Nature over nurture: temperament, personality, and life span development

Temperaments are often regarded as biologically based psychological tendencies with intrinsic paths of development. It is argued that this definition applies to the personality traits of the five-factor model. Evidence for the endogenous nature of traits is summarized from studies of behavior genetics, parent-child relations, personality structure, animal personality, and the longitudinal stability of individual differences. New evidence for intrinsic maturation is offered from analyses of NEO Five-Factor Inventory scores for men and women age 14 and over in German, British, Spanish, Czech, and Turkish samples (N = 5,085). These data support strong conceptual links to child temperament despite modest empirical associations. The intrinsic maturation of personality is complemented by the culturally conditioned development of characteristic adaptations that express personality; interventions in human development are best addressed to these.     

Adaptation to time-compressed speech: phonological determinants

Perceptual adaptation to time-compressed speech was analyzed in two experiments. Previous research has suggested that this adaptation phenomenon is language specific and takes place at the phonological level. Moreover, it has been proposed that adaptation should only be observed for languages that are rhythmically similar. This assumption was explored by studying adaptation to different time-compressed languages in Spanish speakers. In Experiment 1, the performances of Spanish-speaking subjects who adapted to Spanish, Italian, French, English, and Japanese were compared. In Experiment 2, subjects from the same population were tested with Greek sentences compressed to two different rates. The results showed adaptation for Spanish, Italian, and Greek and no adaptation for English and Japanese, with French being an intermediate case. To account for the data, we propose that variables other than just the rhythmic properties of the languages, such as the vowel system and/or the lexical stress pattern, must be considered. The Greek data also support the view that phonological, rather than lexical, information is a determining factor in adaptation to compressed speech.     

An ethics perspective on transcranial magnetic stimulation (TMS) and human neuromodulation

This paper concerns the ethics of human neuromodulation using transcranial magnetic stimulation (TMS). We examine the challenges of modulating the brain with TMS through the research ethics lens and in clinical medicine for treating frank pathology, primarily in psychiatric diseases. We also consider contemporary issues raised in the neuroethics literature about managing unexpected findings, and relate these to TMS and to other frontier neurotechnology that is becoming openly available in the public domain. We argue that safety and informed consent are of paramount importance for TMS, but that personal values and sociocultural factors must also be considered when examining the promise of this technology and applications that ought to be highlighted for extra precautions.     

Different selection principles of freestanding and bound morphemes in language production

Freestanding and bound morphemes differ in many (psycho)linguistic aspects. Some theorists have claimed that the representation and retrieval of freestanding and bound morphemes in the course of language production are governed by similar processing mechanisms. Alternatively, it has been proposed that both types of morphemes may be selected for production in different ways. In this article, the authors first review the available experimental evidence related to this topic and then present new experimental data pointing to the notion that freestanding and bound morphemes are retrieved following distinct processing principles: freestanding morphemes are subject to competition, bound morphemes not.     

Attention alters the appearance of motion coherence

Selective attention enhances visual information processing, as measured by behavioral performance and neural activity. However, little is known about its effects on subjective experience. Here, we investigated the effect of transient (exogenous) attention on the appearance of visual motion, using a psychophysical procedure that directly measures appearance and controls for response bias. Observers viewed pairs of moving dot patterns and reported the motion direction of the more coherent pattern. Directing attention (via a peripheral precue) to a stimulus location increased its perceived coherence level and improved performance on a direction discrimination task. In a control experiment, we ruled out response bias by lengthening the time interval between the cue and the stimuli, so that the effect of transient attention could no longer be exerted. Our results are consistent with those of neurophysiological studies showing that attention modulates motion processing and provide evidence of a subjective perceptual correlate of attention, with a concomitant effect on performance.     

The role of religion in human values: a case study

By helping social norms to be internalized, values are indirectly sources of relationship behaviour. Likewise, cultural traditions, religion and language have different meanings that shape beliefs and influence social life. Thus, it seems important to revaluate the role of values in social life in a society which is extremely distinguishable in religious terms. An adaptation of Schwartz’s (1994a Schwartz, S. H. 1994a. “Studying human values”. In Journeys Into Cross‐Cultural Psychology, Edited by: Bouvy, A., Vijver, F., Boski, P. and Schmitz, P. 239–254. Amsterdam: Swets & Zeitlinger.  [Google Scholar]) value survey was used. MANOVA analysis revealed significant differences between groups in four value types and in three higher dimensions. Overall, results indicate that a combination of Schwartz’ values with insights from individualism/collectivism can be useful in contexts like Mozambique, a nation characterized by divergent religious groups, which can lead to a collision between religious viewpoints and values. Altogether, it seems most important to investigate further the historical and social influences that shape individual and communal identities with regard to questions of religion and values.     

Attention alters the appearance of spatial frequency and gap size

Transient attention is the automatic and short-lasting preferential processing of an area in visual space initiated by sudden stimulation in the same vicinity. Transient attention enhances early visual processing in a variety of dimensions, increasing contrast sensitivity, spatial resolution, and acuity. A recent study established that the increase in contrast sensitivity is accompanied by an increase in apparent contrast. In the present study, we investigated whether the effects of transient attention on spatial resolution and acuity are accompanied by corresponding phenomenological changes in these dimensions. The data indicate that transient attention increases the apparent spatial frequency of Gabor stimuli (Experiment 1) and increases apparent gap size in a Landolt-square acuity task (Experiment 2). Transient attention not only affects basic visual processing-it changes what one experiences.     

On the facilitatory effects of cognate words in bilingual speech production

There is a growing body of evidence showing that a word's cognate status is an important dimension affecting the naming performance of bilingual speakers. In a recent article, Kohnert extended this observation to the naming performance of an aphasic bilingual (DJ). DJ named pictures with cognate names more accurately than pictures with non-cognate names. Furthermore, having named the pictures in Spanish helped the subsequent retrieval (with a delay of one week between the two tests) of the same pictures' names in English, but only for pictures with cognate names. That is, there was a language transfer but only for those translation words that were phonologically similar. In this article we first evaluate the conclusions drawn from these results by Kohnert, and second we discuss the theoretical implications of the facilitatory effects of cognate words for models of speech production in bilingual speakers.     

An online measure of thought suppression

An online thought-suppression paradigm was developed to test predictions of ironic process theory. Participants concentrated on or suppressed a particular semantic category. Semantic activation was indexed by the latency to name words from the category. In Experiments 1 and 2, an analog intrusion was introduced while participants were trying to suppress the information. Results consistent with ironic process theory were observed using words with polar opposites in Experiment 1 and words without polar opposites in Experiment 2. To determine whether these effects were dependent on the analog intrusion, Experiment 3 replicated Experiment 1 without the intrusion. Concentration generated semantic activation, but suppression exacerbated this activation. The data imply that hyperaccessibility results from efforts to suppress, whereas the processes of thought suppression identified by ironic process theory require the presence of material inconsistent with a desired cognitive state.     

The allure of the alignable: younger and older adults' false memories of choice features

When making choices, people often try to directly compare the features of different options rather than evaluating each option separately. Not every feature has an analogous (or alignable) feature in the other option, however. In this study, both younger and older adults filled in such gaps when remembering, creating features in the other option to contrast with existing features. Thus, participants had a tendency to remember choice options as more comparable than they originally were. High performance on tasks tapping strategic processing was associated with a pattern of mostly feature-based comparisons during choice for older adults but with a pattern of mostly option-based comparisons for younger adults. This pattern suggests that younger and older adults' comparison processes are influenced by different goals.