Saccadic output is influenced by limb kinetics during eye-hand coordination

In several recent studies, saccadic eye movements were found to be influenced by concurrent reaching movements. The authors investigated whether that influence originates in limb kinematic or kinetic signals. To dissociate those 2 possibilities, the authors required participants (N = 6) to generate pointing movements with a mass that either resisted or assisted limb motion. With practice, participants were able to generate pointing responses with very similar kinematics but whose kinetics varied in a systematic manner. The results showed that saccadic output was altered by the amount of force required to move the arm, consistent with an influence from limb kinetic signals. Because the interaction occurred before the pointing response began, the authors conclude that a predictive signal related to limb kinetics modulates saccadic output during tasks requiring eye-hand coordination.     

Secure and defensive high self-esteem

Long-standing theories have suggested high self-esteem (SE) can assume qualitatively different forms that are related to defensiveness. The authors explored whether some high-SE individuals are particularly defensive because they harbor negative self-feelings at less conscious levels, indicated by low implicit SE. In Study 1, participants high in explicit SE but low in implicit SE showed the highest levels of narcissism--an indicator of defensiveness. In Studies 2 and 3, the correspondence between implicit and explicit SE predicted defensive behavior (in-group bias in Study 2 and dissonance reduction in Study 3), such that for high explicit-SE participants, those with relatively low implicit SE behaved more defensively. These results are consistent with the idea that high SE can be relatively secure or defensive.     

Tooth color: effects on judgments of attractiveness and age

Tooth whitening has become a very popular procedure. Advertisements for whitening products imply that whiter teeth are more attractive than yellower teeth. We tested this idea empirically by manipulating the tooth color of pictures of male and female targets. Participants' ratings of attractiveness were not influenced by tooth color. Exp. 2 yielded a negative correlation between attractiveness and age ratings: targets judged to be older were rated as less attractive. Unless whiter teeth help in some other way, e.g., improved self-esteem or confidence, it seems that tooth whitening procedures or products are not associated with increased attractiveness to others.     

Phonology competes with syntax: experimental evidence for the interaction of word order and accent placement in the realization of Information Structure

In this paper, we investigate the interaction of phonological and syntactic constraints on the realization of Information Structure in Greek, a free word order language. We use magnitude estimation as our experimental paradigm, which allows us to quantify the influence of a given linguistic constraint on the acceptability of a sentence. We present results from two experiments. In the first experiment, we focus on the interaction of word order and context. In the second experiment, we investigate the additional effect of accent placement and clitic doubling. The results show that word order, in contrast to standard assumptions in the theoretical literature, plays only a secondary role in marking the Information Structure of a sentence. Order preferences are relatively weak and can be overridden by constraints on accent placement and clitic doubling. Our experiments also demonstrate that a null context shows the same preference pattern as an all focus context, indicating that 'default' word order and accent placement (in the absence of context) can be explained in terms of Information Structure. In the theoretical part of this paper, we formalize the interaction of syntactic and phonological constraints on Information Structure. We argue that this interaction is best captured using a notion of grammatical competition, such as the one developed by Optimality Theory (Prince & Smolensky, 1993, Optimality theory: constraint interaction in generative grammar (Technical Report No. 2). Center for Cognitive Science, Rutgers University, Piscataway, NJ; Science 275 (1997) 1604). In particular, we exploit the optimality theoretic concept of constraint ranking to account for the fact that some constraint violations are more serious than others. We extend standard Optimality Theory to obtain a grammar model that predicts not only the optimal (i.e. grammatical) realization of a given input, but also makes predictions about the relative grammaticality of suboptimal structures. This allows us to derive a constraint hierarchy that accounts for the interaction of phonological and syntactic constraints on Information Structure and models the acceptability patterns found in the experimental data.     

The Association Between Sluggish Cognitive Tempo and Academic Functioning in Youth with Attention-Deficit/Hyperactivity Disorder (ADHD)

The purpose of the study was to evaluate the relation between Sluggish Cognitive Tempo (SCT) and academic functioning in a sample of 52 adolescents (40 males, 12 females) with Attention-Deficit/Hyperactivity Disorder (ADHD; M _age?=?13.75). This study builds on prior work by utilizing an empirically-based and psychometrically validated measure of SCT, collecting ratings of SCT from both parents and teachers, and examining associations with multiple domains of academic functioning from both the parent and teacher perspective as well as grade point average (GPA). Both SCT and DSM-IV symptoms of inattention were significantly correlated with domains of academic functioning. Multiple regression analyses demonstrated that the parent-rated SCT Slow subscale predicted overall academic functioning, organizational skills impairment, and homework problems above and beyond ADHD symptoms and child and demographic characteristics known to be associated with academics, including intelligence, academic achievement, and family income. The teacher-rated SCT Low Initiation/Persistence subscale also predicted homework problems and was the only SCT variable to predict school grades above and beyond ADHD symptoms and relevant covariates. Both the SCT Slow and Low Initiation/Persistence subscales include items related to youth seeming apathetic, unmotivated, and lacking initiative, behaviors that are strongly related to ADHD symptoms of inattention but not currently captured by the DSM-IV. Implications of these findings towards supporting the external validity of the SCT construct are discussed along with potential implications for intervention.     

Default Probability

A probability may be called “default” if it is neither derived from preestablished probabilities nor based on considerations of frequency or symmetry. Default probabilities presumably arise through reasoning based on causality and similarity. This article advances a model of default probability based on a featural approach to similarity. The accuracy of the model is assessed by comparing its predictions to the probabilities provided by undergraduates asked to reason about mammals.     

The effects of post-encoding stress on recognition memory: examining the impact of skydiving in young men and women

Prior studies have indicated that post-encoding stress can protect memories from the effects of forgetting, and this has been taken as evidence that stress facilitates memory consolidation. However, it is not known whether stress acts by directly influencing the strength of the underlying memories or whether it influences the generation process that plays a critical role in tests such as free recall. To address this issue, we examined the effects of stress produced by skydiving on recognition memory for negative and neutral pictures. Relative to a non-stress control condition, post-encoding stress in males was found to increase recognition memory for neutral pictures. However, stress was not found to improve recognition for emotional pictures, nor was it found to influence recognition memory in female participants. Additional analysis of recognition performance suggested that stress increased familiarity-based recognition rather than recollection. This study indicates that stress can improve familiarity-based recognition, thus showing that stress directly increases the strength of the underlying memories.     

The moral behavior of ethics professors: Relationships among self-reported behavior,expressed normative attitude,and directly observed behavior

Do philosophy professors specializing in ethics behave, on average, any morally better than do other professors? If not, do they at least behave more consistently with their expressed values? These questions have never been systematically studied. We examine the self-reported moral attitudes and moral behavior of 198 ethics professors, 208 non-ethicist philosophers, and 167 professors in departments other than philosophy on eight moral issues: academic society membership, voting, staying in touch with one's mother, vegetarianism, organ and blood donation, responsiveness to student emails, charitable giving, and honesty in responding to survey questionnaires. On some issues, we also had direct behavioral measures that we could compare with the self-reports. Ethicists expressed somewhat more stringent normative attitudes on some issues, such as vegetarianism and charitable donation. However, on no issue did ethicists show unequivocally better behavior than the two comparison groups. Our findings on attitude-behavior consistency were mixed: ethicists showed the strongest relationship between behavior and expressed moral attitude regarding voting but the weakest regarding charitable donation. We discuss implications for several models of the relationship between philosophical reflection and real-world moral behavior.