Traces of times past: Representations of temporal intervals in memory

Theories of time perception typically assume that some sort of memory represents time intervals. This memory component is typically underdeveloped in theories of time perception. Following earlier work that suggested that representations of different time intervals contaminate each other (Grondin, 2005; Jazayeri & Shadlen, 2010; Jones & Wearden, 2004), an experiment was conducted in which subjects had to alternate in reproducing two intervals. In two conditions of the experiment, the duration of one of the intervals changed over the experiment, forcing subjects to adjust their representation of that interval, while keeping the other constant. The results show that the adjustment of one interval carried over to the other interval, indicating that subjects were not able to completely separate the two representations. We propose a temporal reference memory that is based on existing memory models (Anderson, 1990). Our model assumes that the representation of an interval is based on a pool of recent experiences. In a series of simulations, we show that our pool model fits the data, while two alternative models that have previously been proposed do not.     

Why envy outperforms admiration

Four studies tested the hypothesis that the emotion of benign envy, but not the emotions of admiration or malicious envy, motivates people to improve themselves. Studies 1 to 3 found that only benign envy was related to the motivation to study more (Study 1) and to actual performance on the Remote Associates Task (which measures intelligence and creativity; Studies 2 and 3). Study 4 found that an upward social comparison triggered benign envy and subsequent better performance only when people thought self-improvement was attainable. When participants thought self-improvement was hard, an upward social comparison led to more admiration and no motivation to do better. Implications of these findings for theories of social emotions such as envy, social comparisons, and for understanding the influence of role models are discussed.     

Students’ perception of teachers’ two-way feedback interactions that impact learning

Social Psychology of Education - Teacher-student interactions are fundamental to learning outcomes. However, the facilitation of student-defined, in-class two-way feedback interaction is...     

Group-based self-evaluation outside of the laboratory: effects of global versus contextual status

An event-contingent diary methodology was used to study the impact of intergroup and intragroup factors on self-evaluations in naturally occurring groups. Participants reported their contextual group status, group identification, and self-evaluations each time they self-categorized as a group member throughout a 1-week period. Indicators of global group status, interdependence, and permeability of group boundaries also were obtained. Multilevel modeling revealed that contextual status and global status interacted to predict self-evaluations. Contextual status had a stronger relationship with self-evaluations for members of global low-status groups than for members of high-status groups. Analyses of intragroup factors revealed that greater group interdependence but not permeability of group boundaries also was associated with higher self-evaluations. The effects of both contextual status and group interdependence were mediated by group identification.     

Monitoring syllable boundaries during speech production

This study investigated the encoding of syllable boundary information during speech production in Dutch. Based on Levelt's model of phonological encoding, we hypothesized segments and syllable boundaries to be encoded in an incremental way. In a self-monitoring experiment, decisions about the syllable affiliation (first or second syllable) of a pre-specified consonant, which was the third phoneme in a word, were required (e.g., ka.No 'canoe' vs. kaN.sel 'pulpit'; capital letters indicate pivotal consonants, dots mark syllable boundaries). First syllable responses were faster than second syllable responses, indicating the incremental nature of segmental encoding and syllabification during speech production planning. The results of the experiment are discussed in the context of Levelt's model of phonological encoding.     

Measuring motivations for intercollegiate athlete alcohol use: a confirmatory factor analysis of the drinking motives measure

This study examined the psychometric properties of the Drinking Motives Measure (DMM) on a sample of 227 collegiate athletes. Confirmatory factor analyses indicated that the 4-factor structure of the DMM provided a better fit than either 2- or 1-factor models, but the overall fit of the 4-factor model was moderate at best. A revised 3-factor model consistent with prior research (M. L. Cooper, M. Russell, J. B. Skinner, & M. Windle, 1992) provided the best fit. Hierarchical multiple regression analyses indicated that the 3 DMM factors included in the revised model accounted for 17%-21% of the unique variance on alcohol consumption variables. Results provide preliminary evidence supporting the internal consistency, construct validity, and convergent validity of the revised 3-factor DMM with collegiate athletes.     

How many IRT parameters does it take to model psychopathology items?

The authors compared the fit of the 2- and 3-parameter logistic models (2PLM; 3PLM) on 15 unidimensional factor scales derived from the Minnesota Multiphasic Personality Inventory--Adolescent item pool. Log-likelihood chi-square deviance tests indicated that a 3PLM provided an improved fit. However, residual statistics indicated that the difference in fit between the 2 models was negligible. An unexpected finding was that from 10% to 30% of the items had substantial lower asymptote parameters (c > or = .10) when the scales were scored in the pathology or nonpathology directions. The authors argue that the large lower asymptote parameters are attributable to item-content ambiguity possibly caused by item-level multidimensionality. These findings suggest that the direction of scoring can critically affect an item response theory analysis.     

