Category norms for 500 Spanish words in five semantic categories

This study presents a database of 500 words from five semantic categories: animals, body parts, furniture, clothing, and intelligence. Each category contains 100 words, and data on lexical availability, age of acquisition, imageability, typicality, concept familiarity, written word frequency, and word length in number of syllables are provided with each word. The full set of norms may be downloaded from www.psychonomic.org/archive.     

Self-harmful behaviors in a population-based sample of young adults

A birth cohort of 472 women and 494 men aged 26 years was interviewed about a range of self-harmful behaviors first and then asked about suicidal intent. Lifetime prevalence of self-harm using traditional methods of suicide (ICD [International Classification of Diseases] self-harm) was 13%, with 9% of the sample describing at least one such episode as "attempted suicide." Other self-harmful behaviors were common; 14% of women and 33% of men reported self-battery. ICD self-harm over the past year was reported by 3%, mostly without suicidal intent. ICD self-harm and even lesser behaviors were associated with high odds of reporting suicidal ideation. The findings suggest that studies of self-harm should include behaviors not necessarily associated with suicidal intent.     

Observing and engaging in purposeful actions with objects influences estimates of their size

A ladle was recalled as being taller by participants who observed tedious removal of sand from it with a small teaspoon than by those who observed removal with a larger spoon. A second experiment showed that the number of darts thrown in order to hit a target correlated negatively with memory estimates of the size of the target, a finding replicated in a third experiment with size estimates made while the target was visible. The first two experiments suggest that the way an object is used can influence memory of its size. The third experiment supports the hypothesis that in vivo size estimation of familiar objects may employ a mechanism that derives size from memory and that size memory can be distorted by the way an object was used.     

Test-retest reliability of fMRI during nonverbal semantic decisions in moderate-severe nonfluent aphasia patients

Cortical reorganization in poststroke aphasia is not well understood. Few studies have investigated neural mechanisms underlying language recovery in severe aphasia patients, who are typically viewed as having a poor prognosis for language recovery. Although test-retest reliability is routinely demonstrated during collection of language data in single-subject aphasia research, this is rarely examined in fMRI studies investigating the underlying neural mechanisms in aphasia recovery. The purpose of this study was to acquire fMRI test-retest data examining semantic decisions both within and between two aphasia patients. Functional MRI was utilized to image individuals with chronic, moderate-severe nonfluent aphasia during nonverbal, yes/no button-box semantic judgments of iconic sentences presented in the Computer-assisted Visual Communication (C-ViC) program. We investigated the critical issue of intra-subject reliability by exploring similarities and differences in regions of activation during participants' performance of identical tasks twice on the same day. Each participant demonstrated high intra-subject reliability, with response decrements typical of task familiarity. Differences between participants included greater left hemisphere perilesional activation in the individual with better response to C-ViC training. This study provides fMRI reliability in chronic nonfluent aphasia, and adds to evidence supporting differences in individual cortical reorganization in aphasia recovery.     

Stress priming in picture naming: an SOA study

This study investigates whether or not the representation of lexical stress information can be primed during speech production. In four experiments, we attempted to prime the stress position of bisyllabic target nouns (picture names) having initial and final stress with auditory prime words having either the same or different stress as the target (e.g., WORtel-MOtor vs. koSTUUM-MOtor; capital letters indicate stressed syllables in prime-target pairs). Furthermore, half of the prime words were semantically related, the other half unrelated. Overall, picture names were not produced faster when the prime word had the same stress as the target than when the prime had different stress, i.e., there was no stress-priming effect in any experiment. This result would not be expected if stress were stored in the lexicon. However, targets with initial stress were responded to faster than final-stress targets. The reason for this effect was neither the quality of the pictures nor frequency of occurrence or voice-key characteristics. We hypothesize here that this stress effect is a genuine encoding effect, i.e., words with stress on the second syllable take longer to be encoded because their stress pattern is irregular with respect to the lexical distribution of bisyllabic stress patterns, even though it can be regular with respect to metrical stress rules in Dutch. The results of the experiments are discussed in the framework of models of phonological encoding.     

