Word‐of‐mouth information processing routes: The mediating role of message and source characteristics

This study investigates word‐of‐mouth (WOM) information processing routes from active WOM seeking behaviour. Employing the elaboration likelihood model (ELM), the direct and indirect effects of factors within information processing routes are examined in a credence service context. A deeper exploration of the causal chains of each route was conducted using serial mediation models of message quality and source characteristics. Data were collected in the higher education context from a survey of 509 high school students applying for tertiary study. Findings indicate that active WOM seeking and the serial mediation effects elicit two routes of information processing: central and peripheral. This study is amongst the first to intensively reveal the underlying causal chains of WOM processing and supports the application of ELM theory in WOM research.     

Heteronormative Relationship Education for Same‐Gender Couples

In recent years, same‐gender group‐based relationship education has emerged as a viable intervention to prevent relationship distress among same‐gender couples. However, many of these programs are conducted in metropolitan areas and lack the ability to reach rural populations. The current study sought to investigate whether two wide‐reaching web‐based heteronormative relationship education programs could positively impact same‐gender relationships. In a sample of 49 same‐gender couples, heteronormative relationship education had small (Cohen's d = 0.16–0.39) but reliably positive effects on key areas of relationship functioning and perceived stress relative to a waitlist control group. Additionally, when same‐gender couples were matched with different‐gender individuals with similar baseline characteristics, no reliable differences between the two groups emerged even though the program effects were sometimes half as large for same‐gender couples. Finally, same‐gender participants were as satisfied with the program as the matched different‐gender individuals. Though the results of the present study indicate that heteronormative relationship education can be helpful for same‐gender couples, additional tailoring should be undertaken to ensure that same‐gender couples experience as much benefit as possible. Estimates from the current study could be used in future studies to detect what might be small‐sized differences.     

Ignorance,Knowledge, and Two Epistemic Intuitions

Philosophia - One of the most venerable and enduring intuitions in epistemology concerns the relationship between true belief and knowledge. Famously articulated by Socrates, it holds that true...     

语言演变差异与族群/方言名称对族群信息加工的影响——以广东三大汉语方言为例

语言是族群的重要文化特征之一。基于广东三大方言族群均为中原移民的史实, 探讨三大汉语方言的语言演变差异与族群/方言名称对方言讲话者对中原族群信息加工的影响。以方言为客家话、粤语和潮汕话的广东大学生为被试, 实验1采用群体参照的R/K范式, 考察不同方言讲话者对中原族群信息的记忆; 实验2采用启动Stroop范式, 考察不同方言讲话者对中原族群信息的注意偏向。结果表明, 语言演变差异与族群/方言名称影响不同方言讲话者对中原族群的信息保持, 顽强地保持祖先语言的客家方言族群对中原族群的信息加工产生群体参照效应; 语言演变差异和族群/方言名称影响方言讲话者对中原族群信息的注意偏向, 客家方言族群对中原族群的信息加工产生注意偏向。整个研究表明, 语言演变差异和族群/方言名称影响对同祖语族群的信息加工, 完整地保留汉祖语特点、强化方言与汉祖语的关系, 能够增强根祖意识, 增进对同根族群的认同。研究结果对铸牢中华民族共同体意识具有重要启示。     

Different Strokes for Different Folks: The Impact of Sex Dissimilarity in the Empowerment–Performance Relationship

Organizations often utilize empowerment as a way to bolster performance. It is largely assumed, however, that its impact in this capacity is equivalent across organizational members. We tested this notion within a sample of 420 employees belonging to 75 teams in a Chinese organization and found that team empowerment related positively to supervisor‐rated in‐role and self‐rated extra‐role performance through its effect on individual psychological empowerment. More important, employee–coworker demographic dissimilarity moderated both stages of this indirect relationship. Specifically, when employee–coworker sex dissimilarity was higher, the following relationships were attenuated: (a) team empowerment–individual empowerment, (b) individual empowerment–in‐role performance, and (c) individual empowerment–extra–role performance. Collectively, the results illustrate that the impact of empowerment is contingent upon demographic dissimilarity.     

