The Usual and the Unusual: Solving Remote Associates Test Tasks Using Simple Statistical Natural Language Processing Based on Language Use

In this study we show how complex creative relations can arise from fairly frequent semantic relations observed in everyday language. By doing this, we reflect on some key cognitive aspects of linguistic and general creativity. In our experimentation, we automated the process of solving a battery of Remote Associates Test tasks. By applying Statistical Natural Language Processing techniques to a large web‐based corpus, we perform a frequency and collocation analysis of the test items. Results show that 37% of the 68 tasks were automatically solved, whereas human accuracy reached 43%. Our method outperformed humans in the tasks rated as difficult: 38% and 32%, respectively. Highly relevant is that the novel and adequate relations established in order to solve the RAT were not previously present in the corpus. The frequency based approach pervades all stages of our method: during the divergent stage, highly frequent collocations are listed, while the convergent stage starts by matching each task's triads output, shrinking that list, and finalizing it by choosing the least frequent, therefore more informative and often correct, result. Finally, we discuss the implications of our model in overcoming functional fixedness and understanding cognitive salience in the creative process.     

When do Gender Stereotypes Impair Math Performance? A Study of Stereotype Threat Among Ugandan Adolescents

The present study examined the effect of gender-based stereotype threat (ST) on the mathematics performance of high school students in Uganda, East Africa, as moderated by students’ stereotype endorsement and/or their perceptions of stereotypic expectancies by others. Participants were 190 ninth grade students (age 14–15, senior 2, in Uganda) from all-female and coed boarding schools. Only perceived stereotypic expectancies by others significantly moderated ST effects on performance. A reminder of cross-gender comparisons led both young women and young men to underperform if they assumed that the researchers expected their own gender to do worse than the other gender. Importantly, students’ perceptions of the stereotypic expectancies of authority figures (i.e. researchers) mattered more for predicting their math performance than did students’ own endorsement of stereotypes. Collectively, these findings support a basic assumption of ST theory– that knowledge of a cultural stereotype is a prerequisite to the ST experience. Therefore, studies conducted with younger samples and in diverse cultural contexts should establish participants’ awareness of the stereotype in question. Also, regarding gender and math stereotypes, it should not be assumed that males will always be immune from stereotype-based performance deficits on quantitative tasks when tested in different cultures. Finally, results suggest that conveying an expectation that young men and young women have equal ability and potential might be important to preventing ST among younger age groups.     

Hand Position and Response Assignment Modulate the Activation of the Valence‐Space Conceptual Metaphor

Conceptual metaphor is ubiquitous in language and thought, as we usually reason and talk about abstract concepts in terms of more concrete ones via metaphorical mappings that are hypothesized to arise from our embodied experience. One pervasive example is the conceptual projection of valence onto space, which flexibly recruits the vertical and lateral spatial frames to gain structure (e.g., good is up ‐bad is down and good is right ‐bad is left ). In the current study, we used a valence judgment task to explore the role that exogenous bodily cues (namely response hand positions) play in the allocation of spatial attention and the modulation of conceptual congruency effects. Experiment 1 showed that congruency effects along the vertical axis are weakened when task conditions (i.e., the use of vertical visual cues, on the one hand, and the horizontal alignment of responses, on the other) draw attention to both the vertical and lateral axes making them simultaneously salient. Experiment 2 evidenced that the vertical alignment of participants’ hands while responding to the task—regardless of the location of their dominant hand—facilitates the judgment of positive and negative‐valence words, as long as participants respond in a metaphor–congruent manner (i.e., up responses are good and down responses are bad). Overall, these results support the claim that source domain representations are dynamically activated in response to the context and that bodily states are an integral part of that context.     

Group‐Based Shame and Guilt: Emerging Directions in Research

Research on the role of emotion in social identity, group processes, and intergroup conflict is burgeoning. This paper examines recent research on group‐based shame and guilt and describes important themes in this research. Guilt and shame are distinguished by different appraisals and motivations in intergroup contexts. Group‐based shame is associated with threats to group‐image and motivations to protect and repair that image. In contrast, group‐based guilt is associated with efforts to repair and apologize for ingroup wrongdoing. Current research is expanding in several important directions. First, the scope of emotions is expanding beyond that of shame and guilt to consider the roles of emotions such as ingroup‐directed anger in situations that may also provoke group‐based shame and guilt. Second, people’s motivations to avoid feeling group‐based shame and guilt are becoming better understood, particularly in relation to different aspects of social identification. Finally, we argue that dynamic processes in emotion expression and experience, particularly due to the relation between perpetrator and victim groups, are an important future direction in research on group‐based shame and guilt.     

