Does surrounding traffic benefit from an assisted driver with traffic light assistance system?

Traffic light assistance systems enable drivers more energy and time efficient driving behavior at signalized intersections. However, most vehicles will not be equipped with such systems in the next years. These unequipped vehicles’ drivers (UVDs) may benefit from assisted drivers, if they would adapt their behavior. This paper outlines how UVDs (N = 60) interpreted and reacted to a driver with traffic light assistance system. We used a multi-driver simulator with three drivers driving in a car-following scenario. The lead driver was not a participant, but a confederate who was followed by two UVDs. The confederate was apparently equipped either with or without a traffic light assistance system. The traffic light assistance system consisted of two functionalities: a Green Light Optimal Speed Advisory and a start-up assistance system with two different parametrizations. These functionalities aimed at preventing unnecessary changes in speed and reducing the start-up lost time after signal change. The results showed that UVDs benefited from the driving behavior of the confederate with traffic light assistance system. However, the assisted driving behavior was hardly understood and partly rated as aversive by the UVDs. We discuss how to enhance behavioral adaptation of UVDs. We also outline which negative consequences may result from encounters of driver with systems and UVDs. We assume that how UVDs react towards drivers with systems may be one factor contributing to a successful launch of such systems.     

Can fast and slow intelligence be differentiated?

Responses to items from an intelligence test may be fast or slow. The research issue dealt with in this paper is whether the intelligence involved in fast correct responses differs in nature from the intelligence involved in slow correct responses. There are two questions related to this issue: 1. Are the processes involved different? 2. Are the abilities involved different? An answer to these questions is provided making use of data from a Raven-like matrices test and a verbal analogies test, and the use of a psychometric branching model. The branching model is based on three latent traits: speed, fast accuracy and slow accuracy, and item parameters corresponding to each of these. The pattern of item difficulties is used to draw conclusions on the cognitive processes involved. The results are as follows: 1. The processes involved in fast and slow responses can be differentiated, as can be derived from qualitative differences in the patterns of item difficulty, and fast responses lead to a larger differentiation between items than slow responses do. 2. The abilities underlying fast and slow responses can also be differentiated, and fast responses allow for a better differentiation between the respondents.     

Prospective relations among preschoolers' play,coping, and adjustment as moderated by stressful events

This study evaluated the prospective contribution of preschoolers' pretend play to observer reports of internalizing and externalizing behavior problems one year later, as mediated by observed coping flexibility during a delay of gratification task and as moderated by children's exposure to stressful life events. Preschoolers' (N = 250; M_age = 49.05 months, SD = 2.95; 50% female) fantasy and affect expression in pretend play were assessed during a laboratory visit. Moderated mediation models tested for conditional indirect effects of play fantasy and affect expression on behavior problems through coping flexibility as a function of the child's exposure to stress. Preschoolers' fantasy and negative affect expression in pretend play predicted lower rates of internalizing, but not externalizing, problems. Coping flexibility partially mediated this relation, particularly among children with relatively more life stress. These findings clarify processes by which, and contexts within which, preschoolers' pretend play influences later behavioral adjustment.     

Speed of processing and reading disability: a cross-linguistic investigation of dyslexia and borderline intellectual functioning

English and Italian children with dyslexia were compared with children with reading difficulties associated with low-IQ on tests of simple and choice RT, and in number and symbol scanning tasks. On all four speed-of-processing tasks, children with low-IQ responded more slowly than children with dyslexia and age-controls. In the choice RT task, the performance of children with low-IQ was also less accurate than that of children of normal IQ, consistent with theories linking processing speed limitations with low-IQ. These findings support the hypothesis that dyslexia is a specific cognitive deficit that can arise in the context of normal IQ and normal speed of processing. The same cognitive phenotype was observed in readers of a deep (English) and a shallow (Italian) orthography.     

The advantage of mentally rotating clockwise

The time taken to decide whether a character is shown in its mirror or normal version has been shown to increase approximately linearly with the angular departure from an up-right position. Additionally, in some studies, decisions took longer for clockwise tilted characters than for counterclockwise tilted ones. Other studies do not report the latter effect. We argue that inconsistencies across studies are caused by variance in participants' strategies. The task employed here was specifically designed to bring these strategies and thereby the direction of rotation under experimental control. From the EEG recorded during the rotation period, we extracted an event-related slow potential whose amplitude is sensitive to the amount of mental rotation. In both strategy conditions, the slow potential's amplitude was lower for clockwise than for counterclockwise rotations. We take this as evidence that mental rotation of alphanumeric characters is easier in a clockwise than in a counterclockwise direction.     

Speed of processing of the visual-orthographic and auditory-phonological systems in adult dyslexics: the contribution of "asynchrony" to word recognition deficits

This study investigated whether "asynchrony" in speed of processing (SOP) between the visual-orthographic and auditory-phonological modalities contributes to word recognition deficits among adult dyslexics. Male university students with a history of diagnosed dyslexia were compared to age-matched normal readers on a variety of experimental measures while event-related potentials and reaction time data were collected. Measures were designed to evaluate auditory and visual processing for non-linguistic (tones and shapes) and linguistic (phonemes and graphemes) low-level stimuli as well as higher-level orthographic and phonological processing (in a lexical decision task). Data indicated that adult dyslexic readers had significantly slower reaction times and longer P300 latencies than control readers in most of the experimental tasks and delayed P200 latencies for the lexical decision task. Moreover, adult dyslexics revealed a systematic SOP gap in P300 latency between the auditory/phonological and visual/orthographic processing measures. Our data support and extend previous work that found SOP asynchrony to be an underlying factor of childhood dyslexia. The present data suggests, however, that among adult dyslexics the between modalities asynchrony occurs at later processing stages than in children.     

Preschoolers' effortful control and negative emotionality, immediate reactions to disappointment, and quality of social functioning

Relations among effortful control/low negative emotionality, immediate reactions in a situation that usually calls for the masking of disappointment (i.e., the use of display rules), and social competence/adjustment were investigated for 78 preschool children (mean age=4.87 years). Parents, teachers, and peers rated children on negative emotionality and/or effortful control as well as on social competence/adjustment. Children who were rated by parents and teachers as high on effortful control/low on negative emotionality expressed fewer immediate verbal/gestural indicators of disappointment in the presence of an unfamiliar adult and were perceived by their parents, teachers, and peers as socially competent and well adjusted. The pattern of findings was consistent with the view that children's immediate verbal/gestural reactions to disappointment partially mediated the relations between effortful control (as reported by parents) and social competence/adjustment.