Phoneme‐Order Encoding During Spoken Word Recognition: A Priming Investigation

In three experiments, we examined priming effects where primes were formed by transposing the first and last phoneme of tri‐phonemic target words (e.g., /byt/ as a prime for /tyb/). Auditory lexical decisions were found not to be sensitive to this transposed‐phoneme priming manipulation in long‐term priming (Experiment 1), with primes and targets presented in two separated blocks of stimuli and with unrelated primes used as control condition (/mul/‐/tyb/), while a long‐term repetition priming effect was observed (/tyb/‐/tyb/). However, a clear transposed‐phoneme priming effect was found in two short‐term priming experiments (Experiments 2 and 3), with primes and targets presented in close temporal succession. The transposed‐phoneme priming effect was found when unrelated prime‐target pairs (/mul/‐/tyb/) were used as control and more important when prime‐target pairs sharing the medial vowel (/pys/‐/tyb/) served as control condition, thus indicating that the effect is not due to vocalic overlap. Finally, in Experiment 3, a transposed‐phoneme priming effect was found when primes sharing the medial vowel plus one consonant in an incorrect position with the targets (/byl/‐/tyb/) served as control condition, and this condition did not differ significantly from the vowel‐only condition. Altogether, these results provide further evidence for a role for position‐independent phonemes in spoken word recognition, such that a phoneme at a given position in a word also provides evidence for the presence of words that contain that phoneme at a different position.     

“Lights on at the end of the party”: Are lads’ mags mainstreaming dangerous sexism?

Research has suggested that some magazines targeted at young men –lads’ mags– are normalizing extreme sexist views by presenting those views in a mainstream context. Consistent with this view, young men in Study 1 (n = 90) identified more with derogatory quotes about women drawn from recent lads’ mags, and from interviews with convicted rapists, when those quotes were attributed to lads’ mags, than when they were attributed to convicted rapists. In Study 2, 40 young women and men could not reliably judge the source of those same quotes. While these participants sometimes voiced the belief that the content of lads’ mags was ‘normal’ while rapists’ talk was ‘extreme’, they categorized quotes from both sources as derogatory with equal frequency. Jointly, the two studies show an overlap in the content of convicted rapists’ talk and the contents of contemporary lads’ mags, and suggest that the framing of such content within lads’ mags may normalize it for young men.     

The association between past and future oriented thinking: Evidence from autism spectrum disorder

A number of recently developed theories (e.g., the constructive episodic simulation, self-projection, and scene construction hypotheses) propose that the ability to simulate possible future events (sometimes referred to as episodic future thinking, prospection, or foresight) depends on the same neurocognitive system that is implicated in the recall of past events (episodic memory). In this paper, we argue that autism spectrum disorder (ASD) offers an ideal test of such theories, given that it is a developmental disorder that is characterized by impairments in episodic memory. Each of these theories would predict concomitant impairments in episodic future thinking among individuals with ASD. We review evidence concerning episodic future thinking in ASD, as well as studies of prospective memory (remembering to do something in the future), planning, navigation, and theory of mind, which some theories suggest also rely on the same mechanism as episodic future thinking.     

Dreaming without REM sleep

To test whether mental activities collected from non-REM sleep are influenced by REM sleep, we suppressed REM sleep using clomipramine 50mg (an antidepressant) or placebo in the evening, in a double blind cross-over design, in 11 healthy young men. Subjects were awakened every hour and asked about their mental activity. The marked (81%, range 39-98%) REM-sleep suppression induced by clomipramine did not substantially affect any aspects of dream recall (report length, complexity, bizarreness, pleasantness and self-perception of dream or thought-like mentation). Since long, complex and bizarre dreams persist even after suppressing REM sleep either partially or totally, it suggests that the generation of mental activity during sleep is independent of sleep stage.     

Uncovering hockey fans' motivations behind their derogatory behaviors and how these motives predict psychological well-being and quality of social identity

ObjectiveThis article tested whether hockey fans' selfdetermined and non self-determined motivation for engaging in derogatory behaviors against an outgroup team predicted the frequency of these behaviors, fans' psychological well-being, and the quality of their social identity as a fan of their team. The two psychological theories we employ in the current research (i.e., self-determination theory and social identity theory) have different assumptions concerning the motivation behind derogatory fan behavior.DesignThree correlational studies were conducted among hockey fans.MethodsFans of rival hockey fans (Study 1; N = 45), fans of the Montreal Canadiens (Study 2; N = 181), and fans of NHL teams (Study 3; N = 105) completed measures of selfdetermination to engage in derogatory behaviors, frequency of these behaviors, psychological well-being, and quality of social identity. Multiple regression analyses were conducted to test if the frequency, well-being, and quality of social identity variables were predicted by the self-determined and non self-determined motivations to engage in derogatory behaviors.ResultsAs expected based on self-determination theory (SDT), the more hockey fans engage in derogatory behaviors for non self-determined reasons, the lower their well-being and the less frequently they report engaging in the derogatory behaviors. Moreover, as expected based on social identity theory (SIT), the more hockey fans engage in the derogatory behaviors for self-determined reasons, the higher their well-being, the frequency of these behaviors, and the more positive their social identity.ConclusionsTheses results are interpreted in light of SDT and SIT's theoretical propositions. Comparisons are made with prior studies conducted on this topic.     

When voices get emotional: A corpus of nonverbal vocalizations for research on emotion processing

Nonverbal vocal expressions, such as laughter, sobbing, and screams, are an important source of emotional information in social interactions. However, the investigation of how we process these vocal cues entered the research agenda only recently. Here, we introduce a new corpus of nonverbal vocalizations, which we recorded and submitted to perceptual and acoustic validation. It consists of 121 sounds expressing four positive emotions (achievement/triumph, amusement, sensual pleasure, and relief) and four negative ones (anger, disgust, fear, and sadness), produced by two female and two male speakers. For perceptual validation, a forced choice task was used (n = 20), and ratings were collected for the eight emotions, valence, arousal, and authenticity (n = 20). We provide these data, detailed for each vocalization, for use by the research community. High recognition accuracy was found for all emotions (86 %, on average), and the sounds were reliably rated as communicating the intended expressions. The vocalizations were measured for acoustic cues related to temporal aspects, intensity, fundamental frequency (f0), and voice quality. These cues alone provide sufficient information to discriminate between emotion categories, as indicated by statistical classification procedures; they are also predictors of listeners’ emotion ratings, as indicated by multiple regression analyses. This set of stimuli seems a valuable addition to currently available expression corpora for research on emotion processing. It is suitable for behavioral and neuroscience research and might as well be used in clinical settings for the assessment of neurological and psychiatric patients. The corpus can be downloaded from Supplementary Materials.     

Perhaps There Is Accounting for Taste: Evaluating the Creativity of Products

Ratings on a creativity rating scale of students' designs of a hands-free mobile phone holder were compared for 2 sets of raters: experts (professional art teachers) and novices (visual art students). Reliabilities of total creativity scores were high for both groups, and interjudge consistency on total creativity scores, as well as on grades, was high among novices, but not as high among experts. Correlations between grades and total functional creativity scores within and across groups of raters (experts and novices) were highly significant. Scores on the scale resembled those yielded by assessments using grades and the scale did not yield better consistency among judges than conventional grades. Nonetheless, it provided a differentiated assessment of products that made it possible to explain the basis of experts' opinions and the reasons for disagreement, and to discuss the strengths and weaknesses of students' designs in a systematic and differentiated way.