The planning and execution of sequential eye movements: saccades do not show the one target advantage

The present experiment examined the one-target advantage (OTA) with regard to saccadic eye movements. The OTA, previously found with manual pointing responses, refers to the finding that movements are executed faster when the limb is allowed to stop on the target compared to the situation where it has to proceed and hit a second target. Using an adapted limb movement OTA task, saccades of 5 degrees and 15 degrees were made to (a) a single target (one-target), (b) one target and immediately to another target without a change in direction (two-target-extension), and (c) one target and immediately back to the start location (two-target-reversal). Unlike manual movements, the movement times for the initial saccade in the two-target-extension condition were not prolonged compared to either of the other two conditions. Moreover, this pattern of results was found for both the shorter and longer amplitude saccades. The results indicate that the OTA does not occur in the oculomotor system and therefore is not a general motor control phenomenon.     

Iberian rock lizards (Lacerta monticola) assess short-term changes in predation risk level when deciding refuge use

Prey might assess that risk level estimated in the first encounter with a predator was fixed in subsequent responses, whereas prey using flexible behavior would track short-term changes in risk. The authors examined, in the field, refuge use of Iberian rock lizards (Lacerta monticola) after simulated predator attacks and tested (a) how risk was assessed when multiple sources of risk were present simultaneously, (b) how short-term changes in risk level of successive attacks affected refuge use, and (c) whether the interval between attacks was important, insofar as attacks were considered to be coming from the same or different predators. Results suggest that lizards have a flexible estimate of risk that is based on multiple sources and flexibly dependent on previous estimates.     

Houses built on sand: effects of exemplar stability on susceptibility to attitude change

Attitude representation theory (C. G. Lord & M. R. Lepper, 1999) explains both attitude-behavior consistency and attitude change with the same principles. When individuals respond evaluatively to an attitude object, they activate and combine assumptions about the attitude object with perceptions of the immediate situation. The assumptions activated can vary across time, even without additional information. Previous research has shown that individuals activate exemplars when answering attitude questions, attitude reports vary with the valence of the assumptions activated, and activating differently liked exemplars reduces attitude-behavior consistency. The present research completed study of the theoretical implications of exemplar stability by showing that individuals with temporally unstable exemplars, whether spontaneous (Experiment 1) or manipulated (Experiments 2 and 3), are more susceptible to subsequent attitude change than are individuals with stable exemplars.     

Exploring the structure of Zuckerman's Sensation Seeking Scale, Form V in a Spanish sample

The psychometric properties of the original version of the Sensation Seeking Scale (Form V) were analyzed in a sample of 1,006 Spanish university students. The total sample was randomly split into two halves. Exploratory factor analyses were conducted on the calibration sample (n=504), whereas confirmatory factor analysis procedures were performed on the validation sample (n=502). As previous studies have suggested, exploratory factor structure indicated that several items load on a different factor or have loadings lower than .30. Those problems were surpassed when the best five items per factor were factor analyzed again. The confirmatory factor analyses showed that a 4-factor simple structure model gave a clearly imperfect fit. A model of 20 items (5 items per factor) gave a better fit, although with similar problems regarding the low reliabilities of the Experience Seeking and Boredom Susceptibility subscales. The need for improvement of the four-factor structure is discussed.     

On the representation of Portuguese gender-inflected words in the mental lexicon

This study aims at verifying whether Portuguese gender-inflected nouns and adjectives are represented as full forms as suggested by Spanish data (Dominguez, Cuetos, & Segui, 1999). A series of lexical decision experiments is reported. Grammatical gender, frequency dominance, and grammatical category are manipulated and cumulative frequency is controlled. The results do not provide support for a full form representation of gender-inflected words. They suggest that grammatical category, or the nature of the inflectional process involved (lexical or syntactic), affects the way words are represented and accessed. Shorter recognition latencies were obtained for nouns drawn from Feminine dominant gender-inflected pairs than from Masculine dominant pairs whereas a tendency in the opposite direction was observed in adjectives. The effect of frequency dominance appears, nevertheless, to be restricted to feminine nouns. The data are compatible with the view that masculine nouns and adjectives are represented as gender-unmarked forms. These results are discussed in relation to current dual-access models of word recognition and to the notion of "interpretability" of lexico-syntactic features, as put forward in the Minimalist Program of Generative Linguistics.     

