Object identification: The mental representation of physical and conceptual attributes

In two experiments, subjects indicated whether two pictures of familiar objects were equivalent. The picture pairs were identical, showed the same object in various perspectives and states, or showed different objects with varying degrees of conceptual relatedness. In Experiment 1, the equivalence criterion for judging the picture pairs was varied between subjects (identity of pictures; conceptual equivalence of objects at subordinate, basic, or superordinate level). The reaction times of the four subject groups suggest that a pictorial stimulus is not always mentally represented in the same way, and that the instructions given determine which attributes of the stimulus are represented. In Experiment 2, the visual similarity of the picture pairs was varied. The results indicate, at least with a basic-level equivalence instruction, that not only perceptual, but also non-perceptual, functional attributes are represented—namely, those that, according to Rosch et al. (1976), are common to the members of a superordinate category.     

The impact of the transition to high school on the self-system and perceived social context of poor urban youth

Examined the effects of the normative school transition to senior high school (n=330) on the self-system and perceived school and peer social contexts of poor, black (n=83), European American (n=115), Latino (n=105), and Asian American (n=27) youth in the public school systems of three Eastern urban cities. The only negative effect of the school transition on the self-system was a decline in grade point average (GPA). Concurrently, the school transition was perceived to be associated with changes in the school and peer contexts. Across the transition, students reported increased disengagement from school (i.e., increased social support and extracurricular involvement) and increased engagement with peers (i.e., decreased daily hassles and increased involvement). These changes in the school and peer microsystems, like the changes in the self-system, were also common across race/ethnicity and gender. In addition, transition-associated school changes, and in particular changes in daily academic demands/hassles and involvement in school activities, were associated with changes in the academic dimensions of the self-system (i.e., academic efficacy expectations and GPA). Results and implications for preventive intervention are discussed within a developmental mismatch framework. This research was supported in part by grants from the National Institute of Mental Health (MH43084) and the Carnegie Corporation (B4850) awarded to Edward Seidman, J. Lawrence Aber, LaRue Allen, and Christina Mitchell. We express our appreciation to the children and schools whose cooperation made this study possible.     

Semantic determinants of pauses

Summary The following experiment presents evidence that variations in semantic context can produce changes in the rate and length of pauses in a situation in which syntactic and other variations are minimized. Each of 40 Ss read two paragraphs aloud and after each paragraph retold the story without further instructions. Each paragraph consisted of five sentences, each containing 23 syllables. The third sentence was either in accord with the story or an unusual occurrence (depending on exchange of subject and object). The most important experimental finding was that both number and length of unfilled pauses are more frequent throughout the unusual stories as compared with the usual ones. In the readings, the effect was limited to the critical sentence and the pauses immediately thereafter. The evidence supports the view of the authors that the role of semantic context has been underestimated in psycholiguistic research to date.

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Zusammenfassung Das folgende Experiment weist darauf hin, daß Variationen des semantischen Kontextes zu Veränderungen in der Anzahl und Länge von Pausen führen können, auch wenn syntaktische und andere Variationen kontrolliert werden. 40 Vpn lasen zwei Abschnitte laut vor und erzählten die Geschichte nach jedem Abschnitt ohne weitere Instruktion. Jeder Abschnitt bestand aus fünf Sätzen, jeder Satz enthielt 23 Silben. Der dritte Satz stimmte mit dem sonstigen Inhalt der Geschichte überein oder wich davon ab (durch Austausch von Subjekt und Objekt). Als wichtigster experimenteller Befund stellte sich heraus, daß bei den ungewöhnlichen Geschichten die Anzahl und Länge der ungefüllten Pausen größer waren als bei den normalen Geschichten. Bei den Lesungen trat dieser Effekt nur innerhalb des kritischen Satzes und unmittelbar danach auf. Die Ergebnisse unterstützen die Meinung der Autoren, daß die Rolle des semantischen Kontextes in der psycholinguistischen Forschung bisher vernachlässigt wurde.

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Abbreviations N Normal Sematic Context - A Abnormal Sematic Context - N_ Preceeded by Normal Sematic Context - A_ Preceeded by Anormal Sematic Context - S The Student Story - C The Child Story - UP Unfilled Pauses - FP Filled Pauses (e.g. uh) - UP_FP Unfilled Pauses accompanying FPs - R Repeats (e.g., the the) - FS False Starts (e.g., He went .... He came) - R₁ and R₂ First and Second Readings - S₁ and S₂ First and Second Stories - B UPs between Major Syntactic Units - W UPs within Major Syntactic Units The research reported in the following article has been supported partly by the Alexander von Humboldt Foundation, and partly by the Psychological Institute of the Free University of Berlin. In addition, it was made possible through the generosity of Saint Louis University in granting a year's leave of absence to the first author for purposes of research.     

