The British Lexicon Project: lexical decision data for 28,730 monosyllabic and disyllabic English words

We present a new database of lexical decision times for English words and nonwords, for which two groups of British participants each responded to 14,365 monosyllabic and disyllabic words and the same number of nonwords for a total duration of 16 h (divided over multiple sessions). This database, called the British Lexicon Project (BLP), fills an important gap between the Dutch Lexicon Project (DLP; Keuleers, Diependaele, & Brysbaert, Frontiers in Language Sciences. Psychology, 1, 174, 2010) and the English Lexicon Project (ELP; Balota et al., 2007), because it applies the repeated measures design of the DLP to the English language. The high correlation between the BLP and ELP data indicates that a high percentage of variance in lexical decision data sets is systematic variance, rather than noise, and that the results of megastudies are rather robust with respect to the selection and presentation of the stimuli. Because of its design, the BLP makes the same analyses possible as the DLP, offering researchers with a new interesting data set of word-processing times for mixed effects analyses and mathematical modeling. The BLP data are available at and as Electronic Supplementary Materials.     

Can we reduce eating disorder risk factors in female college athletes? A randomized exploratory investigation of two peer-led interventions

Female athletes are at least as at risk as other women for eating disorders (EDs) and at risk for the female athlete triad (i.e., inadequate energy availability, menstrual disorders, and osteoporosis). This study investigated whether two evidence-based programs appear promising for future study if modified to address the unique needs of female athletes. Athletes were randomly assigned to athlete-modified dissonance prevention or healthy weight intervention (AM-HWI). ED risk factors were assessed pre/post-treatment, and 6-week and 1-year follow-up. Results (analyzed sample, N = 157) indicated that both interventions reduced thin-ideal internalization, dietary restraint, bulimic pathology, shape and weight concern, and negative affect at 6 weeks, and bulimic pathology, shape concern, and negative affect at 1 year. Unexpectedly we observed an increase in students spontaneously seeking medical consultation for the triad. Qualitative results suggested that AM-HWI may be more preferred by athletes.     

The Many Faces of Malingering and Participant Response Strategies: New Methodologies in the Attachment and Clinical Issues Questionnaire (ACIQ)

Four studies created malingering and response bias scales for a new test battery, the Attachment and Clinical Issues Questionnaire (ACIQ). In the first calibration study, a new approach to identifying fake good and fake bad respondents was outlined. In Study 2, this scale was cross validated in a within-subjects design that also found only weak correlations between the scales of the ACIQ and measures of social desirability. The third study developed a method violator scale (one who responds randomly to the content of the scales due to carelessness, low IQ, etc.). It was tested by Monte Carlo and empirical studies. The fourth study combined the two cross validation studies to offer clear cutoffs for the practitioner. These studies successfully led to the creation of malingering and response bias scales for the ACIQ and also introduced new methods that could be adapted to other instruments.     

Word skipping in reading: On the interplay of linguistic and visual factors

An eye movement experiment is reported in which target words of two and four letters were presented in sentences that strongly raised the expectation of a particular word. There were three possible conditions: The expected word was present in the sentence, an unexpected word of the same length was present, or an unexpected word of a different length was present (all continuations were acceptable, but the latter two were difficult to predict). Our first purpose was to test one of the core assumptions of the Extended Optimal Viewing Position model of eye guidance in reading (Brysbaert & Vitu, 1998). This model states that word skipping is primarily a function of the length of the upcoming word. It leads to the prediction that an unpredicted two‐letter word will be skipped more often than a predicted four‐letter word, which is indeed what we observed. Our second aim was to determine if we could obtain an interaction between context predictability and parafoveal word length, by looking at what happens when the length of the parafoveal word does not agree with the length of the expected word. No such interaction was observed although the effects of both word length and predictability were substantial. These findings are interpreted as evidence for the hypothesis that visual and language‐related factors independently affect word skipping.     

