Choice of comparisons in intergroup settings: the role of temporal information and comparison motives

Three studies investigated comparison choices in intergroup settings, a neglected but important topic for theories of intergroup relations. Two main questions were addressed: What is role of comparison motives in determining comparison choices in intergroup contexts? How important are temporal comparisons (of the ingroup in the past or future) in intergroup settings? In Study 1 (N = 115), motives for Assessment or Enhancement were primed in a multi‐group performance context. Compared to Controls, Assessment priming encouraged both upward and downward comparisons, while Enhancement encouraged mainly downward comparisons. In general, temporal comparisons were as prevalent as comparisons with other groups. Study 2 (N = 199) employed a real‐world setting in which members of a mid‐ranking university indicated their interest in comparing with other higher or lower status universities or with their own university in the past. Temporal comparisons were once more much in evidence, and manipulating enhancement motives again encouraged downward comparisons. In Study 3 (N = 40), set in the context of inter‐nation student comparisons, Improvement motives were primed implicitly. This led to an increase in interest in an outgroup just above the ingroup but to a decrease in interest in future‐oriented comparisons. Copyright © 2006 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

“Casting off the coat of Konrad”: Polish intelligentsia in the era of system transformation

This article outlines the means of adaptation by the Polish intelligentsia to the conditions of a free-market (capitalist) system. The ethos of the Polish intelligentsia is at a fundamental level in conflict with the ethos of the middle class. Research conducted in the 1990s into social stratification in Poland clearly showed that it was the intelligentsia that was claiming the best new employment positions that “opened up” along with the market and democracy. Nonetheless, sociologists consider changes in consciousness to be phenomena belonging to the so-called longue durée. For this reason, it has been useful to show how the beneficiaries of the new system are handling the order of norms and values that, while subject to reconstruction, has clear consequences at the level of lifestyle, way of thinking, and means of constructing one’s own biography.     

Brain dynamics of word familiarization in 20-month-olds: effects of productive vocabulary size

The present study investigated the brain mechanisms involved during young children's receptive familiarization with new words, and whether the dynamics of these mechanisms are related to the child's productive vocabulary size. To this end, we recorded event-related potentials (ERPs) from 20-month-old children in a pseudoword repetition task. Results revealed distinct patterns of repetition effects for children with large and small productive vocabularies. High producers showed evidence of recognizing the novel words already after three presentations, while the low producers needed five presentations to display a recognition effect. The familiarization process was manifested in the modulations of two components, the N200-400 and a later fronto-central component, which appeared to increase in amplitude until a certain level of encoding was reached and then decrease with further repetition. These findings suggest a relation between the onset of the productive vocabulary spurt and the rate of receptive word familiarization.     

Attachment representations in mothers of preterm infants

The aim of the study was to assess attachment representations in mothers of preterm infants using the Working Model of Child Interview (WMCI) at the 12 months of the infant's corrected age. In addition, the relation between WMCI representation categories and the Edinburgh Postnatal Depression Scale score at 6 months of the infant's corrected age was studied. There were 38 mothers of preterm infants (<1500 g or <32 gestational weeks) and 45 mothers of full-term infants. The results showed no differences between the study groups in the distribution of the three main representation categories (balanced, disengaged and distorted). However, there were qualitative differences in representations between the groups. Furthermore, maternal depression symptoms were associated with distorted representation category. We suggest that despite the qualitative differences in the mothers’ representations, mothers of preterm infants are as likely to form balanced attachments with their infants as mothers of full-term infants.     

Impaired processing of rapid stimulus sequences in dyslexia

Apart from their reading difficulties, dyslexic subjects often suffer from a variety of subtle sensory and motor deficits. Whether these deficits have a causal relationship to the reading disorder, form additional risk factors, or are totally independent of the reading problem, is under vivid debate. In this article, we review the evidence and suggest that ‘sluggish attentional shifting’ (SAS) can account for the impaired processing of rapid stimulus sequences in dyslexia. Within this novel framework attention-related prolongation of input chunks is decisive for many small deficits found in dyslexic subjects.     

Estimation of psychometric functions from adaptive tracking procedures.

Because adaptive tracking procedures are designed to avoid stimulus levels far from a target threshold value, the psychometric function constructed from the trial-by-trial data in the track may be accurate near the target level but a poor reflection of performance at levels far removed from the target. A series of computer simulations was undertaken to assess the reliability and accuracy of psychometric functions generated from data collected in up-down adaptive tracking procedures. Estimates of psychometric function slopes were obtained from trial-by-trial data in simulated adaptive tracks and compared with the true characteristics of the functions used to generate the tracks. Simulations were carried out for three psychophysical procedures and two target performance levels, with tracks generated by psychometric functions with three different slopes. The functions reconstructed from the tracking data were, for the most part, accurate reflections of the true generating functions when at least 200 trials were included in the tracks. However, for 50- and 100-trial tracks, slope estimates were biased high for all simulated experimental conditions. Correction factors for slope estimates from these tracks are presented. There was no difference in the accuracy and reliability of slope estimation due to target level for the adaptive track, and only minor differences due to psychophysical procedure. It is recommended that, if both threshold and slope of psychometric functions are to be estimated from the trial-by-trial tracking data, at least 100 trials should be included in the tracks, and a three- or four-alternative forced-choice procedure should be used. However, good estimates can also be obtained using the two-alternative forced-choice procedure or less than 100 trials if appropriate corrections for bias are applied.     

Music during learning of a tactual-spatial task affects later response generalization

Equal numbers of men and women learned a finger maze, with half of the subjects initially using their right hands and the other half using their left hands. To reach criterion, subjects receiving music in the ear ipsilateral to the hand used required more trials than did those receiving no music. Furthermore, when the right hand ran the maze, music played to the ipsilateral ear also delayed learning, compared with music played contralaterally. Binaural music delayed learning when the left hand was used but not when the right hand was used. Possible causes of these effects are suggested. When subjects switched hands and relearned the maze, the number of trials to criterion depended on the group subjects were in during initial learning and not on the group they were in during the hand reversal (response generalization) trials. Although the music condition used determined the effect of music on initial learning and on response generalization, some evidence is presented that indicates that the two effects are not entirely interdependent and that they may even involve different mechanisms.     

Choice, experience, and the generalized matching law

Five pigeons were exposed to different pairs of concurrent variable-interval, variable-interval schedules on nine experimental conditions of 30 sessions each. For every session, the parameters of the generalized matching equation were computed for the first five, six, seven, eight, and nine experimental conditions. The exponent a, both for response and time distribution, tended to decrease with increases in number of experimental conditions and to increase with number of sessions per condition, but values of k (bias) varied unsystematically. When the subjects were exposed to five new pairs of schedules, with 55 sessions per condition, the findings were confirmed. Data from the literature on the generalized matching law suggest that the variability of exponent values may be explained in part by the use of naive or experienced subjects in different investigations and by the variability in number of experimental conditions and in number of sessions per condition.