Strategic effects in associative priming with words,homophones, and pseudohomophones

G. Lukatela and M. T. Turvey (1994a) showed that at a 57-ms prime-presentation duration, the naming of a visually presented target word (frog) is primed not only by an associate word (toad) but also by a homophone (towed) and a pseudohomophone (tode) of the associate. At a 250-ms prime presentation, priming with the homophone was no longer observed. In Experiment 1, the authors replicated these priming effects in the Dutch language. Next, the authors extended the priming paradigm to a word/legal-nonword lexical decision task (Experiments 2 and 3) and a word/pseudohomophone decision task (Experiment 4). Phonologically mediated associative priming was observed in all conditions with pseudohomophonic primes but not with homophonic primes. The latter did not prime at a 250-ms prime-presentation time and at 57 ms in the word/pseudohomophone task.     

Change in cognitive functioning associated with apoE genotype in a community sample of older adults

The influence of a genetic risk factor, apolipoprotein E (apoE) epsilon4 variant, was assessed in older adults aged 70 to 94 on 3 occasions over 7 years. The results of latent growth curve analyses are reported for individuals genotyped for apoE at the 2nd measurement occasion (n = 601) and for a subsample of individuals without probable or definite dementia during the 1st or 2nd occasion (n = 434). ApoE-epsilon4 status was a significant predictor of level and change in memory performance and change in speed performance in the full sample, and of initial level and change in memory performance in the nondemented subsample. These results support previous findings that apoE-epsilon4 is associated with accelerated memory deterioration in individuals without clinical dementia.     

When timing the mind one should also mind the timing: biases in the measurement of voluntary actions

Trevena and Miller (2002, this issue) provide further evidence that readiness potentials occur in the brain prior to the time that participants claim to have initiated a voluntary movement, a contention originally forwarded by Libet, Gleason, Wright, and Pearl (1983). In their examination of this issue, though, aspects of their data lead them to question whether their measurement of the initiation of a voluntary movement was accurate. The current article addresses this concern by providing a direct analysis of biases in this task. This was done by asking participants to make subjective timing decisions regarding a stimulus that could be measured objectively. Our findings suggest that their timing task was indeed biased such that participants' tend to report events as happening approximately 70 ms later than they actually happened. Implications for the original Libet et al. claims are discussed.     

Pain sensitivity and individual differences in self-reported sexual behavior

The relationship between sexual behavior and pain sensitivity was assessed in 27 heterosexual men and 20 heterosexual women. Sexual behavior measures included sexual motivation and ratings of subjective sexual arousal to and enjoyment of an auditory stimulus. Pain sensitivity measures were pain threshold and pain tolerance in a cold pressor task. Participants were tested after exposure to a neutral or a sexual audio stimulus. Exposure to the sexual stimulus increased pain sensitivity in women but not in men. However, sexual behavior measures were correlated with pain threshold for both men and women. Specifically, higher pain thresholds were associated with weaker sexual motivation, lower enjoyment potential for sexual interaction, and increased inhibition during intercourse. These results are consistent with findings in laboratory animals, suggesting that differences in sexual behavior may reflect differences in responsiveness to a variety of stimuli.     

The advice and influence networks of transformational leaders

Existing transformational leadership research has focused primarily on the behaviors of leaders and their effects on followers. The authors extended this research by examining the social networks of managers who exhibit transformational leadership behaviors. Their focus was on the network of relationships that managers develop and whether they hold key positions in the organization's informal social networks. In a field study using data from 39 managers and 130 nonmanagement employees of 6 organizations, the authors found that managers who score higher on transformational leadership tend to hold more central positions in organizational advice and influence networks. Furthermore, the direct reports of these leaders were also more central in informal organizational networks. These results illuminate one of the ways that managers who exhibit transformational leadership behaviors may exert influence in organizations.     

Teamwork in multiteam systems

The authors examined how networks of teams integrate their efforts to succeed collectively. They proposed that integration processes used to align efforts among multiple teams are important predictors of multiteam performance. The authors used a multiteam system (MTS) simulation to assess how both cross-team and within-team processes relate to MTS performance over multiple performance episodes that differed in terms of required interdependence levels. They found that cross-team processes predicted MTS performance beyond that accounted for by within-team processes. Further, cross-team processes were more important for MTS effectiveness when there were high cross-team interdependence demands as compared with situations in which teams could work more independently. Results are discussed in terms of extending theory and applications from teams to multiteam systems.     

Straightness as a cue for luminance edge interpretation

In order to determine the reflectance of a surface, it is necessary to discount luminance changes produced by illumination variation, a process that requires the visual system to respond differently to luminance changes that are due to illumination and reflectance. It is known that various cues can be used in this process. By measuring the strength of lightness illusions, we find evidence that straightness is, used as a cue: When a boundary is straight rather than curved, it has a greater tendency to be discounted, as if it were an illumination edge. The strongest illusions occur when a boundary has high contrast and has multiple X-junctions that preserve a consistent contrast ratio.     

Age effects in perception of time

Despite the widespread belief that the subjective speed of the passage of time increases with age, empirical results are controversial. In this study, a combination of questionnaires was employed to assess subjective time perception by 499 subjects, ages 14 to 94 years. Pearson correlations and nonlinear regression analyses on a variety of questionnaires and the age of the participants show that the momentary perception of the passage of time and the retrospective judgment of past periods of time are a function of chronological age; however, small-to-moderate effects accounted for at most 10% of the variance. Results generally support the widespread perception that the passage of time speeds up with age. These results are discussed in the context of models of prospective and retrospective time judgment, but interpretations have to be treated with caution given methodological limitations.