The hyphen as a segmentation cue in triconstituent compound processing: it's getting better all the time

Bertram, R., Kuperman, V., Baayen, R. H. & Hyönä, J. (2011). The hyphen as a segmentation cue in triconstituent compound processing: It’s getting better all the time. Scandinavian Journal of Psychology 52, 530–544. Inserting a hyphen in Dutch and Finnish compounds is most often illegal given spelling conventions. However, the current two eye movement experiments on triconstituent Dutch compounds like voetbalbond“footballassociation” (Experiment 1) and triconstituent Finnish compounds like lentokenttätaksi“airporttaxi” (Experiment 2) show that inserting a hyphen at constituent boundaries does not have to be detrimental to compound processing. In fact, when hyphens were inserted at the major constituent boundary (voetbal‐bond“football‐association”; lentokenttä‐taksi“airport‐taxi”), processing of the first part (voetbal“football”; lentokenttä“airport”) turns out to be faster when it is followed by a hyphen than when it is legally concatenated. Inserting a hyphen caused a delay in later eye movement measures, which is probably due to the illegality of inserting hyphens in normally concatenated compounds. However, in both Dutch and Finnish we found a learning effect in the course of the experiment, such that by the end of the experiments hyphenated compounds are read faster than in the beginning of the experiment. By the end of the experiment, compounds with a hyphen at the major constituent boundary were actually processed equally fast as (Dutch) or even faster than (Finnish) their concatenated counterparts. In contrast, hyphenation at the minor constituent boundary (voet‐balbond“foot‐ballassociation”; lento‐kenttätaksi“air‐porttaxi”) was detrimental to compound processing speed throughout the experiment. The results imply that the hyphen may be an efficient segmentation cue and that spelling illegalities can be overcome easily, as long as they make sense.     

Maternal and infant characteristics connected to shared pleasure in dyadic interaction

The aim of the study was to analyze which maternal factors (depressive symptoms, effect of life events, maternal sensitivity and structuring) and infant characteristics (temperament, social withdrawal symptoms, interactive behavior, genotype, gender) contribute to shared pleasure (SP) in parent–infant interaction. Participants were 113 mother–infant dyads. The mothers filled in the Edinburgh Postnatal Depression Scale, the Infant Behavior Questionnaire, and the Life Events Questionnaire. The dyads were videotaped in a free-play situation, and the videos were analyzed using the Alarm Distress Baby Scale and the Emotional Availability Scales. The infants were genotyped for four genes involved in emotion regulation. The occurrence and duration of SP (SP-MD) in mother–infant interactions were analyzed from the videotapes. Higher maternal sensitivity and depressive symptoms, better infant responsiveness, and the infant having the GG variant of the gene tryptophan hydroxylase isoform 2 (TPH2) -307 were associated with the occurrence of SP. Lower level depressive symptoms, better maternal structuring, and greater infant involvement were associated with the longer duration of SP. Those dyads where the mother and infant were best able to read each other's positive cues and to respond to them were more likely to experience mutual positive affect, as seen in SP.     

Narrative process modes as a bridging concept for the theory, research and clinical practice of systemic therapy

This article is concerned with the relationships which hold between the clinical practice and the theory of family therapy; and between these and academic research. These relationships are seen as tenuous and thin because, in the first place, there is a lack of rigorous theoretical underpinning; and second, the research methods employed do not fit in with current family therapy practice, and with the theory that underlies this practice. The role of the concept of narrative process modes is proposed as a bridging and mediating one. The external, internal and reflective narrative process modes are seen as relevant from the point of view of family therapy process research, and the clinical practice of marital and family therapy.     

Facilitatory and inhibitory effects of grammatical agreement: evidence from readers' eye fixation patterns

The study examined how grammatical agreement affects reading in Finnish. Readers' eye fixation patterns were recorded when they read one of three alternative versions of the same sentences, where the critical difference was the type of preceding word of the target nouns. The preceding word was (a) an agreeing modifier (mainioksi orkesteriksi='for an excellent orchestra'), (b) a non-agreeing modifier that was grammatical, unambiguous and synonymous to the agreeing modifier (kelpo orkesteriksi='for an excellent orchestra'), or (c) a baseline condition without a modifier (orkesteriksi='for an orchestra'). Two different types of agreement were used, a modifier-head agreement and a possessive agreement. The results showed that the agreeing modifiers facilitate and the non-agreeing modifiers inhibit the reading of the target nouns compared to the neutral baseline condition. These effects appeared in the second-pass reading. The pattern was similar between the two agreement structures.     

