Bootstrapping word order in prelexical infants: a Japanese-Italian cross-linguistic study

Learning word order is one of the earliest feats infants accomplish during language acquisition [Brown, R. (1973). A first language: The early stages, Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.]. Two theories have been proposed to account for this fact. Constructivist/lexicalist theories [Tomasello, M. (2000). Do young children have adult syntactic competence? Cognition, 74(3), 209-253.] argue that word order is learned separately for each lexical item or construction. Generativist theories [Chomsky, N. (1995). The Minimalist Program. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press.], on the other hand, claim that word order is an abstract and general property, determined from the input independently of individual words. Here, we show that eight-month-old Japanese and Italian infants have opposite order preferences in an artificial grammar experiment, mirroring the opposite word orders of their respective native languages. This suggests that infants possess some representation of word order prelexically, arguing for the generativist view. We propose a frequency-based bootstrapping mechanism to account for our results, arguing that infants might build this representation by tracking the order of functors and content words, identified through their different frequency distributions. We investigate frequency and word order patterns in infant-directed Japanese and Italian corpora to support this claim.     

Rotating item banks versus restriction of maximum exposure rates in computerized adaptive testing

If examinees were to know, beforehand, part of the content of a computerized adaptive test, their estimated trait levels would then have a marked positive bias. One of the strategies to avoid this consists of dividing a large item bank into several sub-banks and rotating the sub-bank employed (Ariel, Veldkamp & van der Linden, 2004). This strategy permits substantial improvements in exposure control at little cost to measurement accuracy, However, we do not know whether this option provides better results than using the master bank with greater restriction in the maximum exposure rates (Sympson & Hetter, 1985). In order to investigate this issue, we worked with several simulated banks of 2100 items, comparing them, for RMSE and overlap rate, with the same banks divided in two, three... up to seven sub-banks. By means of extensive manipulation of the maximum exposure rate in each bank, we found that the option of rotating banks slightly outperformed the option of restricting maximum exposure rate of the master bank by means of the Sympson-Hetter method.     

Multiculturalism and acculturation: views of Dutch and Turkish–Dutch

The psychological component of immigration in the Netherlands was studied by comparing views on multiculturalism and acculturation orientation of Turkish migrants between Dutch majority (N=1565) and Turkish–Dutch minority (N=185) members. Multiculturalism was measured with an adaptation of the Multicultural Ideology Scale (Berry & Kalin, 1995); acculturation orientation was investigated in different domains of life. The results revealed that Dutch on average had a neutral attitude towards multiculturalism in the Netherlands while Turkish–Dutch showed a more positive attitude. Regarding the acculturation strategies, Dutch adults preferred assimilation above integration of Turkish migrants in all life domains. Turkish–Dutch adults made a distinction in public and private domains: integration was preferred in public domains, and separation in private domains. In public domains both cultural groups agreed that Turkish migrants should adapt to the Dutch culture. In private domains there was no agreement at all in the views of Dutch and Turkish–Dutch. These results suggest that the views on acculturation and multiculturalism differ substantially for majority and minority group members. Implications are discussed. Copyright © 2002 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Does Time Fly 20 m above the Ground? Exploring the Role of Affective Response on Time Perception in a High‐risk Sport

A field study (n = 61) was performed in a Via Ferrata to explore how affective response influences time perception during an arousing activity in a real‐life setting (passing through a 69‐m‐long, 20‐m‐high, two‐rope bridge). Two questionnaires were administered (i) at the end point of the bridge (high‐arousing condition) and (ii) close to the end of the Via Ferrata (low‐arousing condition). Participants assessed their affect (arousal, valence, and dominance) and provided retrospective (duration estimation and passage of time judgments) and prospective (to produce a subjective minute using a stopwatch) temporal judgments. The results showed that the actual performance mediated the relationship between affect and retrospective time perception measures, with the exception of dominance, which directly predicted passage of time judgments. Regarding prospective measures, an increase in arousal was parallel to shorter temporal productions. The results are discussed in terms of the emotional factors underlying time perception in ecological contexts.Copyright © 2017 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Varying the valuating function and the presentable bank in computerized adaptive testing

