Do people use language production to make predictions during comprehension?

We present the case that language comprehension involves making simultaneous predictions at different linguistic levels and that these predictions are generated by the language production system. Recent research suggests that ease of comprehending predictable elements is due to prediction rather than facilitated integration, and that comprehension is accompanied by covert imitation. We argue that comprehenders use prediction and imitation to construct an "emulator", using the production system, and combine predictions with the input dynamically. Such a process helps to explain the rapidity of comprehension and the robust interpretation of ambiguous or noisy input. This framework is in line with a general trend in cognitive science to incorporate action systems into perceptual systems and has broad implications for understanding the links between language production and comprehension.     

Recoding low-level simulator data into a record of meaningful task performance: The integrated task modeling environment (ITME)

The Integrated Task Modeling Environment (ITME) is a user-friendly software tool that has been developed to automatically recode low-level data into an empirical record of meaningful task performance. The present research investigated and validated the performance of the ITME software package by conducting complex simulation missions and comparing the task analyses produced by ITME with taskanalyses produced by experienced video analysts. A very high interrater reliability (> or = .94) existed between experienced video analysts and the ITME for the task analyses produced for each mission. The mean session time:analysis time ratio was 1:24 using video analysis techniques and 1:5 using the ITME. It was concluded that the ITME produced task analyses that were as reliable as those produced by experienced video analysts, and significantly reduced the time cost associated with these analyses.     

Rumination, reflection, intrusive thoughts, and hallucination-proneness: Towards a new model

Although rumination has been proposed to play an important role in the creation of hallucinations, direct empirical tests of this proposal have not yet been performed. Employing a distinction between ruminative and reflective self-consciousness, we set out to test a new model of the relations among rumination, reflection, intrusive thoughts, thought suppression, social anxiety, and hallucination-proneness. This model proposed that rumination would be related to hallucination-proneness through the mediating variable of intrusive thoughts, but that reflection would not be related to hallucination-proneness. The model was tested in a student population (N = 296) using path analyses. A modified version of the model was found to be a good fit to the data, once a direct path from reflection to hallucination-proneness had been added. As hypothesized, rumination was related to hallucination-proneness only indirectly, through the mediating variable of intrusive thoughts. Implications for interventions and future directions for research are considered.     

Can medicalization be good? Situating medicalization within bioethics

Medicalization has been a process articulated primarily by social scientists, historians, and cultural critics. Comparatively little is written about the role of bioethics in appraising medicalization as a social process. The authors consider what medicalization means, its definition, functions, and criteria for assessment. A series of brief case sketches illustrate how bioethics can contribute to the analysis and public policy discussion of medicalization.     

An electrophysiological investigation into the automaticity of emotional face processing in high versus low trait anxious individuals

To examine the extent of automaticity of emotional face processing in high versus low trait anxious participants, event-related potentials (ERPs) were recorded to emotional (fearful, happy) and neutral faces under varying task demands (low load, high load). Results showed that perceptual encoding of emotional faces, as reflected in P1 and early posterior negativity components, was unaffected by the availability of processing resources. In contrast, the postperceptual registration and storage of emotion-related information, as reflected in the late positive potential component at frontal locations, was influenced by the availability of processing resources, and this effect was further modulated by level of trait anxiety. Specifically, frontal ERP augmentations to emotional faces were eliminated in the more demanding task for low trait anxious participants, whereas ERP enhancements to emotional faces were unaffected by task load in high trait anxious participants. This result suggests greater automaticity in processing affective information in high trait anxious participants.     

Catechol-O-methyltransferase polymorphism modulates cognitive control in children with chromosome 22q11.2 deletion syndrome

Dopamine plays a critical role in regulating neural activity in prefrontal cortex (PFC) and modulates cognition via a hypothesized inverse U function. We investigated PFC function in children with chromosome 22q11.2 deletion syndrome (22q11.2DS) in which one copy of catechol-O-methyltransferase (COMT) is deleted, thereby shifting them toward the lower end of dopamine turnover on the nonlinear function. A common polymorphism with valine to methionine substitution alters COMT activity that results in higher enzyme activity in the valine variant. Twenty-seven children with 22q11.2DS between 7 and 14 years old, and 21 age-matched typically developing children, performed a modified version of the Attention Network Test. Children with a single valine allele showed a reduction in response times when trials with incongruent flankers were repeated, whereas those who were hemizygous for the methionine allele did not show the same context-based response facilitation. Our results support that a single gene, COMT, could modulate PFC-dependent cognition.     

Wild chimpanzees (Pan troglodytes schweinfurthii) distinguish between different scream types: evidence from a playback study

When experiencing aggression from group members, chimpanzees commonly produce screams. These agonistic screams are graded signals and vary acoustically as a function of the severity of aggression the caller is facing. We conducted a series of field playback experiments with a community of wild chimpanzees in the Budongo Forest, Uganda, to determine whether individuals could meaningfully distinguish between screams given in different agonistic contexts. We compared six subjects’ responses to screams given in response to severe and mild aggression. Subjects consistently discriminated between the two scream types. To address the possibility that the response differences were driven directly by the screams’ peripheral acoustic features, rather than any attached social meaning, we also tested the subjects’ responses to tantrum screams. These screams are given by individuals that experienced social frustration, but no physical threat, yet acoustically they are very similar to screams of victims of severe aggression. We found chimpanzees looked longer at severe victim screams than either mild victim screams or tantrum screams. Our results indicate that chimpanzees attend to the informational content of screams and are able to distinguish between different scream variants, which form part of a graded continuum.     

Hazard perception abilities of experienced and novice motorcyclists: An interactive simulator experiment

This study reports an experiment that compared the hazard perception abilities of experienced and novice motorcycle riders using an interactive, closed-loop, simulator. Participants (n = 49) were categorized into four groups: experienced motorcycle riders with full driver licence, inexperienced motorcycle riders with full driver licence, novice motorcycle riders with full driver licence, and novice motorcycle riders with probationary driver licence. The participants were tested on three scenarios, each consisting of eight hazardous events. They were instructed to ride normally, but to respond appropriately to avoid the hazards. Under certain conditions in the simulator, we found that experienced riders (relative to inexperienced or novice riders) crashed less often, received better performance evaluations, and approached hazards at more appropriate speeds. Interestingly, we also found that some novice riders were overconfident in their riding ability. We discuss how this overconfidence might be related to hazard perception.