Recent reliability reporting practices in Psychological Assessment: recognizing the people behind the data

Helms, Henze, Sass, and Mifsud (2006) defined good practices for internal consistency reporting, interpretation, and analysis consistent with an alpha-as-data perspective. Their viewpoint (a) expands on previous arguments that reliability coefficients are group-level summary statistics of samples' responses rather than stable properties of scales or measures and (b) encourages researchers to investigate characteristics of reliability data for their own samples and subgroups within their samples. In Study 1, we reviewed past and current reliability reporting practices in a sample of Psychological Assessment articles published across 3 decades (i.e., from the years 1989, 1996, and 2006). Results suggested that contemporary and past researchers' reliability reporting practices have not improved over time and generally were not consistent with good practices. In Study 2, we analyzed an archival data set to illustrate the real-life repercussions of researchers' ongoing misconstrual and misuse of reliability data. Our analyses suggested that researchers should conduct preliminary analyses of their data to determine whether their data fit the assumptions of their reliability analyses. Also, the results indicated that reliability coefficients varied across racial or ethnic and gender subgroups, and these variations had implications for whether the same depression measure should be used across groups. We concluded that the alpha-as-data perspective has implications for one's choice of psychological measures and interpretation of results, which subsequently affect conclusions and recommendations. We encourage researchers to recognize the people behind their data by adopting better practices in internal consistency reporting, analysis, and interpretation.     

Learning diphone-based segmentation

This paper reconsiders the diphone-based word segmentation model of Cairns, Shillcock, Chater, and Levy (1997) and Hockema (2006), previously thought to be unlearnable. A statistically principled learning model is developed using Bayes' theorem and reasonable assumptions about infants' implicit knowledge. The ability to recover phrase-medial word boundaries is tested using phonetic corpora derived from spontaneous interactions with children and adults. The (unsupervised and semi-supervised) learning models are shown to exhibit several crucial properties. First, only a small amount of language exposure is required to achieve the model's ceiling performance, equivalent to between 1 day and 1 month of caregiver input. Second, the models are robust to variation, both in the free parameter and the input representation. Finally, both the learning and baseline models exhibit undersegmentation, argued to have significant ramifications for speech processing as a whole.     

Word recognition in child second language learners: Evidence from cognates and false friends

We studied how Dutch children learned English as a second language (L2) in the classroom. Learners at different levels of L2 proficiency recognized words under different task conditions. Beginning learners in primary school (fifth and sixth grades) and more advanced learners in secondary school (seventh and ninth grades) made lexical decisions on words that are similar for English and Dutch in both meaning and form (“cognates”) or only in form (“false friends”). Cognates were processed faster than matched control words by all participant groups in an English lexical decision task (Experiment 1) but not in a Dutch lexical decision task (Experiment 2). An English lexical decision task that mixed cognates and false friends (Experiment 3) led to consistently longer reaction times for both item types relative to controls. Thus, children in the early stages of learning an L2 already activate word candidates in both of their languages (language-nonselective access) and respond differently to cognates in the presence or absence of false friends in the stimulus list.     

Temperament and sleep–wake behaviour from infancy to toddlerhood

Sleep–wake behaviours and temperament were examined longitudinally for trait stability and relationship to behavioural state regulation from infancy to early childhood. Subjects were 120 low‐risk, full‐term infants from a middle class sample. At 6 weeks, parents completed three consecutive days of the Baby's Day Diary which measures sleep, wake, fuss, feed and cry states and the Infant Characteristics Questionnaire. At 16 months, parents assessed sleep behaviours with the Sleep Habits Inventory and temperament with the Toddler Symptom Checklist. At 24 months, parents repeated 3 days of the Baby's Day Diary. Structural Equation Modelling was used to examine the cross‐age hypotheses for sleep–wake and temperament associations. From early infancy to toddlerhood, sleep–wake behaviours and irritable temperament were notably stable but independent in this cohort. Copyright © 2011 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Expanding Roles: A Survey of Public Health Genetic Counselors

According to the 2008 National Society of Genetic Counselors (NSGC) Professional Status Survey (PSS), 31 genetic counselor respondents reported spending at least 50% of their time in the area of public health. The NSGC Public Health Special Interest Group (PHSIG) had 49 dues-paying members in 2009. The purpose of this study was to identify the work settings and public health activities in which genetic counselors participate. A novel online survey was disseminated over the NSGC PHSIG Listserv. Forty-one percent (n = 13) of public health genetic counselor respondents worked in a university medical system, while 53% (n = 17) were grant-funded and held a non-clinical appointment. The most common public health activities included educating healthcare professionals (82%) and community members (61%), research (55%), grant writing (55%) and grant administration (36%). Most respondents (82%) reported learning certain public health skills outside of their genetic counseling training programs. Differences in work settings were found, with a significantly greater percentage of public health genetic counselors working in government agencies. Genetic counselors have opportunities to become involved in public health activities as the scope of public health genetics grows. Furthermore, genetic counseling competencies are compatible with the Institute of Medicine’s “10 Essential Public Health Services.” The NSGC and genetic counseling training programs are encouraged to offer more public health learning opportunities for genetic counselors and genetic counseling students interested in this specialty area.     

