The Role of Hardiness in Moderating the Relationship Between Global/Specific Attributions and Actions Against Discrimination

In this study, we proposed that individual differences in hardiness may moderate the relationship between global attributions and actions against discrimination. Specifically, global attributions were expected to predict decreased endorsement of actions to combat discrimination among low hardy women. In contrast, global attributions were expected to predict increased endorsement of actions among high hardy women. High and low hardy women were exposed to a laboratory situation of discrimination, and their attributions for, and responses to, discrimination were then assessed. Results showed the expected interaction, but in the opposite direction: among low hardy women, global attributions predicted stronger endorsement of action. Among high hardy women, specific attributions predicted stronger endorsement of action. Theoretical and practical implications are discussed.     

Language asymmetry and auditory attention in young adulthood after being born small-for-gestational age or with cardio-pulmonary resuscitation at birth.

A dichotic listening test with consonant-vowel syllables was used to assess language asymmetry and shift of attention in 42 young adults who had been in need of cardio-pulmonary resuscitation at birth, with a mild or moderate clinical course during the neonatal period (n = 31), or were born small-for-gestational age (SGA; n = 11) and compared with healthy controls (n = 17). All the participants were followed up prospectively and displayed no neurological or developmental deficits at 18 months of age. All the groups had an expected right-ear advantage during a baseline condition with no instructions to shift attention. The SGA group and the moderate resuscitated group displayed clear signs of an attenuation of the right-ear advantage and they were also less able to modify the ear preference in forced-attention conditions, compared with the control group. The main finding was that the groups with the most severe pre- and perinatal complications were also most affected on the dichotic listening test at adult age.     

Appetitive instrumental learning is impaired by inhibition of cAMP-dependent protein kinase within the nucleus accumbens.

The medium spiny neurons of the nucleus accumbens receive a unique convergence of dopaminergic and glutamatergic inputs from regions associated with motivational, cognitive, and sensory processes. Long-term forms of plasticity in the nucleus accumbens associated with such processes as appetitive learning and drug addiction may require coactivation of both dopamine D1 and glutamate N-methyl-D-aspartate (NMDA) receptors. This notion implies that an intracellular mechanism is likely to be involved in these long-term neuroadaptive processes. The present series of experiments examined the effects of intra-accumbens microinfusion of protein kinase inhibitors on acquisition of an instrumental task, lever-pressing for food. Male Sprague-Dawley rats were bilaterally implanted with chronic indwelling cannulae aimed at the nucleus accumbens core. Following recovery, animals were food-restricted and subsequently trained for operant responding. The broad-based serine/threonine kinase inhibitor H-7 (5 or 27 nmol per side) dose-dependently impaired learning when infused immediately after testing on days 1-4. Rp-cAMPS, a cAMP-dependent protein kinase (PKA) inhibitor, also impaired learning regardless of whether it was infused immediately before (5 or 20 nmol) or immediately after (10 nmol) testing on days 1-4. Rp-cAMPS (10 nmol) also inhibited learning when infused 1 h after testing, though to a lesser extent than when administered before or immediately after testing. The PKA stimulator Sp-cAMPS (5 or 20 nmol) also impaired learning when infused before testing, suggesting that there is an optimal level of PKA activity required for learning. None of the drugs used produced nonspecific motor or feeding effects. These results provide evidence supporting the involvement of nucleus accumbens PKA in appetitive learning and suggest that this kinase may be involved in long-term changes associated with this and other motivationally based neuroadaptive processes.     

Stuart’s tau measure of effect size for ordinal variables: Some methodological considerations

The reporting of measures of effect size has become increasingly important in psychology. A Monte Carlo resampling permutation procedure is introduced to find near-optimum maximum values for Stuart’s τ _c measure for two-way ordinal contingency tables, also termed Kendall’s τ _c since Kendall introduced τ _a and τ _b . Comparisons between resampling and exact procedures demonstrate the accuracy and utility of resampling measures of effect size for two-way ordinal contingency tables. The resampling procedure is shown to be more precise than the traditional method of standardizing τ _c .     

Is banara really a word?

Bowers, Davis, and Hanley (Bowers, J. S., Davis, C. J., & Hanley, D. A. (2005). Interfering neighbours: The impact of novel word learning on the identification of visually similar words. Cognition, 97(3), B45-B54) reported that if participants were trained to type nonwords such as banara, subsequent semantic categorization responses to similar words such as banana were delayed. This was taken as direct experimental support for a process of lexical competition during word recognition. This interpretation assumes that banara has been lexicalized, which predicts that masked form priming for items such as banara-banana should be reduced or eliminated. An experiment is reported showing that the trained novel words produced the same amount of priming as untrained nonwords on both the first and the second day of training, suggesting that the interference observed by Bowers et al was not due to word-on-word competition.     

Early Modern Intentionalism: Replies to LoLordo’s Comments

I clarify Locke’s intentionalism and explain what we might gain by paying more attention to the role of linguistic intentions in the work of the British empiricists.

The extent of active processing of a long-duration stimulus modulates the scalp-recorded sustained potential

A long-duration stimulus will elicit a negative sustained potential (SP) that is maximum in amplitude over fronto-central areas of the scalp. This study examines how the duration of active attentional processing of the stimulus might also elicit a nonsensory contingent negative variation (CNV) that overlaps and summates to the SP. Subjects were presented with either a low- or high-pitched 1.4s duration stimulus. In different conditions, a 20 ms gap occurred either 300 or 1300 ms after stimulus onset in half the stimuli. The subject's task was to button press upon detection of the gap in the low-pitched stimulus. The subject was not required to respond to the gap occurring in the high-pitched tone. In a separate Ignore condition, subjects ignored all stimuli and read a book. In the Ignore condition, a SP was apparent to the long-duration stimuli. In the Attend condition, a large amplitude slow wave, probably the CNV, overlapped and summated with the SP. The extent of the overlapping CNV was dependent on whether the gap occurred early or late. The CNV was not apparent following presentation of the high-pitched tone, when the gap did not need to be detected. Consistent with previous studies, a SP was thus elicited even when active processing of the stimulus was not required. The morphology of the scalp-recorded SP was, nevertheless, much modified by an overlapping and summating CNV, depending on the extent to which active processing of the long-duration stimulus was required.