Target locations in visual field and character recognition by students of Chinese

The potential influence of target location in a visual field on search should be considered in layouts of control panels and advertisements. This investigation was done to verify the assumption that the upper-left portion of a page or its equivalent naturally attracts the attention of the viewer. Exp. 1 used a tachistoscope to test which of eight Chinese characters first attracted the attention of viewers. The eight Chinese characters are arranged in a square and a circular configuration. In the square layout, a large square (18 cm x 18 cm) was first conceptually subdivided into nine equal parts (6 cm x 6 cm). Then, the eight Chinese characters were put in the center of each part, leaving the central part blank. In the circular layout, the same Chinese characters were symmetrically placed on the conceptual circumference (r = 6 cm) of a circle within a large square. Exp. 2 was a paper-and-pencil test. An embedded-fault-character-search was used to examine the location of the first faulty character discovered by the subjects. 60 college students and 36 schoolchildren were selected as subjects for the tachistoscopic experiment and paper-and-pencil test. Finally, five graduate students participated in Exp. 3 in which an eye camera registered subjects' eye movements to measured distribution of durations of looking over eight locations. The measurements indicated a slight predominance of the upper-left portion for college students and graduate students, and a slight predominance of the upper-right portion for schoolchildren.     

Brain bases of morphological processing in Chinese‐English bilingual children

Can bilingual exposure impact children's neural circuitry for learning to read? To answer this question, we investigated the brain bases of morphological awareness, one of the key spoken language abilities for learning to read in English and Chinese. Bilingual Chinese‐English and monolingual English children (N = 22, ages 7–12) completed morphological tasks that best characterize each of their languages: compound morphology in Chinese (e.g. basket + ball = basketball) and derivational morphology in English (e.g. re + do = redo). In contrast to monolinguals, bilinguals showed greater activation in the left middle temporal region, suggesting that bilingual exposure to Chinese impacts the functionality of brain regions supporting semantic abilities. Similar to monolinguals, bilinguals showed greater activation in the left inferior frontal region [BA 45] in English than Chinese, suggesting that young bilinguals form language‐specific neural representations. The findings offer new insights to inform bilingual and cross‐linguistic models of language and literacy acquisition.     

Happiness and Globalization: A Spatial Econometric Approach

Based on the data of Gallup World Poll Survey (GWP), this study employs a spatial 2SLS (two stage least square) model to examines the impact of globalization on the level of happiness across 145 nations. We observe endogeneity of the spatial lag term (Wh) on happiness as well as spatial dependencies in the independent variables (WX’s) which represents indirect effects from a change in X’s in the neighboring regions. We observe contrasting spillover effects (own v/s neighboring effect) of the same explanatory variable generating positive or negative effect, respectively, across space. Further, an inverted ‘U’ Kuznet curve reveals a non-linear relationship between average happiness and happiness inequality. At low levels, an increase in well-being appears to hurt the poor; but beyond a certain threshold, it seems to reduce inequality. We observed among countries that happiness inequalities for developed regions are more when compared to developing regions.     

Reward allocation decisions of Chinese managers: Influence of employee categorization and allocation context

The purpose of the present study was to investigate the relationships between employee categorization criteria and Chinese managers' allocation behaviors. Using a vignette approach and a four-factor within-subjects design, the effects of relationship (guanxi), loyalty, and competence, as well as their interactions with allocation context (private vs public) were examined. Results showed that subordinates who had a close relationship with the allocator, high loyalty, or high competence were rewarded more. Significant two-way interaction effects indicated that relationship, loyalty and competence interactively affected Chinese managers' reward allocation decisions. In addition, the moderating effects of allocation context on these three criteria were also significant. Limitations of the study and suggestions for further research were discussed.     

