Sound-symbolism: A Piece in the Puzzle of Word Learning

Sound-symbolism is the idea that the relationship between word sounds and word meaning is not arbitrary for all words, but rather that there are subsets of words in the world’s languages for which sounds and their symbols have some degree of correspondence. The present research investigates sound-symbolism as a possible route to the learning of an unknown word’s meaning. Three studies compared the guesses that adult participants made regarding the potential meanings of sound-symbolic and non-sound symbolic obsolete words. In each study, participants were able to generate better definitions for sound-symbolic words when compared to non-sound symbolic words. Participants were also more likely to recognize the meanings of sound symbolic words. The superior performance on sound-symbolic words held even when definitions generated on the basis of sound association were eliminated. It is concluded that sound symbolism is a word property that influences word learning.     

Antecedents and Consequences of Perceived Barriers to Obtaining Mentoring: A Longitudinal Investigation

Mentoring is prototypically intended to advance the personal and professional growth of new employees at work. Although meta‐analyses have found that receiving mentoring can result in beneficial outcomes for employees' career success, employees may perceive barriers to obtaining a mentor. The present research examined antecedents and consequences to perceived barriers to mentoring in business and administrative jobs in a field study over 2 years. Socioeconomic origin, positive affectivity, organizational development culture, and previous mentoring experience predicted perceived barriers to mentoring after 2 years. New employees' perceived barriers to mentoring at Time 1 predicted changes in mentoring received and income after 2 years. Implications of this study, including a proposed mentoring training program, and directions for future research are discussed.     

Adapting to test structure: Letting testing teach what to learn

We propose that we encode and store information as a function of the particular ways we have used similar information in the past. More specifically, we contend that the experience of retrieval can serve as a powerful cue to the most effective ways to encode similar information in comparable future learning episodes. To explore these ideas, we did two studies in which all participants went through study–test cycles of single category lists while we manipulated the nature of the recognition tests. The recognition tests either included only same-category lures or only different-category lures. The experience of repeated testing leads participants to avoid conceptual-based strategies but only when conceptual knowledge was poorly diagnostic for recognition (i.e., in the same-category lures condition). In a second study with a similar manipulation, we showed that repeated testing with lures from the same category as study items improved performance in a final recall surprise test compared to conditions in which different-category lures were used. Such a difference is akin to the one obtained when encoding instructions focus on distinctive item features compared to cases in which the focus is on relational processing. We suggest that testing requirements lead to adaptive changes at encoding.     

Dynamic (Kinesthetic) Touch Perception in Preschool Children

The preschool years are an important time during which children gain proficiency using the hands for both performatory and perceptual functions that involve dynamic (kinesthetic) touch. We evaluated dynamic touch perception of object extent and found that preschool children are able to discriminate length by dynamic touch early, but perception is not very fine-tuned and perceptual attunement to inertial characteristics increased with age. An analysis comparing the performatory and perceptual functions of the hands showed links between performance and perception in dynamic touch tasks that did not require haptic–visual correspondence. We concluded that whereas dynamic touch is functional early in the preschool years, perceptual acuity is not very precise and haptic–visual correspondence remains immature. In addition, reliance on inertial properties as information to make judgments of length emerges between 3 and 5 years and attunement to inertial properties likely continues to develop throughout childhood because perceptual judgments of 5-year-olds did not reach adult levels. Tight links between the performatory and the perceptual functions of the hand suggest this is an important avenue for future research.     

Psychometric Evidence of a Multidimensional Measure of Prosocial Behaviors for Spanish Adolescents

Prior theories and scholars rarely distinguished between distinct forms of prosocial behaviors (i.e., actions intended to benefit others) and most scholars operationalize prosocial behaviors as a global construct. Furthermore, stringent tests of psychometric properties of prosocial behavior measures are rare, especially in countries other than the United States. The present study was designed to examine the structure and functions of a multidimensional measure of prosocial behaviors in youth from Spain. Six hundred and 66 adolescents (46% girls; M age = 15.33 years, SD = 0.47 years) from Valencia, Spain, completed the Prosocial Tendencies Measure-Revised (PTM-R), measures of sympathy, perspective taking, and a global measure of prosocial behavior. Results showed that the hypothesized 6-factor structure of the PTM-R had good fit, the best fit model as compared to alternative models, and that there were several unique patterns of relations between specific forms of prosocial behaviors and sympathy, perspective taking, and the global measure of prosocial behavior. Furthermore, although there were significant gender differences in some forms of prosocial behaviors, the structure of the PTM-R was equivalent across gender. Discussion focuses on the implications for theories and measurement of prosocial behaviors.     

Knowledge About Hand Shaping and Knowledge About Objects

Our two experiments investigated associations between cognitive representations of objects and hand-shape categories. Hand configurations were partitioned according to prehensility and the size of the contacting surface, resulting in the classes: pinch, poke, palm, and clench. Experiment 1 elicited object names in response to configuration-name cues, provided ratings of the relevance of each configuration to a set of objects, and probed for the functions determining such relevance. Cueing with a configuration class elicited an associated object category with substantial intersubject agreement, and vice versa. Both the object categories and the functions associated with the four hand-configuration classes differed substantially, although the same object could be associated to some extent with multiple configurations, given variations in function. Experiment 2 elicited the names of hand-configuration classes in response to unfamiliar forms, which varied systematically in depth and the size of the projecting picture-plane surface. The modal response, response time, and degree of intersubject agreement were directly related to these variables. These structural variables, however, did not adequately predict shaping responses to real objects, as ascertained from Experiment 1. The results have implications for cognitive representation of motor categories and hand shaping in response to objects.     

Further Experiments with the Scribbling Game - Projection Method

One of the early participants in the clinical-statistical controversy describes his effort to mediate the dispute and to direct attention to the underlying issues, to most of which the box scores were irrelevant. A previously undiscussed undercurrent of the controversy is the conflict between different metaphysical world views, the history of which for the past few hundred years is quickly sketched. The mechanist metaphysics of behaviorism, which has long been dominant in American mainstream psychology, favors objective and statistical approaches and discourages interest in judgment, an issue that nevertheless refuses to go away. Systems philosophy is proposed as an integrative alternative.     

Development of the Bias in Attitudes Survey: A Sex-Role Questionnaire

Empirical research into sex bias continues to grow at the same time that societal attitudes are changing. For this reason, broader and more sensitive measuring tools are necessary. The present study describes the development of such an instrument, the Bias in Attitudes Survey, a female/male role questionnaire. The BIAS was developed from the responses of 354 male and female college students to a 89-item tryout draft. Thirty-five items were retained, yielding a reliability estimate of.91. Scores across gender, age, and marital status are discussed, as well as implications and applications for further study.