How bilingual experience and executive control influence development in language control among bilingual children

This longitudinal study investigates whether the development in executive control and bilingual experience predicts change in language control in bilingual children. Children were tested twice over the course of 1 year, using the language‐switching paradigm and the Simon task. The participants were Japanese‐English bilingual “returnee” children (ages 7–13), who returned to their first language (L1) environment after spending some years in a second language (L2) dominant environment. Testing these children upon their return to the L1 environment allowed us to disentangle the effect of age from bilingual experience, as they experienced an increase in age but a decrease in L2 exposure over time. Children who had less L2 exposure showed smaller improvement in baseline performance when naming pictures in English (i.e., when English was relevant across all trials). Moreover, development in trials where children had to switch between languages were modulated by development in executive control. That is, children who increased their performance in the English mixed repetition trials also performed better on the executive control task over time. Thus, development in executive control modulated change in language control among bilingual children, suggesting a positive relationship between language control and executive control in children's development.     

A review of applicant faking in selection interviews

Interviews are commonly used for selection but research on interview faking only gained momentum relatively recently. We review both theoretical and empirical work on prevalence, antecedents, processes, and effects of interview faking. Most applicants fake at least to some degree. Personality (e.g., Conscientiousness, Honesty‐humility, the Dark Triad) and attitudes toward faking substantially correlate with faking behaviors. Research concerning applicants' ability, interview structure components, or contextual factors is limited. Furthermore, the impact of faking on interview ratings is mixed and effects on criterion‐related validity are not consistently negative. Finally, the detection of faking seems hardly possible and there are limited options available to reduce interview faking. Throughout our review, we describe important gaps and derive suggestions and propositions for future research.     

The psychobiology of trait shame in young women: extending the social self preservation theory

OBJECTIVE: The social self preservation theory (SSPT) proposes that social evaluative threat evokes the emotion of shame, which then shapes a coordinated psychobiological response. While this is supported in acute stress studies, there is no data on chronic experiences of shame. DESIGN: We investigated the association of trait shame with activity of the hypothalamic-pituitary-adrenal (HPA) axis, of the sympathetic nervous system (SNS), and regulation of inflammation in n = 56 young women. MAIN OUTCOME MEASURES: Daily profiles of salivary cortisol and alpha-amylase were assessed as indices of HPA axis and SNS activity, respectively. Inflammatory regulation was assessed by lipopolysaccharide-stimulated production and glucocorticoid inhibition of interleukin-6 in vitro. RESULTS: Trait shame was associated with SNS (r = .49; p = .001), but not HPA activity (r = .14; ns). Shame was associated with inflammatory activity (r = .35; p = .006) and glucocorticoid sensitivity (r = -0.43; p = .001). Relationships were not mediated by HPA and SNS activity. CONCLUSIONS: Results support SSPT predictions with respect to chronic shame experience and inflammation. Results further suggest the importance of SNS activation related to shame, and the possibility that HPA activation may be limited acute experiences of shame.     

The Berlin School of Logical Empiricism and its Legacy

What has become generally known as the Berlin School of Logical Empiricism constitutes a philosophical movement that was erected on foundations laid by Albert Einstein. His revolutionary work in physics had a profound impact on philosophers interested in scientific issues, prominent among them Paul Oppenheim and Hans Reichenbach, the founding fathers of the school, who joined in viewing him as their hero among philosopher–scientists. Overall the membership of this school falls into three groups. The founding generation was linked by the circumstance that both Grelling and Reichenbach were collaborators of Oppenheim; the middle generation by the fact that both Hempel and Helmer were students of Reichenbach’s in Berlin; and the younger generation by the fact that all of its members were students and (at least in their early years) disciples either of Reichenbach’s or of Hempel’s in the USA. Three stages are at issue: an initial phase in Berlin, a transatlantic migration, and a continuation in the U.S.A.—principally in Pittsburgh.     

Fundamental properties of the N2pc as an index of spatial attention: effects of masking.

