Processing Grammatical Gender During Language Comprehension

The paper reviews empirical evidence on the processing of grammatical gender during language comprehension, mainly focusing on gender priming. Evidence comes from behavioral experiments investigating gender priming and from behavioral as well as neurophysiological experiments evaluating the interaction of gender priming with semantic information. While the behavioral data do not provide a completely unambiguous picture, the neurophysiological data and the most reliable behavioral effects are more in line with a modular than with an interactive view of lexical access.     

Triple Roles,Worship, and “Period Shaming”: How Muslim Women Maintain Belonging and Connection in Ramadan

Ramadan is a time when Muslims experience an increased connection to God and an increased sense of belonging through communal acts of worship, but Muslim women are often excluded from many acts of worship due to religious restrictions while they are menstruating. This study innovatively applies concepts of “religious citizenship” and women's “triple roles” drawn from lived religion and feminist literature to a new context of Muslim women and their everyday practices. Based on research with more than 60 culturally diverse Melbourne Muslims who kept anonymous diaries before, during, and after Ramadan 2021, this analysis shows how Muslim women's understandings of religious belonging and connection in Ramadan are shaped by their own reconfigured approaches to worship and socialization alongside their everyday workload. It provides a unique opportunity to investigate the invisible challenges faced by Muslim women in worship and devotion during Ramadan.     

Racial Identity as Mediator of the Relationship Between Gender Role Conflict and Severity of Psychological Symptoms in Black, Latino, and Asian Men

The purpose of this investigation was to examine the extent to which racial identity attitudes mediate the relationship between gender role conflict and psychological symptoms in Men of Color. The mediating role of racial identity was tested in Study 1 with a sample of Black men and in Study 2 with a sample of Asian and Latino men. The results of Study 1 provided support for full mediation, whereas in Study 2 evidence was found for partial mediation. The combination of the studies' findings underscores the importance of considering the extent to which Men of Color identify with their own racial group when examining the relationship between gender role conflict and psychological symptoms.     

Social context,sexual practices,and risks for HIV transmission among men who have sex with men: The south beach health survey

In a population-based sample of 193 men who had sex with men in South Beach, Miami-Dade County, Florida, two indicators of social context—choice of sexual relationships and perceived HIV-infection status—were used to analyze residents who engaged in certain sexual practices with their partners. The vast majority (88.6%) of respondents reported engagement in anal sex during the previous 12 months; 20.2% reported unprotected anal intercourse (UAI) with ejaculation with any partner and 12.4% reported UAI with ejaculation with one or more casual partners. Findings supported the hypothesis that primary partner relationships and perceived HIV status are important variables for understanding engagement in UAI with ejaculation. Men who engaged in such behaviors with casual partners were more likely to have negative attitudes towards condoms, report difficulty communicating desires for safer sex, disagree with the belief that AIDS is fatal, and be intoxicated during anal intercourse. Men who reported engaging in anal intercourse, but who never shared unprotected ejaculations, were most likely to be unknowingly infected with HIV, suggesting that many men may become infected while following what they believe to be “safer sex practices.” In designing effective interventions, public health authorities need to take into account socially embedded risk-negotiating practices.     

Clustering and switching in unconstrained,phonemic and semantic verbal fluency: the role of age and school type

We investigated the role of age and school type on clustering and switching in verbal fluency tasks (VFTs) with Brazilian children. The children were administered unconstrained, phonemic and semantic VFTs with a duration of 150 or 120 s, respectively. Both age and school type influenced all variables and in terms of performance over time. Older children and private school students outperformed the remainder of the sample, with the first 30 s of each VFT usually being the most productive. Although the size of the clusters produced did not differ between groups, the types of clusters did show some variations, with semantic clusters being the most frequent. Our results revealed strong correlations between switching ability and word production in all three VFTs. In conclusion, the executive functions known as planning and cognitive flexibility play a crucial role in word production by organising and facilitating the recall of lexical information from memory.     

Aesthetics of streetscapes: influence of fundamental properties on aesthetic judgments of urban space

This experiment was designed to investigate the relationship between the fundamental visual, spatial properties of existing complex streetscapes and aesthetic judgments. Participants performed aesthetic judgments over 35 photographs of typical spatial situations taken along the Meissner Strasse in Radebeul, Germany. In a modified Q-Sort procedure, the participants assigned the pictures to five categories, including 1 (beautiful) and 5 (not beautiful). Vegetation, Stylistic Uniformity, Homogeneity of Scale, and Symmetry were identified as primary components of aesthetic judgment by using principal component analysis. Stimuli, photographically edited according to these factors, were then tested using the same Q-Sort procedure, which confirmed these determinants. These results are intended to help the development of the theoretical understanding of the link between the influence of selected spatial properties and the aesthetic judgment of the visual quality of urban spaces.     

Understanding HIV Prevention With College‐Going Black Women: An NIMH‐Funded Pilot Study

Black women are disproportionately affected by HIV. Limited research has examined race and gender as psychological variables of influence. In this National Institute of Mental Health pilot study, the authors used semistructured interviews to explore the heterogeneity of identity within race and gender and possible interactions with sexual risk perceptions and behavior in a sample of Black women attending college in an urban city. The article presents emergent themes, recommendations, and questions for future research. El VIH afecta a las mujeres negras de forma desproporcionada. Un número limitado de investigaciones ha examinado la raza y el sexo como variables psicológicas de influencia. En este estudio piloto del Instituto Nacional de Salud Mental, los autores usaron entrevistas semiestructuradas para explorar la heterogeneidad de la identidad dentro de la raza y el sexo, así como posibles interacciones con las percepciones de riesgo y comportamiento sexual en una muestra de mujeres negras cursando estudios universitarios en una ciudad urbana. El artículo presenta temas emergentes, recomendaciones y preguntas para futuras investigaciones.