The roles of context and everyday experience in understanding work‐non‐work relationships: A qualitative diary study of white‐ and blue‐collar workers

The purpose of the study was to address several of the limitations of work‐non‐work research by adopting a qualitative diary methodology which explored insiders' accounts of both the positive and negative aspects of work‐non‐work relationships and examined the role of context in shaping such relationships. Daily diary data on work‐non‐work events and post‐diary interview data were collected from participants in two contrasting organizational contexts: Flexorg (N=20), a progressive local government organization and The Factory (N=18), a traditional manufacturing organization. Work‐non‐work relationships were found to be simultaneously enriching and depleting in both organizations. For Flexorg workers, work‐non‐work relationships were characterized by facilitation and time‐based conflicts. At The Factory, high spillover from work to non‐work and vice versa challenged the assumption that blue‐collar work is typified by segmentation ( Nippert‐Eng, 1995 ). The experience of work‐non‐work events was shaped by the nature of the work, the work‐non‐work culture and working patterns in both organizations. The study also identified negative spillover as a qualitatively more important problem than work‐non‐work conflict in this study, and identified a social dimension of work‐non‐work conflict which was found across organizational contexts.     

Students' perceptions of characteristics associated with social success: Changes during early adolescence

Students' endorsement of different characteristics associated with social success (sincere, responsible, dominant, disingenuous behaviors, appearance/athletic characteristics) were examined at six-month intervals for four time points spanning the transition from elementary to middle school (N = 558; 53% girls, 47% boys; 56% African American, 44% European American). Students' perceptions of socially successful children as sincere and responsible declined over time, whereas students' perceptions of socially successful children as dominant, disingenuous, and attractive/athletic increased over time. However, sincere behavior remained a top-rated characteristic at all time points and dominant and disingenuous behavior remained at the bottom, indicating that although the developmental trends were concerning the overall picture was not bleak. At all time points, girls endorsed sincere behavior as more important, and dominant and disingenuous behaviors and appearance/athletic characteristics as less important, to social success than boys. African American girls perceived appearance/athletic characteristic as less important to social success than other students.     

Perceptual and semantic sources of category-specific effects: event-related potentials during picture and word categorization

In two experiments the effect of object category on event-related potentials (ERPs) was assessed while subjects performed superordinate categorizations with pictures and words referring to objects from natural (e.g., animal) and artifactual (e.g., tool) categories. First, a category probe was shown that was presented as name in Experiment 1 and as picture in Experiment 2. Thereafter, the target stimulus was displayed. In both experiments, analyses of the ERPs to the targets revealed effects of category at about 160 msec after target onset in the pictorial modality, which can be attributed to category-specific differences in perceptual processing. Later, between about 300-500 msec, natural and artifactual categories elicited similar ERP effects across target and category modalities. These findings suggest that perceptual as well as semantic sources contribute to category-specific effects. They support the view that semantic knowledge associated with different categories is represented in multiple subsystems that are similarly accessed by pictures and words.     

Treatment effects on count outcomes with non-normal covariates

The effects of a treatment or an intervention on a count outcome are often of interest in applied research. When controlling for additional covariates, a negative binomial regression model is usually applied to estimate conditional expectations of the count outcome. The difference in conditional expectations under treatment and under control is then defined as the (conditional) treatment effect. While traditionally aggregates of these conditional treatment effects (e.g., average treatment effects) are computed by averaging over the empirical distribution, a recently proposed moment-based approach allows for computing aggregate effects as a function of distribution parameters. The moment-based approach makes it possible to control for (latent) multivariate normally distributed covariates and provides more reliable inferences under certain conditions. In this paper we propose three different ways to account for non-normally distributed continuous covariates in this approach: an alternative, known non-normal distribution; a plausible factorization of the joint distribution; and an approximation using finite Gaussian mixtures. A saturated model is used for categorical covariates, making a distributional assumption obsolete. We further extend the moment-based approach to allow for multiple treatment conditions and the computation of conditional effects for categorical covariates. An illustrative example highlighting the key features of our extension is provided.     