In computerized adaptive testing, the most commonly used valuating function is the Fisher information function. When the goal is to keep item bank security at a maximum, the valuating function that seems most convenient is the matching criterion, valuating the distance between the estimated trait level and the point where the maximum of the information function is located. Recently, it has been proposed not to keep the same valuating function constant for all the items in the test. In this study we expand the idea of combining the matching criterion with the Fisher information function. We also manipulate the number of strata into which the bank is divided. We find that the manipulation of the number of items administered with each function makes it possible to move from the pole of high accuracy and low security to the opposite pole. It is possible to greatly improve item bank security with much fewer losses in accuracy by selecting several items with the matching criterion. In general, it seems more appropriate not to stratify the bank.     

eCAT-Listening: design and psychometric properties of a computerized adaptive test on English Listening

In this study, eCAT-Listening, a new computerized adaptive test for the evaluation of English Listening, is described. Item bank development, anchor design for data collection, and the study of the psychometric properties of the item bank and the adaptive test are described. The calibration sample comprised 1.576 participants. Good psychometric guarantees: the bank is unidimensional, the items are satisfactorily fitted to the 3-parameter logistic model, and an accurate estimation of the trait level is obtained. As validity evidence, a high correlation was obtained between the estimated trait level and a latent factor made up of the diverse criteria selected. The analysis of the trait level estimation by means of a simulation led us to fix the test length at 20 items, with a maximum exposure rate of .40.     

Hormonal changes after competition predict sex‐differentiated decision‐making

Recent neuroendocrinology research has pointed out that testosterone (T) and cortisol (C) changes after social interactions can predict risk‐taking behavior in decision‐making, depending on the sex of participants. However, previous research has focused on the effects of the changes in only one hormone, rather than the interaction between them, even though C can suppress T activity. Our aim was to test, in men and women, the role of T changes moderated by C changes after competition in decision‐making. Thus, 48 males and 46 females completed the Iowa Gambling Task (IGT) after a laboratory competition or a noncompetitive task (control task). Saliva samples were collected before and after the competition/control task. IGT was employed to measure risk‐taking decision‐making, considering the degree of uncertainty. Our results showed sex‐differentiated effects of T and C changes on risk‐taking behavior. On the one hand, men from both task groups (Competition/Control) who had higher C and T changes after competition showed more risk‐taking decision‐making (higher IG Risk). On the other hand, women from the competitive task who had high C and T showed conservative decision‐making. Therefore, these results show sex‐differentiated decision‐making profiles, which would help to understand how men and women behave after experiencing a competitive social context.     

Transfer of control between causal predictive judgments and instrumental responding

Four experiments were conducted to explore outcome-specific transfer from causal predictive judgments to instrumental responding. A video game was designed in which participants had to defend Andalusia from navy and air force attacks. First, they learned the relationship between two instrumental responses (two key on a standard keyboard) and two different outcomes (destruction of the ships or destruction of the planes). Then they learned to predict which of two different stimuli predicted which outcome. Finally, they had the opportunity of making either of the two instrumental responses in the presence of either stimulus. Transfer was shown as a preference for the response that shared an outcome with the current stimulus. The presentation of the stimulus during the test produced a decrease in the overall rate of response. Responding to a neutral stimulus in Experiments 2 and 3 suggested that this overall decrease in responding was due to a combination of the time needed to process the meaning of the stimulus and the activation of the representation of the outcome in the presence of the stimulus during the test. Transfer between predictive judgments and instrumental responding mirrors the outcome-specific Pavlovian instrumental transfer observed in conditioning studies with rats.     

The (lack of) effect of dynamic visual noise on the concreteness effect in short-term memory

It has been suggested that the concreteness effect in short-term memory (STM) is a consequence of concrete words having more distinctive and richer semantic representations. The generation and storage of visual codes in STM could also play a crucial role on the effect because concrete words are more imaginable than abstract words. If this were the case, the introduction of a visual interference task would be expected to disrupt recall of concrete words. A Dynamic Visual Noise (DVN) display, which has been proven to eliminate the concreteness effect on long-term memory (LTM), was presented along encoding of concrete and abstract words in a STM serial recall task. Results showed a main effect of word type, with more item errors in abstract words, a main effect of DVN, which impaired global performance due to more order errors, but no interaction, suggesting that DVN did not have any impact on the concreteness effect. These findings are discussed in terms of LTM participation through redintegration processes and in terms of the language-based models of verbal STM.