The tie that binds? Coherence among emotion experience, behavior, and physiology

Emotion theories commonly postulate that emotions impose coherence across multiple response systems. However, empirical support for this coherence postulate is surprisingly limited. In the present study, the authors (a) examined the within-individual associations among experiential, facial behavioral, and peripheral physiological responses during emotional responding and (b) assessed whether emotion intensity moderates these associations. Experiential, behavioral, and physiological responses were measured second-by-second during a film that induced amusement and sadness. Results indicate that experience and behavior were highly associated but that physiological responses were only modestly associated with experience and behavior. Intensity of amusement experience was associated with greater coherence between behavior and physiological responding; intensity of sadness experience was not. These findings provide new evidence about response system coherence in emotions.     

Dismal: a spreadsheet for sequential data analysis and HCI experimentation

Dismal is a spreadsheet that works within GNU Emacs, a widely available programmable editor. Dismal has three features of particular interest to those who study behavior: (1) the ability to manipulate and align sequential data, (2) an open architecture that allows users to expand it to meet their particular needs, and (3) an instrumented and accessible interface for studies of human-computer interaction (HCI). Example uses of each of these capabilities are provided, including cognitive models that have had their sequential behavior aligned with subject’s protocols, extensions useful for teaching and doing HCI design, and studies in which keystroke logs from the timing package in Dismal have been used.     

Possible influence of linguistic musical background on perceptual pitch-matching tasks: a pilot study

Linguistic background has been identified as important in the perception of pitch, particularly between tonal versus nontonal languages. In addition, a link between native language and the perception of musical pitch has also been established. This pilot study examined the perception of pitch between listeners from tonal and nontonal linguistic cultures where two different styles of music originate. Listeners were 10 individuals born in China who ranged in age from 25 to 37 years and had spent on the average 30 mo. in the USA and 10 individuals, born on the Indian subcontinent, who ranged in age from 22 to 31 years, and had spent an average of 13 mo. in the USA. Listeners from both groups participated in two conditions. One condition involved listening to a selection of music characteristic of the individual's culture (China, pentatonic scale; Indian subcontinent, microtones), and one condition involved no music. All listeners within each condition participated in two voice pitch-matching tasks. One task involved matching the lowest and highest pitch of tape-recorded voices to a note on an electronic keyboard. Another task involved matching the voice pitch of tape-recorded orally read words to a note on the keyboard. There were no differences between the two linguistic groups. Methodological limitations preclude generalization but provide the basis for further research.     

A prototype analysis of forgiveness

Many definitions of forgiveness currently exist in the literature. The current research adds to this discussion by utilizing a prototype approach to examine lay conceptions of forgiveness. A prototype approach involves categorizing objects or events in terms of their similarity to a good example, whereas a classical approach requires that there are essential elements that must be present. In Study 1, participants listed the features of forgiveness. Study 2 obtained centrality ratings for these features. In Studies 3 and 4, central features were found to be more salient in memory than peripheral features. Study 5 showed that feature centrality influenced participants' ratings of victims involved in hypothetical transgressions. Thus, the two criteria for demonstrating prototype structure (that participants find it meaningful to judge features in terms of their centrality and that centrality affects cognition) were met.     

Knowing the limits of one's understanding: the development of an awareness of an illusion of explanatory depth

Adults overestimate the detail and depth of their explanatory knowledge, but through providing explanations they recognize their initial illusion of understanding. By contrast, they are much more accurate in making self-assessments for other kinds of knowledge, such as for procedures, narratives, and facts. Two studies examined this illusion of explanatory depth with 48 children each in grades K, 2, and 4, and also explored adults' ratings of the children's explanations. Children judged their understanding of mechanical devices (Study 1) and procedures (Study 2). Second and fourth graders showed a clear illusion of explanatory depth for devices, recognizing the inaccuracy of their initial impressions after providing explanations. The illusion did not occur for knowledge of procedures.     

