Phonotactic regularities in the segmentation of spoken Italian

Five word-spotting experiments explored the role of consonantal and vocalic phonotactic cues in the segmentation of spoken Italian. The first set of experiments tested listeners' sensitivity to phonotactic constraints cueing syllable boundaries. Participants were slower in spotting words in nonsense strings when target onsets were misaligned (e.g., lago in ri.blago) than when they were aligned (e.g., lago in rin.lago) with phonotactically determined syllabic boundaries. This effect held also for sequences that occur only word-medially (e.g., /tl/ in ri.tlago), and competition effects could not account for the disadvantage in the misaligned condition. Similarly, target detections were slower when their offsets were misaligned (e.g., cittá in cittáu.ba) than when they were aligned (e.g., cittá in cittá.oba) with a phonotactic syllabic boundary. The second set of experiments tested listeners' sensitivity to phonotactic cues, which specifically signal lexical (and not just syllable) boundaries. Results corroborate the role of syllabic information in speech segmentation and suggest that Italian listeners make little use of additional phonotactic information that specifically cues word boundaries.     

Brain dopamine and kinematics of graphomotor functions

Three experiments were performed in an attempt to achieve a better understanding of the effect of dopamine on handwriting. In the first experiment, kinematic aspects of handwriting movements were compared between healthy participants and patients with Parkinson's disease (PD) on their usual dopaminergic treatment and following withdrawal of dopaminergic medication. In the second experiment, the writing performance of healthy participants with a hyperechogenicity of the substantia nigra as detected by transcranial sonography (TCS) was compared with the performance of healthy participants with low echogenicity of the substantia nigra. The third experiment examined the effect of central dopamine reduction on kinematic aspects of handwriting movements in healthy adults using acute phenylalanine and tyrosine depletion (APTD). A digitising tablet was used for the assessment of handwriting movements. Participants were asked to perform a simple writing task. Movement time, distance, velocity, acceleration and measures of fluency of handwriting movements were measured. The kinematic analysis of handwriting movements revealed that alterations of central dopaminergic neurotransmission adversely affect movement execution during handwriting. In comparison to the automatic processing of handwriting movements displayed by control participants, participants with an altered dopaminergic neurotransmission shifted from an automatic to a controlled processing of movement execution. Central dopamine appears to be of particular importance with regard to the automatic execution of well-learned movements.     

Evidence for long-term spatial memory in a parid

Many animals use spatial memory. Although much work has examined the accuracy of spatial memory, few studies have explicitly focused on its longevity. The importance of long-term spatial memory for foraging has been demonstrated in several cases. However, the importance of such long-term memory for all animals is unclear. In this study, we present the first evidence that a parid species (the black-capped chickadee, Poecile atricapillus) can remember the location of a single food item for at least 6 months under an associative-learning spatial memory paradigm with multiple reinforcements. We did not detect a significant difference in memory longevity between two populations of chickadees shown previously to differ in short-term spatial memory and hippocampal morphology, an area of the brain involved in spatial memory. Our study showed that small birds such as parids can maintain spatial memories for long periods, a feat shown previously only in corvids. Moreover, we were able to demonstrate this longevity within the context of only 16 repeated trials. We speculate that this ability may potentially be useful in relocating caches if reinforced by repeated visits. Future studies are necessary to test whether our results were specifically due to multiple reinforcements of the food-containing location and whether parids may have similar memory longevity during food-caching experiences in the wild.     

A Both-And Approach: An Application of Narrative Interventions from a Modern Perspective

A contentious debate between the modern and postmodern epistemologies continue to wage on since the rise of constructivism and social constructionism in the 1990s. This debate has led to both modern and postmodernists falling into an either/or mindset. Others have proposed a solution, the both-and approach, that emphasizes integration of different therapeutic camps. Intentionality is a core component of this approach, as therapists must understand how employed interventions flow from the epistemology and theoretical orientation under which they operate. Another core component of this approach is tailoring the integration to the specific context of the client case. With this understanding and tailoring, therapists can utilize methods across the modern/postmodern divide, as they will coherently flow from their original epistemology and theoretical orientation. Applying methods from both modernism and postmodernism, then, enhances therapists’ therapeutic repertoire, allowing for more opportunities to adapt treatment to each client case. Altogether, the quality of services improve and the amount of clients therapists can help increases as well. This paper will provide an application of the both-and approach to a case study to provide an example of how the said method can be employed in therapy.

     

Using Self-Determination Theory to Understand when and how Money Buys Happiness: a Cross-Sectional and Intervention Study

Applied Research in Quality of Life - The objectives of this article were twofold: (1) understand what motivates people to make money and how this impacts well-being and (2) explore whether it is...     

