On the nature of consonant/vowel differences in letter position coding: Evidence from developing and adult readers

In skilled adult readers, transposed‐letter effects (jugde ‐JUDGE ) are greater for consonant than for vowel transpositions. These differences are often attributed to phonological rather than orthographic processing. To examine this issue, we employed a scenario in which phonological involvement varies as a function of reading experience: A masked priming lexical decision task with 50‐ms primes in adult and developing readers. Indeed, masked phonological priming at this prime duration has been consistently reported in adults, but not in developing readers (Davis, Castles, & Iakovidis, 1998). Thus, if consonant/vowel asymmetries in letter position coding with adults are due to phonological influences, transposed‐letter priming should occur for both consonant and vowel transpositions in developing readers. Results with adults (Experiment 1) replicated the usual consonant/vowel asymmetry in transposed‐letter priming. In contrast, no signs of an asymmetry were found with developing readers (Experiments 2–3). However, Experiments 1–3 did not directly test the existence of phonological involvement. To study this question, Experiment 4 manipulated the phonological prime‐target relationship in developing readers. As expected, we found no signs of masked phonological priming. Thus, the present data favour an interpretation of the consonant/vowel dissociation in letter position coding as due to phonological rather than orthographic processing.     

Interference and conflict monitoring in individuals with amnestic mild cognitive impairment: A structural study of the anterior cingulate cortex

Amnestic mild cognitive impairment (aMCI) is a clinical condition characterized by memory impairment in the absence of any other cognitive impairment and is commonly associated with high conversion to Alzheimer's disease. Recent evidence shows that executive functions and selective attention mechanisms could also be impaired in aMCI. In this study, we investigated performance differences (i.e., reaction times [RTs] and accuracy) between a group of aMCI participants and a group of age‐matched healthy individuals on the attentional network task (ANT) focusing on situations with increased interference. In particular, we assessed the relationship between interference and conflict effects and grey matter volumes (GMVs) of the anterior cingulate cortex (ACC)/pre‐supplementary motor area in the entire sample because of its crucial role in conflict monitoring. When compared with controls, aMCI participants were less accurate on the ANT, showing increased interference and conflict effects, but no differences in RTs. In addition, aMCI participants exhibited lower GMV in the ACC than controls. While better accuracy for interference and conflict effects was associated with an increase of GMV in the ACC for both groups, RTs from the interference effect were negatively correlated with GMV of the ACC only in aMCI participants. In other words, lower GMV values of the ACC were paralleled with significantly impaired performance in terms of interference resolution. In conclusion, our study suggests the presence of a selective impairment in interference and conflict monitoring in aMCI, which in turn is associated with decreased GMVs in the ACC.     

Global/local processing and negative priming: the influence of selection difficulty and stimulus exposure

Negative priming is a decrement in performance observed when a previously ignored stimulus is re-presented as a target. The present study examined the relation between selection difficulty and negative priming in five experiments that used hierarchical stimuli (large letters made up by small letters). The results show that negative priming is greater when subjects direct attention to the local level (more difficult selection) than when they direct attention to the global level (less difficult selection). However, that occurs only when exposure of prime and probe is sufficiently long. With shorter presentations, negative priming is still observed but is no longer modulated by selection difficulty. These results suggest that both anticipatory and reactive mechanisms are responsible for the occurrence of negative priming and that instantiation of the reactive mechanism depends on the time available for prime and probe selection. Received: 17 January 2000 / Accepted: 3 July 2000     

Prosocial and antisocial aspects of personality in women: a replication study

Several studies seem to favour the existence of a continuum between prosociality and antisociality. The aim of the present study was to replicate the functions found in men in a sample of women. Physical-risk taking activities can be classified along a continuum ranging from prosociality to antisociality, the risky sports being in an intermediate point of that hypothetical dimension. The sample consisted of 43 antisocial risk takers incarcerated for having committed armed robbery, 52 risk-taker sportswomen, 74 prosocial risk takers, and 58 women not engaged in any risky activity. Subjects were administered the Sensation Seeking scale, the Eysenck Personality Questionnaire, the Impulsiveness scale of the Impulsiveness–Venturesomeness–Empathy Questionnaire, the Socialization scale of the California Psychological Inventory, and the Susceptibility to Punishment and Reward scales. Discriminant analysis identified in females the same three different profiles of physical risk-taking personality found in males: (1) the Impulsive Unsocialized Sensation Seeker; (2) the Venturesomeness; and (3) the Seeker of Experiences by a nonconforming life style. Moreover, the results seem to support the validity and generalizability across gender of the model being considered. The four personality variables that best discriminate among the risk-taking types are: Socialization, Thrill and Adventure Seeking, Experience Seeking, and Neuroticism.     

