Is this a dax which I see before me? Use of the logical argument disjunctive syllogism supports word-learning in children and adults

Many authors have argued that word-learning constraints help guide a word-learner's hypotheses as to the meaning of a newly heard word. One such class of constraints derives from the observation that word-learners of all ages prefer to map novel labels to novel objects in situations of referential ambiguity. In this paper I use eye-tracking to document the mental computations that support this word-learning strategy. Adults and preschoolers saw images of known and novel objects, and were asked to find the referent of known and novel labels. Experiment 1 shows that adults systematically reject a known distractor (e.g. brush) before mapping a novel label (e.g. "dax") to a novel object. This is consistent with the proposal that participants worked through a Disjunctive Syllogism (i.e. Process-of-Elimination) to motivate the mapping of the novel label to the novel object. Experiment 2 shows that processing is similar for adults performing an implicit Disjunctive Syllogism (e.g. "the winner is the dax") and an explicit Disjunctive Syllogism (e.g. "the winner is not the iron"). Experiment 3 reveals that similar processes govern preschoolers' mapping of novel labels. Taken together, these results suggest that word-learners use Disjunctive Syllogism to motivate the mapping of novel labels to novel objects.     

A meta-analytic investigation of conscientiousness in the prediction of job performance: examining the intercorrelations and the incremental validity of narrow traits

Researchers of broad and narrow traits have debated whether narrow traits are important to consider in the prediction of job performance. Because personality-performance relationship meta-analyses have focused almost exclusively on the Big Five, the predictive power of narrow traits has not been adequately examined. In this study, the authors address this question by meta-analytically examining the degree to which the narrow traits of conscientiousness predict above and beyond global conscientiousness. Results suggest that narrow traits do incrementally predict performance above and beyond global conscientiousness, yet the degree to which they contribute depends on the particular performance criterion and occupation in question. Overall, the results of this study suggest that there are benefits to considering the narrow traits of conscientiousness in the prediction of performance.     

Marginalized relationships: the impact of social disapproval on romantic relationship commitment

Little research has examined the effects of prejudice and discrimination on people's romantic relationships. The authors explored whether belonging to a socially devalued relationship affects consequential relational phenomena. Within the framework of the Investment Model, the authors (a) tested the association between perceived relationship marginalization and relationship commitment, (b) compared investment levels of individuals involved in marginalized versus nonmarginalized relationships, and (c) explored ways in which couples may compensate for decreased investments to maintain high commitment. Consistent with hypotheses, marginalization was a significant negative predictor of commitment. Moreover, individuals in marginalized relationships invested significantly less than individuals in nonmarginalized relationships. Despite investing less, marginalized relationship partners were significantly more committed than were their nonmarginalized counterparts. Thus, marginalized partners appeared to compensate for their reduced investments, with evidence suggesting that compensation occurs via reduced perception of relationship alternatives rather than via increased perception of relationship satisfaction.     

What to do on spring break? The role of predicted,on-line,and remembered experience in future choice

When individuals choose future activities on the basis of their past experiences, what guides those choices? The present study compared students' predicted, on-line, and remembered spring-break experiences, as well as the influence of these factors on students' desire to take a similar vacation in the future. Predicted and remembered experiences were both more positive-and, paradoxically, more negative-than on-line experiences. Of key importance, path analyses revealed that remembered experience, but neither on-line nor anticipated experience, directly predicted the desire to repeat the experience. These results suggest that although on-line measures may be superior to retrospective measures for approximating objective experience, retrospective measures may be superior for predicting choice.     

The BPQ: a scale for the assessment of borderline personality based on DSM-IV criteria

The aim of the study was to develop a self-report measure that assesses borderline personality traits as defined by DSM-IV criteria, including separate subscales for each criterion. A sample of normal subjects from community colleges in the midwestern region of the United States was used to develop the scale. The psychometric properties of the scale were examined using an additional United States sample and student samples from England and Australia. The scale was compared with existing measures of borderline and schizotypal personality. Evidence for the internal consistency and convergent and divergent validity of the new scale is presented. The results of several analyses of variance comparing males and females in the three national groups are reported. A Principal Components Analysis of the subscales suggested either a single factor or two correlated factors. Oblique rotation yielded a structure that distinguished identity/interpersonal and impulsivity borderline personality traits. It is concluded that the new scale provides a useful tool for clinicians and researchers interested in screening for borderline personality traits in both general and clinical populations. Suggestions for further research are indicated.     

