities into larger units. Drawing on methods from the memory literature, we developed a novel paradigm to test statistical learning by leveraging a robust phenomenon observed in serial recall tasks: that short-term memory is fundamentally shaped by long-term distributional learning. In the statistically induced chunking recall (SICR) task, participants are exposed to an artificial language, using a standard statistical learning exposure phase. Afterward, they recall strings of syllables that either follow the statistics of the artificial language or comprise the same syllables presented in a random order. We hypothesized that if individuals had chunked the artificial language into word-like units, then the statistically structured items would be more accurately recalled relative to the random controls. Our results demonstrate that SICR effectively captures learning in both the auditory and visual modalities, with participants displaying significantly improved recall of the statistically structured items, and even recall specific trigram chunks from the input. SICR also exhibits greater test–retest reliability in the auditory modality and sensitivity to individual differences in both modalities than the standard two-alternative forced-choice task. These results thereby provide key empirical support to the chunking account of statistical learning and contribute a valuable new tool to the literature.     

Further investigation of increasing vocalizations of children with autism with a speech-generating device

We replicated and extended the findings of Gervarter et al. (2016) by using prompting and reinforcement to produce increased vocal speech with 3 young children diagnosed with autism spectrum disorder (ASD) who used a speech generating device (SGD). We extended Gervarter et al. by adopting a more robust experimental design, conducting session-by-session preference assessments, and measuring the emergence of novel vocalizations. The frequency of vocalizations increased for all 3 participants after the introduction of an echoic prompt. These results suggest that SGD-based interventions may lead to increased vocal output for children with ASD.     

English-speaking children's comprehension of relative clauses: evidence for general-cognitive and language-specific constraints on development

Children must possess some ability to process input in a meaningful manner to acquire language. The present study reports on data from an experiment investigating 3- to 5-year-old English-speaking children's understanding of restrictive relative clauses manipulated for embeddedness and focus. The results of the study showed that English-speaking children acquire right-branching before center-embedded structures. Comparisons made with data from Portuguese-speaking children suggest general-cognitive and language-specific constraints on development, and with respect to English, a clause expansion approach to processing in development.     

Putting together prior knowledge, verbal arguments, and observations in category learning

Two experiments addressed the novel issue of how people incorporate verbal arguments into category learning. In Experiment 1, at the start of learning, subjects were given verbal arguments, which had an influence equivalent to a fixed number of category members. In Experiment 2, subjects learned under slower paced conditions, and it was found that both prior knowledge and arguments had multiple effects on categorization: a fixed initial influence plus selective weighting of new observations. The results supported the idea that verbally presented arguments can be treated in a similar manner as other forms of prior knowledge, from the perspective of applying models of categorization.     

Item-specific adaptation and the conflict-monitoring hypothesis: a computational model

M. M. Botvinick, T. S. Braver, D. M. Barch, C. S. Carter, and J. D. Cohen (2001) implemented their conflict-monitoring hypothesis of cognitive control in a series of computational models. The authors of the current article first demonstrate that M. M. Botvinick et al.'s (2001) conflict-monitoring Stroop model fails to simulate L. L. Jacoby, D. S. Lindsay, and S. Hessels's (2003) report of an item-specific proportion-congruent (ISPC) effect in the Stroop task. The authors then implement a variant of M. M. Botvinick et al.'s model based on the assumption that control must be able to operate at the item level. This model successfully simulates the ISPC effect. In addition, the model provides an alternative to M. M. Botvinick et al.'s explanation of the list-level proportion-congruent effect in terms of an ISPC effect. Implications of the present modeling effort are discussed.