Cognitive influences on cross-language speech perception in infancy

Previous research has shown that young infants can discriminate both native and nonnative phonetic contrasts with ease. By 10 to 12 months of age, however, infants—like adults—typically have difficulty discriminating consonant contrasts that are not used to distinguish meaning in their native language. Although the timing of this change in speech perception has been firmly established, little is currently known about the processes or mechanisms involved in this selective and adaptive reorganization in nonnative phonetic discrimination. This study was designed to determine if there is a relation between age-related changes in speech perception performance and other developing cognitive abilities. A total of 40 8- to 10-month-old infants were tested on a nonnative consonant discrimination task and then on two additional tasks (a visual categorization task and an object search task) in an attempt to determine whether changes in nonnative consonant perception coincide with changes in these other areas of cognitive/perceptual functioning. The results indicate that changes in task performance occur in synchrony across all three tasks, and that this synchrony is not explained by simple age effects. These findings suggest that domain-general cognitive/perceptual competencies may influence developmental changes in speech perception by the end of the 1st year of life.     

Do Our Facebook Friends Make Us Feel Worse? A Study of Social Comparison and Emotion

People often compare themselves to others to gain a better understanding of the self in a process known as social comparison. The current study discusses how people engage in a social comparison process on Facebook, and how observing content from their Facebook friends may affect their emotions. A 2 (comparison direction) × 2 (relational closeness) × 2 (self‐esteem) between‐subjects experiment was conducted with 163 adult participants. The results revealed a significant 3‐way interaction such that people with high self‐esteem would be happier receiving positive information than negative information from their close friends, but the effect would be the opposite if the information was from a distant friend. There was no such difference for people with low self‐esteem.     

Attractiveness as a Function of Skin Tone and Facial Features: Evidence from Categorization Studies

Participants rated the attractiveness and racial typicality of male faces varying in their facial features from Afrocentric to Eurocentric and in skin tone from dark to light in two experiments. Experiment 1 provided evidence that facial features and skin tone have an interactive effect on perceptions of attractiveness and mixed-race faces are perceived as more attractive than single-race faces. Experiment 2 further confirmed that faces with medium levels of skin tone and facial features are perceived as more attractive than faces with extreme levels of these factors. Black phenotypes (combinations of dark skin tone and Afrocentric facial features) were rated as more attractive than White phenotypes (combinations of light skin tone and Eurocentric facial features); ambiguous faces (combinations of Afrocentric and Eurocentric physiognomy) with medium levels of skin tone were rated as the most attractive in Experiment 2. Perceptions of attractiveness were relatively independent of racial categorization in both experiments.     

The Relational aggression scale (RAS): Psychometric properties of a newly developed measure of relational aggression

Introduction

Relational aggression (RA) is a growing and worrisome problem, particularly among adolescents, that can result in negative psychological consequences for those involved. Therefore, it is important to develop instruments to detect these incidents and understand the problem so as to design effective intervention strategies.

Redundancy gain for categorical targets depends on display configuration and duration

Redundancy gain is an improvement in speeded target detection when the number of targets associated with a single response is increased within a single display. The effect has been clearly demonstrated with specific targets, but it is not clear if it occurs in categorization tasks with non-identical targets. The current study tested the effect of target redundancy on speed and accuracy in a go/no-go categorization task. Targets were digits tilted 45° to the left, and were displayed in unilateral, bilateral, or central displays for either 1500?ms or 100?ms. Redundancy gain only occurred for brief targets displayed bilaterally in the upper visual field. The results indicate that redundancy gain is possible for categorization tasks with some bilateral configurations, supporting a role for interhemispheric processing in redundancy gain. Additionally, the results may indicate that processing strategies mask redundancy gain when participants can view targets for a long period of time.     

Using Relational-cultural Theory to Negotiate Relational Rebuilding in Survivors of Intimate Partner Violence

In this article, the authors describe the application of relational-cultural theory (RCT) for survivors of intimate partner violence (IPV). RCT’s philosophical foundation and core processes work effectively within the context of the counseling session. Through the RCT lens, the authors examine how the theory’s approaches can be utilized for relational rebuilding. Finally, RCT strategies are included for working with women who have experienced shame and relational disconnections as the result of IPV.     

A relational recasting of the principles of emotional competence

ABSTRACT

Carolyn Saarni’s theory of emotional competence has made a central contribution by directing attention to some important functions of emotion in social interaction. Her work is permeated with examples of how emotions function within both successful and unsuccessful social interactions and relationships. An examination of her stated principles of emotional competence suggest in places a perspective that is primarily intrapsychic in nature, harking back to the early roots of emotion theory and research. In this piece, we note where Saarni has advanced implications of a relational theory of emotion for understanding emotional competence. In addition, we reframe some of Saarni’s principles to make them more consistent with current relational approaches to emotion. Finally, we offer additions and extensions that we believe are compatible with the general direction of her thinking before her untimely death.     

Does solving distant analogies facilitate relational integration?

Relational processing underpins many forms of human thinking. This research addressed whether relational integration in the n-term task (linear syllogisms with three and four premises) can be facilitated. We hypothesised that solving distant analogies (e.g. furnace : coal :: stomach : ______) but not near analogies (e.g. furnace : coal :: woodstove :______) would facilitate n-term performance of undergraduates (N?=?120). Participants generated solutions to near analogies (near condition), to distant analogies (distant condition) while participants in the control condition completed a word rating task. Participants then completed the n-term task with items at two levels of complexity (ternary, quaternary), and a fluid intelligence test. Solving distant analogies facilitated relational integration on the more complex quaternary-relational items. It eliminated the complexity effect in the n-term task and the association between quaternary-relational reasoning and fluid intelligence.