On the inhomogeneity of a test compounded of two Rasch homogeneous subscales

Van den Wollenberg stated a theorem specifying the conditions for a test, which is composed of two Rasch homogeneous subscales, as also behaving Rasch homogeneously. In our note, simple numerical counterexamples are given for which this theorem fails.While preparing the final version of this note, Ilse Rop passed away. The first author therefore takes sole responsibility for this final version.     

Use of public information when foraging: effects of time available to sample foods

It has been proposed that use of socially acquired information by animals should increase as the time available for individual resource sampling decreases. We gave Norway rat “observers” either 2 or 5 h day^–1 to sample four foods. Three of these foods were relatively palatable, but protein-poor; the fourth was relatively unpalatable, but protein-rich. We found that observer rats that for 2 h day^–1 both sampled foods and interacted with demonstrators eating only the protein-rich food ate more of the protein-rich food than did observers that sampled for 2 h day^–1 but had no opportunity to interact with demonstrators. On the other hand, observer rats that could sample foods for 5 h day^–1 ate equal amounts of protein-rich food whether they interacted with a demonstrator fed protein-rich food or not. Subsequent analyses showed that the time available to observers to sample foods, rather than the opportunity to interact with demonstrators determined whether such interaction influenced observers’ food choices. The results are consistent with the hypothesis that animals increase their use of public information in response to temporal constraints on opportunities for resource sampling. Received: 22 December 1998 / Accepted after revision: 27 February 1999     

Anterior Temporal Lobectomy,Hippocampal Sclerosis,and Memory: Recent Neuropsychological Findings

Anterior temporal lobectomy (ATL) is an effective and increasingly utilized treatment for nonlesional, intractable mesial temporal lobe epilepsy. However, this surgery results in domain-specific neuropsychological morbidity for a subset of patients. Within the past decade, multidisciplinary studies have revealed that left ATL patients without significant sclerosis in the resected hippocampus are most at risk for a substantial postacute decline in the ability to encode new verbal information. These patients are also at risk for a significant decrement in confrontation naming and other retrieval-based language abilities. The memory deficit is not attributable to this disruption of language. A relationship between hippocampal sclerosis (HS) status and memory performance has not been identified consistently in right ATL patients, but investigation of new visuospatial measures continues. The influence of variables other than HS on neuropsychological outcome is also discussed.     

Sleep facilitates anticipation training of a handball goalkeeping task in novices

Sleep facilitates perceptual, cognitive and motor learning; however, the role of sleep for perceptual learning in sports is yet unclear. Here, we tested the impact of sleep on novices' visual anticipation training using a handball goalkeeping task. To this end, 30 novices were divided randomly in two groups and asked to predict the directional outcome of handball penalties presented as videos. One group did the pre-test and a single session of training in the morning, post-test in the evening on the same day, and the retention test in the next morning again. Conversely, the second group started and finished in the evening. Analyses of prediction accuracy revealed that the group starting in the evening improved largest between pre- and post-test (sleep in-between), while the greatest improvement for the group starting in the morning was found between post- and retention-test (sleep in-between). Overall, our results provide first insight into the potential relevance of sleep for effective anticipation training in sports.     

Disappearing and appearing: Temporal binding effects are consistent across situations

Sense of agency refers to the feeling of control over actions and action outcomes. Previous studies were mostly confined to the situation of performing actions to make objects appear, while it remains unexplored whether we experience sense of agency when making objects disappear. Here, we examined the temporal binding effect, an implicit index of sense of agency, in performing actions to make objects disappear and compared the magnitude of this effect in the appearing and disappearing situations. Results showed that the temporal binding effect emerged when object’s disappearances served as action outcomes. Moreover, the temporal binding effects in the appearing and disappearing situations did not differ significantly. Our findings extend the temporal binding effect to the situation of voluntarily making objects disappear, suggesting a comparable level of implicit sense of agency when voluntarily making objects disappear and appear.     

