Unified syntax in the bilingual mind

Are syntactic representations shared across languages, and how might that inform the nature of syntactic computations? To investigate these issues, we presented French-English bilinguals with mixed-language word sequences for 200 ms and asked them to report the identity of one word at a post-cued location. The words either formed an interpretable grammatical sequence via shared syntax (e.g., ses feet sont big – where the French words ses and sont translate into his and are, respectively) or an ungrammatical sequence with the same words (e.g., sont feet ses big). Word identification was significantly greater in the grammatical sequences – a bilingual sentence superiority effect. These results not only provide support for shared syntax, but also reveal a fascinating ability of bilinguals to simultaneously connect words from their two languages through these shared syntactic representations.

     

Social comparison and perceived breach of psychological contract: their effects on burnout in a multigroup analysis

This study focuses on the mediator role of social comparison in the relationship between perceived breach of psychological contract and burnout. A previous model showing the hypothesized effects of perceived breach on burnout, both direct and mediated, is proposed. The final model reached an optimal fit to the data and was confirmed through multigroup analysis using a sample of Spanish teachers (N = 401) belonging to preprimary, primary, and secondary schools. Multigroup analyses showed that the model fit all groups adequately.     

Using temporal cohesion to predict temporal coherence in narrative and expository texts

We investigated the linguistic features of temporal cohesion that distinguish variations in temporal coherence. In an analysis of 150 texts, experts rated temporal coherence on three continuous scale measures designed to capture unique representations of time. Coh-Metrix, a computational tool that assesses textual cohesion, correctly predicted the human ratings with five features of temporal cohesion. The correlations between predicted and actual scores were all statistically significant. In a complementary study, we explored the importance of temporal cohesion in characterizing genre. A discriminant function analysis, using Coh-Metrix temporal indices, successfully distinguished the genres of science, history, and narrative texts. The results suggested that history texts are more similar to narrative texts than to science texts in terms of temporal cohesion.     

What about the “ups and downs” in our daily life? The influence of affective instability on mental health

Although affective instability is considered to be a crucial factor for mental disorders, research on affective instability and mental health is still rare. The aim of the present study was to investigate affective instability and mental health operationalized by the degree of psychological distress and life satisfaction. Using ecological momentary assessment, we investigated affective intensity and instability in a general population sample (n = 218). Psychological distress and life satisfaction were examined cross-sectionally and longitudinally. In general, we found that positive affect was more variable than negative affect. When we accounted for the overlap between variables, our findings demonstrated that besides the effects of intensity in negative affect and positive affect, higher positive affective instability was related to better concurrent mental health. Longitudinally, negative affective intensity was a decisive factor in the development of mental health. In sum, our findings revealed that affective instability was not dysfunctional per se. In fact, instability in positive affect seems to be important to achieve mental health.     

Time Will Fly During Future Fun (But Drag Until Then)

Consumers’ lives are filled with scheduled events—both positive and negative. The current research examines how the valence of future scheduled events colors consumers’ temporal judgments in relation to such events: the time until their onset, the time during the events, and the time until their offset. We propose that the lay theory espousing “time flies when you’re having fun” leads consumers to judge that positive (vs. negative) future events of equivalent objective distance and duration are farther away and shorter. Operating in tandem, these elements produce two novel phenomena: (a) The end of positive and negative events can feel similarly far from the present, and (b) The beginning and end of positive events can feel similarly far from the present, whereby, in some circumstances, the event’s duration is effectively eliminated in the mind’s eye. Four studies provide evidence for these predictions, informing future directions regarding prospective time perception.