A failure to replicate rapid syntactic adaptation in comprehension

Language comprehension requires successfully navigating linguistic variability. One hypothesis for how listeners manage variability is that they rapidly update their expectations of likely linguistic events in new contexts. This process, called adaptation, allows listeners to better predict the upcoming linguistic input. In previous work, Fine, Jaeger, Farmer, and Qian (PLoS ONE, 8, e77661, 2013) found evidence for syntactic adaptation. Subjects repeatedly encountered sentences in which a verb was temporarily ambiguous between main verb (MV) and reduced relative clause (RC) interpretations. They found that subjects who had higher levels of exposure to the unexpected RC interpretation of the sentences had an easier time reading the RC sentences but a more difficult time reading the MV sentences. They concluded that syntactic adaptation occurs rapidly in unexpected structures and also results in difficulty with processing the previously expected alternative structures. This article presents two experiments. Experiment 1 was designed as a follow-up to Fine et al.’s study and failed to find evidence of adaptation. A power analysis of Fine et al.’s raw data revealed that a similar study would need double the items and four times the subjects to reach 95% power. In Experiment 2 we designed a close replication of Fine et al.’s experiment using these sample size guidelines. No evidence of rapid syntactic adaptation was found in this experiment. The failure to find evidence of adaptation in both experiments calls into question the robustness of the effect.     

Explicating the Dispositional Basis of the OCRDs: a Hierarchical Perspective

We examined the dispositional component of the obsessive-compulsive and related disorders (OCRDs) in a large adult sample. Our battery included two hierarchical measures of personality, which allowed us to examine relations with both higher-order domains and lower-order facets of the five-factor model. In addition, our study included multiple indicators of each OCRD, which enabled us to model them as latent factors. Principal factor analyses of these indicators revealed six dimensions: Obsessive-Compulsive Disorder (OCD), Hoarding, Excoriation, Body Dissatisfaction, Trichotillomania, and Body Preoccupation. Body Dissatisfaction, OCD, and Hoarding showed the strongest links to personality, with the other symptoms displaying more moderate associations. Neuroticism was the strongest and broadest predictor of the OCRDs at the domain level, exhibiting significant positive relations with every symptom dimension except Body Preoccupation in both bivariate and multivariate analyses. Conscientiousness showed negative associations with Body Dissatisfaction and Hoarding, and was positively related to Body Preoccupation. Finally, openness was negatively linked to OCD at both the bivariate and multivariate level. In comparison to domain-level analyses, the lower-order facets jointly contributed an additional 11.8% (Excoriation) to 17.6% (OCD) of the criterion variance, with a mean increment of 14.2%. Three neuroticism facets—anger, self-consciousness, and impulsiveness—displayed robust positive associations with two or more OCRD symptom factors, but no lower-order trait contributed significantly in every analysis. Overall, our results indicate that—similar to most other forms of psychopathology—OCRD symptoms have a common component of elevated neuroticism.     

Memories of Parental Rejection in Childhood and Current Psychological Maladjustment Predict Substance Abuse in a Collectivist Religious Country

Journal of Child and Family Studies - Findings from data originating in individualist Western cultures, such as the US, generally confirm a significant relation between parental rejection and...     

Visual marking: using time in visual selection

Given human capacity limitations, to behave adaptively we need to prioritise the order of visual processing to ensure that the most relevant information is available to control action. One way to do this is to prioritise processing at a particular location in space. However, there are many situations where this strategy is not possible and recent studies have shown that, in such circumstances, observers can use time as well as space to prioritise selection. We propose that selection by time can be influenced by a process of visual marking, involving an active bias applied in parallel against old items in the field. Here we describe the properties of visual marking in relation to other mechanisms of visual selection.     