Cross-linguistic pause and rate phenomena in adults and adolescents

Three groups of 40 Ss (German adolescents and American adults and adolescents) read two passages and retold them. In confirmation of O'Connell Kowal, and Hörmann (1969) for German adults, a number of pause and rate measures were significantly different for semantically ordinary or unusual passages. Comparisons among the four experiments manifested different patterns of pauses and rate across the two languages and age brackets.Support for the research reported here has come from two grants-in-aid of research from the Society of the Sigma Xi.     

Pre-service teachers’ implicit and explicit attitudes toward obesity influence their judgments of students

Obese children experience disadvantages in school and discrimination from their teachers. Teachers’ implicit and explicit attitudes have been identified as contributing to these disadvantages. Drawing on dual process models, we investigated the nature of pre-service teachers’ implicit and explicit attitudes, their motivation to respond without prejudice, and how attitudes influence their judgments of an obese student. Results showed that implicit anti-obesity bias might stem from an implicit positivity toward thinness rather than from an implicit negativity toward obesity. Explicit attitudes were mixed: positive attitudes toward achievement, a dislike of obese persons, and neutral attitudes concerning blame and health responsibility emerged. Implicit and explicit attitudes affected judgments of language proficiency and intelligence: pre-service teachers with more positive attitudes judged the obese student more favorably. The results of multiple regression analyses suggest that attitudes might exert a greater influence when pre-service teachers must draw inferences to derive the judgment.     

Crossover between work and home in dyadic partner relationships

This study aimed at providing insight into the processes underlying crossover between "work" and "home" in dyadic partner relationships. Specifically, we examined to what extent husbands' work demands (work load and overtime hours) and psychological health (fatigue and depressive symptoms) "cross over" to their wives' home demands (home load) and psychological health. These associations were investigated among three couple groups, based on wives' working hours (i.e., more than 20 hours per week, from 1 to 20 hours per week, and not engaged in paid work) (253 couples in total). All husbands worked for at least 35 hours a week. Three possible crossover mechanisms were hypothesized: (i) time-based, (ii) strain-based, and (iii) empathy-based crossover. The results partially supported mechanisms (i) and (ii): when husbands reported higher work load (mechanism i) and more psychological health complaints (mechanism ii), their wives experienced higher home load. The results further supported mechanism (iii) that wives' and husbands' psychological health were associated. It is concluded that crossover from husbands to wives may occur through various mechanisms.     

How malleable is comparative self‐positivity? The effects of manipulating judgemental focus and accessibility

The present research investigated accessibility effects on comparative self‐positivity in the environmental domain. In a pretest we established comparative self‐positivity and a focus effect for environmental awareness. In the main study we aimed at shifting these effects by manipulating the accessibility of harmful behaviours of either the self or the typical student before obtaining comparative judgements. Specifically, we used two types of accessibility manipulations: anchoring and ease of retrieval. We predicted that judgements would be affected by content in the anchoring paradigm but by subjective ease in the ease of retrieval paradigm. We found the predicted pattern of effects, but it was strongest when participants focused on the typical student. The findings contribute to our understanding of the mechanisms underlying comparative biases and may have applied implications. Copyright © 2006 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

The ethnic match between students and teachers: evidence from a vignette study

The ethnic match between teachers and students is widely believed to be beneficial for the achievement of ethnic minority students, who often lag behind their ethnic majority peers. In a quasi-experimental vignette study, we investigated whether preservice teachers who shared the same ethnic background as the student in the vignette had different judgments of the achievement, working and learning habits, and other social variables of the target student than ethnic majority preservice teachers and preservice teachers who had an ethnic minority background different from that of the student. Additionally, we asked about the causes of ethnic disparities. The preservice teachers who shared the same ethnic background as the target student more favorably judged the student’s language proficiency in his mother tongue and perceived the student as more proficient in mathematics, science, and general competence than the two other teacher groups. Moreover, the causal attributions showed that the preservice teachers with the same background as the target student generally perceived the causes of the student’s lower school success as multifaceted. The results reveal that simply having a teacher with an ethnic minority background is not sufficient for benefitting ethnic minority students. Only teachers who have the same ethnic background as the students might contribute to the reduction of ethnic disparities in school.