EARSHOT: A Minimal Neural Network Model of Incremental Human Speech Recognition

Despite the lack of invariance problem (the many-to-many mapping between acoustics and percepts), human listeners experience phonetic constancy and typically perceive what a speaker intends. Most models of human speech recognition (HSR) have side-stepped this problem, working with abstract, idealized inputs and deferring the challenge of working with real speech. In contrast, carefully engineered deep learning networks allow robust, real-world automatic speech recognition (ASR). However, the complexities of deep learning architectures and training regimens make it difficult to use them to provide direct insights into mechanisms that may support HSR. In this brief article, we report preliminary results from a two-layer network that borrows one element from ASR, long short-term memory nodes, which provide dynamic memory for a range of temporal spans. This allows the model to learn to map real speech from multiple talkers to semantic targets with high accuracy, with human-like timecourse of lexical access and phonological competition. Internal representations emerge that resemble phonetically organized responses in human superior temporal gyrus, suggesting that the model develops a distributed phonological code despite no explicit training on phonetic or phonemic targets. The ability to work with real speech is a major advance for cognitive models of HSR.     

Judgments of marital rape as a function of honor culture,masculine reputation threat,and observer gender: A cross-cultural comparison between Turkey,Germany, and the UK

Previous research has shown that there is higher tolerance of violence against women in cultures with salient gender-specific honor norms, especially when the violence occurs in intimate relationships and in response to threat to male honor. The present cross-cultural study (N = 398) extended these findings to sexual aggression (i.e., marital rape) by comparing participants from a culture that emphasizes honor (Turkey) and participants from cultures without strong honor traditions (Germany and Britain). Turkish participants blamed the victim and exonerated the perpetrator more than did German and British participants. In all cultural groups, participants blamed the victim and exonerated the perpetrator more when the husband's reputation was threatened than in the absence of such threat, and in all cultural groups, men blamed the victim and exonerated the perpetrator more than women. Yet, the effect of masculine reputation threat and this pattern of gender differences were somewhat more pronounced among Turkish than German or British participants. Results exploring the predictive role of honor norms at the individual level beyond rape myth acceptance and traditional gender role attitudes revealed that honor norms were the primary predictor of rape perceptions and blame attributions in Turkey (an honor culture), but not in Germany and Britain (dignity cultures) where rape myth acceptance was the strongest predictor. These results provide insights into the cultural factors influencing marital rape judgments in ways that may undermine victim's well-being and fair handling of rape cases, and highlight the domains most urgently in need of potential intervention.     

Relative effects of breastfeeding intention and practice on maternal responsiveness

Our objective was to examine the differential effects of antenatal breastfeeding intention (BI) and breastfeeding practice (BP) on maternal postnatal responsiveness. We conducted a secondary analysis of longitudinal data from a subsample of 962 mother–infant dyads from a U.K.-based birth cohort study the Avon Longitudinal Study of Parents and Children. Exposures were BI and BPs measured at 32 weeks of gestation and 18 months’ postpartum. The outcome was maternal responsiveness assessed at 12 months’ postpartum. We used logistic regression analyses unadjusted and adjusted for confounders. Intention to breastfeed was associated with increased odds of postnatal maternal responsiveness independent of BP, adjusted odds ratio (OR) = 2.34, 95% CI [1.42, 3.86]. There was no evidence that BP was an independent predictor of maternal responsiveness, OR = 0.93, 95% CI [0.55, 1.57]. Life-course epidemiology analyses demonstrated that maternal responsiveness is most positive when both BI and BP are present. This is the first population-based study to provide evidence that BI during pregnancy is more strongly associated with maternal postnatal responsiveness than is BP. Further research is needed to understand the determinants of BI in pregnancy and its relationships with maternal responsiveness.     

Why People Join Terrorist Groups in Kuwait: A Qualitative Examination

Qualitative interviews were conducted with nine members of the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria (ISIS) and Al-Qaeda currently incarcerated in Kuwait's Central Prison. The semistructured interviews attempted to understand psychosocial factors in Kuwait that contributed to their decision to join extremist organizations. Interviews were analyzed using Interpretive Phenomenological Analysis (IPA) and the emergent themes identified the following core themes explaining their involvement: (1) religious identity development; (2) personal connections; (3) propaganda; (4) defense of Islam; and (5) social marginalization. Participants described a process whereby their religion became a central part of their personal identity. As their religious identity developed, they became involved in Islamic organizations where they met people involved with ISIS or Al-Qaeda. These social connections exposed them to jihadi propaganda which, in addition to increased military conflict in the Middle East, crystallized their beliefs that Islam is under attack, and they were religiously obligated to defend it. The results also identified societal factors that increased the probability of engaging in terrorism including relatively low levels of education, coming from low socioeconomic groups in Kuwait, and feeling socially marginalized by broader Kuwaiti society.     