The effect of long-term working memory through personalization applied to free recall: Uncurbing the primacy-effect enthusiasm

In this study, a personalization method (Guida, Tardieu, & Nicolas, European Journal of Cognitive Psychology, 21: 862–896 2009) was applied to a free-recall task. Fifteen pairs of words, composed of an object and a location, were presented to 93 participants, who had to mentally associate each pair and subsequently recall the objects. A 30-s delay was introduced on half of the trials, the presentation rate was manipulated (5 or 10 s per item), and verbal and visuospatial working memory tests were administered to test for their effects on the serial curve. Two groups were constituted: a personalized group, for whom the locations were well-known places on their university campus, and a nonpersonalized group, for whom the locations did not refer to known places. Since personalization putatively operationalizes long-term working memory (Ericsson & Kintsch, Psychological Review, 102: 211–245 1995)—namely, the capacity to store information reliably and rapidly in long-term memory—and if we take a dual-store approach to memory, the personalization advantage would be expected to be greater for pre-recency than for recency items. Overall, the results were compatible with long-term working memory theory. They contribute to validating the personalization method as a methodology to characterize the contribution of long-term memory storage to performance in working memory tasks.     

Time-dependence between upper arm muscles activity during rapid movements: Observation of the proportional effects predicted by the kinematic theory

Rapid human movements can be assimilated to the output of a neuromuscular system with an impulse response modeled by a Delta-Lognormal equation. In such a model, the main assumption concerns the cumulative time delays of the response as it propagates toward the effector following a command. To verify the validity of this assumption, delays between bursts in electromyographic (EMG) signals of agonist and antagonist muscles activated during a rapid hand movement were investigated. Delays were measured between the surface EMG signals of six muscles of the upper limb during single rapid handwriting strokes. From EMG envelopes, regressions were obtained between the timing of the burst of activity produced by each monitored muscle. High correlation coefficients were obtained supporting the proportionality of the cumulative time delays, the basic hypothesis of the Delta-Lognormal model. A paradigm governing the sequence of muscle activities in a rapid movement could, in the long run, be useful for applications dealing with the analysis and synthesis of human movements.     

Personalidad,diferencias individuales y decisión con riesgo

Resumen

Esta investigación trata de comprobar si existen diferencias individuales en las estrategias usadas en las tareas de decisión con riesgo que puedan ser explicadas en términos de rasgos polares de personalidad (neuroticismo y extroversión). Al mismo tiempo se trata de encontrar evidencia de las causas (no explicadas) que podrían justificar la clasificación de estrategias propuesta desde la teoría de la integración de la información. Este artículo consta de dos partes bien diferenciadas, en la primera se lleva a cabo un experimento donde los datos no apoyan que los rasgos de personalidad usados expliquen las diferencias individuales; se encontró apoyo para tres de las estrategias descritas en integración de la información. En la segunda parte, con el propósito de analizar las diferencias individuales en el tiempo, se muestra que la estructura lógica del sujeto, como procesador/decisor, es relativamente invariante en el tiempo. Finalmente se discute si la naturaleza de la tarea experimental obliga a los sujetos a desarrollar estrategias ad hoc con poco claro valor de generalización.     

Pleasant emotional induction broadens the visual world of young children

These experiments aimed at studying the influence of emotional context on global/local visual processing in children. Children 5 years old, known to present an immature global visual bias, and 8 years old, known to pay attention predominantly to global information, were placed in either a neutral or pleasant emotional context and subsequently presented with a global/local visual judgement task. As with previous findings for adults, both age groups presented a pronounced perceptual bias toward global information following exposure to emotionally pleasant pictures. Interestingly, younger children, who do not present a global bias during the neutral exposure, presented the same preference for global information as older children when exposed to the pleasant context. These findings indicate that emotion may strongly affect visual perception in children, with important implications for educational practice and models of cognition.