Communicating headings and preview sentences in text and speech

Two experiments tested the effects of preview sentences and headings on the quality of college students' outlines of informational texts. Experiment 1 found that performance was much better in the preview sentences condition than in a no-signals condition for both printed text and text-to-speech (TTS) audio rendering of the printed text. In contrast, performance in the headings condition was good for the printed text but poor for the auditory presentation because the TTS software failed to communicate nonverbal information carried by the visual headings. Experiment 2 compared outlining performance for five headings conditions during TTS presentation. Using a theoretical framework, "signaling available, relevant, accessible" (SARA) information, to provide an analysis of the information content of headings in the printed text, the manipulation of the headings systematically restored information that was omitted by the TTS application in Experiment 1. The result was that outlining performance improved to levels similar to the visual headings condition of Experiment 1. It is argued that SARA is a useful framework for guiding future development of TTS software for a wide variety of text signaling devices, not just headings. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2012 APA, all rights reserved).     

The importance of mutual positive expressivity in social adjustment: understanding the role of peers and gender

The relations between young children's mutual (reciprocated) and overall positive emotion (PE) with same- and other-gender peers and their social adjustment were explored. Children's PE and peers' PE were observed across the preschool year during peer interactions (N = 166; 46% girls; M age = 52 months). Results revealed that girls and boys had similar frequencies of overall PE and mutual PE when interacting with same-gender peers, but girls were marginally higher compared with boys in overall and mutual PE when interacting with other-gender peers. Girls and boys did not have greater rates of either type of PE after controlling for gender segregation during same- or other-gender interactions. Using structural equation modeling, children's mutual PE, regardless of their gender, positively predicted indicators of positive adjustment (e.g., prosocial behavior, cooperation) and negatively predicted indicators of negative adjustment (e.g., hyperactivity, disruption, exclusion by peers). Children's overall PE did not predict either type of adjustment. Findings support the importance of mutual PE for children's development.     

The neural bases of distracter-resistant working memory

A major difference between humans and other animals is our capacity to maintain information in working memory (WM) while performing secondary tasks, which enables sustained, complex cognition. A common assumption is that the lateral prefrontal cortex (PFC) is critical for WM performance in the presence of distracters, but direct evidence is scarce. We assessed the relationship between fMRI activity and WM performance within subjects, with performance matched across distracter and no-distracter conditions. Activity in the ventrolateral PFC during WM encoding and maintenance positively predicted performance in both conditions, whereas activity in the presupplementary motor area (pre-SMA) predicted performance only under distraction. Other parts of the dorsolateral and ventrolateral PFCs predicted performance only in the no-distracter condition. These findings challenge a lateral-PFC-centered view of distracter resistance, and suggest that the lateral PFC supports a type of WM representation that is efficient for dealing with task-irrelevant input but is, nonetheless, easily disrupted by dual-task demands.     

Youth and the sociability of “Vaping”

This article examines the contemporary and evolving social ritual of vaping (also known as the use and consumption of e‐cigarettes). This novel research finds a typology of users in a heterogeneous youth market and shows how the introduction of this new practice challenges existing ritual boundaries. Previous research has focused on the de‐marketing of tobacco and smoking cessation. Here, virtuous, dynamic, vulnerable, and invisible vapers are identified with each demonstrating differing levels of emotional engagement and characteristics of vaping behaviors. Utilizing Collins' theory of interaction rituals as a lens, this qualitative study explores the sociability of vaping practices to gain a deeper understanding of the enduring appeal of vaping and the subsequent consequences for youth “smoking” behaviors. While some vapers advocate the health benefits of this relatively new practice, the use of e‐cigarettes is also used as a form of resistance as well as mechanism for misbehavior. Copyright © 2016 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Insomnia Complaint Versus Sleep Diary Parameters: Predictions of Suicidal Ideation

The purpose of this study was to determine which aspects of insomnia best predict suicidal ideation (SI). Participants were grouped according to whether they complained of insomnia and whether their sleep would be characterized as poor or good by applying quantitative criteria for insomnia to their sleep diary data. Analyses revealed that insomnia complaint was more strongly associated with SI than was poor sleep. These findings suggest that patients who complain of insomnia, regardless of the presence or absence of poor sleep, may be at greater risk for suicide than those who are content with their sleep.     

Response Mode Effects and Moral Values

In five studies, we measured the extent to which subjects weight moral product attributes in different response modes. We found that nonprice judgments such as likelihood of purchase ratings were more reflective of expressed moral attitudes than were pricing responses, and that holistic price evaluations were especially unlikely to reflect moral considerations. Post-task ratings confirmed the preference results, as did an experiment controlling for the influence of task goals. Our results have implications for compatibility theories of preference elicitation, the predictability of respondent ratings of attribute unacceptability, and the measurement of utilities for morally charged attributes.     

Contributions of response set and semantic relatedness to cross-modal Stroop-like picture-word interference in children and adults

Resistance to interference from irrelevant auditory stimuli undergoes development throughout childhood. To test whether semantic processes account for age-related changes in a Stroop-like picture-word interference effect, children (3- to 12-year-olds) and adults named pictures while listening to words varying in terms of semantic relatedness to the pictures and response set membership. In Experiments 1 and 2, with animal and clothing pictures, the interference effect observed in children, but not in adults, depended on the distractors' status as members of the response set. In Experiment 3, with unrelated pictures, adults, but not children, showed greater interference for trials with distractors in the response set. These results indicate developmental changes in picture-word interference involving the establishment of a response set in working memory.