Constructing Confidence Intervals for Effect Size Measures of an Indirect Effect

Confidence intervals for an effect size can provide the information about the magnitude of an effect and its precision as well as the binary decision about the existence of an effect. In this study, the performances of five different methods for constructing confidence intervals for ratio effect size measures of an indirect effect were compared in terms of power, coverage rates, Type I error rates, and widths of confidence intervals. The five methods include the percentile bootstrap method, the bias-corrected and accelerated (BCa) bootstrap method, the delta method, the Fieller method, and the Monte Carlo method. The results were discussed with respect to the adequacy of the distributional assumptions and the nature of ratio quantity. The confidence intervals from the five methods showed similar results for samples of more than 500, whereas, for samples of less than 500, the confidence intervals were sufficiently narrow to convey the information about the population effect sizes only when the effect sizes of regression coefficients defining the indirect effect are large.     

Basic Response Time Tools for Studying General Processing Capacity in Attention,Perception, and Cognition

One of the more important constructs in the study of attention, perception, and cognition is that of capacity. The authors reviewed some of the common meanings of this construct and proposed a more precise treatment. They showed how the distribution of response times can be used to derive measures of process capacity and to further illustrate how these measures can be used to address important hypotheses in cognition.     

Pointing and the interference effect in obsessive‐compulsive disorder (OCD)

The interference effect in obsessive‐compulsive disorder (OCD) was investigated in order to analyze cognitive aspects of motor stereotypy in OCD‐related compulsions. So far, the domain of cognitive control in compulsive behavior has been under‐investigated. Twelve participants (OCD patients and healthy controls) completed a newly created computer‐based pointing task as well as standard clinical and psychological background measures. Findings showed that the patients displayed a larger visual interference effect compared to the controls and pointing paths were longer in time as well as distance when a distractor stimulus was present. It is concluded that, for compensation, patients would need to generate excessive amounts of attentional resources not available to overcome motor rigidity on the one side and visual distraction on the other side.     

Differentiating sexual preference in men: Using dual task rapid serial visual presentation task

Cognition research suggests that allocating attention resources to evolutionarily relevant stimuli is facilitated suggesting that sexual stimuli interfere with human information processing. In a group of gay (n = 13) and straight men (n = 13) recruited in Finland, Germany and Italy, we investigated if and how sexually relevant visual stimuli affect information processing of both a target one (T1) and a subsequent target two (T2) in a dual target rapid serial visual presentation procedure. We hypothesized that: (1) due to the attentional blink (AB) phenomenon, the accuracy of reporting of T2 would decrease when following accurately identified sexually preferred T1 compared to accurately identified non‐sexually preferred T1; 2) due to the pop out effect, the accuracy of reporting of T1 and T2 would be relatively increased when T1 and T2 were sexually preferred by the participants compared to when they were not. Our findings did not support hypothesis 1 but supported hypothesis 2. We further found that the pop out effect had a good capacity to differentiate sexual preference between the groups of gay and straight men. We conclude that dual target rapid serial visual presentation can be used as an attention‐based measurement to differentiate sexual preference in men. Limitations and the applicability in the field of measuring sexual preference were discussed.     

The representation of category typicality in the frontal cortex and its cross-linguistic variations

When asked to judge the membership of typical (e.g., car) vs. atypical (e.g., train) pictures of a category (e.g., vehicle), native English (N = 18) and native Chinese speakers (N = 18) showed distinctive patterns of brain activity despite showing similar behavioral responses. Moreover, these differences were mainly due to the amount and pervasiveness of category information linguistically embedded in the everyday names of the items in the respective languages, with important differences across languages in how pervasive category labels are embedded in item-level terms. Nonetheless, the left inferior frontal gyrus and the bilateral medial frontal gyrus are the most consistent neural correlates of category typicality that persist across languages and linguistic cues. These data together suggest that both cross- and within-language differences in the explicitness of category information have strong effects on the nature of categorization processes performed by the brain.     

