Is color an integral part of a rich mental simulation?

Research suggests that language comprehenders simulate visual features such as shape during language comprehension. In sentence-picture verification tasks, whenever pictures match the shape or orientation implied by the previous sentence, responses are faster than when the pictures mismatch implied visual aspects. However, mixed results have been demonstrated when the sentence-picture paradigm was applied to color (Connell, Cognition, 102(3), 476–485, 2007; Zwaan & Pecher, PLOS ONE, 7(12), e51382, 2012). One of the aims of the current investigation was to resolve this issue. This was accomplished by conceptually replicating the original study on color, using the same paradigm but a different stimulus set. The second goal of this study was to assess how much perceptual information is included in a mental simulation. We examined this by reducing color saturation, a manipulation that does not sacrifice object identifiability. If reduction of one aspect of color does not alter the match effect, it would suggest that not all perceptual information is relevant for a mental simulation. Our results did not support this: We found a match advantage when objects were shown at normal levels of saturation, but this match advantage disappeared when saturation was reduced, yet still aided in object recognition compared to when color was entirely removed. Taken together, these results clearly show a strong match effect for color, and the perceptual richness of mental simulations during language comprehension.     

The Joy of Sexism? A Multinational Investigation of Hostile and Benevolent Justifications for Gender Inequality and Their Relations to Subjective Well-Being

Previous research on system justification theory suggests that beliefs that rationalize inequalities are related to subjective well-being. We examine how “complementary” (hostile and benevolent) justifications of gender inequality may serve a palliative function for both men and women. Using multilevel modeling and data from 32 countries (N’s?=?362 to 5160), we find that relationships between hostile and benevolent justifications and life satisfaction are moderated by the degree of gender inequality at the national level. In relatively egalitarian nations, individuals who endorse “complementary” justifications are higher on life satisfaction compared to those who endorse an exclusively hostile justification. In nations with high gender inequality, there is no difference in life satisfaction for those who endorse exclusively hostile vs. complementary justifications.     

Counseling in Mexico: History,Current Identity,and Future Trends

A brief history of the development of counseling in Mexico is presented. Counselor preparation, identity, and future trends in the profession are discussed. The origins of counseling in Mexico are associated with the development of similar disciplines concerned with the general improvement of mental health and the treatment of its disorders, namely, disciplines such as medicine and psychology. Historically, the classical cultures of Mesoamerica had specific methods for understanding the human psyche, as did the Indians, Chinese, Babylonians, Egyptians, and Greeks of other cultures. Mexico, like many societies, has historically attempted to explain and understand the essential components of the human condition.     

A survey of UK selection practices across different organization sizes and industry sectors

This paper presents results of a study examining the methods used to select employees in 579 UK organizations representing a range of different organization sizes and industry sectors. Overall, a smaller proportion of organizations in this sample reported using formalized methods (e.g., assessment centres) than informal methods (e.g., unstructured interviews). The curriculum vitae (CVs) was the most commonly used selection method, followed by the traditional triad of application form, interviews, and references. Findings also indicated that the use of different selection methods was similar in both large organizations and small‐to‐medium‐sized enterprises. Differences were found across industry sector with public and voluntary sectors being more likely to use formalized techniques (e.g., application forms rather than CVs and structured rather than unstructured interviews). The results are discussed in relation to their implications, both in terms of practice and future research.     

“Put Your Money Where Your Love Is”: Parental Aid to Adult Children

Qualitative data are used to examine parents’ support to their adult children, and their motivations and feelings about it. The sample is 40 adult children and parents from four racial/ethnic groups: African-Americans, Asian-Americans, non-Latino Whites, and Latinos. Ideals of adult independence versus interdependence emerge as determinants of feelings about aiding adult children. The ambivalence concept provides the means to elucidate the tensions between these ideologies and children’s structurally shaped circumstances. Parental assistance to adult children was seen as acceptable for education, home ownership, and on behalf of young children, especially if the child was “working hard.” Parents still provided aid, however, even if these conditions were not met. In these situations, more intrafamilial tension characterized the aid transfer.     

Antecedents of consumers' citizenship behaviour towards organic foods

Within the consumer behaviour literature, there has been little research on factors that influence customers' choices for organic foods. This study investigates three aspects of the Taiwanese organic food market. The first aspect considers how argument quality, source credibility, and social comparison affect consumer‐social venture identification. The second aspect examines how identity attractiveness, social media engagement, and self‐determination affect personal relevance. The third and final aspect investigates how consumer‐social venture identification and personal relevance influence customer citizenship behaviour. The results show that consumer‐social venture identification and personal relevance have significant and positive effects on customer citizenship behaviour. Furthermore, argument quality, source credibility, and social comparison all have significant and positive effects on consumer‐social venture identification. Finally, identity attractiveness, social media engagement, and self‐determination have significant and positive effects on personal relevance. This study makes three contributions regarding consumers' behaviour of purchasing organic foods. First, it explores whether consumer‐social venture identification and personal relevance are antecedents of customer citizenship behaviour. Second, it investigates whether argument quality, source credibility, and social comparison are antecedents of consumer‐social venture identification. Last, it examines whether identity attractiveness, social media engagement, and self‐determination are antecedents of personal relevance. The practical implications of this study indicate that firms must pay more attention to consumers' information search/sharing and perceptions of a credible environment for sharing information and their awareness about healthy items and personal images on social networking sites.     

Evidence for linguistic deficit in nonlexical processing in reading. A study of a Spanish-speaking patient

Previous studies have shown that in the so-called opaque languages (those in which spelling does not correspond to pronunciation), there are relatively independent routes for lexical and nonlexical processing, that is, for words and nonwords, both in spoken and in written language. On the other hand, in the so-called transparent languages (those in which pronunciation corresponds to written forms), empirical evidence is scarcer. In this study of a neurological patient (parieto-temporal lesion), speaker of a transparent language (Spanish) showing a specific deficit in nonlexical reading processing, linguistic analysis for words was relatively preserved. This finding suggests the use of various routes in the processing of transparent languages.     

Food and token quantity discrimination in capuchin monkeys (<Emphasis Type="Italic">Cebus apella</Emphasis>)

Quantity discrimination is adaptive in a variety of ecological contexts and different taxa discriminate stimuli differing in numerousness, both in the wild and in laboratory settings. Quantity discrimination between object arrays has been suggested to be more demanding than between food arrays but, to our knowledge, the same paradigm has never been used to directly compare them. We investigated to what extent capuchin monkeys’ relative numerousness judgments (RNJs) with food and token are alike. Tokens are inherently non-valuable objects that acquire an associative value upon exchange with the experimenter. Our aims were (1) to assess capuchins’ RNJs with food (Experiment 1) and with tokens (Experiment 2) by presenting all the possible pair-wise choices between one to five items, and (2) to evaluate on which of the two proposed non-verbal mechanisms underlying quantity discrimination (analogue magnitude and object file system) capuchins relied upon. In both conditions capuchins reliably selected the larger amount of items, although their performance was higher with food than with tokens. The influence of the ratio between arrays on performance indicates that capuchins relied on the same system for numerical representation, namely analogue magnitude, regardless of the type of stimuli (food or tokens) and across both the small and large number ranges.