Abstract: Comparing Semiparametric and Parametric Methods for Modeling Interactions Among Latent Variables

Many approaches have been proposed to estimate interactions among latent variables. These methods often assume a specific functional form for the interaction, such as a bilinear interaction. Theory is seldom specific enough to provide a functional form for an interaction, however, so a more exploratory, diagnostic approach may often be required. Bauer (2005) proposed a semiparametric approach that allows for the estimation of interaction effects of unknown functional form among latent variables. A structural equation mixture model (SEMM) is first fit to the data. Then an approximation of the interaction is obtained by aggregating over the mixing components. A simulation study is used to examine the performance of this semiparametric approach to two parametric approaches: the latent moderated structures approach (Klein & Moosbrugger, 2000) and the unconstrained product-indicator approach (Marsh, Wen, & Hau, 2004). Data were generated from four functional forms: main effects only, quadratic trend, bilinear interaction, and exponential interaction. Estimates of bias and root mean squared error of approximation were calculated by comparing the surface used to generate the data and the model-implied surface constructed from each approach. As expected, the parametric approaches were more efficient than the SEMM. For the main effects model, bias was similar for both the SEMM and parametric approaches. For the bilinear interaction, the parametric approaches provided nearly identical results, although the SEMM approach was slightly more biased. When the parametric approaches assumed a bilinear interaction and the data were generated from a quadratic trend or an exponential interaction, the parametric approaches generated biased estimates of the true surface. The SEMM approach approximated the true data generation surface with a similarly low level of bias for all the nonlinear surfaces. For example, Figure 1 shows the true surface for the bilinear interaction along with the SEMM estimated average surface. The results suggest that the SEMM approach can provide a relatively unbiased approximation to variety of nonlinear relationships among latent variables.     

consulting the oracle

Abstract

Is it possible that even logic is not logical? Is it possible that our current belief in a rational and material world is no less a subjective point of view than any other mystical faith? Kurt Gödel in mathematics and Carl Jung in psychology independently established the limits of rationalism half a century ago. Yet the profound implications of their work for our own currently changing world view are not well understood. In this essay, Robertson introduces us to some of the basic themes that underlie the life works of both Gödel and Jung. These themes lead us to a new and startling comprehension of the paradox of self-reference and the limits of rationalism that are inherent in the way we construct our conceptions of reality.     

What we look for in poetry

A chain of events was triggered on the nights of April 23 and 24, 1915, in Constantinople, Turkey, that would end, approximately six years later, with death or forced deportation of more than two and a half million Armenians from their historical homeland in Central and Eastern Turkey. During those two nights over two hundred Armenian writers, historians, translators, poets, journalists, editors, and political leaders were arrested in their homes, taken to the central police station, and never seen again.

The shock of the genocide not only nearly destroyed a nation, together with its articulate literary, political, and cultural leaders, but also paralyzed the creative abilities of its survivors. With their writers, poets, and political leaders lost, their symbolic vocabulary shattered, the Armenians have been unable to distill from the genocide a transcendent wisdom and to present to all cultures the fruits of that distillation via new poetry, art, theater, film, literature, and philosophy, hi the words of V. Oshagan, a modern writer on Armenian and American themes

Seventy years after the event, the Genocide has still not been tackled by any author of note. The Armenians have not recovered from the trauma and with nothing forgotten and nothing forgiven, the Genocide is still continuing. As long as the Turk is identified with the principle of evil in the Armenian imagination, and as long as the Turkish government refuses to admit its guilt and make amends to the victims, the Genocide will continue and will prevent the Armenians from producing any work of art from the theme.

Slowly, over the past two decades, powerful works have emerged that convey to the world, through poetry and myth, the true stupefaction of that horrendous time period. Among these works is the 1980 short story, “Uncle Toros,” by the Armenian writer Mooshegh Galshoyan. With insight and intuition, he portrayed the life of one eighty-year-old victim of the genocide. Old Uncle Toros's recurring nightmare of that event, as vividly told by Galshoyan, allows one to enter the Armenian trauma, to step into the unconscious life of a genocide victim. –A. Chutjian     

My Home Is Over Jordan

The great African American tenor Roland Hayes, as well known in his day as Paul Robeson and Marian Anderson, both of whom he mentored, introduced the beauty and joy of spirituals to concert audiences in Europe and America. Sadly, he's been forgotten.

This article remembers his story and his charisma. Roland Hayes touched the author's life when she was a very young child, when her parents were faculty at Black Mountain College and her father invited Hayes to sing there. In the mid 1940s, in North Carolina, an integrated audience heard this son of freed slaves sing both the European repertoire of Schubert and Bach and the African-American folk tradition of spirituals.

Spirituals offer a religious attitude that intertwines African, Jewish, and Christian roots with the practical function of conveying secret messages about the way to freedom—a peculiarly American blend of soul that has much in it to sustain us in difficult times.

Roland Hayes made a profound impression on the author. She invokes his spirit in this article and learns much about herself and about him.     

