“To Name or Not to Name: That is the Question”: The Role of Response Inhibition in Reading

Reading is a complex process that includes the integration of information about letters (graphemes) and sounds (phonemes). In many circumstances, such as noisy environments, response inhibition is an additional factor that plays a marked role in successful oral reading. Response inhibition can take the form of task relevant inhibition (i.e., foils in a go/no-go task) and task irrelevant inhibition (i.e., distractor information). Here we investigated task relevant inhibition by having participants (N?=?30) take part in two tasks: go/no-go naming with nonwords foils (GNG-NW) and go/no-go naming with pseudohomophones foils (GNG-PH). Also, we investigated the addition of task irrelevant inhibition by having participants (N?=?28) take part in two tasks: GNG-NW?+?information masking and GNG-PH?+?information masking. We provide evidence that during a task relevant inhibition task, sub-word sound level information can be successfully inhibited, as evidenced by comparable response times for regular words and exception words, provided the foils do not contain familiar sound-based information (GNG-NW). In contrast, regular words were read aloud faster than exception words in a GNG-PH task, indicating that sub-word level interference occurs when the foils contain familiar sound-based information. The addition of task irrelevant inhibition (i.e., information masking at the phoneme level), served to increase response time overall, but did not impact the pattern of response times between regular words and exception words. Together these findings provide useful information regarding the role of response inhibition in word recognition and may be useful in computational models of word recognition and future work may benefit from accounting for the effects outlined in this paper.     

Changes Over Time in the Comprehension of <Emphasis Type="Italic">He</Emphasis> and <Emphasis Type="Italic">They</Emphasis> as Epicene Pronouns

An epicene pronoun is a gender-neutral singular pronoun used in sentences when the gender of the subject is unknown or unspecified. In English, he and they are commonly-used epicene pronouns. Until recently, he has been widely accepted as being grammatically correct. However, many have argued that he is sexist because it may bias people to think about males. Two experiments were performed using a lexical decision task in which participants reacted to gendered words (e.g., aunt and uncle) after reading sentences using he, they, or unrelated epicene pronouns. We conducted the experiments 15 years apart in order to explore whether change in pronoun usage and the social significance of pronouns would be associated with different priming effects. Both experiments demonstrated that pronouns influence the processing of gendered nouns. However, in Experiment 1 they facilitated the processing of feminine nouns whereas in Experiment 2, he slowed the processing of feminine nouns. We discuss these results with respect to language change and conclude that they is a more effective epicene.     

Would disfluency by any other name still be disfluent? Examining the disfluency effect with cursive handwriting

When exposed to words presented under perceptually disfluent conditions (e.g., words written in Haettenschweiler font), participants have difficulty initially recognizing the words. Those same words, though, may be better remembered later than words presented in standard type font. This counterintuitive finding is referred to as the disfluency effect. Evidence for this disfluency effect, however, has been mixed, suggesting possible moderating factors. Using a recognition memory task, level of disfluency was examined as a moderating factor across three experiments using a novel cursive manipulation that varied on degree of legibility (easy-to-read cursive vs. hard-to-read cursive). In addition, list type and retention interval between study and test were manipulated. Across all three experiments, cursive words engendered better memory than type-print words. This memory effect persisted across varied list designs (blocked vs. mixed) and a longer (24-hour) retention interval. A small-scale meta-analysis across the three experiments suggested that the cursive disfluency effect is moderated by level of disfluency: easy-to-read cursive words tended to be better remembered than hard-to-read cursive words. Taken together, these results challenge extant accounts of the disfluency effect. The theoretical and practical implications of these findings are discussed.     

The Effect of Bilingualism and Trilingualism on Metacognitive Processing: Detrimental or Beneficial?

Research in multilingualism has shown that bilinguals have enhanced executive function (e.g., Donnelly et al. in Proceedings of the 37th annual conference of the cognitive science society 2015; Green in Bilingualism Lang Cognit 1(02):67–81, 1998.  https://doi.org/10.1017/S1366728998000133); however, this with many other areas in multilingualism have been questioned like their non-verbal reasoning or their metacognitive ability. This study attempts to explore learning more than one languages in the field of metacognitive abilities. Three groups of monolinguals, bilinguals, and trilinguals were explored to examine the effect of language learning on enhancing or weakening accuracy and response time in metacognitive processing. Conducting dot discrimination task, we found that multilingualism might have some advantages in this field. As cognition and metacognitive abilities demonstrated no positive correlation in this study, we might conclude that executive functioning can not bring about higher order functioning for the individuals. Nevertheless, monolinguals did the task in the least period of time with the least accuracy. Trilinguals, on the contrary, could respond more accurately with an average speed. Accuracy, difficulty, and response time choice in metacognitive processing were discussed for each group. It is concluded that multilingualism might have different effects on higher-order decision making abilities.     

Resurrecting the Empathy–Bullying Relationship with a Pro-Bullying Attitudes Mediator: the Lazarus Effect in Mediation Research

The purpose of this study was to determine whether pro-bullying attitudes are capable of mediating the low empathy–bullying relationship in the absence of a significant unmediated correlation between low empathy and bullying behavior. Using three waves of self-report data from 1371 (677 boys, 694 girls) pre-adolescent/early adolescent members of the Illinois Study of Bullying and Sexual Violence (ISBSV), the mediating effect of pro-bullying attitudes on the low empathy–bullying connection was examined. A path analysis revealed that pro-bullying attitudes successfully mediated the pathway running from low empathy to bully perpetration even though the unmediated relationship between low empathy and bullying perpetration was non-significant. A control or comparison pathway running from bully perpetration to pro-bullying attitudes to low empathy was also tested and found to be non-significant. It would appear that low empathy contributes to bullying perpetration by stimulating pro-bullying attitudes which, in turn, promote bullying perpetration. The theoretical, research, and practical implications of these results are discussed.     

