Eye movements of older and younger readers when reading disappearing text

Older and younger readers read sentences in which target words were masked 40 to 60 ms after fixation onset. Masking only the target word caused more disruption than did masking each word in the sentence, and this effect was stronger for the younger readers than for the older readers. Although older readers had longer eye fixations than did younger readers, the results indicated that the masking effect was comparable for the 2 groups. However, for both groups, how long the eyes remained in place was strongly influenced by the frequency of the fixated word (even though it had been rapidly replaced by the mask and was no longer there when the eyes did move). This is compelling evidence that for both older and younger readers, cognitive/lexical processing has a very strong influence on when the eyes move in reading.     

Eye movements and word skipping during reading: effects of word length and predictability

Eye movements were monitored as subjects read sentences containing high- or low-predictable target words. The extent to which target words were predictable from prior context was varied: Half of the target words were predictable, and the other half were unpredictable. In addition, the length of the target word varied: The target words were short (4-6 letters), medium (7-9 letters), or long (10-12 letters). Length and predictability both yielded strong effects on the probability of skipping the target words and on the amount of time readers fixated the target words (when they were not skipped). However, there was no interaction in any of the measures examined for either skipping or fixation time. The results demonstrate that word predictability (due to contextual constraint) and word length have strong and independent influences on word skipping and fixation durations. Furthermore, because the long words extended beyond the word identification span, the data indicate that skipping can occur on the basis of partial information in relation to word identity.     

Blaming, praising, and protecting our humanity: the implications of everyday dehumanization for judgments of moral status

Being human implies a particular moral status: having moral value, agency, and responsibility. However, people are not seen as equally human. Across two studies, we examine the consequences that subtle variations in the perceived humanness of actors or groups have for their perceived moral status. Drawing on Haslam's two-dimensional model of humanness and focusing on three ways people may be considered to have moral status - moral patiency (value), agency, or responsibility - we demonstrate that subtly denying humanness to others has implications for whether they are blamed, praised, or considered worthy of moral concern and rehabilitation. Moreover, we show that distinct human characteristics are linked to specific judgments of moral status. This work demonstrates that everyday judgments of moral status are influenced by perceptions of humanness.     

The delay of gratification test for adults: Validating a behavioral measure of self-motivation in a sample of older people

Most previous delay of gratification tests were developed for children and are inappropriate for application in adults. The authors therefore developed the Delay of Gratification Test for Adults (DoG-A), which includes four types of reward that are meaningful to adults, namely snacks, real money, hypothetical money, and magazines. Four subscores and two composite scores can be calculated. This study is the first to evaluate the DoG-A and to investigate its association with external variables. A community sample of 147 cognitively healthy participants aged between 60 and 94 years completed a questionnaire and cognitive tests measuring delay discounting, self-regulation, motivational self-concept, personality, wellbeing, and cognitive function. The intercorrelations of the subscales were low to medium and the internal consistency of the composite scores was moderate (?? = .4), indicating relative domain independence of the four reward types. The nomological net established by investigating the relations of the DoG-A with other constructs proved to be fairly meaningful. The correlations of all subscales with the delay discounting rate were significant and moderate. The Snacks subscale showed the most consistent pattern of results in terms of moderate positive correlations with self-reported motivation regulation, optimism, dutifulness, and deliberation. The Snacks subscale also correlated with various measures of wellbeing. A regression analysis showed that DoG Snacks remained a significant predictor of wellbeing when self-reported self-regulation and other variables were controlled. These findings indicate that the DoG-A yields an interpretable behavioral measure of self-motivation and offers a developmentally adequate extension of the delay of gratification paradigm for use with adults.     

“Sad day for the UK”: The linking of debates about settling refugee children in the UK with Brexit on an anti-immigrant news website

This article uniquely demonstrates how UK debates about supporting child refugees during the “refugee crisis” came to be used as support for leaving the European Union (EU). The research question “how did users of a news website respond to a report about the UK government's decision to allow child refugees into the UK?” is addressed with a rigorous discursive analysis of an internet discussion forum on the anti-immigrant website MailOnline consisting of 2,014 unique posts, with a reach of 30 million viewers. Analysis demonstrated that (1) child refugees were presented as adults, (2) allowing in refugees was presented as a “burden” on taxpayers, (3) the decision was presented as opposed to the public's will, and (4) this was used as a warrant for leaving the EU. The significant implication of this analysis is that political attempts at associating the refugee crisis with the EU may have been successful in this context.     

Do seductive details do their damage in the context of graph comprehension? Insights from eye movements

In educational research, interesting but irrelevant materials are often considered seductive details, which are suspected to have detrimental effects on learning. Although seductive details have been mostly examined in the context of text comprehension, such elements are also used in graphs (e.g., depicting data points). In the present experiment, we investigated both seductive text and seductive pictures in the context of graph comprehension as well as the interaction of seductive details with spatial working memory capacity (SWMC). We recorded N = 68 students' eye movements, while they analyzed bar graphs in a within‐subject design. Data were analyzed with linear mixed‐effects models. Results show that seductive details did not affect students' graph reading performance but prolonged the task processing time. Eye‐fixation measures revealed that additional processing time was best explained by attention distraction towards the seductive material. SWMC did not affect the presence or the extent of the seductive details effect.     

When is an alternative possibility robust?

According to some, free will requires alternative possibilities. But not any old alternative possibility will do. Sometimes, being able to bring about an alternative does not bestow any control on an agent. In order to bestow control, and so be directly relevant qua alternative to grounding the agent's moral responsibility, alternatives need to be robust. Here, I investigate the nature of robust alternatives. I argue that Derk Pereboom's latest robustness criterion is too strong, and I suggest a different criterion based on the idea that what agents need to be able to do is keep open the possibility of securing their blamelessness, rather than needing to directly ensure their own blamelessness at the time of decision.     

Emerging research on intergroup prosociality: Group members' charitable giving,positive contact,allyship, and solidarity with others

This paper describes an emerging body of work on intergroup prosociality, drawing together parallel literatures and highlighting some of the themes of the recent research. A broad distinction between benevolence and activism serves as the foundation to explore forms of intergroup prosociality, such as charitable giving, displays of empathy and affirmation (positive and supportive contact), allyship, and solidarity. Gaps and implications for future research are discussed. For example, we propose that it may be useful to distinguish allyship, defined as advocacy for others motivated by the values and norms of the ingroup for its own ends, from solidarity, defined as advocacy on behalf of others from the perspective of a shared, inclusive group. We propose that articulating the similarities between these various forms of intergroup prosociality, and testing the differences, will be a useful direction of future research.     

Triviality Results for Probabilistic Modals

In recent years, a number of theorists have claimed that beliefs about probability are transparent. To believe probably p is simply to have a high credence that p. In this paper, I prove a variety of triviality results for theses like the above. I show that such claims are inconsistent with the thesis that probabilistic modal sentences have propositions or sets of worlds as their meaning. Then I consider the extent to which a dynamic semantics for probabilistic modals can capture theses connecting belief, certainty, credence, and probability. I show that although a dynamic semantics for probabilistic modals does allow one to validate such theses, it can only do so at a cost. I prove that such theses can only be valid if probabilistic modals do not satisfy the axioms of the probability calculus.