A standardized set of 260 pictures for Modern Greek: Norms for name agreement, age of acquisition, and visual complexity

The appropriate selection of both pictorial and linguistic experimental stimuli requires a previous languagespecific standardization process of the materials across different variables. Considering that such normative data have not yet been collected for Modern Greek, in this study normative data for the color version of the Snodgrass and Vanderwart picture set (Rossion & Pourtois, 2004) were collected from 330 native Greek adults. Participants named the pictures (providing name agreement ratings) and rated them for visual complexity and age of acquisition. The obtained measures represent a useful tool for further research on Greek language processing and constitute the first picture normative study for this language. The picture norms from this study and previous ones may be downloaded from brm.psychonomic-journals.org/content/supplemental.     

The effect of varying the number of response alternatives in rating scales: Experimental evidence from intra-individual effects

Despite a hundred years of questionnaire testing, no consensus has been reached on the optimal number of response alternatives in rating scales. Differences in prior research may have been due to the use of various psychometric models (classical test theory, item factor analysis, and item response theory) and different performance criteria (reliability, convergent/discriminant validity, and internal structure of the questionnaire). Furthermore, previous empirical studies on this issue have tackled the experimental design from a between-subjects perspective, thus ignoring intra-individual effects. In contrast with this approach, we propose a within-subjects experimental design and a comprehensive statistical methodology using structural equation models for studying all of these aspects simultaneously, therefore increasing statistical power. To illustrate the method, two personality questionnaires were examined using a repeated measures design. Results indicated that as the number of response alternatives increased, (1) internal consistency increased, (2) there was no effect on convergent validity, and (3) goodness of fit worsened. Finally, the article assesses the practical consequences of this research for the design of future personality questionnaires.     

The Spanish adaptation of ANEW (Affective Norms for English Words)

This article presents the Spanish adaptation of the Affective Norms for English Words (ANEW; Bradley & Lang, 1999). The norms are based on 720 participants' assessments of the translation into Spanish of the 1,034 words included in the ANEW. The evaluations were done in the dimensions of valence, arousal and dominance using the Self-Assessment Manikin (SAM). Apart from these dimensions, five objective (number of letters, number of syllables, grammatical class, frequency and number of orthographic neighbors) and three subjective (familiarity, concreteness and imageability) psycholinguistic indexes are included. The Spanish adaptation of ANEW can be downloaded at www.psychonomic.org.     

Body dissatisfaction and body comparison with media images in males and females

This study examined the role of media body comparison as a mediator of the relationships between psychological factors and sociocultural pressures to be thin and body dissatisfaction in both females and males. Participants were 1,386 females (mean age = 19.37 years) and 1,130 males (mean age = 19.46) from diverse backgrounds who completed a self-report questionnaire. Path analysis was used to test a cross-sectional model in which media body comparison mediated the impact of self-esteem, depressive mood, parent dieting environment, friend dieting, TV exposure, magazine message exposure, weight teasing and body mass index (BMI) on body dissatisfaction. In females, media body comparison partially or fully mediated relationships between self-esteem, depressive mood, friend dieting, magazine message exposure and BMI, and body dissatisfaction. In males, media body comparison was not a significant predictor of body dissatisfaction. This research particularly highlights the need to further examine processes that are involved in the development of body dissatisfaction in males.     

Communal Behaviors and Psychological Adjustment of Family Caregivers and Persons With Spinal Cord Injury

OBJECTIVE: Examined the influence of mutual communal behaviors on the adjustment reported by persons with spinal cord injury (SCI) and their family caregivers. Previous research has found that persons who have a history of mutually communal behaviors in relationships may react differently to relationship changes after an acquired physical disability than dyads with few communal behaviors. METHOD: Family caregivers and persons with SCI were administered measures of mutual communal behaviors, depression, and life satisfaction. Structural equation modeling was used to test the relations among caregivers' communal behaviors and care recipients' communal behaviors, depression, and life satisfaction. RESULTS: Caregiver and care recipient reports of communal behaviors were not significantly correlated. Significant paths indicated that care recipients' communal behavior scores were positively associated with their life satisfaction, and care recipients' depression was inversely associated with their life satisfaction. Caregivers' communal behavior scores were unrelated to their self-reported adjustment. CONCLUSIONS: Caregiver-care recipient dyads may differ in their perceptions of communal behaviors in their relationships. Although care recipient reports of communal behavior may be related to their life satisfaction, communal behaviors may not serve a similar function among caregivers of persons with SCI.     

Separate mechanisms recruited by exogenous and endogenous spatial cues: evidence from a spatial Stroop paradigm

The present experiments tested whether endogenous and exogenous cues produce separate effects on target processing. In Experiment 1, participants discriminated whether an arrow presented left or right of fixation pointed to the left or right. For 1 group, the arrow was preceded by a peripheral noninformative cue. For the other group, the arrow was preceded by a central, symbolic, informative cue. The 2 types of cues modulated the spatial Stroop effect in opposite ways, with endogenous cues producing larger spatial Stroop effects for valid trials and exogenous cues producing smaller spatial Stroop effects for valid trials. In Experiments 2A and 2B, the influence of peripheral noninformative and peripheral informative cues on the spatial Stroop effect was directly compared. The spatial Stroop effect was smaller for valid than for invalid trials for both types of cues. These results point to a distinction between the influence of central and peripheral attentional cues on performance and are not consistent with a unitary view of endogenous and exogenous attention.     

Gracious Play: Discipline,Insight, and the Common Good

The article is a theological reflection on the vocation of university teaching that describes the heart of the matter of what faculty do in the classroom. The author draws on personal narrative, social‐psychological analyses of how insight occurs and contexts for insights are constructed, and sociological accounts of shifts that have altered significantly the context of university teaching and learning at the cusp of the millennium to make her case. She argues that the vocation of university teaching involves creating spaces of gracious play that are potentially transformative for students and faculty. Creating such spaces, however, draws faculty into an asceticism that can be understood as a spiritual path. The article is a revision of the author's 1999 St. Elizabeth Seton Lecture at the College of Mount St. Joseph, Cincinnati, Ohio.     

Le traitement des voyelles nasalisées et des groupes consonantiques par l'apprenti‐lecteur francophone

This study was designed to evaluate the influence of phonological structure on the performance of French beginning readers. Because the French phonological system has a clear syllabic structure novice readers use phonological units such as syllables when silently reading words. Therefore, the phonological structure of items was expected to be a significant determinant of performance. The results demonstrate the young readers' tendency to simplify polysyllabic words by reducing them to open‐ended syllables. The first experiment showed that nasal vowels involve a delay in phonological processing and the second experiment focused on the difficulties in processing consonant clusters.