The acquisition of phonetic categories in bilingual infants: new data from an anticipatory eye movement paradigm

Contrasting results have been reported regarding the phonetic acquisition of bilinguals. A lack of discrimination has been observed for certain native contrasts in 8-month-old Catalan-Spanish bilingual infants (Bosch & Sebastián-Gallés, 2003a), though not in French-English bilingual infants (Burns, Yoshida, Hill & Werker, 2007; Sundara, Polka & Molnar, 2008). At present, the data for Catalan-Spanish bilinguals constitute an exception in the early language acquisition literature. This study contributes new findings that show that Catalan-Spanish bilingual infants do not lose the capacity to discriminate native contrasts. We used an adaptation of the anticipatory eye movement paradigm (AEM; McMurray & Aslin, 2004) to explore this question. In two experiments we tested the ability of infants from Catalan and Spanish monolingual families and from Catalan-Spanish bilingual families to discriminate a Spanish-Catalan common and a Catalan-specific vowel contrast. Results from both experiments revealed that Catalan-Spanish bilingual infants showed the same discrimination abilities as those shown by their monolingual peers, even in a phonetic contrast that had not been discriminated in previous studies. Our results demonstrate that discrimination can be observed in 8-month-old bilingual infants when tested with a measure not based on recovery of attention. The high ratio of cognates in Spanish and Catalan may underlie the reason why bilinguals failed to discriminate the native vowels when tested with the familiarization-preference procedure but succeeded with the AEM paradigm.     

Lifeguards and Physically Risky Prosocial Groups: A comparison based on personality theory

The goal of this study is to explore the personality of experienced professional lifeguards in terms of Eysenck and Eysenck's PEN model of personality and Zuckerman's sensation seeking trait. A sample of 144 male professional lifeguards were contrasted with three different samples: (1) a general population sample; (2) a sample of individuals engaged in physically risky sports; and (3) a sample of prosocial physically risky professionals. It was found that lifeguards resembled most closely the prosocials followed by the sportsmen and finally the general population. The most frequent and largest differences between lifeguards and the comparison groups were found on extraversion, experience seeking, and neuroticism. The implications for lifeguard selection procedures and future research are discussed.     

Psychometric properties of the Spanish Human System Audit Short-Scale of transformational leadership

The aim of this research is to examine the psychometric properties of a Spanish version of the Human System Audit transformational leadership short-scale (HSA-TFL-ES). It is based on the concept of Bass developed in 1985. The HSA-TFL is a part of the wider Human System Audit frame. We analyzed the HSA-TFL-ES in five different samples with a total number of 1,718 workers at five sectors. Exploratory Factor Analysis corroborated a single factor in all samples that accounted for 66% to 73% of variance. The internal consistency in all samples was good (alpha = .92 - .95). Evidence was found for the convergent validity of the HSA-TFL-ES and the Multifactor Leadership Questionnaire. These results suggested that the HSA-TFL short-scale is a psychometrically sound measure of this construct and can be used for a combined and first overall measurement.     

Nonlinear model of attention focus during accumulated effort

ObjectivesThe emergent nature and dynamics of Task-Related Thoughts (TRT) during accumulated physical effort was used to test a model of attention focus based on the application of nonlinear dynamic systems theory (NDST).DesignA one-group two-trials quasi experimental design was employed.MethodsEleven physically active participants ran twice on a treadmill at an intensity of 80% of their HR_max until voluntary exhaustion. During the first run their intrinsic dynamics of attention focus was established. Accordingly, during the second run they were asked to intentionally maintain Task-Unrelated Thoughts (TUT), and reporting back about spontaneous switches from TUT to TRT, and vice versa.ResultsResults revealed that the intentionally imposed TUT was stable at the beginning of the test, switched spontaneously to TRT with accumulated effort, competing with TUT and showing metastability, until a final TRT state prevails.ConclusionsThe observed phenomena points to a nonlinear dynamic self-regulation of attention focus during accumulated effort.