Saccade launch site as a predictor of fixation durations in reading: comments on Hand, Miellet, O'Donnell, and Sereno (2010)

An important question in research on eye movements in reading is whether word frequency and word predictability have additive or interactive effects on fixation durations. A fair number of studies have reported only additive effects of the frequency and predictability of a target word on reading times on that word, failing to show significant interactions. Recently, however, Hand, Miellet, O'Donnell, and Sereno (see record 2010-19099-001) reported interactive effects in a study that included the distance of the prior fixation from the target word (launch site). They reported that when the saccade into the target word was launched from very near to the word (within 3 characters), the predictability effect was larger for low frequency words, but when the saccade was launched from a medium distance (4-6 characters from the word) the predictability effect was larger for high frequency words. Hand et al. argued for the importance of including launch site in analyses of target word fixation durations. Here we describe several problems with Hand et al.'s use of analyses of variance in which launch site is divided into distinct ordinal levels. We describe a more appropriate way to analyze such data-linear mixed-effect models-and we use this method to show that launch site does not modulate the interaction between frequency and predictability in two other data sets.     

Does the direction and magnitude of cognitive change depend on initial level of ability?

Longitudinal change in five cognitive abilities was investigated to determine if the direction or magnitude of change was related to the individual's ability level. Adults between 18 and 97 years of age performed three versions of 16 cognitive tests on two occasions separated by an average of 2.7 years. In order to control for influences associated with regression toward the mean, level of ability was determined from scores on the first version of the cognitive tests on the first occasion, and across-occasion change was examined on the second and third versions. Change in every cognitive ability was significantly more negative with increased age. However, there was little indication of ability-dependent change in any of the five cognitive abilities, either in differences between composite scores, or in estimates of latent change. Although there are reasons to expect cognitive change to be less negative at either high or low levels of ability, these data suggest that neither the direction nor magnitude of change is related to initial ability when influences of regression toward the mean are controlled.     

Sounds exaggerate visual shape

While perceiving speech, people see mouth shapes that are systematically associated with sounds. In particular, a vertically stretched mouth produces a /woo/ sound, whereas a horizontally stretched mouth produces a /wee/ sound. We demonstrate that hearing these speech sounds alters how we see aspect ratio, a basic visual feature that contributes to perception of 3D space, objects and faces. Hearing a /woo/ sound increases the apparent vertical elongation of a shape, whereas hearing a /wee/ sound increases the apparent horizontal elongation. We further demonstrate that these sounds influence aspect ratio coding. Viewing and adapting to a tall (or flat) shape makes a subsequently presented symmetric shape appear flat (or tall). These aspect ratio aftereffects are enhanced when associated speech sounds are presented during the adaptation period, suggesting that the sounds influence visual population coding of aspect ratio. Taken together, these results extend previous demonstrations that visual information constrains auditory perception by showing the converse - speech sounds influence visual perception of a basic geometric feature.     

Unique Challenges Facing Female Athletes in Urban High Schools

Although the passage of Title IX secured equity of treatment and opportunity for female high school athletes in the United States, little research has examined the social well-being of girls who participate in sports during high school. The current survey study investigated how 9th grade sports participation relates to perceived gender discrimination from peers and adults at school over four time points spanning 10th through 12th grade. The ethnically diverse sample (46.6?% Hispanic/Latina/Mexican-American, 14.1?% Asian-American/Pacific Islander, 12.8?% African-American/Black, 11.5?% European-American/White, 15.1?% Other/Mixed) consisted of 384 girls in the southwestern United States. Results of growth modeling showed that 9th grade athletes (n?=?309) perceived greater gender discrimination relative to girls who were not involved in sports (n?=?75), and accelerated in peer gender discrimination compared to non-athletes. Athletes and non-athletes did not differ in perceived gender discrimination from adults at school. Analyses conducted separately within each ethnic group revealed that ethnic groups did not differ in patterns of gender discrimination. These findings suggest that girls who play sports may experience differential treatment from their peers. Future directions and policy implications are discussed.     

Frequency drives lexical access in reading but not in speaking: the frequency-lag hypothesis

To contrast mechanisms of lexical access in production versus comprehension we compared the effects of word frequency (high, low), context (none, low constraint, high constraint), and level of English proficiency (monolingual, Spanish-English bilingual, Dutch-English bilingual) on picture naming, lexical decision, and eye fixation times. Semantic constraint effects were larger in production than in reading. Frequency effects were larger in production than in reading without constraining context but larger in reading than in production with constraining context. Bilingual disadvantages were modulated by frequency in production but not in eye fixation times, were not smaller in low-constraint contexts, and were reduced by high-constraint contexts only in production and only at the lowest level of English proficiency. These results challenge existing accounts of bilingual disadvantages and reveal fundamentally different processes during lexical access across modalities, entailing a primarily semantically driven search in production but a frequency-driven search in comprehension. The apparently more interactive process in production than comprehension could simply reflect a greater number of frequency-sensitive processing stages in production.     

All data collection and analysis methods have limitations: reply to Rabbitt (2011) and Raz and Lindenberger (2011)

The commentaries on my article contain a number of points with which I disagree but also several with which I agree. For example, I continue to believe that the existence of many cases in which between-person variability does not increase with age indicates that greater variance with increased age is not inevitable among healthy individuals up to about 80 years of age. I also do not believe that problems of causal inferences from correlational information are more severe in the cognitive neuroscience of aging than in other research areas; I contend instead that neglect of these problems has led to confusion about neurobiological underpinnings of cognitive aging. I agree that researchers need to be cautious in extrapolating from cross-sectional to longitudinal relations, but I also note that even longitudinal data are limited with respect to their ability to support causal inferences.