A camera-based scoring system for evaluating performance accuracy during a golf putting task

Golf putting accuracy is often evaluated by measuring the distance that the ball finishes from the hole. However, accuracy is a function of line and length, and distance-from-hole measures confound these two factors. A scoring system for evaluating putting accuracy is described that enables the efficient measurement of errors in line and length. A camera placed above the hole takes digital photographs of the final position of the ball. A custom-developed program written in the National Instruments LabVIEW graphical programming language derives a variety of accuracy measures from these photographs, including distance from the hole, angle of error, distance short or long from the hole, and distance left or right from the hole. Evaluation of the system indicated that the measures were as accurate as manual measurements and were reliable when rescored on separate occasions. The camera-based scoring system presents a number of advantages in the evaluation of putting accuracy and may be extended to examine performance in other sports. The ScorePutting program may be downloaded from the Psychonomic Society's Archive of Norms, Stimuli, and Data, www.psychonomic.org/archive.     

Age-of-acquisition and subjective frequency estimates for all generally known monosyllabic French words and their relation with other psycholinguistic variables

Ratings for age of acquisition (AoA) and subjective frequency were collected for the 1,493 monosyllabic French words that were most known to French students. AoA ratings were collected by asking participants to estimate in years the age at which they learned each word. Subjective frequency ratings were collected on a 7-point scale, ranging from never encountered to encountered several times daily. The results were analyzed to address the relationship between AoA and subjective frequency ratings with other psycholinguistic variables (objective frequency, imageability, number of letters, and number of orthographic neighbors). The results showed high reliability ratings with other databases. Supplementary materials for this study may be downloaded from the Psychonomic Society’s Archive of Norms, Stimuli, and Data, www.psychonomic.org/archive.     

Independent, synchronous access to color and motion features

We investigated the role of attention in pairing superimposed visual features. When moving dots alternate in color and in motion direction, reports of the perceived color and motion reveal an asynchrony: the most accurate reports occur when the motion change precedes the associated color change by approximately 100ms [Moutoussis, K., & Zeki, S. (1997). A direct demonstration of perceptual asynchrony in vision. Proceedings of the Royal Society of London B, 264, 393-399]. This feature binding asynchrony was probed by manipulating endogenous and exogenous attention. First, endogenous attention was manipulated by changing which feature dimension observers were instructed to attend to first. This yielded little effect on the asynchrony. Second, exogenous attention was manipulated by briefly presenting a ring around the target, cueing the report of the color and motion seen within the ring. This reduced or eliminated the apparent latency difference between color and motion. Accuracy was best predicted by timing of each feature relative to the cue rather than the timing of the two features relative to each other, suggesting independent attentional access to the two features with an exogenous attention cue. The timing of attentional cueing affected feature pairing reports as much as the timing of the features themselves.     

Interparental conflict and children's school adjustment: the explanatory role of children's internal representations of interparental and parent-child relationships

This study examined how children's insecure internal representations of interparental and parent-child relationships served as explanatory mechanisms in multiple pathways linking interparental conflict and parent emotional unavailability with the emotional and classroom engagement difficulties the children had in their adjustment to school. With their parents, 229 kindergarten children (127 girls and 102 boys, mean age = 6.0 years, SD = .50, at Wave 1) participated in this multimethod, 3-year longitudinal investigation. Findings revealed that children's insecure representations of the interparental relationship were a significant intervening mechanism in associations between observational ratings of interparental conflict and child and teacher reports on children's emotional and classroom difficulties in school over a 2-year period. Moreover, increased parental emotional unavailability accompanying high levels of interparental conflict was associated with children's insecure representations of the parent-child relationship and children's difficulties in classroom engagement at school entry. The findings highlight the importance of understanding the intrinsic processes that contribute to difficulties with stage-salient tasks for children who are experiencing interparental discord.     