Menstrual Knowledge and Taboo TV Commercials: Effects on Self-Objectification among Italian and Swedish Women

Despite menstruation being a physiological phenomenon in women’s life, social research has highlighted that there are still many taboos, also conveyed by advertising, which prevent an open discourse on the topic and can have negative impacts on women’s well-being. The present study examined the influence of the exposure to existing TV advertisements for sanitary napkins depicting menstruation as a taboo on self-objectification in women from Italy (n = 160) and Sweden (n = 159). To do so, we also investigated the moderating role of menstrual knowledge in this relationship. Our findings showed that in the Italian sample, exposure to the taboo TV commercial led to more self-objectification especially for participants with lower knowledge of menstruation. These effects did not occur for their Swedish counterparts, showing no differences in self-objectification when women were exposed to the taboo advertisement. The present results are discussed in light of cultural differences in sexual and menstrual education between the two countries. Theoretical and practical implications are drawn.     

A longitudinal study of psychosocial distress in breast cancer: prevalence and risk factors

This longitudinal study was conducted among 102 women with non-metastasic breast cancer to identify the time evolution and prevalence of distress at specific times through diagnosis and treatment of disease: preliminary diagnosis, surgery, definitive diagnosis and chemotherapy. Additionally, the study aimed to examine the role of demographic, medical and psychosocial factors on distress. The results indicated that prevalence of distress was higher at initial diagnosis (25%) than the following time points (approximately 17%). The differences inter-individuals in the levels of distress were observed over the four assessments. No relation between distress and demographic and medical factors was found. However, psychosocial aspects were significant risk factors. Patterns of emotional suppression and specific coping responses like helplessness/hopelessness, anxious preoccupation, cognitive avoidance and fatalism were positively related to distress, whereas fighting spirit and perceived social support showed a protective role. Moreover, helplessness/hopelessness and anxious preoccupation jointly predicted 75% of cases and 98% non-cases of distress. Finally, a mediational model between emotional suppression and distress through helplessness/hopelessness was tested. Results support the necessity of routine distress screening all through the illness. Implications of data for psychosocial interventions with breast cancer patients are highlighted.     

Applicant Reactions in Saudi Arabia: Organizational attractiveness and core‐self evaluation

This paper reports findings from a survey into applicant reactions of working adults in Saudi Arabia. A sample of 193 participants from four job functions was obtained, with measures of organizational attractiveness, core‐self evaluation, and applicant reactions to four popular selection methods in the country – interviews, résumés, work sample tests, and references – being included. Findings indicate a notably similar pattern of preference reactions to previous studies in other (Western) countries, affirming arguments for so‐called reaction generalizability. Work sample tests were rated the most favorably followed by interviews, résumés, and references. For specific procedural dimensions, résumés were perceived as the most favorable, followed by work sample tests, interviews, and references. Several significant differences were found across job functions, mostly for interviews and résumés. Significant effects were found between reactions and organizational attractiveness, and between reactions and core‐self evaluation, including some interaction effects. Implications for future research and for practice in employee selection are considered in the conclusion.     

Morningness-eveningness and health-related quality of life among adolescents

Accumulating evidence suggests that evening-type adolescents are exposed to a number of determinants that might have a negative impact on their health condition. Given that few studies have investigated the association between chronotype and quality of life measures in large samples of adolescents, the aim of this study was to assess the relationship between morningness-eveningness and health-related quality of life among 1600 adolescents (aged 12-16 years). Adolescents completed the Ve?u et Santé Per?ue de L'adolescent (VSP-A) and the Morningness-Eveningness Scale for Children (MESC). Girls and older adolescents reported worse health indicators and were more evening oriented. Evening-type adolescents obtained lower scores on vitality, physical and psychological well-being, body image, relations with parents, relations with teachers, school work and global health scale.