An increase of intelligence in China 1986–2012

The Flynn effect has been widely researched in Western and European nations, while it has been comparatively understudied in Asian countries. This study examines possible Flynn effects in China from 1985 to 86 and to 2011–12. Results are reported for an IQ increase among 12 year olds on the Full Scale IQ WISC-R (Wechsler Intelligence Scale for Children-Revised) of 6.19 IQ points, a gain on the Performance IQ of 6.55 IQ points, and a gain on the Verbal IQ of 1.91 IQ points.     

Is the Flynn effect on g?: A meta-analysis

Black/White differences in mean IQ have been clearly shown to strongly correlate with g loadings, so large group differences on subtests of high cognitive complexity and small group differences on subtests of low cognitive complexity. IQ scores have been increasing over the last half century, a phenomenon known as the Flynn effect. Flynn effect gains are predominantly driven by environmental factors. Might these factors also be responsible for group differences in intelligence? The empirical studies on whether the pattern of Flynn effect gains is the same as the pattern of group differences yield conflicting findings. A psychometric meta-analysis on all studies with seven or more subtests reporting correlations between g loadings and standardized score gains was carried out, based on 5 papers, yielding 11 data points (total N = 16,663). It yielded a true correlation of − .38, and none of the variance between the studies could be attributed to moderators. It appears that the Flynn effect and group differences have different causes. Suggestions for future research are discussed.     

The Duration and Intensity of the Exposure Light as Factors in Determining the Course of the Subsequent Dark-Adaptation: I. the Matching Method

The authors investigated the phenomenon that performance in an ongoing task declines when individuals must carry out a prospective memory (PM) task. This effect is referred to as the PM interference effect. The authors examined whether the PM interference effect differs between event-based and time-based PM tasks and whether it is increased among the elderly. The authors also investigated adult age differences in PM performance and the potential underlying mechanisms of the age deficits in PM. They found that the PM interference effect was greater in event-based than in time-based tasks. However, aging was not associated with an increase in PM interference effects. Age differences in PM performance were more exaggerated in time-based than event-based PM, but they were not mediated by age differences in traditional cognitive ability measures. In time-based PM, age showed a unique adverse effect even after controlling for the ability to externally monitor the time, leading to the possibility that aging disrupts time-based PM because of deficits in internally processing the time.     

The Role of Fear-Avoidance Cognitions and Behaviors in Patients with Chronic Tinnitus

The current study investigated the role of fear-avoidance—a concept from chronic pain research—in chronic tinnitus. A self-report measure the “Tinnitus Fear-Avoidance Cognitions and Behaviors Scale (T-FAS)” was developed and validated. Furthermore, the role of fear-avoidance behavior as mediator of the relationship between anxiety sensitivity and tinnitus handicap was investigated. From a clinical setting, N = 373 patients with chronic tinnitus completed questionnaires assessing tinnitus handicap (Tinnitus Handicap Inventory), anxiety, depression (Hospital Anxiety and Depression Scale), anxiety sensitivity (Anxiety Sensitivity Index-3), personality factors (Big Five Inventory-10), and fear-avoidance. To analyze the psychometric properties, principal component analysis with parallel component extraction and correlational analyses were used. To examine a possible mediating effect, hierarchical regression analysis was applied. The principal component analysis resulted in a three-factor solution: Fear-avoidance Cognitions, Tinnitus-related Fear-Avoidance Behavior, and Ear-related Fear-Avoidance Behavior. Internal consistency was satisfactory for the total scale and all subscales. High correlations between tinnitus-related handicap scales, depressive and anxiety symptoms, and the T-FAS were found, whereas associations with personality factors were low. Moreover, results indicate a significant partial mediation of fear-avoidance behaviors in the relationship between anxiety sensitivity and the cognitive dimension of tinnitus handicap. Results show that fear-avoidance behavior plays an important role in tinnitus handicap. More attention should be paid to this concept in research and clinical practice of psychotherapy for chronic tinnitus.