Indicatives,Subjunctives, and the Falsity of the Antecedent

It is widely held that there are important differences between indicative conditionals (e.g., “If the authors are linguists, they have written a linguistics paper”) and subjunctive conditionals (e.g., “If the authors had been linguists, they would have written a linguistics paper”). A central difference is that indicatives and subjunctives convey different stances toward the truth of their antecedents. Indicatives (often) convey neutrality: for example, about whether the authors in question are linguists. Subjunctives (often) convey the falsity of the antecedent: for example, that the authors in question are not linguists. This paper tests prominent accounts of how these different stances are conveyed: whether by presupposition or conversational implicature. Experiment 1 tests the presupposition account by investigating whether the stances project—remain constant—when embedded under operators like negations, possibility modals, and interrogatives, a key characteristic of presuppositions. Experiment 2 tests the conversational-implicature account by investigating whether the stances can be cancelled without producing a contradiction, a key characteristic of implicatures. The results provide evidence that both stances—neutrality about the antecedent in indicatives and the falsity of the antecedent in subjunctives—are conveyed by conversational implicatures.     

Pitches that Wire Together Fire Together: Scale Degree Associations Across Time Predict Melodic Expectations

The ongoing generation of expectations is fundamental to listeners’ experience of music, but research into types of statistical information that listeners extract from musical melodies has tended to emphasize transition probabilities and n-grams, with limited consideration given to other types of statistical learning that may be relevant. Temporal associations between scale degrees represent a different type of information present in musical melodies that can be learned from musical corpora using expectation networks, a computationally simple method based on activation and decay. Expectation networks infer the expectation of encountering one scale degree followed in the near (but not necessarily immediate) future by another given scale degree, with previous work suggesting that scale degree associations learned by expectation networks better predict listener ratings of pitch similarity than transition probabilities. The current work outlines how these learned scale degree associations can be combined to predict melodic continuations and tests the resulting predictions on a dataset of listener responses to a musical cloze task previously used to compare two other models of melodic expectation, a variable-order Markov model (IDyOM) and Temperley's music-theoretically motivated model. Under multinomial logistic regression, all three models explain significant unique variance in human melodic expectations, with coefficient estimates highest for expectation networks. These results suggest that generalized scale degree associations informed by both adjacent and nonadjacent relationships between melodic notes influence listeners’ melodic predictions above and beyond n-gram context, highlighting the need to consider a broader range of statistical learning processes that may underlie listeners’ expectations for upcoming musical events.     

An Introduction to Kristof’s Theorem for Solving Least-Square Optimization Problems Without Calculus

Kristof’s Theorem (Kristof, 1970 Kristof, W. (1970). A theorem on the trace of certain matrix products and some applications. Journal of Mathematical Psychology, 7(3), 515–530. https://doi.org/10.1016/0022-2496(70)90037-4[Crossref], [Web of Science ®] , [Google Scholar]) describes a matrix trace inequality that can be used to solve a wide-class of least-square optimization problems without calculus. Considering its generality, it is surprising that Kristof’s Theorem is rarely used in statistics and psychometric applications. The underutilization of this method likely stems, in part, from the mathematical complexity of Kristof’s (1964 Kristof, W. (1964). Die beste orthogonale Transformation zur gegenseitigen Uberfiihrung zweier Faktorenmatrizen. Diagnostica, 10, 87–90. [Google Scholar], 1970 Kristof, W. (1970). A theorem on the trace of certain matrix products and some applications. Journal of Mathematical Psychology, 7(3), 515–530. https://doi.org/10.1016/0022-2496(70)90037-4[Crossref], [Web of Science ®] , [Google Scholar]) writings. In this article, I describe the underlying logic of Kristof’s Theorem in simple terms by reviewing four key mathematical ideas that are used in the theorem’s proof. I then show how Kristof’s Theorem can be used to provide novel derivations to two cognate models from statistics and psychometrics. This tutorial includes a glossary of technical terms and an online supplement with R (R Core Team, 2017 R Core Team (2017). R: A language and environment for statistical computing. Vienna, Austria: R Foundation for Statistical Computing. Retrieved from https://www.R-project.org/ [Google Scholar]) code to perform the calculations described in the text.