Assessing short summaries with human judgments procedure and latent semantic analysis in narrative and expository texts

In the present study, we tested a computer-based procedure for assessing very concise summaries (50 words long) of two types of text (narrative and expository) using latent semantic analysis (LSA) in comparison with the judgments of four human experts. LSA was used to estimate semantic similarity using six different methods: four holistic (summary-text, summary-summaries, summary-expert summaries, and pregraded-ungraded summary) and two componential (summary-sentence text and summary-main sentence text). A total of 390 Spanish middle and high school students (14–16 years old) and six experts read a narrative or expository text and later summarized it. The results support the viability of developing a computerized assessment tool using human judgments and LSA, although the correlation between human judgments and LSA was higher in the narrative text than in the expository, and LSA correlated more with human content ratings than with human coherence ratings. Finally, the holistic methods were found to be more reliable than the componential methods analyzed in this study.     

Intuitive decision making in complex situations: Somatic markers in an artificial grammar learning task

In this article, we explore the extent to which implicit learning is subtended by somatic markers, as evidenced by skin conductance measures. On each trial, subjects were asked to decide which “word” from a pair of “words” was the “correct” one. Unknown to the subjects, each “word” of a pair was constructed using a different set of rules (Grammar Aand Grammar B). A (monetary) reward was given if the subject chose the “word” from Grammar A. Choosing the Grammar B word resulted in (monetary) punishment. Skin conductance was measured during each of 100 trials. After each set of 10 trials, the subjects were asked how they selected the “correct word.” Task performance increased long before the subjects could even formulate a single relevant rule. In this preconceptual phase of the experiment, skin conductance was larger before incorrect than before correct choices. Thus, it was shown that artificial grammar learning is accompanied by a somatic marker, possibly “warning” the subject of the incorrect decision.     

Searching for a developmental typology of personality and its relations to antisocial behavior: a longitudinal study of a representative sample of men

The search for an empirically based personality typology has regained the interest of researchers. To date, however, the empirical inquiries were mainly cross-sectional. In this study, an empirically based developmental typology of personality was identified using data from a prospective longitudinal study of a representative sample of men assessed on four occasions from adolescence to midlife. Cluster analyses were performed on measures of Disinhibition, Negative Emotionality, and Extraversion. Four developmental types of personality were identified. The first was characterized by average scores in the three traits in adolescence that decreased rapidly until midlife (38%). The second was similar, but, instead, displayed increases in Extraversion during adulthood (32%). The third type showed high scores in Disinhibition and Negative Emotionality in adolescence that decreased progressively until midlife (23%). The fourth type was characterized by average scores in the three traits during adolescence followed by important increases in Negative Emotionality and decreases in Extraversion during adulthood (7%). These four developmental types of personality seemed to be related to known antisocial behavior trajectories.     

Individual Concepts in Modal Predicate Logic

The article deals with the interpretation of propositional attitudes in the framework of modal predicate logic. The first part discusses the classical puzzles arising from the interplay between propositional attitudes, quantifiers and the notion of identity. After comparing different reactions to these puzzles it argues in favor of an analysis in which evaluations of de re attitudes may vary relative to the ways of identifying objects used in the context of use. The second part of the article gives this analysis a precise formalization from a model- and proof-theoretic perspective. This material has grown out of Chapters 2 and 4 of my PhD thesis Quantification under Conceptual Covers.     

Orientation discrimination across the visual field: size estimates near contrast threshold

Performance in detection and discrimination tasks can often be made equal across the visual field through appropriate stimulus scaling. The parameter E2 is used to characterize the rate at which stimulus dimensions (e.g., size or contrast) must increase in order to achieve foveal levels of performance. We calculated both size and contrast E2 values for orientation discrimination using a spatial scaling procedure that involves measuring combination size and contrast thresholds for stimuli with constant size-to-contrast ratios. E2 values for size scaling were 5.77 degrees and 5.92 degrees. These values are three to four times larger than those recovered previously using similar stimuli at contrasts well above detection threshold (Sally & Gurnsey, 2003). E2 values for contrast scaling were 324.2 degrees and 44.3 degrees, indicating that for large stimuli little contrast scaling (.3% to 2.3% increase) was required in order to equate performance in the fovea and the largest eccentricity (10 degrees). A similar pattern of results was found using a spatial scaling method that involves measuring contrast thresholds for target identification as a function of size across eccentricities. We conclude that the size scaling for orientation discrimination at near-threshold stimulus contrasts is much larger than that required at suprathreshold contrasts. This may arise, at least in part, from contrast-dependent changes in mechanisms that subserve task performance.     

