Patterns of Force,Sequences of Resistance: Revisiting Luckenbill with Robberies Caught on Camera

Robberies are improvised encounters involving offender threat, sometimes force, and often victim resistance. While the association between threat, force, and resistance in robberies is well-established, sequential patterns are disputed due to biases of retrospective studies. To overcome these biases, we draw on CCTV camera recordings of 49 store robberies. Tentative findings suggest that lethal threat reduces victim resistance and thereby offender violence, except in robberies where offenders depend on victims in accessing the valuables. In those robberies, lethal threat increases the likelihood of victim resistance despite having no effect on offender violence. By providing more reliable and detailed accounts of real-life behavior during robberies, our analysis illustrates the potential of a newly emergent field of studies of crimes caught on camera.     

Modeling Rule-Based Item Generation

An application of a hierarchical IRT model for items in families generated through the application of different combinations of design rules is discussed. Within the families, the items are assumed to differ only in surface features. The parameters of the model are estimated in a Bayesian framework, using a data-augmented Gibbs sampler. An obvious application of the model is computerized algorithmic item generation. Such algorithms have the potential to increase the cost-effectiveness of item generation as well as the flexibility of item administration. The model is applied to data from a non-verbal intelligence test created using design rules. In addition, results from a simulation study conducted to evaluate parameter recovery are presented.     

Big Five personality dimensions in Italian and Dutch adolescents: A cross-cultural comparison of mean-levels, sex differences, and associations with internalizing symptoms

In the present cross-national comparison, self-reported Big Five personality data on large samples of Dutch (N = 1521) and Italian (N = 1975) adolescents were employed. Results suggest that the personality of Dutch and Italian adolescents can be described by the same Big Five traits, but that these might have slightly different meanings to the Dutch and Italian adolescent respondents. Supplementary analyses uncovered that sex differences are largest among Italian adolescents. Further comparisons reveal subtle cross-national differences in personality-psychopathology relationships, with stronger associations of Emotional Stability with depression for Italian when compared to Dutch adolescents. Results underscore that cross-national comparisons of personality may be alluring to use in research, however the findings of these comparisons should be interpreted with caution.     

Perceived influence in groups over time: How associations with personality and cognitive ability can change over time

The ability of personality and cognitive ability to predict perceptions of group influence in small work groups are assessed both in initial and advanced stages of group formation. Extraversion is found important to initial perceptions of intra-group influence, which is partially mediated by peer-perceived social-emotional usefulness. After a few months, reputations are established and everyone has met; now work needs to get done efficiently and accurately and cognitive ability predicts increases in perceived group influence, which is partially mediated by perceived intelligence. After even more time, other Big Five personality traits become important to changes in perceived group influence, with positive associations with openness to experience, and negative associations with neuroticism and conscientiousness. The study findings and implications are discussed.     

A working memory account for spatial-numerical associations

Several psychophysical and neuropsychological investigations have suggested that the mental representation of numbers takes the form of a number line along which magnitude is positioned in ascending order according to our reading habits. A longstanding debate is whether this spatial frame is triggered automatically as intrinsic part of the number semantics or whether it constitutes a short-term representation constructed during task execution. Although several observations clearly favor the working memory account, its causal involvement has not yet been demonstrated. In two experiments we show that information stored in working memory get spatially coded in function of its ordinal position in the sequence and that the spatial–numerical associations typically observed in number categorization tasks draw upon this mechanism.     

Come rain or come shine: individual differences in how weather affects mood

There is a widespread belief that weather affects mood. However, few studies have investigated this link, and even less is known about individual differences in people's responses to the weather. In the current study, we sought to identify weather reactivity types by linking self-reported daily mood across 30 days with objective weather data. We identified four distinct types among 497 adolescents and replicated these types among their mothers. The types were labeled Summer Lovers (better mood with warmer and sunnier weather), Unaffected (weak associations between weather and mood), Summer Haters (worse mood with warmer and sunnier weather), and Rain Haters (particularly bad mood on rainy days). In addition, intergenerational concordance effects were found for two of these types, suggesting that weather reactivity may run in the family. Overall, the large individual differences in how people's moods were affected by weather reconciles the discrepancy between the generally held beliefs that weather has a substantive effect on mood and findings from previous research indicating that effects of weather on mood are limited or absent.     

No transfer of calibration between action and perception in learning a golf putting task

We assessed calibration of perception and action in the context of a golf putting task. Previous research has shown that right-handed novice golfers make rightward errors both in the perception of the perfect aiming line from the ball to the hole and in the putting action. Right-handed experts, however, produce accurate putting actions but tend to make leftward errors in perception. In two experiments, we examined whether these skill-related differences in directional error reflect transfer of calibration from action to perception. In the main experiment, three groups of right-handed novice participants followed a pretest, practice, posttest, retention test design. During the tests, directional error for the putting action and the perception of the perfect aiming line were determined. During practice, participants were provided only with verbal outcome feedback about directional error; one group trained perception and the second trained action, whereas the third group did not practice. Practice led to a relatively permanent annihilation of directional error, but these improvements in accuracy were specific to the trained task. Hence, no transfer of calibration occurred between perception and action. The findings are discussed within the two-visual-system model for perception and action, and implications for perceptual learning in action are raised.     

Unconscious task application

The nature of unconscious information processing is a heavily debated issue in cognitive science (e.g., Kouider & Dehaene, 2007), and neuroscience (e.g., Crick & Koch, 1998). Traditionally, it has been thought that unconscious cognitive processing is restricted to knowledge that is strongly prepared by conscious processes (e.g., Dehaene et al., 1998). In three experiments, we show that the task that is performed consciously can also be applied unconsciously to items outside the current task set. We found that a same–different judgment of two target stimuli was also performed on two subliminally presented prime stimuli. This was true for target and prime stimuli from entirely different categories, as well as for prime and target stimuli at different levels of abstraction. These results reveal that unconscious processing can generalize more widely than previously accepted.     

PLATT: A flexible platform for experimental research on team performance in complex environments

The present article introduces PLATT, a recently developed task environment for controlled experimental research on team performance in complex environments. PLATT was developed to meet the research demands posed by the complexity that present-day teams face. It consists of a flexible, modular software architecture and research-specific scenarios. The scenarios can target various types of tasks (e.g., planning, problem solving, and decision making) in different operational contexts. Different software configurations can be used to investigate questions pertaining to team structure, team virtuality, and multiteam systems. We describe the software architecture, one of the scenarios, and the broad range of automated and embedded measurement possibilities that PLATT offers. To illustrate PLATT’s possibilities, in the present article, we describe a number of experiments that have used PLATT for a variety of research questions. We conclude that PLATT meets the formulated research demands and provides researchers with a flexible platform to investigate the complex issues that present-day teams face.