Longitudinal Associations between Oppositional Defiant Symptoms and Interpersonal Relationships among Chinese Children

Children with oppositional defiant disorder (ODD) are at increased risk for developing poor relationships with people around them, but the longitudinal links between ODD symptoms and subsequent interpersonal functioning remain unclear. In the current study, we examined the bidirectional associations between ODD symptoms and children’s relationships with parents, peers, and teachers. We included separate analyses for parent vs. teacher reports of ODD symptoms, with regard to subsequent interpersonal relationships. Participants included 256 children with ODD, recruited in China, along with their parents and teachers, assessed at three time points roughly two years apart. Parents and teachers reported child ODD symptoms at each time point, and children reported their perceptions of father– and mother–child attachment, peer relationships, and teacher–student relationships across the three time points. ODD symptoms reported either by parents or teachers predicted impairments in interpersonal functioning. Meanwhile, child interpersonal impairments with peers and teachers predicted subsequent increase in teacher-reported ODD symptoms. These findings highlight the importance of transactional models of influence—and of considering early intervention for ODD in protecting children from developing further deficits and impairments. Additionally, we discuss the perspectives of multiple informants on ODD symptoms, including their different patterns of association with subsequent interpersonal relationships.     

Eight-Year Latent Class Trajectories of Academic and Social Functioning in Children with Attention-Deficit/Hyperactivity Disorder

We examined trajectories of academic and social functioning in children with attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) to identify those who might be at risk for especially severe levels of academic and social impairment over time. We estimated a series of growth mixture models using data from two subsamples of children participating in the NIMH Collaborative Multisite Multimodal Treatment Study of Children with ADHD (MTA) including those with at least baseline and 96-month data for reading and mathematics achievement (n = 392; 77.3% male; M age = 7.7; SD = 0.8) or social skills ratings from teachers (n = 259; 74.9% male; M age = 7.6; SD = 0.8). We compared latent trajectories for children with ADHD to mean observed trajectories obtained from a local normative (i.e., non-ADHD) comparison group (n = 289; 80.6% male; M age = 9.9; SD = 1.1). Results indicated six latent trajectory classes for reading and mathematics and four classes for teacher social skills ratings. There was not only a relationship between trajectories of inattention symptoms and academic impairment, but also a similarly strong association between trajectory classes of hyperactive-impulsive symptoms and achievement. Trajectory class membership correlated with socio-demographic and diagnostic characteristics, inattention and hyperactive-impulsive symptom trajectories, externalizing behavior in school, and treatment receipt and dosage. Although children with ADHD display substantial heterogeneity in their reading, math, and social skills growth trajectories, those with behavioral and socio-demographic disadvantages are especially likely to display severe levels of academic and social impairment over time. Evidence-based early screening and intervention that directly address academic and social impairments in elementary school-aged children with ADHD are warranted. The ClinicalTrials.gov identifier is NCT00000388.     

探索语言水平测验的认知诊断改造和深度分析： 以广州市英语学业考试为例

本研究探索在通用认知诊断模型和相关检验方法的基础上对现有语言水平测验进行诊断改造和分析,分三步进行探索：1）探索对语言水平测试不同的属性和Q矩阵构建途径;2）探索对语言水平测试基于通用模型的建模和效度验证;3）探索对语言水平测试建模后续的深入分析。研究发现：属性分布和总分分布划分的学生水平一致性较高;学生对属性掌握存在性别差异且属性间的难易层级不同;属性模式分布进一步验证了语言属性间关联程度较高以及通用认知诊断模型和相关检验方法对语言测验的适用性。三步式的建模分析可作为对语言水平测验进行认知诊断改造的参考。     

The Psychology of Material Well-Being

Material well-being is defined in terms of satisfaction with a range economic concerns such as government’s handling of the economy, taxes, the cost of basic necessities, household income, pay and fringe benefits from one’s job, financial security, standard of living, and agreement within the family regarding how money should be spent. Much evidence is available demonstrating the substantial effect of material well-being on a variety of measures of subjective well-being. The literature review uncovered a host of antecedents or predictors of material well-being. These antecedents involve two sets of constructs, namely personal factors and contextual factors. Personal factors include socio-demographics (age, gender, education, income, marital status, family structure, etc.); personality traits (self-esteem, etc.) and personality dynamics (compensation, top-down spillover, etc.); needs and need satisfaction (how wealth serve to satisfy different needs), beliefs and mental associations (images of wealthy people); goals and aspirations (income goals and goal attainment); skills, behavior, and resources (financial capability, financial behavior, and lack of financial resources); and values (materialism), lifestyle (consumption), and habits (compulsive consumption). Contextual factors include social comparison (how evaluations of standard of living are influenced by social comparisons), adaptation (how income expectations are adapted by changing circumstances), and changes in the macro economic environment (changes in the rate of unemployment, inflation, economic growth, etc.).