Covert reading of letters in a case of global alexia

This study describes the case of a global alexic patient with a severe reading deficit affecting words, letters and Arabic numbers, following a left posterior lesion. The patient (VA) could not match spoken letters to their graphic form. A preserved ability to recognize shape and canonical orientation of letters indicates intact access to the representation of letters and numbers as visual objects. A relatively preserved ability to match lowercase to uppercase letters suggests partially spared access to abstract letter identities independently of their visual forms. The patient was also unable to match spoken letters and numbers to their visual form, indicating that she could not access the graphemic representations of letters from their phonological representations. This pattern of performance suggests that the link between graphemic and phonological representations is disrupted in this patient. We hypothesize that VA’ residual reading abilities are supported by the right hemisphere.     

Selective impairment of living things and musical instruments on a verbal 'Semantic Knowledge Questionnaire' in a case of apperceptive visual agnosia

Semantic memory was investigated in a patient (MR) affected by a severe apperceptive visual agnosia, due to an ischemic cerebral lesion, bilaterally affecting the infero-mesial parts of the temporo-occipital cortices. The study was made by means of a Semantic Knowledge Questionnaire (Laiacona, Barbarotto, Trivelli, & Capitani, 1993), which takes separately into account four categories of living beings (animals, fruits, vegetables and body parts) and of artefacts (furniture, tools, vehicles and musical instruments), does not require a visual analysis and allows to distinguish errors concerning super-ordinate categorization, perceptual features and functional/encyclopedic knowledge. When the total number of errors obtained on all the categories of living and non-living beings was considered, a non-significant trend toward a higher number of errors in living stimuli was observed. This difference, however, became significant when body parts and musical instruments were excluded from the analysis. Furthermore, the number of errors obtained on the musical instruments was similar to that obtained on the living categories of animals, fruits and vegetables and significantly higher of that obtained in the other artefact categories. This difference was still significant when familiarity, frequency of use and prototypicality of each stimulus entered into a logistic regression analysis. On the other hand, a separate analysis of errors obtained on questions exploring super-ordinate categorization, perceptual features and functional/encyclopedic attributes showed that the differences between living and non-living stimuli and between musical instruments and other artefact categories were mainly due to errors obtained on questions exploring perceptual features. All these data are at variance with the 'domains of knowledge' hypothesis', which assumes that the breakdown of different categories of living and non-living things respects the distinction between biological entities and artefacts and support the models assuming that 'category-specific semantic disorders' are the by-product of the differential weighting that visual-perceptual and functional (or action-related) attributes have in the construction of different biological and artefacts categories.     

The application of the random regret minimization model to drivers’ choice of crash avoidance maneuvers

This study explores the plausibility of regret minimization as behavioral paradigm underlying the choice of crash avoidance maneuvers. Alternatively to previous studies that considered utility maximization, this study applies the random regret minimization (RRM) model while assuming that drivers seek to minimize their anticipated regret from their corrective actions. The model accounts for driver attributes and behavior, critical events that made the crash imminent, vehicle and road characteristics, and environmental conditions. Analyzed data are retrieved from the General Estimates System (GES) crash database for the period between 2005 and 2009. The predictive ability of the RRM-based model is slightly superior to its RUM-based counterpart, namely the multinomial logit model (MNL) model. The marginal effects predicted by the RRM-based model are greater than those predicted by the RUM-based model, suggesting that both models should serve as a basis for evaluating crash scenarios and driver warning systems.     

Testing the Relationship Between Parents’ and Their Children’s Subjective Well-Being

Casas et al. (J Happiness Stud 9(2):197–205, 2008) found no significant relationship between paired answers given by parents and their 12–16-year-old children (N?=?266) for a single-item scale on overall life satisfaction (OLS). However, a significant, but low (.19) parent–child relationship did appear for the PWI multi-item scale. Overall, children reported higher subjective well being than parents. In this article, we present the results obtained from confirmatory factor analysis (CFA), using more scales and a bigger sample (N?=?1,250) of paired parents and children. The study uses three multiple-item scales: the PWI, the SWLS and the BMSLSS, and six single-item scales: the OLS, two items from Russell’s scale on core affects, one on overall happiness, Fordyce’s happiness item and the optional item of the BMSLSS on overall life satisfaction. Separate CFA for each of the 3 multi-item scales showed good fit statistics. In order to check comparability between parents and children, we tested equal loading and intercept constraints. The models with restricted loadings fit only for the PWI and BMSLSS, but none of the models with restricted intercepts fit. Therefore, it was only possible to estimate two factor correlations for parents and their children, both very low (.16 for the PWI, .18 for BMSLSS), and it was not possible to compare factor means. When correlating scores from the 6 single-item scales for parents and children, they were all found to be significant but very low. As regards items from the multiple-item scales for parents and children many correlations are positive and significant, although very low, but others are non significant. The means of some items were substantially higher for children than for parents. For some items, differences were minor, non-significant or even reversed. All of the results suggest that parents’ well-being is very weakly related to their own children’s well-being, in spite of socialization, common material welfare and genetic influences. However, one outstanding result is that in our Catalan sample, parents’ well-being seems to have a greater influence on their female child’s well-being than on their male child’s.     

Similar effects of visual perception and imagery on simple reaction time

A longstanding issue is whether perception and mental imagery share similar cognitive and neural mechanisms. To cast further light on this problem, we compared the effects of real and mentally generated visual stimuli on simple reaction time (RT). In five experiments, we tested the effects of difference in luminance, contrast, spatial frequency, motion, and orientation. With the intriguing exception of spatial frequency, in all other tasks perception and imagery showed qualitatively similar effects. An increase in luminance, contrast, and visual motion yielded a decrease in RT for both visually presented and imagined stimuli. In contrast, gratings of low spatial frequency were responded to more quickly than those of higher spatial frequency only for visually presented stimuli. Thus, the present study shows that basic dependent variables exert similar effects on visual RT either when retinally presented or when imagined. Of course, this evidence does not necessarily imply analogous mechanisms for perception and imagery, and a note of caution in such respect is suggested by the large difference in RT between the two operations. However, the present results undoubtedly provide support for some overlap between the structural representation of perception and imagery.     

Cultural modulations of space–time compatibility effects

The representation of elapsing time may require spatial attention. In certain circumstances, this spatial representation develops from left to right. This is suggested by a performance advantage in responding short with the left hand and long with the right hand (spatial–temporal association between response codes [STEARC]). The present study tests whether one possible determinant of the directionality of the STEARC effect is cultural. In particular, we investigated whether reading/writing habits can affect STEARC direction by administering a visual time judgment task to Italian participants, who were exposed to a left-to-right reading/writing system, and Israeli participants, who mainly used a right-to-left system. The Italian participants showed a left-to-right STEARC effect, while this effect was not present in the Israeli group. The study demonstrates that cultural habits can influence the way in which spatial attention supports the representation of time, similar to the pattern found in other nonspatial domains such as numbers.     

Regulatory mode orientations and well‐being in an organizational setting: the differential mediating roles of workaholism and work engagement

This paper examines the relationships between two independent regulatory mode orientations, locomotion and assessment, and well‐being in organizational contexts. Results from a sample of 320 employees revealed that locomotion was negatively associated with burnout and psychological strain whereas assessment was positively associated with burnout and strain. The effects of locomotion and assessment on burnout and strain were mediated by workaholism and work engagement. Both locomotion and assessment predicted greater workaholism; however, locomotion was positively associated whereas assessment was negatively associated with work engagement. In turn, workaholism predicted greater burnout and strain, and work engagement predicted less burnout and strain. Implications for employee health and organizational success are discussed.