Semantic involvement in reading aloud: evidence from a nonword training study

The current research uses a novel methodology to examine the role of semantics in reading aloud. Participants were trained to read aloud 2 sets of novel words (i.e., nonwords such as bink): some with meanings (semantic) and some without (nonsemantic). A comparison of reading aloud performance between these 2 sets of novel words was used to provide an indicator of the importance of semantic information in reading aloud. In Experiment 1, in contrast to expectations, reading aloud performance was not better for novel words in the semantic condition. In Experiment 2, the training of novel words was modified to reflect more realistic steps of lexical acquisition: Reading aloud performance became faster and more accurate for novel words in the semantic condition, but only for novel words with inconsistent pronunciations. This semantic advantage for inconsistent novel words was again observed when a subset of participants from Experiment 2 was retested 6-12 months later (in Experiment 3). These findings provide support for a limited but significant role for semantics in the reading aloud process.     

The deployment of attention in short-term memory tasks: Trade-offs between immediate and delayed deployment

Memory at times depends on attention, as when attention is used to encode incoming, serial verbal information. When encoding and rehearsal are difficult or when attention is divided during list presentation, more attention is needed in the time following the presentation and just preceding the response. Across 12 experimental conditions observed in several experiments, we demonstrated this by introducing a nonverbal task with three levels of effort (no task, a natural nonverbal task, or an unnatural version of the task) during a brief retention interval in a short-term digit recall task. Interference from the task during the retention interval was greater when resources were drawn away from the encoding of the stimuli by other factors, including unpredictability of the end point of the list, rapid presentation, and a secondary task during list presentation. When those conditions complicate encoding of the list, we argue, attention is needed after the list so that the contents of passive memory (i.e., postcategorical phonological storage and/or precategorical sensory memory) may be retrieved and become the focus of attention for recall.     

Introduction to the Special Issue on Mental Health Self-Help

Since the 1950s, people with mental illness and their families have been organizing a wide range of self-directed, mutual support oriented initiatives, including self-help groups, nonprofit organizations, and businesses. These initiatives have become increasingly widespread over the years and today mental health self-help initiatives outnumber traditional mental health organizations in the United States (Goldstrom et al., Admin Policy Mental Health Mental Health Serv Res 33:92-103, 2006). Mental health self-help embodies much of what community psychologists promote, including the self-directed organization of people to create social change and facilitate personal transformation. This special issue provides new insight into several prominent areas of inquiry surrounding these low-cost interventions including: (1) their evidence base; (2) the processes by which people benefit; (3) how they interface with the mental health system; and (4) the value dilemmas they face.     

Person–Situation Interaction in Adaptive Emotional Functioning

Two studies applied a person–situation model to examine the effect of emotional affordances of situations. Participants rated their emotional functioning as more extensive in situations classified as being high in emotional affordance than those classified as low in emotional affordance. Participants who scored higher on the individual difference characteristic of emotional intelligence were more interested in entering high emotional affordance situations than were individuals lower in emotional intelligence, and participants who scored higher on emotional intelligence were rated by others as being more successful in high emotional affordance situations than individuals lower in emotional intelligence. These results provide preliminary evidence that the interaction between emotional intelligence and situations may influence emotional functioning.     

Testing whether gaze cues and arrow cues produce reflexive or volitional shifts of attention

It has been suggested that two types of uninformative central cues produce reflexive orienting: gaze and arrow cues. Using the criterion that voluntary shifts of attention facilitate both response speed and perceptual accuracy, whereas reflexive shifts of attention facilitate only response speed (Prinzmetal, McCool, & Park, 2005), we tested whether these cues produce reflexive or volitional shifts of attention. A cued letter discrimination task was used with both gaze (Experiments 1A and 1B) and arrow (Experiments 2A and 2B) cues, in which participants responded to the identity of the target letter. In the response time (respond speed) tasks, participants were asked to respond as quickly as possible to the target; in the accuracy (perceptual quality) tasks, participants were asked to respond as accurately as possible. For both cue types, compatible cues were found to facilitate response speed but not perceptual accuracy, indicating that both gaze and arrow cues generate reflexive shifts in attention.     

The persistence of attention to emotion: brain potentials during and after picture presentation

Emotional stimuli have been shown to elicit increased perceptual processing and attentional allocation. The late positive potential (LPP) is a sustained P300-like component of the event-related potential that is enhanced after the presentation of pleasant and unpleasant pictures as compared with neutral pictures. In this study, the LPP was measured using dense array electroencephalograph both before and after pleasant, neutral, and unpleasant images to examine the time course of attentional allocation toward emotional stimuli. Results from 17 participants confirmed that the LPP was larger after emotional than neutral images and that this effect persisted for 800 ms after pleasant picture offset and at least 1,000 ms after unpleasant picture offset. The persistence of increased attention after unpleasant compared to pleasant stimuli is consistent with the existence of a negativity bias. Overall, these results indicate that attentional capture of emotion continues well beyond picture presentation and that this can be measured with the LPP. Implications and directions for future research are discussed.     

Routes to Triviality

It is known that a number of inference principles can be used to trivialise the axioms of naïve comprehension – the axioms underlying the naïve theory of sets. In this paper we systematise and extend these known results, to provide a number of general classes of axioms responsible for trivialising naïve comprehension.     

More than Lip Service: The Development and Implementation Plan of an Ethics Decision-Making Framework for an Integrated Undergraduate Business Curriculum

In the face of the business community’s widening concern about corporate ethical behavior, business schools are reexamining how they ensure that students appreciate the ethical implications of managerial decision making and have the analytical tools necessary to confront ethical dilemmas. The current approaches adopted by colleges vary from mere ‘lip service’ to embedding ethics at the core of the curriculum. This paper examines the experience of several US universities that have incorporated business ethics into their curricula. In particular, the paper describes the issues facing Central Washington University as it seeks to integrate ethical decision making into its core undergraduate business curriculum. Issues addressed include the technical challenges of establishing a common element of curriculum across the various business disciplines, determining the major conceptual foundations of ‘ethical thinking’ while recognizing students’ existing value systems, and how to obtain ‘buy in’ by faculty to the initiative.