Correcting for indirect range restriction in meta-analysis: testing a new meta-analytic procedure

Using computer simulation, the authors assessed the accuracy of J. E. Hunter, F. L. Schmidt, and H. Le's (2006) procedure for correcting for indirect range restriction, the most common type of range restriction, in comparison with the conventional practice of applying the Thorndike Case II correction for direct range restriction. Hunter et al.'s procedure produced more accurate estimates of both the mean and standard deviation in meta-analysis than the conventional procedure. Even when its key assumption that the effect of selection on a 3rd variable is fully mediated by the independent variable was violated, Hunter et al.'s procedure was still relatively more accurate than the conventional procedure. When applied to data from a previously published meta-analysis, the new procedure yielded results that led to different substantive conclusions.     

Pocket-sized psychology studies: Exploring daily diary software for Palm Pilots

Daily dairies, also known as experience sampling methods (ESM) or everyday experience methods, are a common methodology utilized to provide insight into momentary psychological processes. Traditionally, such studies often have utilized paper-and-pencil surveys administered several times each day over a span of several days or weeks. However, advances in technology now allow these studies to be conducted using palmtop computers (i.e., personal digital assistants; PDAs). Three software packages for running these studies on the Palm operating system were explored and compared on a number of features. Specifically, ESP (Experience Sampling Program, by Feldman Barrett & Barrett, 2001), iESP Version 3.2 (Intel Experience Sampling Program, by Intel Research Seattle & the University of Washington Computer Science and Engineering Department), and PMAT Version 2.0 (Purdue Momentary Assessment Tool, by the Military Family Research Institute at Purdue University) were examined, with their key features compared. These advances in software for running diary studies include a number of features that provide researchers with methods and information previously unavailable in diary studies and may expand the range of possibilities in diary study designs.     

What aspects of face processing are impaired in developmental prosopagnosia?

Developmental prosopagnosia (DP) is a severe impairment in identifying faces that is present from early in life and that occurs despite no apparent brain damage and intact visual and intellectual function. Here, we investigated what aspects of face processing are impaired/spared in developmental prosopagnosia by examining a relatively large group of individuals with DP (n = 8) using an extensive battery of well-established tasks. The tasks included measures of sensitivity to global motion and to global form, detection that a stimulus is a face, determination of its sex, holistic face processing, processing of face identity based on features, contour, and the spacing of features, and judgments of attractiveness. The DP cases showed normal sensitivity to global motion and global form and performed normally on our tests of face detection and holistic processing. On the other tasks, many DP cases were impaired but there was no systematic pattern. At least half showed deficits in processing of facial identity based on either the outer contour or spacing of the internal features, and/or on judgments of attractiveness. Three of the eight were impaired in processing facial identify based on the shape of internal features. The results show that DP is a heterogeneous condition and that impairment in recognizing faces cannot be predicted by poor performance on any one measure of face processing.     

Defensive pessimism and precautionary action during the COVID pandemic

The purpose of this research was to test, in the context of the COVID-19 pandemic, the hypothesis that individuals who use defensive pessimism as a strategy to manage anxiety are likely to act to prevent or mitigate negative outcomes. Across three crowd-sourced samples (Total N = 1416), defensive pessimism was correlated with self-reports of more precautionary behavior (Studies 1, 2, & 3) and fewer COVID-positive results (Study 3).     

Language Development in Children with Simple-Partial Left-Hemisphere Epilepsy

The nature of cerebral involvement in the acquisition of language was addressed in this longitudinal study of children with an early diagnosis of epilepsy with simple-partial seizures (SPE) and with epileptogenic foci localized in the left frontal (LF) lobe. Yearly evaluations of six SPE-LF children on tests of linguistic comprehension (pointing, understanding of narrative, and understanding of prepositions) and production (repetition, lexical diversity, and grammatical production) were carried out between the ages of 3 and 8 years and compared to those of large samples of control children on the same tasks and at each age level. Linguistic production of all children were transcribed, coded, and analyzed using the Child Language Data Exchange System (MacWhinney & Snow, 1991). Individual evolution trajectories revealed that SPE-LF children showed a clear dissociation in linguistic performance between comprehension and production. Linguistic comprehension gradually improved to reach normal performance levels by age 7 while linguistic production, even at later stages, remained quite poor. This dissociation in the development of linguistic performance in SPE-LF children suggests a complex interplay between brain maturation dynamics and dysfunction modulating the succession of stages in language development. The observed persistent deficits in specific aspects of linguistic performance argue for an early involvement of the anterior areas of the left cerebral hemisphere in the production of language.     

Impaired word naming in right-brain-damaged right-handers: error types and time-course analyses

The purpose of this study is to search for cues that could account for the fact that right-hemisphere lesions affect word naming when the criterion for naming is semantic. The authors analyzed the errors as well as the time course of productions of 35 vascular right-brain-damaged subjects (RBD) and 20 control subjects (C) in a semantic-based word-naming task. Results show that there are no differences between groups in terms of (a) the number of errors produced and, (b) the patterns of error types. However, results also show a reduction of verbal fluency for semantic criteria in RBD-subjects present only after the first 30 seconds of production. These results indicate that reduction of word production in RBD-subjects is not the consequence of nonspecific factors such as perseveration or spontaneity, but reflects problems with the less automatized processes permitting exploration of semantic organization, either because scanning process are affected, or because the presence of a discreet semantic impairment prevents scanning from being as efficient. Given that efficient exploration of semantic knowledge is important for lexico-semantic functioning, the present results suggest that the right hemisphere contributes to some aspects of lexico-semantic processing necessary for language production.     

Centering on figurative features during the comprehension of sentences describing scenes

Summary Subjects were asked to read sentences which described scenes containing objects. In the scene described in each sentence, a specific part of a particular object was necessarily implied as having an important role. The object was named but none of its parts were. The assumption was that the subjects, while processing the sentence and immediately afterward, would cognitively center on the important part, as a function of the context created by the sentence. Immediately after reading the sentence, the subjects were probed with a picture of either the important part, or of an unimportant part of the object. Judgments of the compatibility of this picture probe with the sentence were faster for pictures of important parts than for pictures of other parts. This was taken as supporting the hypothesis of cognitive centration. In a second experiment, in which words were used as probes instead of pictures, a purely verbal process to account for the results was ruled out. In a third experiment, subjects were given instructions to intentionally form visual images of the scenes described by the sentences. In this case, overall response times to the picture probes were shorter than in the absence of such instructions, but this decrease was greater for pictures of unimportant parts. This finding was interpreted as showing that imagery instructions increase the rate of activation of features to varying degrees as a function of the previous level of activation.