Some observations on value and greatness in drama

This paper argues that value in drama partly results from the nature of the resistance in a scene, resistance used in its common, everyday meaning. A playwright's ability to imagine and present such resistance rests on several factors, including his sublimation of the fantasies that underpin his work. Such sublimation is evident in Chekhov's continuing reworking in his plays of a fantasy that found its initial embodiment for him in one of the central scenes in Hamlet. The increasingly higher value of the scenes Chekhov wrote as he repeatedly reworked Shakespeare's scene resulted from his increasing sublimation of the initial fantasy and is reflected in the ever more complex nature of the resistance found in Chekhov's scenes, resistance that, in turn, created an ever more life-like, three-dimensional central character in the scenes.     

Attitude and knowledge changes in collegiate dancers following a short-term, team-centered prevention program on eating disorders

Eating knowledge, nutritional knowledge, and psychological changes among female collegiate dancers were examined before and after a 4-wk. team-centered program on sport nutrition, exercise, and disordered eating consequences. Collegiate female dancers from two NCAA Division I institutions participated in a control (n = 19; M age = 19.1 yr., SD = 1.0) or intervention (n = 21; M age = 19.2 yr., SD = 1.2) group. Measures were administered to both groups before and after intervention to assess eating disorders, depression, and nutritional and disordered eating knowledge. There was a statistically significant increase in scores on nutritional and overall eating disorder knowledge in the intervention group compared to the control group. Mean scores on depression, drive for thinness, body dissatisfaction, and maturity fears decreased in the intervention group.     

Is two a plural marker in early child language?

Is two ever a plural marker in child language? By some accounts, children bootstrap the distinction between the words one and two by observing their use with singular-plural marking (one ball/two balls). Others argue that the numeral two marks plurality before children begin using numerals to denote precise quantities. We tested the relation between numerals and singular-plural marking in English-speaking 2- and 3-year-olds by asking them to label sets of objects. When children were not prompted to use numerals they hardly ever did so, although they did frequently use plural marking. Thus, it does not appear that children spontaneously use numerals like two as plural markers. Also, children who used numerals when labeling sets were significantly more likely to use a plural marker than children who did not use numerals, suggesting that most children view plural marking as obligatory when numerals are used, rather than viewing the 2 forms as alternative markers of plurality. Finally, two was no more likely than other numerals to be used with unmarked nouns (i.e., as an alternative to the plural), suggesting that it does not have a special status as a plural marker. We conclude that two is not a plural marker in early child language.     

The feedback withholding bias: Minority students do not receive critical feedback from evaluators concerned about appearing racist

How can we learn from our mistakes if we're unaware they exist? The present research tested the hypothesis that minority students receive less critical feedback on their written work from evaluators who are primarily externally motivated to inhibit their racial biases. Participants highlighted instances of good/bad writing in essays purportedly written by a White or a minority student. Results of two experiments showed that although participants provided equivalent amounts of positive feedback to both authors, they provided less negative feedback and gave higher grades to minority authors to the extent that they were externally but not internally motivated to respond without prejudice. This finding reveals that stigmatized students sometimes fail to receive the critical feedback necessary to identify areas needing improvement, particularly when evaluators are concerned about appearing prejudiced. The implications for educational equality are discussed.     

Thinking is Believing

Abstract

The idea that people can entertain propositions without believing them is widespread, intuitive, and most probably false. The main goal of this essay is to argue against the claim that people can entertain a proposition without believing it. Evidence is presented demonstrating that we cannot withhold assent from any proposition we happen to consider. A model of belief fixation is then sketched and used to explain hitherto disparate, recalcitrant and somewhat mysterious psychological phenomena. The proposed model is one where beliefs are the automatic output of a computationally null belief acquisition reflex. In short, the model holds that the mere activation of a mentally represented truth apt proposition leads to immediately believing it. The essay concludes by considering some consequences that the proposed model of belief acquisition has for our concept of rationality.