Lexical availability and grammatical encoding scope during spoken sentence production

Three sentence production experiments investigate the relationship between lexical and structural processing scope. Speakers generated sentences with varying phrase structures in response to visual displays (e.g., The dog and the hat move above the fork and the tree/The dog moves above the hat and the fork and the tree). On half of the trials, one of the pictures in the arrays was previewed. Filler sentences varied preview position and sentence structure from trial to trial. When speakers could not anticipate the position of the previewed picture in the upcoming sentence (Experiment 1), preview benefit for pictures corresponding to the second noun to be produced was limited to pictures that fell within the sentence-initial phrase. When the linear position of the previewed picture was predictable, preview benefits were observed for the second noun to be produced, irrespective of phrase position (Experiment 2). However, no preview benefits were observed for the third noun to be produced (Experiment 3). In contrast, significant effects of initial phrase structure were observed in all experiments, with latencies increasing with initial phrase length. The results are consistent with speakers operating a phrasal scope for structural planning within which the scope of lexical access can vary.     

The contribution of executive function and social understanding to preschoolers’ letter and math skills

The influence of executive function and social understanding on letter and math skills was examined in 129 3–5-year-olds. Tasks were administered to measure working memory, inhibition, social understanding, letter and math skills, and vocabulary. Using latent variable analyses, multiple models were compared in order to examine the influence of executive function and social understanding on participants’ emerging academic skills. In the best-fitting model, working memory contributed to letter and math skills, over and above inhibition, social understanding, age, and vocabulary. Inhibition and social understanding did not uniquely contribute to letter and math skills, but significant relations were found among working memory, inhibition, and social understanding. Findings are discussed with respect to improving ways to examine the complex relations among preschoolers’ executive function, social understanding, and school readiness skills.     

The nature of the memory buffer in implicit learning: Learning Chinese tonal symmetries

Previous research has established that people can implicitly learn chunks, which (in terms of formal language theory) do not require a memory buffer to process. The present study explores the implicit learning of nonlocal dependencies generated by higher than finite-state grammars, specifically, Chinese tonal retrogrades (i.e. centre embeddings generated from a context-free grammar) and inversions (i.e. cross-serial dependencies generated from a mildly context-sensitive grammar), which do require buffers (for example, last in-first out and first in-first out, respectively). People were asked to listen to and memorize artificial poetry instantiating one of the two grammars; after this training phase, people were informed of the existence of rules and asked to classify new poems, while providing attributions of the basis of their judgments. People acquired unconscious structural knowledge of both tonal retrogrades and inversions. Moreover, inversions were implicitly learnt more easily than retrogrades constraining the nature of the memory buffer in computational models of implicit learning.     

A closer look at moral dilemmas: Latent dimensions of morality and the difference between trolley and footbridge dilemmas

Although a distinction between moral-personal and moral-impersonal dilemmas (Greene, Sommerville, Nystrom, Darley, & Cohen, 2001 Greene, J. D., Sommerville, R. B., Nystrom, L. E., Darley, J. M. and Cohen, J. D. 2001. An fMRI investigation of emotional engagement in moral judgement. Science, 293: 2105–2108. doi:10.1126/science.1062872.[Crossref], [PubMed], [Web of Science ®] , [Google Scholar]) has been widely accepted as an explanation for a difference between the trolley and footbridge dilemmas (Thomson, 1985 Thomson, J. J. 1985. “The trolley problem”. In Ethics: Problems and principles, Edited by: Fischer, J. M. and Ravizza, M. Fort Worth, TX: Harcourt Brace Jovanovich.  [Google Scholar]), its psychometric properties remain a mystery. In this study 219 participants completed 62 moral dilemma tasks used in Greene et al. (2001 Greene, J. D., Sommerville, R. B., Nystrom, L. E., Darley, J. M. and Cohen, J. D. 2001. An fMRI investigation of emotional engagement in moral judgement. Science, 293: 2105–2108. doi:10.1126/science.1062872.[Crossref], [PubMed], [Web of Science ®] , [Google Scholar]), and the correlation structure among the dilemmas was analysed through factor analysis and structural equation modelling. Findings suggest that, first, moral-personal dilemmas are composed of one factor, indicating that the assumption in Greene et al. (2001 Greene, J. D., Sommerville, R. B., Nystrom, L. E., Darley, J. M. and Cohen, J. D. 2001. An fMRI investigation of emotional engagement in moral judgement. Science, 293: 2105–2108. doi:10.1126/science.1062872.[Crossref], [PubMed], [Web of Science ®] , [Google Scholar]) was supported. Second, moral-impersonal dilemmas are explained by two factors that reflect procedural and consequential aspects of decision making. Third, the trolley and footbridge dilemmas fall under the same factor category; therefore the difference between the two dilemmas cannot be attributed to emotional involvement. Additionally, the results of the structural equation modelling suggest that they differ in the engagement of rational processing.     

How to integrate dreaming into a general theory of consciousness--a critical review of existing positions and suggestions for future research

In this paper, we address the different ways in which dream research can contribute to interdisciplinary consciousness research. As a second global state of consciousness aside from wakefulness, dreaming is an important contrast condition for theories of waking consciousness. However, programmatic suggestions for integrating dreaming into broader theories of consciousness, for instance by regarding dreams as a model system of standard or pathological wake states, have not yielded straightforward results. We review existing proposals for using dreaming as a model system, taking into account concerns about the concept of modeling and the adequacy and practical feasibility of dreaming as a model system. We conclude that existing modeling approaches are premature and rely on controversial background assumptions. Instead, we suggest that contrastive analysis of dreaming and wakefulness presents a more promising strategy for integrating dreaming into a broader research context and solving many of the problems involved in the modeling approach.     

