Feature saliency and recognition memory for schematic faces

Memory for schematic faces was studied using a recognition memory paradigm. Ss indicated whether two faces, separated by delays of 6, 12, or 18 sec, were the same or different. Theoretical interest centered on the effects of component feature saliency on response bias and detectability. The main results were that there were fewer misses and more false alarms on the more salient features. Analysis showed that the main effect of feature saliency was on response bias, not detectability.     

Religious Affiliation Influences on the Health Status and Behaviours of Students Attending Seventh-Day Adventist Schools in Australia

Students attending Seventh-day Adventist (Adventist) schools in Australia have been shown to have better health status and behaviours compared to secular norms, yet these schools cater for a high percentage of non-Adventist students. The purpose of this study was to investigate the influence of religious affiliation (Adventist/non-Adventist) on the health status and behaviours of students attending Adventist secondary schools in Australia. The sample included 1734 students who responded to a health and lifestyle survey that captured demographic details, self-reported height and weight, self-reported health status, mental health and select health behaviours. Students who identified themselves as Adventist reported significantly better health behaviours than the non-Adventist students in several behavioural domains, especially among the male students. However, this did not translate to a difference in health status. Further research is needed to understand the causal mechanisms responsible for the potential health advantage of Adventist students, which may include family or church religious influences.     

Line bisection-based hemisphericity estimates of university students and professionals: evidence of sorting during higher education and career selection

Recently, hemisphericity has been assessed by six intercorrelated methods. Here, one of these, the "Best Hand Test," a two-hand line bisection-based biophysical method relatively independent of language, culture, or education, was applied to the measurement of hemisphericity distributions within large groups. Entering university students (n=402) enrolled in three lower division courses were chosen as a reference population. Each of these classes contained about 56% left brain-oriented individuals. In contrast, mean student left-brain distributions in four specialized, upper level courses (n=180), ranged from 35 to 68%, suggestive of hemisphericity sorting. Even more pronounced hemisphericity distribution differences were found within university representatives of 15 professions (n=421) and within professional subspecialists (n=45). For example, of biochemists (n=18), 83% were left brain-oriented, while among astronomers (n=21), only 29% were. These results are of intrinsic interest, and demonstrate the capability of the Best Hand Test to estimate hemisphericity in large groups.     

Two-hand line-bisection task outcomes correlate with several measures of hemisphericity

While seeking new functional methods to reassess the concept of hemisphericity, a two-hand line-bisection task was investigated because of reports of large, stable differences among the general population. These were found to be due to hemispheric differences in judgment of the midpoint of horizontal lines, made visible due to the unilateral brain control of each hand. By use of a two-hand line-bisection test (Best-Hand Test), university workers (n=412) were readily sorted into theoretical response categories, resulting in the production of two large groups. These two groups correlated well with those produced by four independent hemisphericity assessments, two physiological and two psychological. This is the third biophysical method whose performance-based group separations significantly correlated with those produced by preference-based hemisphericity-type questionnaires. It is rapid and avoids language, education, or cultural bias.     

Is Dutch native English? Linguistic analysis by 2-month-olds

A variant of the non-nutritive habituation/dishabituation sucking method was used to test 2-month-old English infants’ perception of languages. This method tests for the spontaneous interest of the baby to a change in the stimulus. English and Japanese were clearly discriminated. The difference between French and Japanese was equally clearly not of interest to babies using this procedure, the babies behaving as though both languages were classified simply as ‘foreign’. In order to further specify babies’ representation of native and foreign language, we used Dutch, which shares a number of suprasegmental features with English. The results from our last 2 experiments indicate that a portion of our 6–12 week-old babies consider Dutch as native, suggesting that we tapped in a transition period where the babies are still refining the suprasegmental specification of their native language.