The perseverance of numerical distance effect in attentional blink

In a number comparison task, it is easier to respond faster when the two numbers are further apart than when they are close. This inverse relationship between the size difference and the time to judge such difference is called the numerical distance effect (NDE). In this study we investigated whether attention plays a critical role in the surfacing of NDE and the way we process Arabic numbers. In experiments 1 and 2, with an attentional blink paradigm that was designed to modulate attention, we tested whether a limited or unlimited pool of attentional resources would have an impact on the performance and trend of NDE. The results showed a dissociable effect of attention that changed the overall accuracy but not the trend of NDE. In experiment 3 we examined whether the number priming effect, another phenomenon associated with the distance-related effect, would be affected during the attentional blink period. We found the pattern of number priming effect was not affected by attentional blink. An explanation of the role of attention in number distance processing, as well as how it interacts with Arabic number representation, is discussed.     

Mechanisms of deficit of visuospatial attention shift in children with developmental coordination disorder: A neurophysiological measure of the endogenous Posner paradigm

The purpose of this study was to investigate and compare the mechanisms of brain activity, as revealed by a combination of the visuospatial attention shifting paradigm and event-related potentials (ERP) in children with developmental coordination disorder (DCD) and typically developing children. Twenty-eight DCD children and 26 typically developing children were recorded with regard to their behavioral performance and ERP measures during a variant of the endogenous Posner paradigm, in which they should react to visual targets preceded by spatial cues or presented uncued. Children with DCD showed longer reaction time and a deficit in inhibitory response capacity when compared to typically developing children. The electrophysiological characteristics also showed distinct modulatory effects upon attentional orienting, anticipatory mechanisms, and cognitive-to-motor transfer in children with DCD: longer cue-P3 and target-N1 latency, smaller target-P3 amplitude, an elongated interval between N2 and the motor response (N2-RT), and small areas on contingent negative variation (CNV). The combined analysis of behavioral performance and ERP data suggested that children with DCD had deficits of slower target identification (N1), less ability in interhemispheric (P3) and cognitive-to-motor transfer speed (N2-RT), as well as a less mature anticipatory and executive process (CNV).     

Age-dependent winner–loser effects in a mangrove rivulus fish,Kryptolebias marmoratus

Animal Cognition - The outcomes of recent fights can provide individuals information about their relative fighting ability and affect their contest decisions (winner–loser effects). Most...     

Sampling behaviour in estimating predictive validity in the context of selection and latent variable modelling: A Monte Carlo study

While the effect of selection in predictive validity studies has long been recognized and discussed in psychometric studies, little consideration has been given to this problem in the context of latent variable models. In a recent paper, Muthén & Hsu (1993) proposed and compared estimators of predictive validity of a multifactorial test. Both selectivity and measurement error were considered in the estimation of predictive validity. The purpose of the present paper is to expand on Muthén & Hsu (1993) by examining and comparing the sampling behaviour of three estimators for predictive validity, LQL (listwise, quasi-likelihood estimator), FQL (full, quasi-likelihood estimator) and FS (factor score estimator), using a Monte Carlo approach. Effects of selection procedures, selection ratios and sample sizes on the sampling behaviours of the estimators are also investigated. The results show that FQL and FS are the two preferred estimators and each has different strengths and weaknesses. A real data application is presented to illustrate the practical implementation of the estimators.     

Efficiency of local versus standard MMPI norms: a comment

This note shows that evidence considered by Wooten (1984) to support claims of diagnostic superiority of standard over local MMPI norms, may mainly reflect the fact that a large proportion of the group tested by Wooten's consisted of persons with emotional, behavioral problems. Reevaluation of Wooten's data suggests a range of conditions under which Wooten's diagnostic criterion used with local norms is superior to the same criterion used with standard norms, and another range of conditions under which this criterion used with either local or standard norms is inferior to base rates.     

What We Don’t Know May Hurt Us: An Examination of Systematic Bias in Offender Risk Assessments

Many issues are known to plague the validity of risk assessment, but empirical scholarship in criminal justice has not yet directly investigated how they influence prediction accuracy. This study explores how frequently risk assessment staff classifies information to be insufficient and the extent to which systematic error impacts the validity of risk prediction. Using Oregon’s Juvenile Crime Prevention Risk Assessment Instrument, we identified critical missing risk information and infused the dataset with varying levels of error. Classification outcomes and overall prediction accuracy reacted unfavorably, suggesting that the common practice of knowingly and unknowingly underestimating risk may be highly pernicious.