Coping with phonological assimilation in speech perception: evidence for early compensation

The pronunciation of the same word may vary considerably as a consequence of its context. The Dutch word tuin (English, garden) may be pronounced tuim if followed by bank (English, bench), but not if followed by stoel (English, chair). In a series of four experiments, we examined how Dutch listeners cope with this context sensitivity in their native language. A first word identification experiment showed that the perception of a word-final nasal depends on the subsequent context. Viable assimilations, but not unviable assimilations, were often confused perceptually with canonical word forms in a word identification task. Two control experiments ruled out the possibility that this effect was caused by perceptual masking or was influenced by lexical top-down effects. A passive-listening study in which electrophysiological measurements were used showed that only unviable, but not viable, phonological changes elicited a significant mismatch negativity. The results indicate that phonological assimilations are dealt with by an early prelexical mechanism.     

Imaginative suggestibility and hypnotizability: an empirical analysis.

Hypnotic and nonhypnotic suggestibility were investigated in 2 experiments. In Experiment 1, nonhypnotic suggestibility was suppressed when measured after hypnotic suggestibility, whereas hypnotic suggestibility was not affected by the order of assessment. Experiment 2 confirmed a small but significant effect of hypnosis on suggestibility when nonhypnotic suggestibility was measured first. Nonhypnotic suggestibility was correlated with absorption, fantasy proneness, motivation, and response expectancy, but only expectancy predicted suggestibility when the other variables were controlled. Behavioral response to hypnosis was predicted by nonhypnotic suggestibility, motivation, and expectancy in a model accounting for 53% of the variance. Experiential response to hypnotic suggestion was predicted only by nonhypnotic suggestibility. Unexpectedly, hypnosis was found to decrease suggestibility for a substantial minority of participants.     

Attitudes Toward and Beliefs about Transgender Youth: A Cross-Cultural Comparison Between the United States and India

Using an internet-based survey, we examined attitudes toward transgender youth in the United States and India, two cultures with differences in conceptualizations of gender and treatment of transgender individuals in society, law, and religion. We found generally positive attitudes toward transgender youth in our U.S. (n = 218), but moderately negative ones in our Indian (n = 217), sample. Consistent with the literature on prejudice against transgender adults in many Western societies, general social conservatism in the form of religious beliefs and political ideology, gender-specific conservatism in the form of gender binary belief, and endorsement of environmental rather than biological causes of transgender identity were the best predictors of U.S. participants’ attitudes, although personal contact with gender and sexual minorities also played a role at the bivariate level. These findings suggest that the processes underlying prejudice against transgender youth are similar to those that foster adult-directed transphobia in that cultural context. In contrast, religion-based disapproval and environmental causal attributions were the best predictors of Indian respondents’ attitudes, whereas gender binary belief played only a minor role, and political conservatism and personal contact no role at all. Our regression analyses accounted for considerably more of the variability in U.S. than in Indian participants’ attitudes, highlighting the need for additional (qualitative) work to identify the factors that promote transprejudice in India. We discuss these findings in light of cross-cultural differences between the two countries in terms of our predictors and consider implications for efforts to reduce prejudice against transgender youth.     

Hemispheric differences in the effects of context on vowel perception

Listeners perceive speech sounds relative to context. Contextual influences might differ over hemispheres if different types of auditory processing are lateralized. Hemispheric differences in contextual influences on vowel perception were investigated by presenting speech targets and both speech and non-speech contexts to listeners’ right or left ears (contexts and targets either to the same or to opposite ears). Listeners performed a discrimination task. Vowel perception was influenced by acoustic properties of the context signals. The strength of this influence depended on laterality of target presentation, and on the speech/non-speech status of the context signal. We conclude that contrastive contextual influences on vowel perception are stronger when targets are processed predominately by the right hemisphere. In the left hemisphere, contrastive effects are smaller and largely restricted to speech contexts.     

When the needs for affiliation and intimacy are frustrated: Envy and indirect aggression among German and Cameroonian adults

This article tests the hypothesis that a lack of experiences of relatedness is linked to negative outcomes such as envy and indirect aggression in particular if individuals are characterized by a high implicit affiliation-intimacy motive. Assumptions were examined in a sample of 273 adults from Germany and Cameroon. Components of the affiliation-intimacy motive, i.e., needs for affiliation and intimacy, were assessed with a picture story exercise. Additionally, participants reported on experiences of relatedness, indirect aggression, and envy. Low experiences of relatedness are associated with enhanced levels of envy and indirect aggression among individuals with a pronounced implicit affiliation-intimacy motive. Those effects hold true across cultural groups. Findings point to the prominent role of the implicit affiliation-intimacy motive for interpersonal emotions and behavior.     