Auditory habituation in the fetus and neonate: an fMEG study

Habituation – the most basic form of learning – is used to evaluate central nervous system (CNS) maturation and to detect abnormalities in fetal brain development. In the current study, habituation, stimulus specificity and dishabituation of auditory evoked responses were measured in fetuses and newborns using fetal magnetoencephalography (fMEG). An auditory habituation paradigm consisting of 100 trains of five 500 Hz tones, one 750 Hz tone (dishabituator) and two more 500 Hz tones, respectively, were presented to 41 fetuses (gestational age 30–39 weeks) and 22 newborns or babies (age 6–89 days). A response decrement between the first and fifth tones (habituation), an increment between the fifth tone and the dishabituator (stimulus specificity) and an increment between the fifth (last tone before the dishabituator) and seventh tones (first tone after the dishabituator) (dishabituation) were expected. Fetuses showed weak responses to the first tone. However, a significant response decrement between the second and fifth tones (habituation) and a significant increment between the fifth tone and the dishabituator (stimulus specificity) were found. No significant difference was found for dishabituation nor was a developmental trend found at the group level. From the neonatal data, significant values for stimulus specificity were found. Sensory fatigue or adaptation was ruled out as a reason for the response decrement due to the strong reactions to the dishabituator. Taken together, the current study used fMEG to directly show fetal habituation and provides evidence of fetal learning in the last trimester of pregnancy.     

Handwriting or Typewriting? The Influence of Pen- or Keyboard-Based Writing Training on Reading and Writing Performance in Preschool Children

Digital writing devices associated with the use of computers, tablet PCs, or mobile phones are increasingly replacing writing by hand. It is, however, controversially discussed how writing modes influence reading and writing performance in children at the start of literacy. On the one hand, the easiness of typing on digital devices may accelerate reading and writing in young children, who have less developed sensory-motor skills. On the other hand, the meaningful coupling between action and perception during handwriting, which establishes sensory-motor memory traces, could facilitate written language acquisition. In order to decide between these theoretical alternatives, for the present study, we developed an intense training program for preschool children attending the German kindergarten with 16 training sessions. Using closely matched letter learning games, eight letters of the German alphabet were trained either by handwriting with a pen on a sheet of paper or by typing on a computer keyboard. Letter recognition, naming, and writing performance as well as word reading and writing performance were assessed. Results did not indicate a superiority of typing training over handwriting training in any of these tasks. In contrast, handwriting training was superior to typing training in word writing, and, as a tendency, in word reading. The results of our study, therefore, support theories of action-perception coupling assuming a facilitatory influence of sensory-motor representations established during handwriting on reading and writing.     

The Influence of the BDNF Val66Met Polymorphism on Mechanisms of Semantic Priming: Analyses with Drift-Diffusion Models of Masked and Unmasked Priming

Automatic and strategic processes in semantic priming can be investigated with masked and unmasked priming tasks. Unmasked priming is thought to enable strategic processes due to the conscious processing of primes, while masked priming exclusively depends on automatic processes due to the invisibility of the prime. Besides task properties, interindividual differences may alter priming effects. In a recent study, masked and unmasked priming based on mean response time (RT) and error rate (ER) differed as a function of the BDNF Val66Met polymorphism (Sanwald et al., 2020). The BDNF Val66Met polymorphism is related to the integrity of several cognitive executive functions and might thus influence the magnitude of priming. In the present study, we reanalyzed this data with drift-diffusion models. Drift-diffusion models conjointly analyze single trial RT and ER data and serve as a framework to elucidate cognitive processes underlying priming. Masked and unmasked priming effects were observed for the drift rates ν, presumably reflecting semantic preactivation. Priming effects on nondecision time t0 were especially pronounced in unmasked priming, suggesting additional conscious processes to be involved in the t0 modulation. Priming effects on the decision thresholds a may reflect a speed-accuracy tradeoff. Considering the BDNF Val66Met polymorphism, we found lowered drift rates and decision thresholds for Met allele carriers, possibly reflecting a superficial processing style in Met allele carriers. The present study shows that differences in cognitive tasks between genetic groups can be elucidated using drift-diffusion modeling.     

Alkoholabhängigkeit in der psychiatrischen Klinik

In Germany 2.4?% of the population suffer from alcohol dependency and 3.8?% of adults from alcohol abuse. Despite an extensive number of options available for addiction therapy only a minority of affected persons receive addiction-specific therapy. This results in a chronification of the disease and a reduction of approximately 15 years in life expectancy. Background knowledge of the foundations of alcohol addiction leads to a new understanding of the processual course of the disease as well as to new therapy interventions. Individualized treatment includes a combination of outpatient, partial inpatient or inpatient therapeutic measures and range from medical advice for reduction of alcohol consumption, to qualified withdrawal treatment up to pharmacological relapse prophylaxis and long-term weaning treatment. Under current therapeutic conditions abstinence quotas of 50-70?% over 1 year can be achieved. Treating physicians must have sufficient diagnostic certainty and furthermore must be in command of motivating discourse techniques, knowledge on the therapeutic options of outpatient and inpatient withdrawal treatment, pharmaceutical relapse prophylaxis and mediation in rehabilitation measures.