Fill the Gap! Combining Pragmatic and Prosodic Information to Make Gapping Easy

Two studies investigated the effects of prosody and pragmatic context on off-line and on-line processing of sentences like John greeted Paul yesterday and Ben today. Such sentences are ambiguous between the so-called ‘nongapping’ reading, where John greeted Ben, and the highly unpreferred ‘gapping’ reading, where Ben greeted Paul. In the first experiment, participants listened to dialogues and gave a speeded response as to which reading of an ambiguous target sentence first comes to mind. In the second experiment, they also responded to a visual probe that was presented during the presentation of the ambiguous target. The results show that context and prosody have independent and strong effects on both on-line processing and off-line interpretation of gapping; in the right combination they can make gapping as easy as the normally preferred nongapping reading.     

Can the distress-signal and arousal-reduction views of crying be reconciled? Evidence from the cardiovascular system

Theorists have staked out two ostensibly opposing views of human crying as either an arousing behavior that signals distress or a soothing behavior that reduces arousal after distress. The present study examined whether these views of crying might be reconciled by attending to physiological changes that unfold over crying episodes. Sixty female students watched neutral and cry-eliciting films while autonomic physiology, including respiratory sinus arrhythmia and pre-ejection period, was assessed. Crying participants exhibited heart rate increases that rapidly subsided after crying onset. Crying onset was also associated with increases in respiratory sinus arrhythmia and slowed breathing. All crying effects subsided by 4 minutes after onset. It is possible that crying is both an arousing distress signal and a means to restore psychological and physiological balance, depending on how and when this complex behavior is interrogated.     

Correspondence Between Preference Assessment Outcomes and Stimulus Reinforcer Value for Social Interactions

Preferred forms of social interaction were identified using a paired-stimulus format in which two 3–5 s videos of the experimenter providing the social interaction to the participant were presented. Reinforcer efficacy of the high-, medium-, and low-preferred interactions was evaluated using a progressive-ratio schedule to determine the amount of work maintained by the stimuli. Results showed that higher preference stimuli produced larger break points than did lower preference stimuli.     

Behavioural treatment of trichotillomania: two-year follow-up results

Post-treatment evaluation studies of behaviour therapy (BT) for trichotillomania (TTM) have shown that BT is successful in reducing symptoms in this impulse-control disorder. The present study was aimed at investigating gain maintenance at long-term follow-up. TTM-related symptoms and other symptom characteristics were evaluated in 28 patients suffering from TTM before and after brief BT and at a 3-month and 2-year follow-up. The manual-based BT consisted of self-control procedures offered in six sessions. Pre-post effect sizes for TTM symptoms at post-treatment evaluation and at the two follow-ups were 2.91, 1.47, and .87. Compared to the post-treatment effects, the 3-month and 2-year follow-up effect sizes had decreased by 49% and 70%, respectively. Better 2-year follow-up results were associated with lower pre-treatment levels of depressive symptoms and with complete abstinence from hair pulling immediately after treatment.     

Smells like clean spirit. Nonconscious effects of scent on cognition and behavior

Three studies explored whether odor can influence people's cognition and behavior without their being consciously aware of the influence. In two studies, we tested and confirmed that when participants were unobtrusively exposed to citrus-scented all-purpose cleaner, the mental accessibility of the behavior concept of cleaning was enhanced, as was indicated by faster identification of cleaning-related words in a lexical decision task and higher frequency of listing cleaning-related activities when describing expected behavior during the day. Finally, a third study established that the mere exposure to the scent of all-purpose cleaner caused participants to keep their direct environment more clean during an eating task. Awareness checks showed that participants were unaware of this influence. The present studies reveal the nonconscious influence that olfactory cues can have on thinking and doing.     

Ego Development at the Crossroads: Identity and Intimacy Among Black Men and White Women in Cross-Racial Relationships

This study addressed the ego development of White women and Black men who were in cross-racial relationships. Twenty-one participants completed in-depth, individual interviews, focus group inquiries, and the Sentence Completion Test (SCT). The results indicate that a majority of the participants scored at the higher levels of ego development: 50% of the Black males and 67% of the White females were at the conscientious stage of ego development, 25% of the Black males and 22% of the White females were at the individuated stage. The results from the interviews and the focus groups substantiated the participants' scores on the SCT, exemplifying the complexity in which Black men and White women perceive themselves as individuals and others in relationships. Loevinger (1976, Ego development: Conceptions and theories. San Francisco: Jossey-Bass.) contends that these higher stages represent a complex means of understanding oneself and of interacting in intimate relationships. The terms of African American heritage, African American, and Black are used synonymously and interchangeably, as are the terms of European American heritage, European American, and White.     

Relation of infant motor development with nonverbal intelligence,language comprehension and neuropsychological functioning in childhood: a population‐based study

Within a population‐based study of 3356 children, we investigated whether infant neuromotor development was associated with cognition in early childhood. Neuromotor development was examined with an adapted version of Touwen's Neurodevelopmental Examination between 9 and 20 weeks. Parents rated their children's executive functioning at 4 years. At age 6 years, children performed intelligence and language comprehension tests, using Dutch test batteries. At age 6–9 years, neuropsychological functioning was assessed in 486 children using the validated NEPSY‐II–NL test battery. We showed that less optimal neurodevelopment in infancy may predict poor mental rotation, immediate memory, shifting, and planning; but not nonverbal intelligence or language comprehension.     

Synchrony,complexity and directiveness in mothers’ interactions with infants pre- and post-cochlear implantation

This study investigated effects of profound hearing loss on mother–infant interactions before and after cochlear implantation with a focus on maternal synchrony, complexity, and directiveness. Participants included two groups of mother–infant dyads: 9 dyads of mothers and infants with normal hearing; and 9 dyads of hearing mothers and infants with profound hearing loss. Dyads were observed at two time points: Time 1, scheduled to occur before cochlear implantation for infants with profound hearing loss (mean age = 13.6 months); and Time 2 (mean age = 23.3 months), scheduled to occur approximately six months after cochlear implantation. Hearing infants were age-matched to infants with hearing loss at both time points. Dependent variables included the proportion of maternal utterances that overlapped infant vocalizations, maternal mean length of utterance, infant word use, and combined maternal directives and prohibitions. Results showed mothers’ utterances overlapped the vocalizations of infants with hearing loss more often before cochlear implantation than after, mothers used less complex utterances with infants with cochlear implants compared to hearing peers (Time 2), and mothers of infants with profound hearing loss used frequent directives and prohibitions both before and after cochlear implantation. Together, mothers and infants adapted relatively quickly to infants’ access to cochlear implants, showing improved interactional synchrony, increased infant word use, and levels of maternal language complexity compatible with infants’ word use, all within seven months of cochlear implant activation.     

Metacognition, risk behavior, and risk outcomes: the role of perceived intelligence and perceived knowledge.

The present study explores 2 key variables in social metacognition: perceived intelligence and perceived levels of knowledge about a specific content domain. The former represents a judgment of one's knowledge at an abstract level, whereas the latter represents a judgment of one's knowledge in a specific content domain. Data from interviews of approximately 8,411 female adolescents from a national sample were analyzed in a 2-wave panel design with a year between assessments. Higher levels of perceived intelligence at Wave 1 were associated with a lower probability of the occurrence of a pregnancy over the ensuing year independent of actual IQ, self-esteem, and academic aspirations. Higher levels of perceived knowledge about the accurate use of birth control were associated with a higher probability of the occurrence of a pregnancy independent of actual knowledge about accurate use, perceived intelligence, self-esteem, and academic aspirations.