Isn't there a catch in it somewhere?

The relationship between skill, vision, and proprioception in simple one-handed catching has recently been researched by Fischman and Schneider (1985). The parts of their work addressed to the necessity of being able to see the hand for optimal performance are critically evaluated in the light of earlier published studies, and other methodological and interpretative problems are signalled.     

What is the Normativity of Meaning?

There has been much debate over whether to accept the claim that meaning is normative. One obstacle to making progress in that debate is that it is not always clear what the claim amounts to. In this paper, I try to resolve a dispute between those who advance the claim concerning how it should be understood. More specifically, I critically examine two competing conceptions of the normativity of meaning, rejecting one and defending the other. Though the paper aims to settle a dispute among proponents of the claim that meaning is normative, it should be of interest to those who challenge it. After all, before one takes aim, one’s target needs to be in clear view.     

Modern views on motor skill learning are not ‘representative’!

Approaches to the explanation of (motor) behaviour deriving from basic Cybernetic principles are contrasted with that based on Skinner's principle of operant conditioning. The reliance of the former on systems of representation (comparators, transducers, schemas etc.), not open to observation, is shown to give rise to a number of theoretical and applied problems. While Skinner's approach is shown to avoid such assumptions it is, in turn, limited in the explanations it provides for behavioural change by its undue emphasis on why things are done at the expense of how they are done. It is argued that recent developments in Ecological Psychology, particularly dynamical systems approaches, provide novel solutions to the question of how things are done but, in so doing, lose track of the why. In spite of the limitations of either perspective on its own, there does seem to be sufficient (fundamental) communality and complementarity to provide the basis for a rapprochement that can lead to a better understanding of behaviour in general and motor behaviour in particular.     

The representational status of pretence: Evidence from typical development and autism

The question of whether understanding pretend play requires meta‐representational skill was examined among typically developing children and individuals with autism. Participants were presented with closely equated true and false pretence trials in which they had to judge a protagonist's pretend reading of a situation, which either matched or differed from their own. Results showed that individuals' theory of mind abilities determined their performance on false, but not true, pretence trials. These findings imply that meta‐representation is involved when an individual has to make sense of a pretend state of mind that differs from their own, but, crucially, they also show that pretend play can often be understood without meta‐representational competence.     

Free(z)ing Degrees of Freedom in Skill Acquisition

This study reports an empirical investigation into Bernstein's (1967) ideas that in the early stages of the acquisition of a movement skill the coordination problem is reduced by an initial freezing out of degrees of freedom, followed later in the learning process by the release of these degrees of freedom and their incorporation into a dynamic, controllable system. “Freezing” degrees of freedom was made operational both as a rigid fixation of individual degrees of freedom and as the formation of rigid couplings between multiple degrees of freedom. Five subjects practiced slalom-like ski movements on a ski apparatus for 7 consecutive days. Results showed that at the early phases of learning, the joint angles of the lower limbs and torso displayed little movement, as expressed by their standard deviations and ranges of angular motion, whereas joint couplings were high, as shown by the relatively high cross correlations between joint angles. Over practice, angular movement significantly increased in all joint angles of the lower limbs and torso, although the cross correlations decreased. Support for the processes of freezing and releasing degrees of freedom was thus given at both levels of operationalization. In addition, a consistent change from laterally symmetric to laterally asymmetric cross-correlation patterns were observed as a function of practice. Overall, the findings provide empirical support for Bernstein's ideas regarding the mastery of redundant degrees of freedom in the acquisition of coordination.     

Observational Research of Negative Communication and Self-Reported Relationship Satisfaction

Clinical researchers suggest more real-world types of data are needed to understand negative communication in couples. This study asked, what is the relationship between partners’ reports of relationship satisfaction and frequencies of observed markers of negative communication? Fifty-three clinical and community couples completed self-report assessments and ten-minute discussions of relationship concerns. Data were analyzed using pooled regression to account for both actor and partner effects of relationship quality scores on hostility, distress-maintaining attributions, dysphoric affect, and withdrawal. Results yielded a significant actor female effect for hostility and a significant male-to-female partner effect for distress-maintaining attribution.     

Effects of organizational citizenship behaviors on selection decisions in employment interviews

This article reports on an experiment examining the effects of job candidates' propensity to exhibit organizational citizenship behaviors (OCBs) on selection decisions made in the context of a job interview. We developed videos that manipulated candidate responses to interview questions tapping task performance and citizenship behavior content in 2 administrative positions. Results obtained from 480 undergraduates provided support for our hypotheses that job candidates who exhibited higher levels of helping, voice, and loyalty behaviors were generally rated as more competent, received higher overall evaluations, and received higher salary recommendations than job candidates who exhibited lower levels of these behaviors. These effects held even after taking into account candidate responses regarding task performance. We also found that candidate responses to OCB-related questions tended to have a greater effect on selection decisions for the higher level position (supervisor of administrative personnel) than for the lower level one (administrative assistant). Finally, content analyses of open-ended responses indicated that participants' selection decisions were particularly sensitive to candidates who exhibited low levels of voice and helping behaviors. Implications and future research are discussed.     

Effects of message, source, and context on evaluations of employee voice behavior

The article contained a production-related error. In Table 5, the four values in the rows for Study 1 Prosocial motives and Study 1 Constructive voice should have been shifted one column to the right, to the Direct and Total Performance evaluations columns. All versions of this article have been corrected.] Although employee voice behavior is expected to have important organizational benefits, research indicates that employees voicing their recommendations for organizational change may be evaluated either positively or negatively by observers. A review of the literature suggests that the perceived efficacy of voice behaviors may be a function of characteristics associated with the (a) source, (b) message, and (c) context of the voice event. In this study, we manipulated variables from each of these categories based on a model designed to predict when voice will positively or negatively impact raters' evaluations of an employee's performance. To test our model, we conducted 3 laboratory studies in which we manipulated 2 source factors (voicer expertise and trustworthiness), 2 message factors (recommending a solution and positively vs. negatively framing the message), and 2 context factors (timing of the voice event and organizational norms for speaking up vs. keeping quiet). We also examined the mediating effects of liking, prosocial motives, and perceptions that the voice behavior was constructive on the relationships between the source, message, and context factors and performance evaluations. Generally speaking, we found that at least one of the variables from each category had an effect on performance evaluations for the voicer and that most of these effects were indirect, operating through one or more of the mediators. Implications for theory and future research are discussed.