Assumed race moderates spontaneous racial bias in a computer‐based police simulation

We demonstrated that playing the roles of different outgroup races can elicit extrapersonal racial bias associated with respective racial groups. In a modified version of a computer‐based police simulation, the police officer's race was visually manipulated to be either Black or White. Korean participants made quick decisions whether to shoot targets (Black or White, armed or unarmed) on screen. Comparison of behavioral bias in the task revealed that, as expected, playing the role of a White police officer was associated with a stronger bias against Black targets compared to playing a Black police officer's role. The result suggests that when a social category is activated, one's race‐related behavior can reflect one's beliefs about the biases that members of that category hold.     

Different routes to metacognitive judgments: The role of accuracy motivation

The current research proposes that metacognitive difficulty affects product evaluation through two different routes—the feelings of ease-of-retrieval heuristic and the self-validation process. The findings across four laboratory experiments show that metacognitive difficulty can undermine product evaluation through the feelings of ease-of-retrieval heuristic among low-accuracy individuals, regardless of a perceived fit between expected and experienced difficulty. In contrast, the findings indicate that metacognitive difficulty can enhance (vs. undermine) product evaluation among high-accuracy individuals through the self-validation process when there is a perceived fit (vs. misfit) between expected and experienced difficulty. We suggest that individuals under high accuracy motivation are more likely than those under low accuracy motivation to draw less determined and more flexible interpretation of metacognitive difficulty in making their product evaluation.     

The effect of persistent posttraumatic stress disorder symptoms on executive functions in preadolescent children witnessing a single incident of death

We compared executive functions (EFs) of traumatized preadolescent children with and without marked posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD) symptoms to the performance of a nontraumatized control group, and examined the relationships between EF deficits and functional status in traumatized preadolescent children. Fifty-one preadolescent children who had witnessed a death at school 30 months prior (26 with marked PTSD symptoms and 25 without) and 30 healthy controls who had not been traumatized participated. EFs were examined using the Comprehensive Attention Test (CAT). The functional state of traumatized children was measured by the Parent Report Form-Children's Health and Illness Profile-Children's Edition (PRF-CHIP-CE). The traumatized children, regardless of status of PTSD symptomatology, showed poorer working memory performance than nontraumatized healthy controls. The traumatized children with marked PTSD symptoms performed more poorly on measures of interference control compared to those children without marked PTSD symptoms. Lower levels of EFs were associated with lower risk avoidance and diminished academic achievement in traumatized children. These results indicate that an inhibitory control deficit is specifically associated with the current PTSD symptoms but not with trauma exposure per se.     

On the Evolutionary Defense of Scientific Antirealism

Van Fraassen (The scientific image, Oxford University Press, Oxford, 1980) claims that successful theories exist today because successful theories survive and unsuccessful ones die. Wray (Erkenntnis 67:81–89, 2007; Erkenntnis 72:365–377, 2010) appeals to Stanford’s new pessimistic induction (Exceeding our grasp: science, history, and the problem of unconceived alternatives, Oxford University Press, Oxford, 2006), arguing that van Fraassen’s selectionist explanation is better than the realist explanation that successful theories exist because they are approximately true. I argue that if the pessimistic induction is correct, then the evolutionary explanation is neither true nor empirically adequate, and that realism is better than selectionism because realism explains more phenomena in science than selectionism.     

Confirmation measures and collaborative belief updating

There are some candidates that have been thought to measure the degree to which evidence incrementally confirms a hypothesis. This paper provides an argument for one candidate—the log-likelihood ratio measure. For this purpose, I will suggest a plausible requirement that I call the Requirement of Collaboration. And then, it will be shown that, of various candidates, only the log-likelihood ratio measure \(l\) satisfies this requirement. Using this result, Jeffrey conditionalization will be reformulated so as to disclose explicitly what determines new credences after experience.     

Specifying Ability Growth Models Using a Multidimensional Item Response Model for Repeated Measures Categorical Ordinal Item Response Data

When categorical ordinal item response data are collected over multiple timepoints from a repeated measures design, an item response theory (IRT) modeling approach whose unit of analysis is an item response is suitable. This study proposes a few longitudinal IRT models and illustrates how a popular compensatory multidimensional IRT model can be utilized to formulate such longitudinal IRT models, which permits an investigation of ability growth at both individual and population levels. The equivalence of an existing multidimensional IRT model and those longitudinal IRT models is also elaborated so that one can make use of an existing multidimensional IRT model to implement the longitudinal IRT models.     

Bayesian Mixture Model of Extended Redundancy Analysis

Psychometrika - Extended redundancy analysis (ERA), a generalized version of redundancy analysis (RA), has been proposed as a useful method for examining interrelationships among multiple sets of...     

Korean-english Bilingual Children’s Stress Cue Sensitivity and its Relationship with Reading in English

Journal of Psycholinguistic Research - Lexical stress plays a critical role in multisyllabic word reading in English. However, assignment of English lexical stress, which is neither fixed nor...     

The Satisfaction with Life Scale in Adolescent Samples: Measurement Invariance across 24 Countries and Regions,Age, and Gender

Measurement of adolescent life satisfaction across cultures has not received much attention in previous empirical research. The present study evaluated measurement invariance of the Satisfaction with Life Scale (SWLS) among adolescents in 24 countries and regions (N = 22,710; age range = 13–19 years; 53% female). A single-factor model with residual covariance between a pair of items tapping past life satisfaction fitted well in 19 countries and regions and showed a partial metric invariance. In a subset of nine countries and regions, partial scalar invariance was supported. Partial metric invariance across all 24 countries and regions was achieved when custom model modifications in five countries and regions were included. Three SWLS items showed evidence of noninvariance across cultures. The measurement model was found to operate similarly across gender and age. Our findings suggest that caution is needed when using the SWLS for measuring life satisfaction among adolescents from different cultures.

     

Abnormal diurnal pattern of cortisol secretion in patients after aneurysmal subarachnoid hemorrhage

Substantial evidence suggests that impairment of the hypothalamus?pituitary system can occur following an aneurysmal subarachnoid hemorrhage (aSAH). Given that the diurnal cortisol rhythm is primarily controlled by the hypothalamus?pituitary system, this study examined whether changes in diurnal cortisol rhythm occurred after aSAH. Cortisol concentrations were measured in the saliva samples collected from patients after aSAH and other types of cerebral hemorrhage (non-aSAH) in the post-awakening period and at night (21:00?h), and the cortisol awakening response (CAR) and diurnal cortisol decline were determined. The area under the cortisol curve from immediately after to 45?min after awakening (CARauc) in the aSAH patient group was comparable to that in the non-aSAH or healthy control groups. However, an obvious cortisol peak was not found after the awakening period, and the morning/nighttime cortisol ratio in the aSAH patient group was significantly lower than that in other examined groups due to higher nighttime cortisol concentrations. In aSAH patients, the CARauc and nighttime cortisol concentrations were negatively correlated with the Fisher CT grade. These results indicate that the diurnal cortisol rhythm is not regulated normally after aSAH, and cortisol secretory activity decreases as the volume of subarachnoid bleeding increases. Our findings will be helpful to understand altered hypothalamus?pituitary?adrenal axis function after aSAH.