Static and Phasic Cross-Talk Effects in Discrete Bimanual Reversal Movements

The authors examined the hypothesis that the phasic and the static cross-talk effects found in bimanual movements with different target amplitudes originate at different functional levels of motor control, which implies that the effects can be dissociated experimentally. When the difference between the short and the long amplitudes assigned to the 2 hands of 12 participants was decreased, the static effect disappeared. In contrast, the phasic effect, which can be observed only at short preparation intervals, did not disappear; although it became smaller in absolute terms, in relative terms it did not. In addition, the authors compared the time course of amplitude assimilation with the time course of amplitude variability and examined the correlation between left hand and right hand amplitudes. The disappearance of the phasic amplitude assimilation at increasing preparation intervals turned out to be delayed relative to the decline of the correlation between amplitudes. That finding suggests that the assimilation of mean amplitudes and the correlation between left hand and right hand amplitudes are not fully equivalent indicators of intermanual interactions, but may indicate different kinds of inter-limb coupling.     

A Developmental Analysis of Performance Ratings

In this study, we examined the performance appraisal process from a developmental perspective. Components of cognitive structure, measured in terms of differentiation and hierarchic integration, were obtained from 45 American students representing three different academic levels at three times during a 15-week semester. These students' performance evaluations (ratings) of their psychology instructors were collected during the first and final sessions. The results indicated that although both differentiation and hierarchic integration seemed to change systematically, even over a short period of time, there was no corresponding change in the halo inherent in the raters' ratings. We present possible explanations for the failure of developmental changes in cognitive structure to be reflected in the halo inherent in the performance ratings, as would be predicted by Schneier's (1977) cognitive compatibility hypothesis. Increased emphasis on developmental aspects of the performance appraisal process is recommended.     

Influence of delayed muscle reflexes on spinal stability: Model-based predictions allow alternative interpretations of experimental data

Model-based calculations indicate that reflex delay and reflex gain are both important for spinal stability. Experimental results demonstrate that chronic low back pain is associated with delayed muscle reflex responses of trunk muscles. The aim of the present study was to analyze the influence of such time-delayed reflexes on the stability using a simple biomechanical model. Additionally, we compared the model-based predictions with experimental data from chronic low back pain patients and healthy controls using surface-electromyography. Linear stability methods were applied to the musculoskeletal model, which was extended with a time-delayed reflex model. Lateral external perturbations were simulated around equilibrium to investigate the effects of reflex delay and gain on the stability of the human lumbar spine. The model simulations predicted that increased reflex delays require a reduction of the reflex gain to avoid spinal instability. The experimental data support this dependence for the investigated abdominal muscles in chronic low back pain patients and healthy control subjects. Reflex time-delay and gain dependence showed that a delayed reflex latency could have relevant influence on spinal stability, if subjects do not adapt their reflex amplitudes. Based on the model and the experimental results, the relationship between muscle reflex response latency and the maximum of the reflex amplitude should be considered for evaluation of (patho) physiological data. We recommend that training procedures should focus on speeding up the delayed reflex response as well as on increasing the amplitude of these reflexes.     

Speech Intelligibility and Recall of Spoken Material Heard at Different Signal‐to‐noise Ratios and the Role Played by Working Memory Capacity

We studied speech intelligibility and memory performance for speech material heard under different signal‐to‐noise (S/N) ratios. Pre‐experimental measures of working memory capacity (WMC) were taken to explore individual susceptibility to the disruptive effects of noise. Thirty‐five participants first completed a WMC‐operation span task in quiet and later listened to spoken word lists containing 11 one‐syllable phonetically balanced words presented at four different S/N ratios (+12, +9, +6, and +3). Participants repeated each word aloud immediately after its presentation, to establish speech intelligibility and later on performed a free recall task for those words. The speech intelligibility function decreased linearly with increasing S/N levels for both the high‐WMC and low‐WMC groups. However, only the low‐WMC group had decreasing memory performance with increasing S/N levels. The memory of the high‐WMC individuals was not affected by increased S/N levels. Our results suggest that individual differences in WMC counteract some of the negative effects of speech noise. Copyright © 2012 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Intending or Pretending? Automatic Evaluations of Goal Cues Discriminate True and False Intentions

This research presents a novel approach to discriminating between true and deceptive statements about intended future behavior. Arguing that true intentions are goal‐directed, we predict that people who genuinely intend to pursue a reported goal will implicitly evaluate goal‐relevant cues positively, whereas people who do not intend to pursue the goal will not. Participants in an experiment were instructed to tell the truth about a planned future behavior (true intention) or to falsely report that same behavior to mask their actual mock‐criminal intention (false intention). As predicted, an evaluative priming task showed that participants with true intention exhibited implicit positive evaluations of cues relevant to the reported goal, whereas participants with false intention did not. Subsequent analyses showed that implicit positivity significantly discriminated between true and false intentions. The findings are discussed in terms of theoretical contributions and implications for the development of future detection tools. Copyright © 2012 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Correcting Big Five Personality Measurements for Acquiescence: An 18‐Country Cross‐Cultural Study

