Tactile order memory: evidence for sequence learning phenomena found with other stimulus types

We examine serial order memory for sequences of tactile stimuli and investigate whether established characteristics of order memory, namely serial position effects, error distributions, and Hebb repetition learning, are observed with tactile memory. Visually obscured participants received six tactile stimulations: one to each of six fingers. At test, participants lifted the six fingers in the order of stimulation. For every third trial participants received the same order of stimulation (i.e. the Hebb sequence). Serial recall accuracy produced the canonical bowed serial position function found for immediate serial recall. In addition, recall for the Hebb sequence improved relative to the filler sequences, providing the first demonstration of the Hebb repetition effect with tactile stimuli. Analysis of errors revealed close similarities to that reported with verbal and visual stimuli. This experiment further generalises established features of order memory to tactile memory, supporting the utilisation of an analogous order memory mechanism across stimuli.     

Teaching foundational perspective‐taking skills to children with autism using the PEAK‐T curriculum: single‐reversal “I–You” deictic frames

We taught basic perspective‐taking tasks to 3 children with autism and evaluated their ability to derive mutually entailed single‐reversal deictic relations of those newly established perspective‐taking skills. Furthermore, we examined the possibility of transfers of perspective‐taking function to novel untrained stimuli. The methods were taken from the PEAK‐T training curriculum, and results yielded positive gains for all 3 children to learn basic perspective taking as well as for 2 of the 3 to derive untrained single‐reversal I relations following direct training of single‐reversal You relations. All participants demonstrated a transfer of stimulus function to untrained stimuli after the single‐reversal deictic relations had been mastered.     

Openness to Experience and Intellect Differentially Predict Creative Achievement in the Arts and Sciences

The Big Five personality dimension Openness/Intellect is the trait most closely associated with creativity and creative achievement. Little is known, however, regarding the discriminant validity of its two aspects—Openness to Experience (reflecting cognitive engagement with perception, fantasy, aesthetics, and emotions) and Intellect (reflecting cognitive engagement with abstract and semantic information, primarily through reasoning)—in relation to creativity. In four demographically diverse samples totaling 1,035 participants, we investigated the independent predictive validity of Openness and Intellect by assessing the relations among cognitive ability, divergent thinking, personality, and creative achievement across the arts and sciences. We confirmed the hypothesis that whereas Openness predicts creative achievement in the arts, Intellect predicts creative achievement in the sciences. Inclusion of performance measures of general cognitive ability and divergent thinking indicated that the relation of Intellect to scientific creativity may be due at least in part to these abilities. Lastly, we found that Extraversion additionally predicted creative achievement in the arts, independently of Openness. Results are discussed in the context of dual‐process theory.     

Just between us: Exclusive communications in online social networks

Social media websites such as Facebook are used for relationship development and maintenance often through self-disclosure and sharing of personal information. However, not all forms of social media communication may be equally suitable for this task. This paper explores users’ norms about the appropriateness of using private vs. public Facebook messages to communicate different kinds of personal information, and the effectiveness of these types of communication in building relationships. Study 1, a survey, revealed that users endorse conflicting expectations about preferences for receiving information publicly or privately. Study 2, a field experiment testing the effects of private versus public Facebook communications on actual relationship development using participants’ own Facebook pages, suggested that private messages lead to greater closeness.     

Poverty and the Peril of Particulars

Moral extremists argue for a demanding duty of poverty relief by leveraging powerful intuitions about our duties to rescue those close at hand. I clear the way for a less demanding duty by arguing that this argumentative strategy commits the extremist to a conception of our duty in the face of global poverty that is deeply at odds with our convictions about how we may discharge that duty. These convictions reveal that global poverty and easy rescue cases give rise to duties of different kinds: whereas duties of rescue are ultimately explicable by appeal to moral claims to assistance, duties of poverty relief are not. The extremist’s most compelling argumentative strategy is therefore not viable—he may not straightforwardly appeal to facts about the demandingness of duties of rescue in arguing for demanding duties of poverty relief.     

The counterintuitive impact of responses and response times on parameter estimates in the drift diffusion model

Given a drift diffusion model with unknown drift and boundary parameters, we analyse the behaviour of maximum likelihood estimates with respect to changes of responses and response times. It is shown analytically that a single fast response time can dominate the estimation in that no matter how many correct answers a test taker provides, the estimate of the drift (ability) parameter decreases to zero. In addition, it is shown that although higher drift rates imply shorter response times, the reverse implication does not hold for the estimates: shorter response times can decrease the drift rate estimate. In the light of these analytical results, we illustrate the actual impact of the findings in a small simulation for a mental rotation test. The method of analysis outlined is applicable to a broader range of models, and we emphasize the need to further check currently used reaction time models within this framework.     

Concurrent Validation of the Treatment Outcome Package (TOP) for Children and Adolescents

The Treatment Outcome Package for children and adolescents (TOP) is a behavioral health and well-being assessment used widely in clinical and child welfare populations. The primary purpose of this study was to examine the concurrent validity of the Child and Adolescent versions of the TOP with the Child Behavior Checklist (CBCL) and the Strengths and Difficulties Questionnaire (SDQ) with a community sample. Children and adolescents (N = 203) 3–18 years of age from a community sample completed the CBCL, the SDQ, and the TOP. Significant correlations emerged between the TOP and theoretically similar scales on the SDQ and the CBCL. Analyses demonstrated that the TOP has excellent concurrent validity on most subscales with both the CBCL and the SDQ. These results provide additional evidence for the TOP’s utility and validity as a measure of psychological well-being and functioning.