Can third-party observers detect the emotional rewards of generous spending?

Can others detect the emotional consequences of our personal choices? Here, we investigate whether third-party observers can detect the emotional benefits of two factors shown to influence self-reported happiness: the speed with which people make decisions and the generosity of spending choices. Participants were randomly assigned to purchase a goody bag either for themselves or for a sick child, and to choose the contents of this goody bag either as quickly as possible, or by taking as much time as needed. Then, participants reported their current emotional state and were rated for happiness by a research assistant blind to their spending condition. Analyses revealed that purchasing a gift for someone else not only improved participants’ self-reported mood, but that observers could detect these affective differences as well. Observers also rated participants who made their spending decision more quickly as happier, although participants did not report these emotional differences.     

Der Behandlungsbedarf bei jungen Straftätern (BB-JuSt)

The BB-JuSt is a newly developed standardized instrument used in juvenile correctional settings to document the results of the inital assessment of treatment and educational needs of young offenders. It is made up of 23 items with 5-point rating scales (with the exception of the item caring for a child) which refer to specific needs and responsivity factors relating to educational attainments and basic reading/writing and mathematic skills, alcohol/drug/gambling problems, criminogenic disposition (e.g., aggressiveness), psychological disorders, lifestyle and social environment (e.g. associates and family). To determine the interrater reliability of this instrument 42 young offenders were classified by professional prison staff as usual, and additionally by 2 external researchers. Whereas excellent agreement between the external researchers was achieved on all items, the comparison between staff and researchers showed only moderate correlations. These results indicate that the BB-JuSt is a reliable instrument that can be used for treatment planning decisions and for research purposes but extensive training is required for users.     

Losing face: impaired discrimination of featural and configural information in the mouth region of an inverted face

Given that all faces share the same set of features—two eyes, a nose, and a mouth—that are arranged in similar configuration, recognition of a specific face must depend on our ability to discern subtle differences in its featural and configural properties. An enduring question in the face-processing literature is whether featural or configural information plays a larger role in the recognition process. To address this question, the face dimensions task was designed, in which the featural and configural properties in the upper (eye) and lower (mouth) regions of a face were parametrically and independently manipulated. In a same–different task, two faces were sequentially presented and tested in their upright or in their inverted orientation. Inversion disrupted the perception of featural size (Exp. 1), featural shape (Exp. 2), and configural changes in the mouth region, but it had relatively little effect on the discrimination of featural size and shape and configural differences in the eye region. Inversion had little effect on the perception of information in the top and bottom halves of houses (Exp. 3), suggesting that the lower-half impairment was specific to faces. Spatial cueing to the mouth region eliminated the inversion effect (Exp. 4), suggesting that participants have a bias to attend to the eye region of an inverted face. The collective findings from these experiments suggest that inversion does not differentially impair featural or configural face perceptions, but rather impairs the perception of information in the mouth region of the face.     

Gender Identity Development and Career Decision-Making Process among High School Learners

Previous studies reveal an inconsistent picture of identity formation for both genders. This study investigated gender differences in identity formation (identity statuses) and career decision-making process among Black South African high school learners. A sample of 156 Grade 12 learners (males = 60, females = 96; mean age = 17.7) participated in the study. Participants completed the Revised Extended Objective Measure of Ego Identity Status (Bennion & Adams, 1986) and the Study Choice Task Inventory (Germeijs & Verschueren, 2006). Males and females were similar in identity formation and career decision-making process. Given that nowadays females are encouraged to consider both stereotypically female plus male paths of career development, gender appears to play less influential role in career decision making.     

BOOK REVIEWS

This paper deals with the traumatic departures of Jews from Morocco during the 1950s and 1960s. The issue is analyzed through a set of diverse oral narrations. The study is based on several interviews conducted both among Jews who left Morocco and Muslims still living in the city of Meknes. The repression of the memory by Muslims of two young Jews murdered in 1967 in Meknes is questioned. In fact, although the perceptions concerning the Jews' departure differs according to the interviewee's social class, a common feeling appears to be shared by different societal sectors regarding this specific issue, which still comes across as a sensitive one today. The representation of Jews traditionally depicted as “fearful” and “weak” turns into “courageous” and “strong” during the Six‐Day War. This new representation perturbed the Muslim population, which seemed to be unable to deal with the new status Jews were acquiring. In fact, emigration was commonly considered to betray a lack of virility. The paper argues that the unexpected departure of an historic component of Moroccan society has left an open wound in Morocco. Even the memory of the “events” by the Jewish population appears to be fragmented into ambiguous constructions, leading, on the one hand, to perceptions of fear and uncertainty and, on the other, to images of affectionate relationships and intense nostalgia.