Influence of Distal and Proximal Cognitive Processes on Word Reading

The objectives of the present study were twofold: (a) to explore the interrelationship among distal, proximal cognitive skills, and word reading; and (b) to identify those cognitive processes that predict phonological awareness and rapid naming. Seventy First-Nation Canadian children attending grades 3 and 4 were examined on phonological awareness, rapid naming, Word Identification, Word Attack, and the cognitive processing measures of planning, attention, successive, and simultaneous (PASS). Results indicated that phonological awareness and rapid naming uniquely predicted reading, whereas PASS variables did not, when the effects of phonological awareness and rapid naming were controlled. Finally, both phonological awareness and rapid naming were predicted by planning. Implications for diagnosis of children at risk for reading difficulties and remediation are discussed.     

Matching choices to avoid offending stigmatized group members

People (selectors) sometimes make choices both for themselves and for others (recipients). We propose that selectors worry about offending recipients with their choices when recipients are stigmatized group members and options in a choice set differ along a stigma-relevant dimension. Accordingly, selectors are more likely to make the same choices for themselves and stigmatized group member recipients than non-stigmatized group member recipients. We conducted eight studies to study this hypothesis in different choice contexts (food, music, games, books) and with recipients from different stigmatized groups (the obese, Black-Americans, the elderly, students at lower-status schools). We use three different approaches to show that this effect is driven by people’s desire to avoid offending stigmatized group members with their choices. Thus, although prior research shows that people often want to avoid being associated with dissociative groups, such as stigmatized groups, we demonstrate that people make the same choices for self and stigmatized other to minimize offense.     

Comparison of Cognitive Process Measures Across Three Cultural Samples: Some Surprises

Investigations of cognitive processes of children in three different countries (India, Canada, & Japan) are reported extending the validity of measures of Planning, Attention, Simultaneous, and Successive (PASS) processing. Results of average and low achieving school children in India on Cognitive Assessment System (CAS) comprising the four PASS scales showed that low achievers are low on all processing measures. Among Canadian Native children, Simultaneous processing was stronger and Successive was poorer. Children’s performance on Japanese standardization of CAS revealed the same 4 PASS factor structures as in the American CAS. However, in each case, there was a surprise: Indian children scored higher than American norm for Successive scale; only those Canadian Native children who were poor in reading performed poorly in Successive scale, and among the Japanese, Simultaneous processing was higher. Results are discussed in terms of the influence of cultural context and school instructions.     

Exploring the repetition paradox: The effects of learning context and massed repetition on memory

Although repetition is generally assumed to enhance the accessibility of memory for rehearsed material, recent research has suggested that prolonged repetition might actually be detrimental under some conditions. In the present work, we manipulated repetition duration and learning condition (intentional vs. incidental) in an effort to clarify the relationship between repetition and memory. Replicating previous findings, memory for repeated items declined with increased repetition under incidental-learning conditions. However, increased repetition had the opposite effect under intentional-learning conditions. Taken together, these results provide evidence for distinctive mechanisms of memory acquisition during repetition that vary depending on learning context.     

Ideology and Gender: Observers’ System Justification and Targets’ Gender as Interactive Predictors of Citizenship Expectations

We integrate system justification and social role theory to explain how observers’ system justification and target employees’ gender interact to predict observers’ expectations of targets’ sportsmanship citizenship behaviors. In contrast with social role theory predictions, observers did not expect greater levels of sportsmanship from women compared to men. Yet observers expected more sportsmanship from women (a) when observers were ideologically motivated by gender-specific beliefs (gender-specific system justification; Study 1) and (b) when system justification was cued experimentally (Study 2). A heretofore-unexamined aspect, observers’ ideology, modifies their expectations of sportsmanship citizenship across target genders. This has implications for system justification, social role, and organizational citizenship theoretical perspectives.     

Implicit semantic perception in object substitution masking

Decades of research on visual perception has uncovered many phenomena, such as binocular rivalry, backward masking, and the attentional blink, that reflect ‘failures of consciousness’. Although stimuli do not reach awareness in these paradigms, there is evidence that they nevertheless undergo semantic processing. Object substitution masking (OSM), however, appears to be the exception to this rule. In OSM, a temporally-trailing four-dot mask interferes with target perception, even though it has different contours from and does not spatially overlap with the target. Previous research suggests that OSM has an early locus, blocking the extraction of semantic information. Here, we refute this claim, showing implicit semantic perception in OSM using a target-mask priming paradigm. We conclude that semantic information suppressed via OSM can nevertheless guide behavior.     

Interteaching: the impact of lectures on student performance

Several studies suggest that interteaching improves student learning more than traditional lectures, but few have examined which components of interteaching contribute to its efficacy. We examined whether the lecture component of interteaching affected students' exam grades and cumulative point totals in a research methods course. Although students who received lectures had consistently higher exam scores than students who did not, the differences were statistically significant on only 2 of 5 exams. Students who received lectures, however, earned significantly more points during the semester.     

Teachers' and education students' perceptions of and reactions to children with and without the diagnostic label "ADHD"

Thirty-four elementary school teachers and 32 education students from Canada rated their reactions towards vignettes describing children who met attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) symptom criteria that included or did not include the label “ADHD.” “ADHD”-labeled vignettes elicited greater perceptions of the child's impairment as well as more negative emotions and less confidence in the participants, although it also increased participants' willingness to implement treatment interventions. Ratings were similar to vignettes of boys versus girls; however, important differences in ratings between teachers and education students emerged and are discussed. Finally, we investigated the degree to which teachers' professional backgrounds influenced bias based on the label “ADHD.” Training specific to ADHD consistently predicted label bias, whereas teachers' experience working with children with ADHD did not.     

Disrupting the Coloniality of Being: Toward De-colonial Ontologies in Philosophy of Education

This essay works to bridge conversations in philosophy of education with decolonial theory. The author considers Margonis?? (1999, 2011a, b) use of Rousseau (1979) and Heidegger (1962) in developing an ontological attitude that counters social hierarchies and promotes anti-colonial relations. While affirming this effort, the essay outlines a coloniality of being at work in Rousseau and Heidegger through thier reliance on the colonial conceptualization of African Americans and Native Americans as savage and primitive. The essay turns to decolonial theory and the work of Maldenado-Torres (Cult Stud 21(2?C3):240?C270, 2007, 2009) to highlight how a decolonial attitude complicates, yet enriches Margonis?? philosophical framework.     

Revisiting the rise and fall of false recall: Presentation rate effects depend on retention interval

Leading theories of false memory predict that veridical and false recall of lists of semantically associated words can be dissociated by varying the presentation speed during study. Specifically, as presentation rate increases from milliseconds to seconds, veridical recall is predicted to increase monotonically while false recall is predicted to show a rapid rise and then a slow decrease-a pattern shown by McDermott and Watson (2001) in a study using immediate recall tests. In three experiments we tested the generality of the effects of rapid presentation rates on veridical and false memory. In Experiments 1 and 2 participants exhibited high levels of false recall on a delayed recall test, even for very fast stimulus onset asynchronies (SOA)-contrary to predictions from leading theories of false memory. When we switched to an immediate recall test in Experiment 3 we replicated the pattern predicted by the theories and observed by McDermott and Watson. Follow-up analyses further showed that the relative output position of false recalls is not affected by presentation rate, contrary to predictions from fuzzy trace theory. Implications for theories of false memory, including activation monitoring theory and fuzzy trace theory, are discussed.