Analysis of drivers’ behavior under reduced visibility conditions using a Structural Equation Modeling approach

One way to improve safety under reduced visibility conditions (i.e., reduce the chances of visibility related crashes) is to improve drivers’ behavior under such adverse weather conditions. The aim of this paper is to thoroughly examine drivers’ responses under low visibility conditions and quantify the impacts and values of various factors found to be related to drivers’ compliance and drivers’ satisfaction with variable speed limit (VSL) and changeable message signs (CMS) instructions in different visibility, traffic conditions, and on two types of roadways; freeways and two-lane roads.The data used for the analyses were obtained from a self-reported questionnaire survey carried out among 566 drivers in Central Florida, USA. To achieve these goals, Explanatory Factor Analysis (EFA) and Structural Equation Modeling (SEM) approaches were adopted.The results revealed that drivers’ satisfaction with VSL/CMS was the most significant factor that positively affected drivers’ compliance with advice or warning messages displayed on VSL/CMS under different fog conditions followed by human factors. Moreover, it was found that roadway type affected drivers’ compliance to VSL instructions under medium and heavy fog conditions. Furthermore, drivers’ familiarity with VSL and human factors were the significant factors affecting drivers’ satisfaction with VSL/CMS advice under reduced visibility conditions. Based on the findings of the present study, several recommendations are suggested as guidelines to improve drivers’ behavior in such reduced visibility conditions by enhancing drivers’ compliance with VSL/CMS instructions.     

Structural priming as structure-mapping: children use analogies from previous utterances to guide sentence production

What mechanisms underlie children’s language production? Structural priming—the repetition of sentence structure across utterances—is an important measure of the developing production system. We propose its mechanism in children is the same as may underlie analogical reasoning: structure‐mapping. Under this view, structural priming is the result of making an analogy between utterances, such that children map semantic and syntactic structure from previous to future utterances. Because the ability to map relationally complex structures develops with age, younger children are less successful than older children at mapping both semantic and syntactic relations. Consistent with this account, 4‐year‐old children showed priming only of semantic relations when surface similarity across utterances was limited, whereas 5‐year‐olds showed priming of both semantic and syntactic structure regardless of shared surface similarity. The priming of semantic structure without syntactic structure is uniquely predicted by the structure‐mapping account because others have interpreted structural priming as a reflection of developing syntactic knowledge.     

Smoking mediates the effect of conscientiousness on mortality: The Veterans Affairs Normative Aging Study

This study examined the relationship between conscientiousness and mortality over 18 years and whether smoking behavior mediated this relationship. We utilized data from the Veterans Affairs Normative Aging Study on 1349 men who completed the Goldberg (1992) adjectival markers of the Big Five. Over the 18-year follow-up, 547 (41%) participants died. Through proportional hazards modeling in a structural equation modeling framework, we found that higher levels of conscientiousness significantly predicted longer life, and that this effect was mediated by current smoking status at baseline. Methodologically, we also demonstrate the effectiveness of using a structural equation modeling framework to evaluate mediation when using a censored outcome such as mortality.     

Decoding the implicit association test: Implications for criterion prediction

The implicit association test (IAT) is believed to measure implicit evaluations by assessing reaction times on two cognitive tasks, often termed “compatible” and “incompatible” tasks. A common rationale for studying the IAT is that it might improve our prediction and understanding of meaningful psychological criteria. To date, however, no clear psychometric theory has been advanced for this measure. We examine the theory, methods and analytic strategies surrounding the IAT in the context of criterion prediction to determine measurement and causal models a researcher embraces (knowingly or unknowingly) by using the test. Our analyses reveal that the IAT revolves around interpretation of two distinct relative constructs, one at the conceptual level and one at the observed level. We show that interest in relative implicit evaluations at the conceptual level imposes a causal model that is restrictive in form. We then examine measurement models of the IAT and show how computing a difference score at the observed level may lack empirical justification. These issues are highlighted in a study replicating an effect established in the literature (Study 1). We then introduce a new variant of the IAT and use it to evaluate the reasonableness of traditional IAT methods (Study 2).     

The fit of Holland’s RIASEC model to US occupations

Holland’s [Holland, J. L. (1959). A theory of occupational choice. Journal of Counseling Psychology, 6, 35-45; Holland, J. L. (1997). Making vocational choices: A theory of vocational personalities and work environments (3rd ed.). Odessa, FL: Psychological Assessment Resources, Inc.] RIASEC types were initially developed using a restricted range of occupational titles. Holland’s type classification system has been extended to encompass the full range of occupations in the US, using both statistical and expert rating methods. However, the extent that Holland’s classification model is sufficient to represent the full range of occupational interests has not been examined. Multidimensional scaling (MDS) was used to analyze college students’ (266 men, 572 women) interests in occupations representing approximately 85% of the US labor market. A two-dimensional MDS solution of the full set of occupations did not fit Holland’s model, but limiting the analysis to occupations used in Holland-based measures produced the expected RIASEC structure. In comparison, a three-dimensional solution included Prediger’s [Prediger, D. J. (1982). Dimensions underlying Holland’s hexagon: Missing link between interests and occupations? Journal of Vocational Behavior, 21, 259-287] dimensions (Things/People and Data/Ideas) consistent with Holland’s model, but also included prestige and sex-type dimensions that were not orthogonal to Prediger’s dimensions. These results demonstrate that the RIASEC types are not sufficient to represent the full range of occupational interests and are confounded with prestige and sex-type.