The influence of sensitivity to reward and punishment, propensity for sensation seeking, depression, and anxiety on the risky behaviour of novice drivers: a path model

Young novice drivers are significantly more likely to be killed or injured in car crashes than older, experienced drivers. Graduated driver licensing (GDL), which allows the novice to gain driving experience under less-risky circumstances, has resulted in reduced crash incidence; however, the driver's psychological traits are ignored. This paper explores the relationships between gender, age, anxiety, depression, sensitivity to reward and punishment, sensation-seeking propensity, and risky driving. Participants were 761 young drivers aged 17-24 (M=19.00, SD=1.56) with a Provisional (intermediate) driver's licence who completed an online survey comprising socio-demographic questions, the Impulsive Sensation Seeking Scale, Kessler's Psychological Distress Scale, the Sensitivity to Punishment and Sensitivity to Reward Questionnaire, and the Behaviour of Young Novice Drivers Scale. Path analysis revealed depression, reward sensitivity, and sensation-seeking propensity predicted the self-reported risky behaviour of the young novice drivers. Gender was a moderator; and the anxiety level of female drivers also influenced their risky driving. Interventions do not directly consider the role of rewards and sensation seeking, or the young person's mental health. An approach that does take these variables into account may contribute to improved road safety outcomes for both young and older road users.     

Determining the capacity of time-based selection

In visual search, a set of distractor items can be suppressed from future selection if they are presented (previewed) before a second set of search items arrive. This visual marking mechanism provides a top-down way of prioritizing the selection of new stimuli, at the expense of old stimuli already in the field (Watson & Humphreys, 1997). Typically, this preview benefit has been examined by measuring the efficiency of detecting a target item contained within a newly presented set. Such work has led to the suggestion that the capacity of the visual marking mechanism is extremely high. Here we present five experiments which measured performance for selecting and responding to all the new stimuli rather than a single target item within the new set. The findings illustrate that when selecting and responding to all new items intentionally trying to prioritize new stimuli has a capacity limit of approximately six to seven items and that this limit depends partly on properties of the stimuli. The findings are discussed in terms of mechanisms of time-based selection, attentional capacity limits, and the task demands of multiple item selection.     

Gender Differences in Gossip and Friendship

Gossip has been related to friendship as it can increase the bond between people and sense of belonging to a group. However, the role of gender in the relationship between gossip and friendship has not been examined in the literature. So, the present study examined gender differences in the relationship between friendship quality and gossip tendency with a sample of 167 female and 69 male Western Canadian undergraduate University students using the Friendship questionnaire and the Tendency to Gossip questionnaire. Given gender differences in friendship, with males being more agentic and females more communal, the relationship between gossip and friendship was predicted to be stronger in the males compared to the females. Friendship quality was positively correlated with gossip tendency in the males, but this effect was not present with the females. The information gossip scale was strongly associated with male friendship quality. This finding may be related to the greater emphasis on status with males, and that possession of knowledge and control of information is a method of attaining status. Physical appearance gossip was found to be more prevalent in females, but not related to friendship quality. This type of gossip may be a more of a competitive threat to the relationship in females. Achievement related gossip was also related to male friendship quality, which reflects the greater emphasis on individuation in male friendships.     

Parental Intimate Partner Violence, Parenting Practices, and Adolescent Peer Bullying: A Prospective Study

Intimate partner violence (IPV) has been recognized as a major public health concern, with millions of children exposed to parental violence each year. Childhood exposure to parental violence has been linked to both maladaptive parenting practices and a host of adjustment difficulties in the exposed children. The Children in the Community Study followed a representative sample of youth, their parents, and their own offspring for over 25?years, in seven separate assessments. The current study examined the association between reports of IPV and parenting practices among original study members (Generation 2; N?=?396) and their adolescent offspring’s (Generation 3; N?=?129, M age?=?12.8 (2.4), range?=?10–18) reports of overt and relational bullying and victimization behaviors on average 6–7?years later. Results indicate that parental reports of any IPV predicted higher offspring overt peer victimization, while severe IPV predicted higher offspring relational peer bullying and overt peer victimization. For female offspring, any IPV predicted higher relational peer victimization and for male offspring, severe IPV predicted higher overt peer bullying. Parenting practices did not significantly mediate the association between IPV and peer bullying or victimization. Implications for prevention and directions for future research are discussed.