A counterintuitive hypothesis about employment interview validity and some supporting evidence

This study found mixed support for the hypothesis that the difference in criterion-related validity between unstructured and structured employment interviews is due solely to the greater reliability of structured interviews. Using data from prior meta-analyses, this hypothesis was tested in 4 data sets by using standard psychometric procedures to remove the effects of measurement error in interview scores from correlations with rated job performance and training performance. In the 1st data set. support was found for this hypothesis. However, in a 2nd data set structured interviews had higher true score correlations with performance ratings, and in 2 other data sets unstructured interviews had higher true score correlations. We also found that averaging across 3 to 4 independent unstructured interviews provides the same level of validity for predicting job performance as a structured interview administered by a single interviewer. Practical and theoretical implications are discussed.     

Parent-adolescent disagreement regarding psychopathology in adolescents from the general population as a risk factor for adverse outcome

This study investigated whether parent-adolescent disagreement regarding adolescents' behavioral and emotional problems predicted adverse outcome. A Dutch sample of 15- to 18-year-olds was prospectively followed across a 4-year interval. The Child Behavior Checklist (CBCL: T. M. Achenbach, 1997) and Youth Self-Report (YSR; T. M. Achenbach, 1991b) were administered at initial assessment, and the following signs of poor outcome were assessed 4 years later: police/judicial contacts, expulsion from school/job, suicidal ideation, unwanted pregnancy, suicide attempts, deliberate self-harm, referral to mental health services, report of having a behavioral or emotional problem, and feeling the need for professional help without actually receiving help. Twenty CBCL syndrome scores, 23 YSR syndrome scores, and 16 discrepancy scores were significant predictors of poor outcome. It was concluded that to determine the prognosis of psychopathology in adolescents, discrepancies between informants may be important.     

Intelligence: genetics, genes, and genomics

More is known about the genetics of intelligence than about any other trait, behavioral or biological, which is selectively reviewed in this article. Two of the most interesting genetic findings are that heritability of intelligence increases throughout the life span and that the same genes affect diverse cognitive abilities. The most exciting direction for genetic research on intelligence is to harness the power of the Human Genome Project to identify some of the specific genes responsible for the heritability of intelligence. The next research direction will be functional genomics--for example, understanding the brain pathways between genes and intelligence. Deoxyribonucleic acid (DNA) will integrate life sciences research on intelligence; bottom-up molecular biological research will meet top-down psychological research in the brain.     

The information for catching fly balls: judging and intercepting virtual balls in a CAVE

Visually guided action implies the existence of information as well as a control law relating that information to movement. For ball catching, the Chapman Strategy--keeping constant the rate of change of the tangent of the elevation angle (d(tan(alpha))/dt)--leads a catcher to the right location at the right time to intercept a fly ball. Previous studies showed the ability to detect the information and the consistency of running patterns with the use of the strategy. However, only direct manipulation of information can show its use. Participants were asked to intercept virtual balls in a Cave Automated Virtual Environment (CAVE) or to judge whether balls would pass behind or in front of them. Catchers in the CAVE successfully intercepted virtual balls with their forehead. Furthermore, the timing of judgments was related to the patterns of changing d(tan(alpha))/dt. The advantages and disadvantages of a CAVE as a tool for studying interceptive action are discussed.     

A recurrent connectionist model of group biases

Major biases and stereotypes in group judgments are reviewed and modeled from a recurrent connectionist perspective. These biases are in the areas of group impression formation (illusory correlation), group differentiation (accentuation), stereotype change (dispersed vs. concentrated distribution of inconsistent information), and group homogeneity. All these phenomena are illustrated with well-known experiments, and simulated with an autoassociative network architecture with linear activation update and delta learning algorithm for adjusting the connection weights. All the biases were successfully reproduced in the simulations. The discussion centers on how the particular simulation specifications compare with other models of group biases and how they may be used to develop novel hypotheses for testing the connectionist modeling approach and, more generally, for improving theorizing in the field of social biases and stereotype change.