Event-based plausibility immediately influences on-line language comprehension

In some theories of sentence comprehension, linguistically relevant lexical knowledge, such as selectional restrictions, is privileged in terms of the time-course of its access and influence. We examined whether event knowledge computed by combining multiple concepts can rapidly influence language understanding even in the absence of selectional restriction violations. Specifically, we investigated whether instruments can combine with actions to influence comprehension of ensuing patients of (as in Rayner, Warren, Juhuasz, & Liversedge, 2004; Warren & McConnell, 2007). Instrument-verb-patient triplets were created in a norming study designed to tap directly into event knowledge. In self-paced reading (Experiment 1), participants were faster to read patient nouns, such as hair, when they were typical of the instrument-action pair (Donna used the shampoo to wash vs. the hose to wash). Experiment 2 showed that these results were not due to direct instrument-patient relations. Experiment 3 replicated Experiment 1 using eyetracking, with effects of event typicality observed in first fixation and gaze durations on the patient noun. This research demonstrates that conceptual event-based expectations are computed and used rapidly and dynamically during on-line language comprehension. We discuss relationships among plausibility and predictability, as well as their implications. We conclude that selectional restrictions may be best considered as event-based conceptual knowledge rather than lexical-grammatical knowledge.     

Pair-bonded humans conform to sexual stereotypes in web-based advertisements for extra-marital partners

Partners advertisements provide advertisers with access to a large pool of prospective mates, and have proven useful in documenting sex differences in human mating preferences. We coded data from an Internet site (AshleyMadison.com) catering to advertisers engaged in existing pair-bonded relationships. While we predicted that pair-bonding may liberate advertisers from conforming to sexual stereotypes of male promiscuity and female choosiness, our results are uniformly consistent with those stereotypes. Our findings thus provide further evidence that human mating behavior is highly constrained by fundamental biological differences between males and females.     

Capturing the four-factor structure of psychopathy in college students via self-report

A number of self-report psychopathy scales have been used successfully in both clinical and nonclinical settings. However, their factor structure does not adequately capture the four factors (Interpersonal, Affective, Lifestyle, and Antisocial) recently identified in the Psychopathy Checklist-Revised (PCL-R; Hare, 2003) and related measures. This deficit was addressed by upgrading the Self Report Psychopathy Scale (SRP-II; Hare, Hemphill, & Harpur, 1989). In Study 1 (N = 249), an exploratory factor analysis of this experimental version revealed oblique factors similar to those outlined by Hare (2003). In Study 2 (N = 274), confirmatory factor analysis (CFA) confirmed this structure, that is, four distinct but intercorrelated factors. The factors exhibited appropriate construct validity in a nomological network of related personality measures. Links with self-reports of offensive activities (including entertainment preferences and behavior) also supported the construct validity of the oblique four-factor model.     

The role of coping, anxiety, and stress in depression post-acute coronary syndrome

Depressive symptoms are common and can affect prognosis following acute coronary syndromes (ACS). This study examined the psychological factors, coping, anxiety, and perceived stress associated with depression following ACS. Psychological variables were assessed in 15 females and 66 males (M = 57 years, SD = 12). Repeated measures at 2, 12, and 24 weeks post-ACS compared depression, anxiety, perceived stress, and coping resources as determined by the Cardiac Depression Scale, Beck Depression Inventory-II, State Trait Anxiety Inventory, Perceived Stress Scale, and Coping Resources Inventory. Depression, anxiety, and perceived stress remained high in the depressed group across time. Coping scores at 2 weeks post-ACS predicted depression scores at 24 weeks post-ACS. It appears that trait anxiety and coping resources are related to depressive symptoms post-ACS.     

Activating event knowledge

An increasing number of results in sentence and discourse processing demonstrate that comprehension relies on rich pragmatic knowledge about real-world events, and that incoming words incrementally activate such knowledge. If so, then even outside of any larger context, nouns should activate knowledge of the generalized events that they denote or typically play a role in. We used short stimulus onset asynchrony priming to demonstrate that (1) event nouns prime people (sale-shopper) and objects (trip-luggage) commonly found at those events; (2) location nouns prime people/animals (hospital-doctor) and objects (barn-hay) commonly found at those locations; and (3) instrument nouns prime things on which those instruments are commonly used (key-door), but not the types of people who tend to use them (hose-gardener). The priming effects are not due to normative word association. On our account, facilitation results from event knowledge relating primes and targets. This has much in common with computational models like LSA or BEAGLE in which one word primes another if they frequently occur in similar contexts. LSA predicts priming for all six experiments, whereas BEAGLE correctly predicted that priming should not occur for the instrument-people relation but should occur for the other five. We conclude that event-based relations are encoded in semantic memory and computed as part of word meaning, and have a strong influence on language comprehension.     

The Wind Chilled the Spectators, but the Wine Just Chilled: Sense, Structure, and Sentence Comprehension

Anticipation plays a role in language comprehension. In this article, we explore the extent to which verb sense influences expectations about upcoming structure. We focus on change of state verbs like shatter , which have different senses that are expressed in either transitive or intransitive structures, depending on the sense that is used. In two experiments we influence the interpretation of verb sense by manipulating the thematic fit of the grammatical subject as cause or affected entity for the verb, and test whether readers' expectations for a transitive or intransitive structure change as a result. This sense-biasing context influenced reading times in the postverbal regions. Reading times for transitive sentences were faster following good-cause than good-theme subjects, but the opposite pattern was found for intransitive sentences. We conclude that readers use sense-contingent subcategorization preferences during on-line comprehension.     

Psychopathy and the personality dimensions of psychoticism,extraversion and neuroticism

The Eysenck Personality Questionnaire (EPQ) was administered to 173 male prison inmates for whom reliable assessments of psychopathy were available. Psychopathy was significantly correlated with the Psychoticism (P) scale (r = 0.16) and the Lie scale (r = 0.14), but not with the Extraversion (E) or Neuroticism (N) scales. Zone (octant) analysis indicated that psychopathy was not associated with any particular combination of P, E and N scores. Additional analyses, based on the discriminant function procedure described in the EPQ manual, indicated that inmates with high assessments of psychopathy were significantly less psychiatrically abnormal, in the EPQ sense, than were those with low assessments of psychopathy. A series of comparisons was also made between the P scale and a 22-item psychopathy checklist. The P scale was significantly correlated with six of the items, and with factors 1 (r = 0.30) and 4 (r = 0.19) that emerged from a principal components analysis of the checklist. Factor 1 is related to an impulsive, unstable lifestyle with no long-term commitments and factor 4 to the early appearance of antisocial behavior. It is argued that the P scale reflects the criminal, antisocial aspects of psychopathy and that the results probably have no direct implications for the suggestion that psychopathy and psychoticism are related in some fundamental way. A canonical analysis indicated that some interesting relations may exist between the EPQ variables and the psychopathy factors.