Pack behavior

We analyze a sequential decision model, where every decision maker has her own preferences over actions. Some actions have positive Externalities if a large enough population has previously chosen them, and those Externalities may lead a decision-maker to ignore her own preferred actions to benefit from those Externalities. We give a fairly general sufficient condition such that, on almost every equilibrium path, every decision maker eventually prefers to benefit from group Externalities. We show that this situation, called pack behavior, is observationally equivalent to a herd behavior, but it is triggered by positive Externalities generated by group decision, instead of standard belief-based decisions. We also show that this notion is not ex-ante Pareto-efficient in general.     

Assigning trait adjectives in an evaluative context: quicker, more consistent, and less equivocal

The objective was to examine the social conditions under which subjects could attribute trait adjectives to an unknown person, the paradigm of impression-formation at zero acquaintance. The situation on which the subject had to base his judgement was a 90-sec. film clip with sound of an individual reading a weather forecast. Analysis showed traits were attributed more quickly and consistently when instructions stipulated subject should evaluate the social utility of an individual (evaluator-recruiter type instructions) rather than describe personality (psychologist-type instructions). Traits were attributed more rapidly, with more consistency and greater certainty. Interpretation of results, which generally corroborate other research, is that the judgement of another person based on a first impression is an evaluation of the social utility of that person.     

Comparing Personality Test Formats and Warnings: Effects on criterion‐related validity and test‐taker reactions

The potential for applicant response distortion on personality measures remains a major concern in high‐stakes testing situations. Many approaches to understanding response distortion are too transparent (e.g., instructed faking studies) – or are too subtle (e.g., correlations with social desirability measures as indices of faking). Recent research reveals more promising approaches in two methods: using forced‐choice (FC) personality test items and warning against faking. The present study examined effects of these two methods on criterion‐related validity and test‐taker reactions. Results supported incremental validity for an FC and Likert‐scale measure in warning and no‐warning conditions, above and beyond cognitive ability. No clear differences emerged between the FC vs Likert measures or warning vs no‐warning conditions in terms of validity. However, some evidence suggested that FC measures and warnings may produce negative test‐taker reactions. We conclude with implications for implementation in selection settings.     

Theory and Practice: Ernest Becker: a vital resource for counselling psychology

In this article we highlight the work of Ernest Becker for counselling psychology professionals and provide a brief overview of Becker's contributions. Several important themes from his writings relevant to counselling psychology are reviewed, including: the uniqueness of man, socialization and self-esteem, culture and heroism, the relativity of heroism, the fear of death, and the dynamics of evil. We also discuss some of the implications of Becker's work for counselling psychology and counselling psychology professionals, including: providing an integrative perspective on human behaviour and development, implications for multicultural counselling, understanding the hero system, the centrality of death in life, and helping people make meaning. We consider Ernest Becker's work a vital resource for counselling psychology.     

The relation of self-efficacy and interests: a meta-analysis of 60 samples

This study empirically synthesizes and evaluates studies that have examined the relation between vocationally relevant domains of self-efficacy and interests. We conducted a meta-analytic review of 60 empirical independent samples (N=39,154) in which relations between self-efficacy and interests had been examined. Fifty-three of these samples (N=37,829) included parallel measures of the constructs. Relations between parallel measures of Holland’s RIASEC themes, the specific dimensions of art, math, science and math/science combined, and traditionally female and male occupations are also presented. Results demonstrated that self-efficacy and interests are independent constructs that correlate moderately. Differences by sex, measure, and age group are noted. Future directions for research regarding links between self-efficacy and interests are discussed.     

Effects of Computer-Based Fluency Training on Concept Formation

This study provides a preliminary analysis of how the techniques of fluency training can be combined with systematic concept instruction to improve the learning of complex verbal concepts. Fluency techniques, which require the learner to respond accurately at high rates, have typically focused on definition learning when teaching concepts. Instructional psychologists, however, recommend multiple exemplar training for conceptual instruction. To examine this issue, 41 undergraduate students completed a computer-based instructional module on logical fallacies. Participants were assigned to one of four groups, with the modules for each group differing only in the type of practice provided—either fluency or practice with either examples or definitions. Examination of posttest scores revealed significantly higher scores for participants in the examples groups than those in the definitions groups, but low experimental power prevented a clear conclusion to be drawn about differences between the fluency and practice groups. Implications of results and several methodological issues relevant to this area of research are discussed.