Agreeableness and the common core of dark traits are functionally different constructs

The Dark Factor of Personality (D) has been suggested as the basic disposition underlying dark traits, thereby representing their common core. However, it has also been argued that such commonalities reflect the low pole of Agreeableness. The present study (N = 729) employed five established inventories to model the Agreeableness construct and considered seven theoretically derived criterion variables, including one behavioral outcome. Results indicate that Agreeableness and D exhibit a substantial, but far from perfect, association of r = −.64. Further, D incrementally improved the prediction of all but one criterion measure. These results speak against the notion that the commonalities of dark traits can be reduced to low Agreeableness and rather support the contention to consider Agreeableness and D as functionally distinct constructs.     

Moral migration: Desires to become more empathic predict changes in moral foundations

Many people want to change their personality traits—and research on volitional change has documented their success in doing so. In the present study, we examine whether people also wish to change their levels of empathy, and whether these desires precede shifts in dispositional empathy and morality over a 15-week period. We recorded participants’ change goals, followed by weekly measurements of empathic concern and perspective-taking, as well as moral foundations. Results indicated that most participants wished to cultivate empathic concern and, especially, perspective-taking. Those who sought to develop these qualities tended to actually do so at a faster rate than their peers who did not—and, as a consequence, also drifted toward a characteristically liberal, individualizing morality.     

Do incompatible alternatives in a testimony affect witness credibility?

The qualitative regulation of grain size allows witnesses to increase the accuracy of their reports by adding alternatives (e.g., “the robber concealed his face with a mask, with a stocking, or with a balaclava”). However, such answers may include incompatible alternatives which may make police officers and juries distrust witnesses. In four preregistered experiments, we tested the effect of information with incompatible alternatives on witness credibility. In Experiments 1a, 1b, and 1c, we presented two short testimonies, one with incompatible alternatives and another without and credibility was lower with incompatible alternatives. In Experiment 2, we told participants that witnesses could report several alternatives and the effect was reduced. We explain the effect of incompatible alternatives on credibility from participants' inferences that a witness producing an answer with incompatible alternatives is not confident in their memory and a failure to fully appreciate the advantages of adding alternatives.     

Memory distortions: When suggestions cannot be easily ignored

In the present study, the persistence of personal false memories (FMs) after social feedback that denies their truth was assessed. Participants imitated actions performed by the experimenter (Session 1) and watched a doctored video with performed and critical “fake” actions (Session 2), followed by a memory rating and a recognition task. A few days later (Session 3), participants were clearly told that some memories were false and received daily reminders of the correct list of objects/actions before testing their memory again in Session 4. Results of both memory ratings and recognition indicated effective FM implantation. Interestingly, response times for correct rejections were longer for fake than true objects, suggesting participants struggled to ignore false suggestions. Crucial for our aim, Session 4 showed that FM persisted also after the debriefing and repeated presentations of correct list of objects/actions, suggesting that FMs for actions are rather difficult to discard.     

New Directions in the Conceptualization and Assessment of Personality—A Dynamic Systems Approach

In this paper, we demonstrate how an integrative approach to personality—one that combines within-person and between-person differences—can be achieved by drawing on the principles of dynamic systems theory. The dynamic systems perspective has the potential to reconcile both the stable and dynamic aspect of personality, it allows including different levels of analysis (i.e. traits and states), and it can account for regulatory mechanisms, as well as dynamic interactions between the elements of the system, and changes over time. While all of these features are obviously appealing, implementing a dynamic systems approach to personality is challenging. It requires new conceptual models, specific longitudinal research designs, and complex data analytical methods. In response to these issues, the first part of our paper discusses the Personality Dynamics model, a model that integrates the dynamic systems principles in a relatively straightforward way. Second, we review associated methodological and statistical tools that allow empirically testing the PersDyn model. Finally, the model and associated methodological and statistical tools are illustrated using an experience sampling methodology data set measuring Big Five personality states in 59 participants (N = 1916 repeated measurements). © 2020 The Authors. European Journal of Personality published by John Wiley & Sons Ltd on behalf of European Association of Personality Psychology     

Examining children's ability to delay reward: Is the delay discounting task a suitable measure?

Discounting the value of delayed rewards has primarily been measured in children with the delay of gratification task and in adolescents and adults with the delay discounting task. In the present study, we assessed the suitability of the delay discounting task as a measure of temporal discounting in children. A sample of 7- to 9-year-olds (N = 98) completed a delay discounting task, a delay of gratification task, a sensation seeking measure, and IQ measures. In addition, teacher-based assessments of attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder traits were measured. The results indicated that the majority of children produced meaningful data on the discounting task and discounted rewards hyperbolically. Children with an elevated risk of attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder showed a trend towards discounting future rewards on the delay discounting task more steeply than did those at low risk. However, delay discounting was unrelated to either delay of gratification or sensation seeking. We interpret these results as providing some support for the use of delay discounting as a measure of intertemporal choice in children, although the results also suggest that delay discounting and delay of gratification tasks may tap different processes in this population.