“Digging in” or “Giving in”: Attachment-related threat moderates the association between attachment orientation and reactions to conflict

Prior research suggests that individuals higher in attachment anxiety react to conflict in a more hostile manner than those lower in attachment anxiety. Although less pronounced, there is also evidence that attachment anxiety is associated with submissive behavior in conflict. Thus, the literature presents a paradox, as attachment anxiety is associated with both domineering and submissive responses to relationship conflict. We proposed that attachment-related threat moderates the effects of attachment orientations on conflict behavior, such that under conditions of low threat attachment anxiety would be associated with dominance, whereas under conditions of high threat attachment anxiety would be associated with submission. Further, we expected that this interaction between attachment anxiety and threat condition would be stronger for individuals lower in attachment avoidance, relative to those higher in avoidance. We found support for our hypotheses, such that attachment anxiety, attachment avoidance, and threat interacted to predict responses to relationship conflict.     

A Test of the Three-Component Model of Gender-Based Prejudices: Homophobia and Transphobia Are Affected by Raters’ and Targets’ Assigned Sex at Birth

Sex Roles - The present study tested a three-component model of homophobia and transphobia that differentiates between general and specifically gender-based social threats that motivate these...     

Measuring the speed of newborn object recognition in controlled visual worlds

How long does it take for a newborn to recognize an object? Adults can recognize objects rapidly, but measuring object recognition speed in newborns has not previously been possible. Here we introduce an automated controlled‐rearing method for measuring the speed of newborn object recognition in controlled visual worlds. We raised newborn chicks (Gallus gallus) in strictly controlled environments that contained no objects other than a single virtual object, and then measured the speed at which the chicks could recognize that object from familiar and novel viewpoints. The chicks were able to recognize the object rapidly, at presentation rates of 125 ms per image. Further, recognition speed was equally fast whether the object was presented from familiar viewpoints or novel viewpoints (30° and 60° azimuth rotations). Thus, newborn chicks can recognize objects across novel viewpoints within a fraction of a second. These results demonstrate that newborns are capable of both rapid and invariant object recognition at the onset of vision.     

New work for a theory of ground*

There has been much recent interest in a distinctively metaphysical kind of determinative explanation: ground. This paper concerns various skeptical challenges to ground’s relevance to metaphysics, such as that it is an empty posit, that the work it is supposed to do is appropriated by other notions, and that it is inapt for specific issues it should serve. I argue against these challenges. My strategy is both critical and constructive. Critical because I argue that versions of these challenges raised by Elizabeth Barnes, Kathrin Koslicki, Mari Mikkola, and Jessica Wilson are not persuasive. Constructive because we may nevertheless learn from them new work for ground.     

Is Alaska an Aberration or the Worst Case? A Robust Regression Approach to Understanding Inter-State Variations of Forcible Rape

Alaska’s rape rate perennially exceeds that of all other states. This study considers Alaska’s socioeconomic extremes—its frontier demography, its externally dependent resource economy, and its military presence—as explanations for inter-state variations of sexual violence. Robust regression procedures that accommodate extreme values were used to account for the effects of measures capturing Alaska’s unique socioeconomic qualities on state-level rape rates. The results showing that other economically dependent states with frontier demographic structures also report elevated rape rates indicate that despite its endemic levels of sexual violence, Alaska is not an aberration but is instead the worst case possible.     

Sensitivity to the acoustic correlates of lexical stress and their relationship to reading in skilled readers

The role of suprasegmental information in reading processes is a growing area of interest, and sensitivity to lexical stress has been shown to explain unique variance in reading development. However, less is known about its role in skilled reading. This study aimed to investigate the acoustic features of suprasegmental information using a same/different cross-modal matching task. Sixty-four adult participants completed standardized measures of reading accuracy, reading speed, and comprehension and performed an experimental task. The experimental task required the participants to identify whether non-speech acoustic sequences matched the characteristics of written words. The findings indicated differences in responses depending on where the lexical stress was required for the word. Moreover, evidence was found to support the view that amplitude information is part of the word knowledge retrieval process in skilled reading. The findings are discussed relative to models of reading and the role of lexical stress in lexical access.     

Thanks, but I'm used to better: a relative rank model of gratitude

We argue that more help does not necessarily lead to more gratitude. Rather, gratitude depends on how a given instance of help compares with the help that a person is used to receiving. Participants read vignettes detailing an event in which 11 different friends either lent them varying amounts of money or spent varying amounts of time providing help. The amount of gratitude elicited by a given amount of help (e.g., a loan of ￡36 [about $56] or 49 min help) differed substantially depending on how this amount ranked among the help they were getting from their other friends. Comparison across four experimental conditions suggested that these judgments operated via the same general cognitive mechanisms used to judge other social events and psychophysical stimuli (as outlined by range frequency theory). Although more help does lead to more gratitude, people appear to be sensitive to how that help compares with what others are providing, and experienced gratitude depends on these relative judgments.     

When do spatial and visual working memory interact?

This study examined how spatial working memory and visual (object) working memory interact, focusing on two related questions: First, can these systems function independently from one another? Second, under what conditions do they operate together? In a dual-task paradigm, participants attempted to remember locations in a spatial working memory task and colored objects in a visual working memory task. Memory for the locations and objects was subject to independent working memory storage limits, which indicates that spatial and visual working memory can function independently from one another. However, additional experiments revealed that spatial working memory and visual working memory interact in three memory contexts: when retaining (1) shapes, (2) integrated color-shape objects, and (3) colored objects at specific locations. These results suggest that spatial working memory is needed to bind colors and shapes into integrated object representations in visual working memory. Further, this study reveals a set of conditions in which spatial and visual working memory can be isolated from one another.