Concurrent language and motor performance in bilinguals: a test of the age of acquisition hypothesis.

The objective of the present study was to test the hypothesis that the age at which a second language is acquired influences the pattern of cerebral lateralization associated with that language. Subjects who differed in terms of the age at which they had acquired their second language (English or French) were tested on a concurrent task paradigm involving motor and language performance. Hemispheric processing was inferred from the pattern of lateralized and generalized interference between the tasks. No support was found for the age-of-acquisition hypothesis. Instead, the data indicated a language-specific effect. Regardless of age of acquisition and of whether the first language was English or French, bilingual subjects showed lateralized interference effects consistent with left-hemisphere processing when reading in English and translating from French into English, but no lateralized interference when reading in French and translating from English into French. Whether this effect reflects characteristics of the two languages or the influence of social factors in subject-experimenter interaction is considered.     

Decreases in simple reaction time as a function of stutterers'' participation in a behavioral therapy

Stutterers and fluent speakers were compared on a simple reastion time task to determine whether participation in a behaviorally based stuttering program had an effect on clients' reaction time scores. A group of fluent speakers was used to control the possibility that any changes in reaction time latency were due to practice or familiarity with the task. All participants responded with a finger-lift as quickly as possible to 25 visual stimuli presented by computer. Response latencies from the stutterers and the fluent speakers were compared. Stutterers' posttherapy reaction time latencies were significantly shorter than their pretherapy latencies. It was also observed that stutterers' reaction time scores prior to therapy did not differ significantly from fluent speakers' scores. However, stutterers' posttherapy reaction time scores did differ significantly from fluent speakers' posttest scores. The results are discussed in terms of arousal, motivation, familiarity with the environment, conditioned inhibition, and two aspects of therapy.     

Approximating maximum test validity by a non-parametric method

The Gleser-DuBois conditions for selecting from a number of test items those which will maximize the correlation between total test score and criterion will degenerate into expressions requiring only item counts on total distributions and the upper halves of distributions. A grouping convention for scores near medians is recommended. The inefficiency of the method is easily compensated for, because, regardless of the size of the sample, only standard test-scoring equipment and brief computations are required. A procedure is outlined, and some applications are discussed.     

Ethical Costs and Economic Costs

Studies in Philosophy and Education -     

Proof Paradoxes,Agency, and Stereotyping

Many have attempted to justify various courts’ position that bare or naked statistical evidence is not sufficient for findings of liability. I provide a particular explanation by examining a different, but related, issue about when and why stereotyping is wrong. One natural explanation of wrongness of stereotyping appeals to agency. However, this has been scrutinised. In this paper, I argue that we should broaden our understanding of when and how our agency can be undermined. In particular, I argue that when we take seriously that our agency is exercised in the social world, we can see that stereotyping can and does undermine our agency by fixing the social meaning of our choices and actions as well as by reducing the quality and the kinds of choices that are available to us. Although this improves the agency-based explanation, it must be noted that undermining agency is not an overriding reason against stereotyping. Much depends on the balance of reasons that take into account moral stakes involved in a case of stereotyping. This results in a messier picture of when and why stereotyping is wrong, but I argue that this is a feature, not a bug. I end by applying this agency-based explanation to cases that have motivated the so-called Proof Paradoxes.     

Dancing is belonging! How social networks mediate the effect of a dance intervention on students' sense of belonging to their classroom

What does it take to feel you belong? Using a sample of 606 students in 30 classrooms, with 15 classrooms participating in a school‐based dance intervention, we examined intrapsychic and extrapsychic sources of social belonging using social network analysis. Whereas outdegree (the number of outgoing liking nominations to classmates) served as a proxy variable for students' active acceptance of others, indegree (the number of ingoing liking nominations from other peers) served as a proxy variable for the passive acceptance by others. Both measures should account for changes in students' sense of belonging to their classroom. Multilevel longitudinal mediation analyses supported our predictions—increased belonging related to increasing acceptance by others and of others, which were experienced by students participating in the dance intervention for a year (vs. a non‐treated control group). We discuss our findings within the current debate on the use of distal variables to explain intrapsychic constructs.     

Measuring Hong Kong Undergraduate Students’ Attitudes Towards Transpeople

Hill and Willoughby’s (Sex Roles, 53:531–544, 2005) Genderism and Transphobia Scale (GTS), originally developed in Canada, was examined with a Hong Kong sample. Undergraduate students, 82 female and 121 male (total n?=?203), completed a Chinese version of the instrument. Overall scores and factor structure of the Hong Kong sample were compared with Hill and Willoughby’s Canadian data. Gender differences in transphobia were investigated, both in terms of the participants’ gender as well as the gender of the gender variant persons to whom GTS items referred. Transphobia was higher in Hong Kong than in Canada. The factor structure for Hong Kong differed from Canada. Five factors were identified (with a gender effect on Factors II and V). They were: I, Anti Sissy Prejudice; II, Anti Trans Violence; III, Trans Unnaturalness; IV, Trans Immorality; and V, Background Genderism. Hong Kong men were more transphobic than women. Gender variance in men was viewed less favourably than in women.     

Rater Correction Processes in Applicant Selection Using Videoconference Technology: The Role of Attributions1

Increasing global competition for the best employees has resulted in a significant increase in the recruiting and selection of geographically dispersed applicants. Innovative telecommunication technologies (e.g., videoconferencing) have provided a means to interview distant applicants at relatively low cost, compared to face‐to‐face interviews. However, some have suggested that interviewer ratings could be affected by the use of communication media to conduct the interview. In the present laboratory study, we tested a model of rater decision processes to help explain a mechanism for inflated ratings of videoconference‐based applicants. Participants who believed that they were making judgments for a real selection process rated simulated videoconference or face‐to‐face interviews. Raters who perceived interview media to be lower in richness were more likely to make external attributions for the applicant's performance, and consequently rated him more favorably.     

The dark triad: Facilitating a short‐term mating strategy in men

This survey (N = 224) found that characteristics collectively known as the Dark Triad (i.e. narcissism, psychopathy and Machiavellianism) were correlated with various dimensions of short‐term mating but not long‐term mating. The link between the Dark Triad and short‐term mating was stronger for men than for women. The Dark Triad partially mediated the sex difference in short‐term mating behaviour. Findings are consistent with a view that the Dark Triad facilitates an exploitative, short‐term mating strategy in men. Possible implications, including that Dark Triad traits represent a bundle of individual differences that promote a reproductively adaptive strategy are discussed. Findings are discussed in the broad context of how an evolutionary approach to personality psychology can enhance our understanding of individual differences. Copyright © 2008 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Who Will Sing With the Perpetrator?

Child sexual abuse is a relational crime that affects not only the people in the child’s and perpetrator’s social network; the whole of society is affected. Child sexual abuse is at the same time extremely personal and pervasively social. Just as healing is required for individuals, so too does society need to tend to its wounds. Conceptualizing child sexual abuse as an emergent property of a limitless multitude of systems and subsystems implies that no one can be considered an innocent, objective observer of doer–done-to relating between victims, perpetrators, and guilty bystanders. We are participants in what we are observing. Our openness to connect with the experience of victims should not be at the expense of openness to listen to the experience of perpetrators and community leaders who must also be heard, in order to heal.