Performance on a Mirror-Drawing Task by Non-Right-Handers

Left-, mixed-, and right-handed (each n = 10, N = 30) adolescent boys who were classified on the basis of a hand preference inventory performed a mirror-drawing task with a bilateral transfer of a skill paradigm. Participants' hand preference and the magnitude of bilateral transfer of skill were assessed in terms of errors committed and time taken to complete the mirror-drawing task. Mixed-handed participants exhibited significantly less habit interference for mirror drawing, and they performed the task significantly faster than the left-handers did; the group difference was not significant for the frequency of errors committed. These groups did not differ in terms of the magnitude of bilateral transfer of skill; the trend, however, showed that the transfer of skill was minimum in mixed-handers. These findings extend the theory that mixed-handed participants' inability to transfer motor skill from one hand to the other could be attributable to their lack of a clear pattern of lateralization. Their ability to perform well either at initial or later trials may be a function of less interference from their normal motor habits.     

Development of Spatial Language and Cognition in Hindi- and Sanskrit-Medium Schools

This paper describes a study carried out at Varanasi on the development of geocentric spatial cognition with 4–14 year old children of Hindi and Sanskrit medium schools. A number of tasks and procedures were used to assess the spatial frames of reference children used in describing and interpreting spatial displays. Analysis revealed that Sanskrit medium school children used more geocentric language and encoding than Hindi medium school children. The effect of age was significant only for encoding, not for language. Geocentric spatial cognition was significantly linked to fundamental spatial cognitive ability, as measured by Story-Pictorial Embedded Figures Test and Block Designs Test. The stronger expression of geocentric language and geocentric encoding in Sanskrit than Hindi medium school children suggests that the use of the ability can be sharpened by its practice and actualization in day-to-day life. The relationship between language and encoding was found to be of a moderate level suggesting that geocentric cognition is not determined by language alone, but also by other factors present in children’s eco-cultural contexts.     

A Monte Carlo investigation of conjoint analysis index-of-fit: Goodness of fit,significance and power

Researchers in the field of conjoint analysis know the index-of-fit values worsen as the judgmental error of evaluation increases. This simulation study provides guidelines on the goodness of fit based on distribution of index-of-fit for different conjoint analysis designs. The study design included the following factors: number of profiles, number of attributes, algorithm used and judgmental model used. Critical values are provided for deciding the statistical significance of conjoint analysis results. Using these cumulative distributions, the power of the test used to reject the null hypothesis of random ranking is calculated. The test is found to be quite powerful except for the case of very small residual degrees of freedom.The authors thank the editor, the three reviewers and Ellen Foxman for helpful comments on the paper. Sanjay Mishra was a doctoral student at Washington State University at the time this research was completed. He is currently in the Department of Marketing at the University of Kansas.     

IQ in childhood and the metabolic syndrome in middle age: Extended follow-up of the 1946 British Birth Cohort Study

IQ in early adulthood has been inversely associated with risk of the metabolic syndrome in midlife. We tested this association in the British 1946 birth cohort, which assessed IQ at age eight years and ascertained the metabolic syndrome at age 53 years based on modified (non-fasting blood) ATPIII criteria. Childhood IQ was inversely associated with risk of the metabolic syndrome, but this association was almost entirely mediated by educational attainment and achieved occupational social class. This may be consistent with a pattern where childhood IQ is strongly associated with outcomes that reflect neurological disorder, such as the degenerative dementias, but less so with common chronic physical diseases of ageing.     

Correction to: Is Ultimate Attribution Error Universal? Inter-group Attribution for Success and Failure among University Students in Delhi

In the abstract, the sixth line should read as “Results indicated that both General Caste category and Scheduled Caste category participants showed no inter-group attribution bias.     

Influence of motivated reasoning on saving and spending decisions

The decision to save enhances well-being in the long-term but it conflicts with the desire to spend money to gain immediate gratification. In this research, we examine the influence of having single versus multiple accounts on individuals’ savings and spending decisions. We find that individuals save more with a single account than with multiple liquid accounts. Utilizing work on motivated reasoning and fuzzy-trace theory, we suggest that multiple accounts engender fuzzy gist representations, making it easier for people to generate justifications to support their desired spending decisions. However, a single account reduces the latitude for distortion and hinders generation of justifications to support desirable spending decisions. Across four studies that provide participants with the opportunity to earn, spend, and save money, we demonstrate the proposed effect and test the underlying process.     

Effect of Mg content on Portevin–Le Chatelier band strain in Al–Mg sheet alloys

Experimental measurements of stress drops and band strains in type-B Portevin–Le Chatelier (PLC) bands were carried out for 5xxx series Al–Mg sheets with Mg content between 1.8 and 4.5?wt%. While the stress drops increase with global strain, the band strain values in all the samples follow a common linear relationship with global strain. The results indicate that the type-B PLC band strain is independent of solute content at given strain rate.     

Cellular site and molecular mode of synapsin action in associative learning

Synapsin is an evolutionarily conserved, presynaptic vesicular phosphoprotein. Here, we ask where and how synapsin functions in associative behavioral plasticity. Upon loss or reduction of synapsin in a deletion mutant or via RNAi, respectively, Drosophila larvae are impaired in odor-sugar associative learning. Acute global expression of synapsin and local expression in only the mushroom body, a third-order "cortical" brain region, fully restores associative ability in the mutant. No rescue is found by synapsin expression in mushroom body input neurons or by expression excluding the mushroom bodies. On the molecular level, we find that a transgenically expressed synapsin with dysfunctional PKA-consensus sites cannot rescue the defect of the mutant in associative function, thus assigning synapsin as a behaviorally relevant effector of the AC-cAMP-PKA cascade. We therefore suggest that synapsin acts in associative memory trace formation in the mushroom bodies, as a downstream element of AC-cAMP-PKA signaling. These analyses provide a comprehensive chain of explanation from the molecular level to an associative behavioral change.     

Effects of organizational citizenship behaviors on selection decisions in employment interviews

This article reports on an experiment examining the effects of job candidates' propensity to exhibit organizational citizenship behaviors (OCBs) on selection decisions made in the context of a job interview. We developed videos that manipulated candidate responses to interview questions tapping task performance and citizenship behavior content in 2 administrative positions. Results obtained from 480 undergraduates provided support for our hypotheses that job candidates who exhibited higher levels of helping, voice, and loyalty behaviors were generally rated as more competent, received higher overall evaluations, and received higher salary recommendations than job candidates who exhibited lower levels of these behaviors. These effects held even after taking into account candidate responses regarding task performance. We also found that candidate responses to OCB-related questions tended to have a greater effect on selection decisions for the higher level position (supervisor of administrative personnel) than for the lower level one (administrative assistant). Finally, content analyses of open-ended responses indicated that participants' selection decisions were particularly sensitive to candidates who exhibited low levels of voice and helping behaviors. Implications and future research are discussed.