Encoding and retrieval are differentially processed by the anterior cingulate and prelimbic cortices: A study based on trace eyeblink conditioning in the rabbit

A growing body of literature suggests that structures along the midline of the prefrontal cortex (mPFC), including Brodmann’s area 32 (prelimbic cortex) and area 24 (anterior cingulate cortex) in the rabbit play a role in retrieval of learned information. The present studies compared the effects of post-training lesions produced either immediately or 1-week following learning, to either prelimbic (area 32) or anterior cingulate (area 24) cortex on trace eyeblink (EB) conditioning. Further, because recent evidence suggests that the mPFC may play an even greater role in learning and memory when emotional arousal is low, these studies compared the effects of lesions in groups conditioned with either a relatively low-arousal corneal airpuff, or a more aversive periorbital eyeshock unconditioned stimulus (US). A total of six groups were tested, which received selective ibotenic acid or “sham” control lesions to either area 32 or 24, immediately or 1-week following asymptotic learning, and conditioned with an eyeshock US or an airpuff US. Results showed that the greatest lesion deficits were found when conditioning with the less aversive airpuff US. Further, lesions produced to area 32 one-week, but not immediately following learning, caused significant deficits in performance, while lesions produced to area 24 immediately, but not 1-week following learning, caused significant deficits in performance. These findings add to the body of evidence which shows that area 32 of the mPFC regulates retrieval, but not acquisition or storage of information, while area 24 mediates a less specific reacquisition process, but not permanent storage or retrieval of information during relearning of memories abolished by mPFC damage. These findings were, however, specific to those experiments in which the relatively non-aversive airpuff was the US.     

The interaction between acoustic salience and language experience in developmental speech perception: evidence from nasal place discrimination

Previous research suggests that infant speech perception reorganizes in the first year: young infants discriminate both native and non‐native phonetic contrasts, but by 10–12 months difficult non‐native contrasts are less discriminable whereas performance improves on native contrasts. In the current study, four experiments tested the hypothesis that, in addition to the influence of native language experience, acoustic salience also affects the perceptual reorganization that takes place in infancy. Using a visual habituation paradigm, two nasal place distinctions that differ in relative acoustic salience, acoustically robust labial‐alveolar [ma]–[na] and acoustically less salient alveolar‐velar [na]–[?a], were presented to infants in a cross‐language design. English‐learning infants at 6–8 and 10–12 months showed discrimination of the native and acoustically robust [ma]–[na] (Experiment 1), but not the non‐native (in initial position) and acoustically less salient [na]–[?a] (Experiment 2). Very young (4–5‐month‐old) English‐learning infants tested on the same native and non‐native contrasts also showed discrimination of only the [ma]–[na] distinction (Experiment 3). Filipino‐learning infants, whose ambient language includes the syllable‐initial alveolar (/n/)–velar (/?/) contrast, showed discrimination of native [na]–[?a] at 10–12 months, but not at 6–8 months (Experiment 4). These results support the hypothesis that acoustic salience affects speech perception in infancy, with native language experience facilitating discrimination of an acoustically similar phonetic distinction [na]–[?a]. We discuss the implications of this developmental profile for a comprehensive theory of speech perception in infancy.     

Quality of Life of Individuals with Acquired Brain Injuries

This study investigated the quality of life of individuals with acquired brain injuries (ABI) across a one- to fifteen-year post-injury time span. This allows us to identify the health and service needs of individuals with ABI and provide direction for further improvement. Twenty-nine individuals were invited from the local Self-Help Group for the Brain-Damaged to participate in this study. Four instruments were used to help in the investigation of the subjective components of the quality of life, including the Personal Wellbeing Index (PWI) and Positive and Negative Affect Scales (PANAS). The instruments used were the Modified Barthel Index (MBI) and Lawton Instrumental Activity of Daily Living (IADL) Scale. After analysis of the results and their interpretation, there was no significant difference between the post-injury groups in their scores of negative affect. It is suggested that there should be services, such as psychotherapy, to help reduce the existence of negative moods. Improvement in the IADL aspect should be more focused in future rehabilitation services to allow people to enjoy a fuller life.     

Scaffolding feedback to maximize long-term error correction

Scaffolded feedback was tested against three other feedback presentation methods (standard corrective feedback, minimal feedback, and answer-until-correct multiple-choice feedback) over both short- and long-term retention intervals in order to assess which method would produce the most robust gains in error correction. Scaffolded feedback was a method designed to take advantage of the benefits of retrieval practice by providing incremental hints until the correct answer could be self-generated. In Experiments 1 and 3, on an immediate test, final memory for the correct answer was lowest for questions given minimal feedback, moderate for the answer-until-correct condition, and equally high in the scaffolded feedback condition and the standard feedback condition. However, tests of the maintenance of the corrections over a 30-min delay (Experiment 2) and over a 1-day delay (Experiment 3) demonstrated that scaffolded feedback gave rise to the best memory for the correct answers at a delay.