Effect of relation availability on the interpretation and access of familiar noun-noun compounds

Two experiments investigate whether relations that link the constituents of compounds during compound formation (e.g., teapot is formed by combining tea and pot using the relation head noun FOR modifier) also influence the processing of familiar compounds. Although there is evidence for the use of such relations in forming compounds, whether such relations affect the processing of familiar compounds is unknown. The data show clear effects of repetition and relational priming for written words on both a sense-nonsense task and a lexical decision task. These results indicate that the relation linking the constituents of familiar compounds is important to their access and use.     

Morphological family size in a morphologically rich language: the case of Finnish compared with Dutch and Hebrew

Finnish has a very productive morphology in which a stem can give rise to several thousand words. This study presents a visual lexical decision experiment addressing the processing consequences of the huge productivity of Finnish morphology. The authors observed that in Finnish words with larger morphological families elicited shorter response latencies. However, in contrast to Dutch and Hebrew, it is not the complete morphological family of a complex Finnish word that codetermines response latencies but only the subset of words directly derived from the complex word itself. Comparisons with parallel experiments using translation equivalents in Dutch and Hebrew showed substantial cross-language predictivity of family size between Finnish and Dutch but not between Finnish and Hebrew, reflecting the different ways in which the Hebrew and Finnish morphological systems contribute to the semantic organization of concepts in the mental lexicon.     

The on-line resolution of the sentence complement/relative clause ambiguity: evidence from Spanish

Two self-paced reading experiments investigated syntactic ambiguity resolution in Spanish. The experiments examined the way in which Spanish subjects initially interpret sentences that are temporarily ambiguous between a sentence complement and a relative clause interpretation. Experiment 1 examined whether the sentence complement preference found in English is observed in Spanish speaking subjects. In Experiment 2, verbal mood was manipulated in order to study the influence of verb-specific information on sentence processing. Since subcategorization for a subjunctive complement clause is generally assumed to be a lexical property of some verbs, the manipulation of the mood of the embedded verb affords us an interesting and novel way to examine the influence of lexical information on syntactic ambiguity resolution. Experiment 1 showed that Spanish speakers initially interpret the ambiguous that-clause as a sentence complement. Experiment 2 showed that verb-specific information, in particular, the information that specificies that a verb subcategorizes for a subjunctive complement, is accessed and used rapidly and affects the ambiguity resolution process. The results are discussed in relation to current models of sentence processing.     

Limitations of the mnemonic-keyword method

The effectiveness of the mnemonic-keyword method was investigated in 4 experiments in which participants were required to learn the 1st-language (L1, Spanish) equivalents of a list of 30 2nd-language words (L2, Latin). Experiments 1 (adolescents) and 2 (adults) were designed to assess whether the keyword method was more effective than the rote method; the researcher supplied the keyword, and the participants were allowed to pace themselves through the list. Experiments 3 (adolescents) and 4 (adults) were similar to Experiments 1 and 2 except that the participants were also supplied with a drawing that illustrated the relationship between the keyword and the L1 target word. All the experiments were performed with groups of participants in their classrooms (i.e., not in a laboratory context). In all experiments, the rote method was significantly more effective than was the keyword method.     

Differential effects of forward or simultaneous conditioned stimulus-unconditioned stimulus intervals on the defensive behavior system of the Norway rat (Rattus norvegicus)

To test several predictions derived from a behavior-systems approach, the authors assessed Pavlovian fear conditioning in rats after 30 trials of forward, simultaneous, or unpaired training. Direct evidence of conditioned fear was collected through observation of flight and freezing reactions during presentations of the conditioned stimulus (CS) alone. The authors also tested the CS's potential to reinforce an instrumental escape response in an escape-from-fear paradigm. On the one hand, rats that received forward training showed conditioned freezing, but no conditioned flight was observed. On the other hand, rats that received simultaneous training showed conditioned flight, but no conditioned freezing was observed. Rats that received either forward or simultaneous pairings showed instrumental learning of the escape-from-fear response. Implications for several theories of Pavlovian conditioning are discussed.