Drivers Display Anger‐Congruent Attention to Potential Traffic Hazards

Previous research has suggested that angry drivers may respond differently to potential hazards. This study replicates and extends these findings. Under simulated driving conditions, two groups of drivers experienced conditions that would either increase angry mood (N = 12; men = 6) or not (control group, N = 12; men = 6). All drivers then performed a neutral drive, during which they encountered a number of traffic events not experienced in the initial drive. These included vehicles emerging from driveways into their path and jaywalking pedestrians. Subjective anger, eye‐movement behaviour and driving behaviours (speed and reaction times) were measured as drivers drove. Subjective moods (Profile of Mood States) were assessed before and after each drive. Anger‐provoked drivers reported reliably higher increases in angry mood when compared with the control group after the initial drive, and these increases remained stable across the subsequent neutral drive. During the neutral drive, anger‐provoked drivers demonstrated evidence of more heuristic style processing of potential hazards, with shorter initial gazes at less apparent hazards and longer latencies to look back at jaywalking pedestrians obscured by parked vehicles. Anger‐provoked drivers also took longer to make corrective actions to avoid potential collisions. It is concluded that anger‐provoked drivers may initially make more superficial assessments of certain driving situations and consequently underestimate the inherent risk. Copyright © 2012 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Cognitive Behavior Couple Therapy-REBT Model for Traumatic Bereavement

Following the loss of a child, couple counseling focuses on their grief process as well as the impact of the loss on the marital relationship. Individual differences in reacting to and coping with the loss, different patterns of grieving, and differences in attitudes about relationship issues may cause further distress and increase marital conflicts and adaptation to the loss. When bereavement occurs under traumatic circumstances, the conflicts may be further complicated and involve problems in daily functioning related to distorted cognitions and attributions connected with traumatic bereavement. In this paper, cognitive grief therapy using the ABC model of REBT with a couple who lost a child under traumatic circumstances will be described.     

Cognitive Fatigue During Testing: An Examination of Trait,Time-on-Task,and Strategy Influences

Two-wave data from a large sample of employees (N = 1,155) 25–65 years of age were used to evaluate rank-order and mean level stability and change in supervisor-rated job performance obtained twice (4 years apart). Results showed moderated levels of rank-order stability across the career span. However, although rank order stability increased during the first phases of one’s career, peaking at age 55, it then demonstrated a decline from age 55 to age 65. Patterns of mean-level change showed that job performance was generally higher for younger workers than for older workers. All in all, our results support the value of investigating different definitions of job performance change and offers insights for planning/programming and implementing interventions aimed to improve (or maintain) job performance.     

Mental multiplication and working memory

This paper is concerned with the role of working memory resources in mental multiplication. In two experiments a dual-task paradigm was used. In the first experiment neutral tapping was contrasted to three modalityspecific secondary tasks: Irrelevant speech and articulatory suppression were used to disrupt the phonological loop and a visuo-spatial tapping was used to disrupt the visuo-spatial sketchpad. Multiplication sums needed to be solved mentally and results needed to be spoken aloud. Sums varied in difficulty (easy, e.g., 3 x 4 =, difficult, e.g., 8 x 17 =). Results from the first experiment revealed declines in performance on difficult sums under articulatory suppression but no interference effect for easy sums. To investigate the role of central executive processes, a second experiment extended the range of interference conditions to a central executive interference task (random letter generation). Now articulatory suppression and random generation caused a decrease of performance on difficult sums. In addition, performance on easy sums was negatively impacted by random letter generation as well. We infer that solving complex multiplication sums demands phonological loop and central executive processes, whereas retrieving numerical facts in solving simple multiplication sums requires only central executive processes. We found no evidence of modality-specific access to numerical facts stored in long-term memory.     

Children's perceptual organisation of hierarchical visual patterns

Abstract

Children's perceptual organisation of hierarchical patterns was investigated in two experiments through similarity judgements. Previous studies with adults demonstrated that the perceptual relations between the global configuration and the local elements of such patterns depend critically on the number of elements embedded in the pattern: Patterns composed of a few, relatively large elements are perceived in terms of global form and figural parts, whereas patterns composed of many relatively small elements are perceived in terms of global form and texture. In Experiment 1 children at three levels of age (preschoolers, first and third graders) were presented with a standard figure and two comparison figures—a proportional and an un proportional enlargement of the standard. The number of elements in the standard figure was varied. When the number of elements was small, children at all age levels concerned judged the proportional enlargement which preserves the global and local forms as well as the relationship between them as more similar. When the number of elements in the standard figure increased, children switched their preference to the un proportional enlargement which preserves both the global form and the textural properties of the standard figure. When the global configuration and the local elements were pitted against each other (Experiment 2), and the number of elements was rather large, preschoolers and third graders judged the comparison figure having the same global configuration as the standard but composed of different elements as more similar to the standard than the comparison figure having the same elements arranged in a different configuration. Overall, these results are similar to the ones obtained with adults: As far as the perceptual organisation of hierarchical patterns changes as a function of the number of elements for the adult perceiver, it changes also for the young child. These results do not support the hypothesis that young children perceive complex visual stimuli as undifferentiated wholes, as some develop mental researchers have proposed. Furthermore, the finding that for children, as for adults, the elements do not function perceptually as parts when the number of elements is large, implies that fewclement patterns are better candidates for testing hypotheses about the relative priority of wholes and parts across development.     

The Disease Concept of Alcoholism by E. M. Jellinek

The authors use the philosophical writings of Martin Buber to discuss intimacy and distance in group psychotherapy. They argue that there are two entirely different types of dynamics. The first is a relationship and real meeting between members of the group that necessarily ends, as do all I–You relationships, with a transition to I–It relations. In the second type of dynamic the relations are on the It dimension, in which others exist only as the content of the individual's experience. Any apparent intimacy that develops is limited by the very attitude to others as objects of the “I,” and ends with disappointment in the realization that there is no real intimacy and meeting.