Spatial associations in number-related tasks: A comparison of manual and pedal responses

Bimanual parity judgments of numerically small (large) digits are faster with the left (right) hand (the SNARC effect; Dehaene, Bossini, & Giraux, 1993). According to one explanation, this effect is culturally derived and reflects ontogenetic influences such as the direction of written language; it might therefore be limited to, or at least be larger with, pairs of lateralized effectors which are instrumental to the production and comprehension of written language. We report two experiments which test for SNARC effects with pedal responses, and compare these effects to manual results. Pedal responses yielded highly systematic SNARC effects; furthermore, these effects did not differ from manual SNARC effects. These results argue against accounts in which the SNARC effect is specific for effectors that are habitually associated with the production or comprehension of written language.     

Tracking the mind during reading: the influence of past, present, and future words on fixation durations

Reading requires the orchestration of visual, attentional, language-related, and oculomotor processing constraints. This study replicates previous effects of frequency, predictability, and length of fixated words on fixation durations in natural reading and demonstrates new effects of these variables related to 144 sentences. Such evidence for distributed processing of words across fixation durations challenges psycholinguistic immediacy-of-processing and eye-mind assumptions. Most of the time the mind processes several words in parallel at different perceptual and cognitive levels. Eye movements can help to unravel these processes.     

Word order variation in spatial descriptions with adverbs

Previous research has shown that in a three-term spatial reasoning task, the second premise of a German premise pair is especially easy to comprehend if (1) the prepositional object rather than the grammatical subject denotes the given entity, and if (2) the term denoting the given entity precedes the term denoting the new entity. Accordingly, the second premise is easiest to comprehend with noncanonical word order--that is, with the prepositional object in preverbal position denoting the given entity (e.g., To the right of the given object is the new subject). This finding is explained in terms of contextual licensing of noncanonical word order. Here, we discuss and tested two alternative accounts of contextual licensing, given-new and partially ordered set relations (Poset). The given-new account claims that noncanonical word order is licensed by the term denoting the given entity preceding the term denoting the new entity. On the Poset account, noncanonical word order is licensed if the preverbal constituent introduces a new entity that stands in a transitive, irreflexive, and asymmetric relation to a given entity. Comprehension times for second premises with spatial adverbs in four different word orders support both accounts of contextual licensing; Poset licensing was stronger than given-new licensing.     

Dependency Conflict,Marital Threat,and Alcohol Consumption in a Middle-Aged Sample

The hypothesis that dependency conflict is associated with higher levels of alcohol consumption when dependency needs are threatened or thwarted was tested with a sample of 672 middle-aged, married adults with college-age children. The subjects' current level of alcohol consumption was predicted based on the present level of threat to the marital relationship (assessed by reports from several family members) and on indices of dependency need and inhibition of dependent behavior estimated from sibship size, sibship density, and sibling position. A multiple regression analysis yielded a significant two-way interaction (p < .05) between marital threat and subject sex, and a significant three-way interaction of dependency heed, inhibition of dependent behavior, and marital threat. High marital threat was associated with higher levels of alcohol consumption in men and slightly lower levels of alcohol consumption in women. Additionally, when dependency need was high, alcohol consumption was generally low, except when both inhibition of dependent behavior and marital threat were high. However, when dependency need was low, the highest alcohol consumption score occurred when marital threat was low and inhibition was high.     

Enhancing the Learning of Sport Skills Through External-Focus Feedback

The authors examined how the effectiveness of feedback for the learning of complex motor skills is affected by the focus of attention it induces. The feedback referred specifically either to body movements (internal focus) or to movement effects (external focus). In Experiment 1, groups of novices and advanced volleyball players (N = 48) practiced “tennis” serves under internal-focus or external-focus feedback conditions in a 2 (expertise) × 2 (feedback type) design. Type of feedback did not differentially affect movement quality, but external-focus feedback resulted in greater accuracy of the serves than internal-focus feedback during both practice and retention, independent of the level of expertise. In Experiment 2, the effects of relative feedback frequency as a function of attentional focus were examined. A 2 (feedback frequency: 100% vs. 33%) × 2 (feedback type) design was used. Experienced soccer players (N = 52) were required to shoot lofted passes at a target. External-focus feedback resulted in greater accuracy than internal-focus feedback did. In addition, reduced feedback frequency was beneficial under internal-focus feedback conditions, whereas 100% and 33% feedback were equally effective under external-focus conditions. The results demonstrate the effectiveness of effect-related, as opposed to movement-related, feedback and also suggest that there is a need to revise current views regarding the role of feedback for motor learning.     

Psychoanalyse und Verbrechen

Foulkes’ paper on “Psycho-Analysis and Crime” was first published in 1943. Today, only parts of this paper are published in the Selected Papers (1990). Foulkes’ paper is part of the tradition of psychoanalytic work and psychoanalytically inspired social research in delinquent behaviour. The paper is of special interest for the development of Foulkes’ works as it seems to mark the transition from a Freudian psychoanalyst to the founder of Group Analysis.     

Emotion,cognition, and decision making

We examine two explanations of the subliminal affective priming effect. The feelings-as-information model (Schwarz &; Clore, 1988) holds that judgements are based on perceptible feelings. Hence, affective influences depend on the source to which feelings are (mis)attributed. In contrast, the affective primary hypothesis (Zajonc, 1980) suggests that affective influences should resist attributional interventions. This is because the affective system responsible for preferences is separate from the cognitive system responsible for inferences; because early affective processes are automatic and therefore inaccessible to higher-order interventions; and because early affective responses are not represented as conscious feelings. We tested these explanations in two experiments that crossed subliminal affective priming with (mis)attribution manipulations. Both studies found reliable shifts in judgements of neutral stimuli as a result of primes even when subjects were aware that their feelings might not be diagnostic for the judgement at hand. Subjects did not report experiencing any feelings in response to the primes. The obtained affective priming effect was independent of response times and subjective reports of engaging in judgemental corrections. However, the priming effect did prove sensitive to the experimental instructions. We discuss the implications of these findings for the affective primacy hypothesis and the feelings-as-information model.     

Against Magnetism

Magnetism in meta-semantics is the view that the meaning of our words is determined in part by their use and in part by the objective naturalness of candidate meanings. This hypothesis is commonly attributed to David Lewis, and has been put to philosophical work by Brian Weatherson, Ted Sider and others. I argue that there is no evidence that Lewis ever endorsed the view, and that his actual account of language reveals good reasons against it.     

Appraisal of Emotions in Media Use: Toward a Process Model of Meta-Emotion and Emotion Regulation

Over the past 20 years, research on meta-emotion and related concepts such as meta-mood and need for affect has become fruitful and prominent across a variety of disciplines, including media psychology. This paper reviews the literature on meta-emotion and considers problems regarding the definition and operationalization of this construct. We propose a process model of meta-emotion and emotion regulation to integrate and extend existing work. Drawing on appraisal theories of emotion, we understand meta-emotion as a process that monitors and appraises emotions and recruits affective responses toward them, which results in a motivation to maintain and approach emotions, or to control and avoid them. This meta-emotion process plays an important role in media users' selection or rejection of specific media offerings and their invitation to experience emotion. We discuss how this framework may integrate previously unrelated findings on the role of emotions in guiding selective media use and conclude with directions for further research.