For groups of persons with low or medium levels of education, Big Five personality scales typically yield scores that poorly replicate the idealized Big Five factor pattern. On the basis of representative samples of German adults, Rammstedt et al. have demonstrated that correcting each person's score for acquiescence eliminates this problem. In the present 18‐country study using large samples representative of each country's adult population, we found that, in all cases, correcting for acquiescence did indeed improve the congruence of factor loadings with an idealized Big Five pattern. However, although this correction led to acceptably high correspondence levels in all countries classified as individualistic, this was not always true for non‐individualistic countries. Possible reasons for this finding are discussed. Copyright © 2012 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Revisions and Regret: The Cost of Changing your Mind

Decision reversals often imply improved decisions. Yet, people show a strong resistance against changing their minds. These are well‐established findings, which suggest that changed decisions carry a subjective cost, perhaps by being more strongly regretted. Three studies were conducted to explore participants' regret when making reversible decisions and to test the hypothesis that changing one's mind will increase post‐outcome regret. The first two studies employed the Ultimatum game and the Trust game. The third study used a variant of the Monty Hall problem. All games were conducted by individual participants playing interactively against a computer. The outcomes were designed to capture a common characteristic of real‐life decisions: they varied from rather negative to fairly positive, and for every outcome, it was possible to imagine both more and less profitable outcomes. In all experiments, those who changed their minds reported much stronger post‐outcome regret than those who did not change, even if the final outcomes were equally good (Experiments 2 and 3) or better (Experiment 1).This finding was not because of individual differences with respect to gender, tendency to regret, or tendency to maximize. Previous studies have found that those who change from a correct to wrong option regret more than those who select a wrong option directly. This study indicates that this finding is a special case of a more general phenomenon: changing one's mind seems to come with a cost, even when one ends up with favorable outcomes. Copyright © 2011 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Can > Will: Predictions of What Can Happen are Extreme,but Believed to be Probable

Predictions of uncertain events are often described in terms of what can or what will happen. How are such statements used by speakers, and what are they perceived to mean? Participants in four experiments were presented with distributions of variable product characteristics and were asked to generate natural, meaningful sentences containing either will or can. Will was typically associated with either low or intermediate numeric values, whereas can consistently suggested high (maximum) values. For instance, laptop batteries lasting from 1.5 to 3.5 hours will last for 1.5 hours or for 2.5 hours, but they can last for 3.5 hours. The same response patterns were found for positive and negative events. In will‐statements, the most frequent scalar modifiers were at least and about, whereas in can‐statements, the most frequent modifier included up to. A fifth experiment showed that will indicates an outcome that may be certain but more often simply probable. Can means possible, but even can‐statements are perceived to imply probable outcomes. This could create a communication paradox because most speakers use can to describe outcomes that because of their extremity are at the same time quite unlikely. Copyright © 2011 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Practitioners of the Divine: Greek Priests and Religious Officials from Homer to Heliodorus

This review essay considers three recent introductory textbooks on Sikhism by Nikky-Guninder Kaur Singh (Sikhism: An Introduction. New York: I.B. Taurus, 2011), Doris Jakobsh (Sikhism. Honolulu: University of Hawai'i Press, 2012), and Arvind-Pal Singh Mandair (Sikhism: A Guide for the Perplexed. New York: Bloomsbury, 2013). The review begins with a brief historical précis of the early production of texts on Sikhs and Sikhism in North America, as well as the politicized contexts in which they were produced. As heirs to this (and earlier) history, the textbooks examined in the present review share a common premise: namely, each seeks to unsettle what their respective authors understand as the enduring specter of colonialism. The authors and their textbooks recognize the need to better reflect Sikh experience and self-understanding. At the same time, these textbooks illustrate a tremendous range of pedagogical trajectories and heuristic orientations: feminist and aesthetic, disparity and diversity, and conceptual and linguistic. Having used all three of these textbooks in undergraduate classes, the reviewer concludes with some reflections on pedagogy drawn from his own experiences and student responses to the texts.     

An account of the relationship between fluid intelligence and complex learning in considering storage capacity and executive attention

Although fluid intelligence and complex learning are conceptualized differently and assessed by apparently different measures, both theoretical accounts and empirical evidence suggest a relationship between the two constructs. In this study, major working memory aspects including the storage capacity and executive attention were proposed to account for the relationship between fluid intelligence and complex learning. A sample of 184 participants completed fluid intelligence and complex learning scales, as well as working memory measures that each included two or three treatment levels differing in the demands on capacity or executive control. The differences among the treatment levels provided a favorable precondition for employing fixed-links models to separate the core processes of storage capacity or executive attention from the auxiliary processes. Results indicated that both storage capacity and executive attention contributed significantly to fluid intelligence and complex learning. A further analysis showed that the two working memory aspects, particularly the storage capacity, accounted for most of the shared variance between fluid intelligence and complex learning.