The power of representation and interpretation: Doubling statistical reasoning performance with icons and frequentist interpretations of ambiguous numbers

Abstract

Six highly familiar melodies were submitted to three transformations: reduction and two rhythmic group transformations. These three transformations offered the opportunity to compare the role of various means of melody recognition: melodic contour, harmonic structure, local surface cues. If melody recognition relies on melodic contour, an original melody would be easier to recognise after rhythmic group transformation than after reduction; the rhythmic group transformation, but not the reduction, preserves the melodic contour. If melody recognition depends on the harmonic structure, an original melody would be easier to recognise after reduction than after a rhythmic group transformation; the reduction, but not the rhythmic group transformation, respects the underlying harmonic structure. The results of two experiments, one with children and one with adults, showed that recognition was better for rhythmic group transformation but only when local surface cues were preserved, a result that could neither be predicted by the melodic contour hypothesis nor by the harmonic structure hypothesis. The results give support to the cue abstraction hypothesis, which suggests that melody recognition relies on the recognition of certain surface cues abstracted while hearing and which are then memorised. Recognition performances and speed of recognition served as dependent variables.     

Mapping the protective pathway of emotional intelligence in youth: From social cognition to smoking intentions

The purpose of this study was to test perceptions of the social consequences of smoking as a mediator of the relationship between emotional intelligence (EI) and intentions to smoke cigarettes among youth. Upper elementary school students (N = 255, M_age = 10.9 years, 49% male) completed measures of EI, verbal intelligence, smoking-related intentions, past behavior, and perceived social consequences. Mediation was tested using the Sobel test. Perceived social consequences was a marginally significant mediator of the impact of total EI on intentions to smoke (Z = 1.91, p = .057). Follow-up analyses showed that perceived social consequences significantly mediated the effect of 2 EI abilities on smoking intentions: using emotions (Z = 2.02, p = .043) and managing emotions (Z = 2.28, p = .023). The results indicate that the role of higher EI in deterring smoking among youth may be related to social processing ability (i.e., greater perceptions of the negative social consequences of smoking). These findings contribute to a growing body of research demonstrating that EI may reduce cigarette smoking among youth by influencing their social perceptions.     

Reply to Ellis and to Handfield on essentialism,laws, and counterfactuals

Peter Singer has argued that there are good utilitarian reasons for rejecting the prospect of superlongevity: developing technology to double (or more) the average human lifespan. I argue against Singer's view on two fronts. First, empirical research on happiness indicates that the later years of life are (on average) the happiest, and there is no reason to suppose that this trend would not continue if superlongevity were realized. Second, it is argued that there are good reasons to suppose that there will be a certain amount of self-selection: the happiest are more likely to adopt superlongevity technology. This means that the adoption of superlongevity technology will have the effect of raising the level of aggregate utility.     

Variable Error

The degree to which blocked (VE) data satisfies the assumptions of compound symmetry required for a repeated measures ANOVA was studied. Monte Carlo procedures were used to study the effect of violation of this assumption, under varying block sizes, on the Type I error rate. Populations of 10,000 subjects for each of two groups, the underlying variance-covariance matrices reflecting a specific condition of violation of the homogeneity of covariance assumptions, were generated based on each of three actual experimental data sets. The data were blocked in various ways, VE calculated, and subsequently analyzed by a repeated measures ANOVA. The complete process was replicated for four covariance homogeneity conditions for each of the three data sets, resulting in a total of 22,000 simulated experiments. Results indicated that the Type I error rate increases as the degree of heterogeneity within the variance-covariance matrices increases when raw (unblocked) data are analyzed. With VE, the effects of within-matrix heterogeneity on the Type I error rate are inconclusive. However, block size does seem to affect the probability of obtaining a significant interaction, but the nature of this relationship is not clear as there does not appear to be any consistent relationship between the size of the block and the probability of obtaining significance. For both raw and VE data there was no inflation in the number of Type I errors when the covariances within a given matrix were homogeneous, regardless of the differences between the group variance-covariance matrices.