Target uncertainty does not lead to more distraction by singletons: intertrial priming does

In two experiments, we examined why a singleton distractor has a stronger interfering effect in visual search when the target identity is uncertain. When participants searched for a shape, a color singleton distractor had a larger slowing effect in a mixed block, in which the target shape could change from trial to trial, than in a pure block, in which the target shape remained the same. Importantly, this increased singleton distractor effect could be traced back entirely to intertrial priming, since the increased costs occurred only on trials in which the target and the singleton distractor swapped identity (Experiment 1, allowing for priming between targets and singleton distractors) or on trials in which the target alone changed identity while the singleton distractor remained constant (Experiment 2, allowing for priming between targets only). This suggests that target uncertainty itself does not lead to strategic changes in the attentional selection of singletons. Instead, selection is affected by relatively automatic priming mechanisms that may be enhanced by competition for attention.     

A meta-analysis on the correlation between the implicit association test and explicit self-report measures

Theoretically, low correlations between implicit and explicit measures can be due to (a) motivational biases in explicit self reports, (b) lack of introspective access to implicitly assessed representations, (c) factors influencing the retrieval of information from memory, (d) method-related characteristics of the two measures, or (e) complete independence of the underlying constructs. The present study addressed these questions from a meta-analytic perspective, investigating the correlation between the Implicit Association Test (IAT) and explicit self-report measures. Based on a sample of 126 studies, the mean effect size was .24, with approximately half of the variability across correlations attributable to moderator variables. Correlations systematically increased as a function of (a) increasing spontaneity of self-reports and (b) increasing conceptual correspondence between measures. These results suggest that implicit and explicit measures are generally related but that higher order inferences and lack of conceptual correspondence can reduce the influence of automatic associations on explicit self-reports.     

Monitoring processes and metamemory experience in patients with dysexecutive syndrome

The aim of the present study was to determine whether monitoring measures are differentially disturbed in dysexecutive patients after frontal lesions. Twelve dysexecutive patients and 12 healthy controls were administered a paired-associates learning task. Their performances on recall prediction, judgment-of-learning (JOL), and feeling-of-knowing judgment (FOK) were then compared. The results revealed that the two groups differed only on accuracy measures of the FOK paradigm. The study of the overall correlations between the three measures of metamemory revealed a significant relation between recall prediction and accuracy measures of the JOL. We failed to find any significant correlation with the accuracy measures of the FOK. Taken together, our data confirm that metamemory experience is not a unitary construct but rather a group of distinct and quite independent mechanisms.     

Partial advance information,number of alternatives,and motor processes: an electromyographic study

We present evidence that advance information reducing the number of stimulus-response alternatives in a choice reaction time (RT) task can shorten the very latest motoric stages of RT. Effects of such advance information on late stages of RT have been demonstrated recently by Osman, Moore, and Ulrich (Acta Psychol. 90 (1995) 111), Leuthold, Sommer, and Ulrich (J. Exp. Psychol: Gen. 125 (1996) 307), Müller-Gethmann, Rinkenauer, Stahl, and Ulrich (Psychophysiology 37 (2000) 507). These studies found that advance information shortens the portion of the RT interval following onset of a movement-related brain potential (lateralized readiness potential). Osman et al. and Müller-Gethmann et al. also examined the portion of the RT interval following the start of electromyographic (EMG) activity and found no effect of advance information. Based on Osman et al.'s null result, Leuthold et al. speculated that advance information may shorten only the RT stages preceding EMG activity. This conclusion, however, is questionable because of limitations in the EMG measures employed by both Osman et al. and Müller-Gethmann et al. We have reanalyzed the results of a previously reported experiment (Acta Psychol. 101 (1999) 243) to show that advance information can in fact affect the rate of recruitment of motor units in the prime mover of the responding limb.