The mental lexicon is fully specified: evidence from eye-tracking

Four visual-world experiments, in which listeners heard spoken words and saw printed words, compared an optimal-perception account with the theory of phonological underspecification. This theory argues that default phonological features are not specified in the mental lexicon, leading to asymmetric lexical matching: Mismatching input (pin) activates lexical entries with underspecified coronal stops (tin), but lexical entries with specified labial stops (pin) are not activated by mismatching input (tin). The eye-tracking data failed to show such a pattern. Although words that were phonologically similar to the spoken target attracted more looks than did unrelated distractors, this effect was symmetric in Experiment 1 with minimal pairs (tin-pin) and in Experiments 2 and 3 with words with an onset overlap (peacock-teacake). Experiment 4 revealed that /t/-initial words were looked at more frequently if the spoken input mismatched only in terms of place than if it mismatched in place and voice, contrary to the assumption that /t/ is unspecified for place and voice. These results show that speech perception uses signal-driven information to the fullest, as was predicted by an optimal perception account.     

Impact of planned movement direction on judgments of visual locations

The present study examined if and how the direction of planned hand movements affects the perceived direction of visual stimuli. In three experiments participants prepared hand movements that deviated regarding direction (“Experiment 1” and “2”) or distance relative to a visual target position (“Experiment 3”). Before actual execution of the movement, the direction of the visual stimulus had to be estimated by means of a method of adjustment. The perception of stimulus direction was biased away from planned movement direction, such that with leftward movements stimuli appeared somewhat more rightward than with rightward movements. Control conditions revealed that this effect was neither a mere response bias, nor a result of processing or memorizing movement cues. Also, shifting the focus of attention toward a cued location in space was not sufficient to induce the perceptual bias observed under conditions of movement preparation (“Experiment 4”). These results confirm that characteristics of planned actions bias visual perception, with the direction of bias (contrast or assimilation) possibly depending on the type of the representations (categorical or metric) involved.     

Couples' evaluations of fatherhood in different stages of the family life cycle

Fathers' and mothers' views on mothers' satisfaction with paternal behaviour as well as the respective processes of origination were studied in 393 cohabiting couples from three different stages of the family life cycle. Data on paternal competence and the couples' relationship characteristics were included as predictors in multiple regression analyses, and the stages of the family life cycle were taken into account with multigroup regression analyses. Results showed that the mothers were more satisfied with paternal behaviour than the fathers thought the mothers were. Moreover, mothers were satisfied when the fathers were willing to spend time with the child, whereas fathers thought that their partners were satisfied when they were able to establish and maintain a relationship with the child. Couple relationship satisfaction had a consistent impact on fathers' views, whereas it was not relevant to mothers' views unless the oldest child had reached adolescence.     

Same-gender distractors are not so easy to reject: ERP evidence of gender categorization

Social categorization appears to be an automatic process that occurs during person perception. Understanding social categorization better is important because mere categorization can lead to stereotype activation and, in turn, to discrimination. In the present study we used a novel approach to examine event-related potentials (ERPs) of gender categorization in the “Who said what?” memory paradigm, thus allowing for a more in-depth understanding of the specific mechanisms underlying identity versus categorization processing. After observing video clips showing a “discussion” among female and male targets, participants were shown individual statements, each accompanied by one of the discussants’ faces. While we measured ERPs, participants had to decide whether or not a given statement had previously been made by the person with the accompanying face. In same-person trials, statements were paired with the correct person, whereas in the distractor trials, either a same-gender or a different-gender distractor was shown. As expected, participants were able to reject different-gender distractors faster than same-gender distractors, and they were more likely to falsely choose yes for a same-gender than for a different-gender distractor. Both findings indicate gender-based categorization. ERPs, analyzed in a 300- to 400-ms time window at occipito-temporal channels, indicated more negative amplitudes for yes responses both for the same person and for same-gender distractors, relative to different-gender distractors. Overall, these results show gender-based categorization even when the task was to assess the identifying information in a gender-neutral context. These findings are interpreted as showing that gender categorization occurs automatically during person perception, but later than race- or age-based categorization.