On the autonomy of phonological encoding: Evidence from slips of the tongue in Spanish

The present study focuses on the relationship between the processes of lexical retrieval and phonological encoding in sentence production. An analysis of spontaneous slips of the tongue in Spanish reveals that (1) there is as yet no clear evidence for a lexical bias effect on sublexical errors (segment movement and substitution), and hence for positive feedback from phonological encoding to the level of lexical representation; and (2) meaning and form appear to be largely dissociated in lexical errors, which lends support to the hypothesis that lexical retrieval proceeds in two independent stages during sentence production. These findings are discussed in the light of two alternative accounts of language production mechanisms: the interactive activation model and the structural, processing-stages model.This research has been supported by grant no. PB87-0531 from the Dirección General de Investigación Científica y Técnica, Spanish Ministry of Education. We thank Kathryn Bock, Gary Dell, and David Swinney for helpful comments and discussion.     

Schizotypy and verbal memory in the adolescent general population

The following study examines the relationship between verbal memory deficits and schizotypal traits measured psychometrically from a non- clinical adolescent population. In this transversal analytical study participated 139 subjects. They were secondary school students, with ages ranging from 13 to 16 years old (mean= 14, 35; Sta.Dev.= 0, 548). After administrating the scales O-LIFE (psychometrical schizotypy), CVLT (verbal memory), and Letters and Numbers subtest of WAIS-III (working memory), data was analyzed utilizing Pearson correlations and mean comparison test. Results showed lack of relations between schizotypy measures and working memory. Nonetheless, some of the O-LIFE dimensions correlated with verbal memory. These findings support partly the literature reviewed. Yet, more work focused on schizotypy and cognitive deficits as risk factors are suggested.     

Who gets mad,sad, scared or happy at discipline? Emotion attributions explain child externalizing behaviour

Few studies have linked parental discipline with children's emotional experiences, and not much data explore children's emotional attributions to discipline linked to externalizing behaviour. With a sample from Brazil, this study examines which emotions children most aptly attribute to a protagonist facing spanking, time-out or inductive discipline for norm violations. We hypothesized that anger, sadness, and fear would have higher attribution rates at spanking or time-out, relative to inductive discipline and that happiness would have higher attribution rates at induction relative to the other discipline modalities. We expected these findings to be more pronounced in older children. Based on emotional functions, we also tested the role of neutrality and happiness attributions to discipline in children's externalizing behaviour. A two-way MANOVA, with discipline and child age as explanatory variables, showed that children attributed more anger at time-out or spanking than at induction, and more happiness and neutrality at induction than at either time-out or spanking. Older children attributed significantly more sadness and less fear or neutrality. Hierarchical regressions showed that child externalizing behaviour was negatively related to happy attributions in discipline independently of child emotion situation knowledge or demographics. The results are interpreted in light of a functional view of emotions.     

Asian-American Acculturation,Gender, and Willingness to Seek Counseling

Neither acculturation nor gender were found to significantly relate to Asian-American willingness to see a counselor for either a personal or an academic problem. Participants were more willing to see a counselor for an academic problem than for a personal problem.     

Movement errors and levels of processing in sentence production

From a corpus of 3,530 slips of the tongue in Spanish, a sample of 753 cases of movement errors was analyzed, comprising those tokens that could be unambiguously assigned to the major categories of anticipations, perseverations, exchanges, and shifts. The analysis was performed according to two main criteria: (a) the degree of correspondence between the linguistic elements interacting in an error, and (b) the distance between such elements in terms of the type and number of the intervening linguistic boundaries. The results of this analysis converge with those obtained in English, supporting a model of sentence planning with different levels of representation and processing. Furthermore, Spanish provides a clear case to attest the role of syllabic structure in production processes, the constraints set by word boundaries in sublexical errors, and the contribution of inflectional suffixes to the assignment of grammatical category to the root morphemes.     

“Yes,I Can,I Feel Good,and I Just Do It!” On Gain Cycles and Spirals of Efficacy Beliefs,Affect, and Engagement

Taking Bandura's Social Cognitive Theory as our starting point, we tested how efficacy beliefs (self‐efficacy and perceived collective efficacy) reciprocally influence activity engagement (vigor, dedication, and absorption) indirectly through their impact on positive affect (enthusiasm, satisfaction, and comfort) over time. We conducted two longitudinal studies using independent samples. Study 1 is a two‐wave longitudinal field study that examines gain cycles regarding the dynamic relationships among self‐efficacy, positive affect, and work engagement in 274 secondary school teachers. Study 2 is a three‐wave longitudinal laboratory study about gain spirals in the dynamic relationships among collective efficacy beliefs, positive affect, and task engagement in 100 university students working in groups. Our findings show that: (1) efficacy beliefs reciprocally influence activity engagement indirectly through their impact on positive affect over time; (2) enthusiasm is the positive affect with the strongest effect on activity engagement; and (3) a gain spiral exists whereby efficacy beliefs increase over time due to engagement and positive affect (most notably enthusiasm). Finally, we discuss the theoretical and practical implications in terms of Social Cognitive Theory.