Masking is an important tool in many paradigms used to study the cognitive architecture. The N2pc is an electrophysiological event-related potential (ERP) that has been used as a tool to study the deployment of visual spatial attention. The aim of this paper was to study the effects of masking on the N2pc. Two stimuli were presented on the screen, one to left and one to right of fixation, and subjects reported the identity of one of them. The targets could be discriminated both by their category (letters vs. digit) and by their colour (pink vs. green). Backward masking was produced by presenting a second pair of bilateral stimuli after the offset of the first pair. The second pair of stimuli consisted of characters of the same colour and category as in the first pair. Forward masking was produced by using the very same stimuli as in the backward masking condition, but by instructing subjects to report the second stimulus. The forward mask trials had longer response times compared to no-mask trials, and backward mask trials had even longer response times, and also a higher error rate. Although the different masking procedures lead to clear behavioural effects, the N2pc was not affected, suggesting that the deployment of visual spatial attention, per se, was not affected by pattern masking. A sustained posterior contralateral negativity (SPCN) following the N2pc was also found (300 ms post-target, and beyond), and the amplitude of the SPCN was strongly modulated by the number of presented stimuli and the duration of the SPCN was positively correlated with RT in the behavioural task. We hypothesize that the SPCN reflects neural activity associated with the passage of information through visual short-term memory.     

Superior implicit memory: a pilot study

In this pilot study, implicit memory was examined in participants selected according to their scores on the Wechsler Memory Scale-Revised. Implicit memory was explored using a word-stem completion test after 24 participants had processed texts to be remembered. Variations in priming were observed among 12 Normal and 12 Good memorizers (Verbal Memory scores >110) following presentation of target words in the context of a coherent text. One intriguing result emerged: the magnitude of the priming effect varied by group, greater among Good memorizers than Normal memorizers.     

Atypicality and the two fundamental dimensions: Applying the negativity effect on warmth to group perception

The person perception literature has shown that negative information on warmth influences impression formation more than other kinds of information. In the present paper, we argue for the usefulness of using the knowledge accumulated on the negativity effect on warmth when studying how members of a group who are disconfirming the group stereotype are perceived. We show that negative divergent information on warmth is perceived as more surprising because it appears to be more discrepant than positive divergent information on warmth or than competence information. We also show how stereotype holders protect their stereotype by rating the surprising incoherent information as atypical. Results are discussed in terms of the necessity to apply our knowledge of the two fundamental dimensions of social perception and their properties to typicality ratings and, beyond them, to stereotype change research. Copyright © 2009 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

The influence of alexithymia and music on the incidental memory for emotion words

Alexithymia is a multifaceted personality construct which encompasses difficulties in identifying and expressing feelings along with an externally oriented cognitive style. We investigated whether congruent vs. incongruent emotional musical priming (happy and angry music) during encoding would moderate the effects of alexithymia on recognition rates. We found that high alexithymia scorers recognized fewer joy and anger words than low scorers. Angry music decreased recognition rates in high alexithymia scorers compared to low alexithymia scorers. The congruency and incongruency effects between music and words depended on alexithymia level. The anger deficit in high alexithymia scorers and the possible support provided by happiness cues are discussed. Copyright © 2010 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Subjective reports of stimulus,response, and decision times in speeded tasks: How accurate are decision time reports?

Four experiments examined how accurately participants can report the times of their own decisions. Within an auditory reaction time (RT) task, participants reported the time at which (a) the tone was presented, (b) they decided on the response, or (c) the response key was pressed. Decision time reports were checked for plausibility against the actual RTs, and we compared the effects of experimental manipulations on these two measures to see whether the reported decision times showed appropriate effects. In addition, we estimated the amount of error associated with individual decision time reports by checking how often participants’ decision time reports were implausibly early (i.e., before stimulus onset) or late (i.e., after response), and by using several quantitative models. Overall, the results suggest that decision time reports are not very accurate but they may be usable for some purposes.