Spatial integration in Glass patterns

The extraction of a global orientation structure presumably has a different neural mechanism from that of the analysis of its local features. We investigated spatial integration within these two mechanisms using stimulus patterns composed of dot pairs (dipoles). The stimuli targeted local feature detection, contained no global configuration, but rather contained randomly oriented dipoles of a fixed length (the distance between the dots in a pair). For the detection of a global orientation structure, local dipole orientations were arranged in a concentric Glass pattern. Thresholds as a function of a stimulus area were determined by measuring the minimum proportion of dipoles among random-dot noise (signal-to-noise ratio) required for the detection of dipoles (features), as well as for the detection of an orientation structure. Thresholds for feature detection were significantly higher than those for the detection of the global structure--regardless of the stimulus size. Spatial integration, however, did not differ between the two tasks: the exponents of the power functions fitted to data for six observers were -0.48 +/- 0.07 for random dipole orientations and -0.62 +/- 0.1 for Glass patterns.     

The Role of Psychological Characteristics in the Relation Between Socioeconomic Status and Perceived Health1

Separate analyses of United States and Finnish samples demonstrate a graded (almost linear) relation between socioeconomic status (SES) and risk of poor perceived health. In both studies, positive psychological factors (greater social support; less anger, depression, and perceived stress) and beneficial health practices (nonsmoking; drinking and exercising moderately) were associated with both higher levels of SES and better self-reported health. Psychological and health practice variables were both able to account for some of the SES and poor health gradient. However, contrary to expectations, these factors did not play a more important role in explaining decreased risk at the middle and highest levels of SES, and instead may be most important at lowest levels.     

Narrative Understanding in Acute Psychosis

Hermeneutical premises are adequate in understanding the psychotic patient. It is more important to hear and try to understand the patient's story told by the latter as an equal partner in conversation than understand events through stories in which the meanings are already determined. Understanding is dependent on the unique way in which the feelings, thoughts, and actions of the patient are connected with those of the ward staff, i.e., mutual knowledge. In this way understanding conforms to the preunderstanding of the interpreter as well as adequately captures the intentions of its originator. These are the preconditions for the integration of the need-adapted approach to the treatment of schizophrenia.     

Mental Illness,Natural Death,and Non-Voluntary Passive Euthanasia

When it is considered to be in their best interests, withholding and withdrawing life-supporting treatment from non-competent physically ill or injured patients – non-voluntary passive euthanasia, as it has been called – is generally accepted. A central reason in support of the procedures relates to the perceived manner of death they involve: in non-voluntary passive euthanasia death is seen to come about naturally. When a non-competent psychiatric patient attempts to kill herself, the mental health care providers treating her are obligated to try to stop her. Yet it has been suggested that death by suicide can be a part of the natural course of a severe mental illness. Accordingly, if the perceived naturalness of the deaths occurring in connection with non-voluntary passive euthanasia speaks for their moral permissibility, it could be taken that a similar reason can support the moral acceptability of the suicidal deaths of non-competent psychiatric patients. In this article, I consider whether the suicidal death of a non-competent psychiatric patient would necessarily be less natural than those of physically ill or injured patients who die as a result of non-voluntary passive euthanasia. I argue that it would not.     

Psychometric properties of the screen for child anxiety related emotional disorders (SCARED) among elementary school children in Finland

Anxiety disorders are the most common mental disorders in children and youth. Effective screening methods are needed to identify children in need of treatment. The Screen for Child Anxiety Related Emotional Disorders (SCARED) questionnaire is a widely used tool to assess childhood anxiety. We aim toevaluate the psychometric properties of the SCARED questionnaire, test the SCARED factor structure, and evaluate the prevalence of anxiety symptoms in a community sample of Finnish elementary school children, based on both a child and parent report. The sample included all pupils (n = 1,165) in grades 2 through 6 (ages 8–13) in four elementary schools in the city of Turku, Finland. Children completed a Finnish translation of the SCARED questionnaire at school, with one parent report questionnaire per child completed at home. In total, 663 child‐parent dyads (56.9%) completed the questionnaire. Internal consistency was high for both child and parent reports on all subscales (0.71–0.92), except for school avoidance (0.57 child, 0.63 parent report). Inter‐rater reliability ranged from poor to fair across subscales (intraclass correlation 0.27–0.47). Self‐reported anxiety scores were higher than the parent reported scores. Females had significantly higher total scores than males based on the child reports (p = 0.003), but not the parent reports. In the confirmatory factor analysis, hypothesized models did not have a good fit with the data, and modification was needed. The Finnish SCARED questionnaire has good internal consistency. Low child‐parent agreement calls for the importance of including both child and parental reports in the assessment of anxiety symptoms.