The temporal sensitivity to the tactile-induced double flash illusion mediates the impact of beta oscillations on schizotypal personality traits

The coherent experience of the self and the world depends on the ability to integrate vs. segregate sensory information. Optimal temporal integration between the senses is mediated by oscillatory properties of neural activity. Previous research showed reduced temporal sensitivity to multisensory events in schizotypy, a personality trait linked to schizophrenia. Here we used the tactile-induced Double-Flash-Illusion (tDFI) to investigate the tactile-to-visual temporal sensitivity in schizotypy, as indexed by the temporal window of illusion (TWI) and its neural underpinnings. We measured EEG oscillations within the beta band, recently shown to correlate with the tDFI. We found individuals with higher schizotypal traits to have wider TWI and slower beta waves accounting for the temporal window within which they perceive the illusion. Our results indicate reduced tactile-to-visual temporal sensitivity to mediate the effect of slowed oscillatory beta activity on schizotypal personality traits. We conclude that slowed oscillatory patterns might constitute an early marker for psychosis proneness.     

Temporal perception in joint action: This is MY action

Here we investigated the temporal perception of self- and other-generated actions during sequential joint actions. Participants judged the perceived time of two events, the first triggered by the participant and the second by another agent, during a cooperative or competitive interaction, or by an unspecified mechanical cause. Results showed that participants perceived self-generated events as shifted earlier in time (anticipation temporal judgment bias) and non-self-generated events as shifted later in time (repulsion temporal judgment bias). This latter effect was observed independently from the kind of cause (i.e., agentive or mechanical) or interaction (i.e., cooperative or competitive). We suggest that this might represent a mental process which allows discriminating events that cannot plausibly be linked to one’s own action. When an event immediately follows a self-generated one, temporal judgment biases operate as self-serving biases in order to separate self-generated events from events of another physical causality.     

On-court position and handedness in visual anticipation of stroke direction in tennis

ObjectivesIn racket sports, players integrate information picked up from their opponent's kinematics and contextual cues like on-court position into shot outcome anticipation. In view of suggested difficulties with anticipating left-handed opponents' action intentions, here we examined whether an opponent's handedness interacts with position-dependency in visual anticipation.Design and methodFollowing a 2 (Group) x 2 (Handedness) x 2 (Position) x 3 (Temporal Occlusion) factorial design, 20 tennis players and 20 non-players predicted directional outcome of temporally manipulated point-light animations of identical left- and right-handed forehand groundstrokes performed near vs. far from the court's midline.ResultsTennis players' response selection was mostly affected by an opponent's on-court position, particularly at an early stage of a hitting movement. Opponents' handedness affected response selection similarly in both groups (i.e., bias towards down-the-line predictions against left-handed strokes occluded at racket-ball-contact), but it did not interact with on-court position.ConclusionsFindings highlight that on-court position, and opponents' handedness to some extent as well, appears relevant for skilled visual anticipation in tennis.     

Higher-order approximations to the distributions of fit indexes under fixed alternatives in structural equation models

Higher-order approximations to the distributions of fit indexes for structural equation models under fixed alternative hypotheses are obtained in nonnormal samples as well as normal ones. The fit indexes include the normal-theory likelihood ratio chi-square statistic for a posited model, the corresponding statistic for the baseline model of uncorrelated observed variables, and various fit indexes as functions of these two statistics. The approximations are given by the Edgeworth expansions for the distributions of the fit indexes under arbitrary distributions. Numerical examples in normal and nonnormal samples with the asymptotic and simulated distributions of the fit indexes show the relative inappropriateness of the normal-theory approximation using noncentral chi-square distributions. A simulation for the confidence intervals of the fit indexes based on the normal-theory Studentized estimators under normality with a small sample size indicates an advantage for the approximation by the Cornish–Fisher expansion over those by the noncentral chi-square distribution and the asymptotic normality. The author is indebted to the reviewers for their comments and suggestions, which have led to the improvement of the previous versions of this paper. This work was partially supported by Grant-in-Aid for Scientific Research from the Japanese Ministry of Education, Culture, Sports, Science, and Technology.     

The effect of level of construal on the temporal distance of activity enactment

A series of four studies demonstrates that, across different operationalizations of level of construal, different types of activities, and for both the self and another person as targets, construing activities in high-level terms fosters perception of the more distal future as appropriate for their enactment. Specifically, the studies show that thinking about superordinate “why” (rather than subordinate “how”) aspects of actions, about the implications of actions for one’s personality (rather than the objects that would be used in performing the action), and about abstract (rather than concrete) aspects of actions leads people to expect the actions to be performed in the more distant future. These results suggest that the association of level of construal and time perspective is bi-directional, in that time perspective affects level of construal and, in addition, level of construal affects time perspective.