The influence of experimentally created extrapersonal associations on the Implicit Association Test

We examined the influence of extrapersonal associations (Olson & Fazio, 2004)—associations that neither form the basis of the attitude nor become activated automatically in response to the object—on the Implicit Association Test (Greenwald, McGhee, & Schwartz, 1998) by experimentally creating both attitudes and extrapersonal associations. The results revealed that participants who were given extrapersonal information that was inconsistent with their own attitudes were affected by this information when they later performed an IAT. They exhibited significantly reduced IAT scores compared to participants who were provided attitude-consistent extrapersonal information. This attenuation of the IAT effect occurred despite the fact that participants rated the source of the attitude-inconsistent extrapersonal information as irrational and foolish. On the other hand, the extrapersonal associations did not influence a subliminal priming measure in Experiment 1, nor a personalized version of the IAT (Olson & Fazio, 2004) in Experiment 2. These measures proved sensitive to the attitude, regardless of the congruency of the extrapersonal information.     

External memory: High speed,low speed,and no speed

This paper describes potential constraints on the selection of external memory devices (stimulus sources) and suggests options available to the would-be user of such systems for estimating research requirements and the functional parameters of the available external memory devices.     

How to Prove Hume’s Law

Journal of Philosophical Logic - This paper proves a precisification of Hume’s Law—the thesis that one cannot get an ought from an is—as an instance of a more general theorem...     

A Systematic Review of Sleep Associations in Parents and Children

This systematic review aimed to examine sleep associations in a) typically developing children and their parents, and b) children with neurodevelopmental disorders and their parents. Literature search was conducted on PubMed, PsycINFO, EMBASE and Scopus databases for articles examining sleep associations between parents and children. Thirty studies were included in the final review. Based on the first aim, sleep associations between parents and typically developing children were observed for sleep quality, sleep duration and sleep efficiency. However, evidence for associations between sleepiness levels in parents and children and sleep schedules related to bedtime or waketime was limited. Based on the second aim, children with neurodevelopmental disorders and their parents reported greater sleep disturbances in comparison to typically developing children and their parents. The review concluded that sleep in parents and children is interrelated across a number of sleep parameters. It also revealed some preliminary evidence on bidirectionality in parent-child sleep, which warrants further examination. The review highlights the need to examine the mediating role of environmental factors on the interactions between parent-child sleep. Rigorous, longitudinal designs should be employed to explore the pathways through which parents may impact their children’s sleep and functioning and vice-versa.

     

Risk and Resilience Factors for Mental Health among Transgender and Gender Nonconforming (TGNC) Youth: A Systematic Review

Clinical Child and Family Psychology Review - In recent years, there has been a proliferation of research regarding transgender and gender nonconforming (TGNC) people. The stigma and legal...     

Moving Ahead on Southgate’s Compound Only-Way Evolutionary Theodicy

Southgate offers a remarkable evolutionary theodicy that includes six affirmations and arguments; together they form a unique and very persuasive proposal which he terms a “compound only-way evolutionary theodicy.” Here I summarize the arguments and offer critical reflections on them for further development, with an emphasis on the ambiguity in the goodness of creation; the role of thermodynamics in evolutionary biology; the challenge of horrendous evil in nature; and the theological response to theodicy in terms of eschatology, with its own severe challenge from cosmology. Using a text box, I suggest how the 6 arguments create a unique synthetic whole, and how the removal of any one of them would diminish the argument as a whole. I then suggest how Southgate’s treatment of the key question, “Why not just heaven?” adds a crucial seventh argument to produce an even more splendid and promising whole.     

The accuracy of four approximations to noncentralF

The accuracy of the two-moment, three-moment, square root, and cube root approximations to the noncentralF distribution was assessed using 7,920 entries from Tiku’s (1967) power tables. Tiku’s tables list exact values of β for α= .005?.05, ν₁ = 1?12, ν₂ = 2?120, and ?= 0.5?3.0. Analysis of the errors showed generally satisfactory performance for all four approximations. The three-moment approximation was most accurate, registering a maximum error of only .009. The other three approximations had maximum errors of ±.02, except for the square root approximation at ν₂ = 2, where maximum errors of .05 occur. Approximation error increased with decreases in ν₁ and, less consistently, with increases in ν2. Error was nonmonotonically related to ?. A second investigation explored the accuracy of the approximations at values of αranging from .10 to .90. All four approximations degraded substantially in this situation, with maximum errors ranging from ?.09 to .05. If the analysis is restricted to cases where ν₁ τ; 1 and ν₂ τ; 2, maximum errors drop to roughly ±.03. We conclude that the approximations perform reasonably well for small αand moderately well for larger values, if certain restrictions are imposed. From a computational standpoint, however, there is little advantage to using approximate as opposed to exact methods unless exact values ofF _α are known in advance.