Relational and item-specific influences on generate–recognize processes in recall

The generate–recognize model and the relational–item-specific distinction are two approaches to explaining recall. In this study, we consider the two approaches in concert. Following Jacoby and Hollingshead (Journal of Memory and Language 29:433–454, 1990), we implemented a production task and a recognition task following production (1) to evaluate whether generation and recognition components were evident in cued recall and (2) to gauge the effects of relational and item-specific processing on these components. An encoding task designed to augment item-specific processing (anagram-transposition) produced a benefit on the recognition component (Experiments 1–3) but no significant benefit on the generation component (Experiments 1–3), in the context of a significant benefit to cued recall. By contrast, an encoding task designed to augment relational processing (category-sorting) did produce a benefit on the generation component (Experiment 3). These results converge on the idea that in recall, item-specific processing impacts a recognition component, whereas relational processing impacts a generation component.     

Attentional bias toward emotional stimuli in accidentally injured Chinese patients with different posttraumatic growth levels

Extensive evidence has been obtained that supports an association between an attentional bias (AB) toward negative stimuli and vulnerability to stress-related psychopathology, little is known regarding the characteristics of individual AB in different posttraumatic growth (PTG) levels. The current study used a modified dot-probe task to investigate if individual differences in AB towards either positive or negative emotional stimuli, are related to self-reported PTG. A sample of 202 patients completed the experiment. Patients with low levels of PTG did not exhibit AB toward negative or positive stimuli, patients with medium levels of PTG had difficulty disengaging attention from negative stimuli, patients with high levels of PTG had difficulty disengaging attention from positive stimuli. And the AB towards positive stimuli was only predictive for PTG. An implication of this finding is that there are different characteristics of implicit cognitive processing in patients with different levels of PTG, suggesting the necessity of psychological intervention on the accidentally injured patients.     

High Trait Cheerfulness Individuals are More Sensitive to the Emotional Environment

The aim of this paper was to study whether trait cheerfulness modulates changes in state cheerfulness as a result of exposing participants to affective stimuli. Two studies with a within-participant experimental design were carried out. Forty-eight (33 women) and sixty-four (45 women) undergraduate psychology students were selected as Sample 1 and Sample 2, respectively, for scoring high or low on the Trait Form of the State-Trait-Cheerfulness Inventory (STCI-T; Ruch et al. in Humor Int J Humor Res 9:303–339, 1996; Ruch et al. in Personal Individ Differ 22:477–491, 1997). Participants watched amusing, neutral, and sad film clips and reported their affective states before and after viewing them. In the second study, heart rate and skin conductance level were also recorded. Results showed that people with high trait cheerfulness reported greater changes in state cheerfulness when exposed to both amusing and sad film clips, showing larger increases and decreases in state cheerfulness, respectively, than participants with low trait cheerfulness. Effects were not mediated by social desirability. Furthermore, people with low trait cheerfulness showed a greater heart rate deceleration during the visioning of the clips compared to high trait cheerfulness participants, especially in an amusing scene with high emotional load. No modulation on trait cheerfulness was found for skin conductance level. Data with self-report and electrophysiological measures are discussed, highlighting that high trait cheerfulness people are more permeable to affective events, perhaps showing a better understanding and management of them.     

Identifying Students at Risk: An Examination of Computer-Adaptive Measures and Latent Class Growth Analysis

Multitiered systems of support depend on screening technology to identify students at risk. The purpose of this study was to examine the use of a computer-adaptive test and latent class growth analysis (LCGA) to identify students at risk in reading with focus on the use of this methodology to characterize student performance in screening. Participants included 3,699 students in Grades 3–5. Three time points of administration (fall, winter, and spring) of the computer-adaptive reading measure were selected. LCGA results indicated 6–7 classes, depending on grade, informed by level and growth in student performance that significantly predicted failure on the statewide test administered at the end of the year. The lowest-performing classes had failure rates above 90% across all grades. The results indicate that identifying homogeneous groups of learners through LCGA may be valuable as an approach to determining students who need additional instruction. Practical implications and future directions are discussed.     

EmoFinder: The meeting point for Spanish emotional words

We present here emoFinder (http://usc.es/pcc/emofinder), a Web-based search engine for Spanish word properties taken from different normative databases. The tool incorporates several subjective word properties for 16,375 distinct words. Although it focuses particularly on normative ratings for emotional dimensions (e.g., valence and arousal) and discrete emotional categories (fear, disgust, anger, happiness, and sadness), it also makes available ratings for other word properties that are known to affect word processing (e.g., concreteness, familiarity, contextual availability, and age of acquisition). The tool provides two main functionalities: Users can search for words matched on specific criteria with regard to the selected properties, or users can obtain the properties for a set of words. The output from emoFinder is highly customizable and can be accessed online or exported to a computer. The tool architecture is easily scalable, so that it can be updated to include word properties from new Spanish normative databases as they become available.     

The face-specific proportion congruency effect: social stimuli as contextual cues

Previous research shows that larger interference is observed in contexts associated with a high proportion of congruent trials than in those associated with a low proportion of congruent trials. Given that one of the most relevant contexts for human beings is social context, researchers have recently explored the possibility that social stimuli could also work as contextual cues for the allocation of attentional control. In fact, it has been shown that individuals use social categories (i.e., men and women) as cues to allocate attentional control. In this work, we go further by showing that individual faces (instead of the social categories they belong to) associated with a high proportion of congruent trials can also lead to larger interference effects compared to individual faces predicting a relatively low proportion of congruent trials. Furthermore, we show that faces associated with a high proportion of congruent trials are more positively evaluated than faces associated with a high proportion of incongruent trials. These results demonstrate that unique human faces are potential contextual cues than can be employed to apply cognitive control when performing an automatic task.     

The ethics of return migration and education: transnational duties in migratory processes

ABSTRACT

This paper argues that most prominent normative theories on immigration neglect a critical dimension of the migratory phenomenon, a neglect that blinds them to important rights that, under some circumstances, immigrants ought to have as a matter of justice. Specifically, the paper argues that these theories fail to appreciate that the children of immigrant families, regardless of whether they were born in their parents’ country or in the host country, should benefit from educational rights addressing needs that are particular to their situation. These children may be forced to move between these two countries. This situation generates an obligation for both states (‘receiving’ and ‘sending’) to act jointly to provide educational opportunities so that these children are fully conversant with both cultures and in both languages. Put succinctly, then, we argue that since children of immigrant families lack any certainty of permanent residence in the host society owing to the threat of deportation and the precarity of their legal status, host and home societies bear the duty to offer an education that allows them to be functional in both societies.     

Paraconsistent and Paracomplete Logics Based on k-Cyclic Modal Pseudocomplemented De Morgan Algebras

Studia Logica - The study of the theory of operators over modal pseudocomplemented De Morgan algebras was begun in papers [20] and [21]. In this paper, we introduce and study the class of modal...     

Predictors of picture naming speed.

We report the results of a large-scale picture naming experiment in which we evaluated the potential contribution of nine theoretically relevant factors to naming latencies. The experiment included a large number of items and a large sample of participants. In order to make this experiment as similar as possible to classic picture naming experiments, participants were familiarized with the materials during a training session. Speeded naming latencies were determined by a software key on the basis of the digital recording of the responses. The effects of various variables on these latencies were assessed with multiple regression techniques, using a repeated measures design. The interpretation of the observed effects is discussed in relation to previous studies and current views on lexical access during speech production.