Visual form-processing deficits in autism

People with autism have a number of reported deficits in object recognition and global processing. Is there a low-level spatial integration deficit associated with this? We measured spatial-form-coherence detection thresholds using a Glass stimulus in a field of random dots, and compared performance to a similar motion-coherence task. A coherent visual patch was depicted by dots separated by a rotational transformation in space (form) or space-time (motion). To measure parallel visual integration, stimuli were presented for only 250 ms. We compared detection thresholds for children with autism, children with Asperger syndrome, and a matched control group. Children with autism showed a significant form-coherence deficit and a significant motion-coherence deficit, while the performance of the children with Asperger syndrome did not differ significantly from that of controls on either task.     

With sadness comes accuracy; with happiness, false memory: mood and the false memory effect

The Deese-Roediger-McDermott paradigm lures people to produce false memories. Two experiments examined whether induced positive or negative moods would influence this false memory effect. The affect-as-information hypothesis predicts that, on the one hand, positive affective cues experienced as task-relevant feedback encourage relational processing during encoding, which should enhance false memory effects. On the other hand, negative affective cues are hypothesized to encourage item-specific processing at encoding, which should discourage such effects. The results of Experiment 1 are consistent with these predictions: Individuals in negative moods were significantly less likely to show false memory effects than those in positive moods or those whose mood was not manipulated. Experiment 2 introduced inclusion instructions to investigate whether moods had their effects at encoding or retrieval. The results replicated the false memory finding of Experiment 1 and provide evidence that moods influence the accessibility of lures at encoding, rather than influencing monitoring at retrieval of whether lures were actually presented.     

Attitudes toward abortion,religion, and party affiliation among college students

Public attitudes toward abortion have long been an issue in American political debates. Theoretical understanding of influences on abortion attitudes may assist researchers in determining contributors of the attribution. Accordingly, this study administered a 40-item abortion opinion survey to 396 college students at a Midwestern university to determine potential factors correlated with abortion attitudes. Several factors such as religious involvement, knowledge of someone who has an abortion, and one’s definition as to when life begins were correlated with abortion attitudes. Furthermore, Democrats reported stronger pro-choice views than Republicans did. Similarly, Liberals were more pro-choice oriented than Conservatives. Although causal relationships were not directly explored, theoretical explanations and support provide for a thorough understanding of potential factors of abortion attitude formation and a preliminary model. Future implications are also discussed.     

Cognition at risk: Gestalt/feature-intensive processing and cigarette smoking in college students

Although previous research has shown the importance of feature-intensive processing of relevant information in the staving off of addictive behaviors, the present study examined the possibility that a more global, gestalt rejection of cigarette smoking may be operating to reduce smoking behavior. The present study addressed this possibility through the use of a decision efficacy rating procedure, in which smoking and nonsmoking respondents were asked to determine whether an individual was justified in smoking in a variety of given situations. Nonsmokers tended to reject smoking under any circumstances, whereas smokers tended to entertain mitigating circumstances more favorably in justifying smoking, especially when smoking could be construed as providing some perceived positive gains in serious situations. Results are discussed in terms of the gestalt/feature-intensive processing theory of cognition, and in terms of the importance of cognitive approaches to the understanding of addictive behaviors.     

Rhesus monkeys (Macaca mulatta) spontaneously compute addition operations over large numbers

Mathematics is a uniquely human capacity. Studies of animals and human infants reveal, however, that this capacity builds on language-independent mechanisms for quantifying small numbers (<4) precisely and large numbers approximately. It is unclear whether animals and human infants can spontaneously tap mechanisms for quantifying large numbers to compute mathematical operations. Moreover, all available work on addition operations in non-human animals has confounded number with continuous perceptual properties (e.g. volume, contour length) that correlate with number. This study shows that rhesus monkeys spontaneously compute addition operations over large numbers, as opposed to continuous extents, and that the limit on this ability is set by the ratio difference between two numbers as opposed to their absolute difference.