Psychometric Evaluation of an Alternate Scoring for the Remote Associates Test

The Remote Associates Test (RAT; Mednick, 1962; Mednick & Mednick, 1967) is a commonly employed test of creative convergent thinking. The RAT is scored with a dichotomous scoring, scoring correct answers as 1 and all other answers as 0. Based on recent research into the information processing underlying RAT performance, we argued that the dichotomous scoring may lead to a loss of potentially relevant information. Thus, we proposed an alternate scoring based on semantic similarity between the answer given by the participant and the correct solution using Latent Semantic Analysis (LSA; Landauer & Dumais, 1997). We evaluate the psychometric properties of the alternate LSA scoring and found evidence of construct validity for the LSA scoring which was comparable to findings for the standard scoring, but not better as we would have expected. Thus, our expectations that LSA-based scoring of the RAT counteracts potential information loss were not met. However, LSA based scorings appear to be a promising alternative for hardly solvable RAT items. We conducted additional analyses comparing different RAT item types with regard to their validity as well as evaluating the information uniquely contained in the LSA scoring. Implications of all finding for existing research using RAT items are discussed.     

中文句子中双音节兼类词句法分析历程初探

以既可用作名词,又可用作动词的汉语双音节兼类词为材料,采用移动窗口范式,考察了汉语句子中名词倾向性高和低两类兼类词句法分析的详细历程。结果发现,两类兼类词与各自的控制词之间,均未出现阅读时间上的显著差异,因此并不支持延迟模型所提出的兼类词句法角色延迟指派的观点。实验还发现,名词倾向性高的兼类词引起了更大的加工困难。此外,即便是名词倾向性低的兼类词,被试也仍为其指派名词的句法角色。花园路径模型和制约满意理论均不能单独和完整解释上述发现。文章指出,实验结果支持一种既不同于花园路径模型,又不同于制约满意理论的权变的理论。阅读中遇到兼类词时,读者能立即为其指派句法角色。这种指派过程既可以利用概率制约信息,也可以在句法分析原则指导下进行。句法分析原则是否起作用,取决于概率制约信息的制约强度     

汉语儿童词语结构意识在阅读理解中的预测作用

以382名小学一、三、五年级学生为被试,进行为期一年的追踪研究,通过分层回归,探索了词语结构意识在儿童阅读理解中作用的发展性变化。结果发现：（1）在控制了性别、瑞文推理、汉字识别、口语词汇以及快速命名和语音意识之后,在三年级T2、五年级和五年级T2发现了词语结构意识对同期阅读理解有独特解释作用,而在一年级、一年级T2和三年级均未发现词语结构意识对同期阅读理解的独特贡献;（2）在控制了性别、瑞文推理、自回归效应以及其他相关变量的作用后,三年级和五年级时的词语结构意识分别对一年后的阅读理解具有独特的预测作用。结果表明,在小学低年级阶段,词语结构意识在阅读理解中的作用还未显现,在小学中高年级阶段,词语结构意识对儿童阅读理解有显著的预测作用。     

Rivers of milk and honey ‐ an exploration of nurturing the self in a Russian context

This paper is an exploration of the relationship between nurturing in all its contexts ‐ among them, the nursing couple and the therapeutic relationship ‐ and the evolution of an individual self. The ideas are illustrated by a case vignette of a Russian patient. An attempt is made to show that when the self as an integral unity of body and soul is addressed in the analytic setting, ‘nutritional dreams’ emerge as expressions of the self‐in‐action. Certain psycholinguistic features of the Russian cultural context are described which suggest a link of meaning between development of the self and secure parenting. This linguistic association may facilitate the process of self‐centering.     

Effects of Emotional Experience for Abstract Words in the Stroop Task

In this study, we examined the effects of emotional experience, a relatively new dimension of emotional knowledge that gauges the ease with which words evoke emotional experience, on abstract word processing in the Stroop task. In order to test the context‐dependency of these effects, we accentuated the saliency of this dimension in Experiment 1A by blocking the stimuli such that one block consisted of the stimuli with the highest emotional experience ratings and the other block consisted of the stimuli with the lowest emotional experience ratings. We attenuated the saliency of this dimension in Experiment 1B by intermixing the stimuli. We observed slower color naming performance for words with higher emotional experience ratings only in Experiment 1A, suggesting that the dimension of emotional experience is an aspect of semantic representation for abstract words but that its influence can be modulated by context. We interpret these results more generally using Vigliocco, Meteyard, Andrews, and Kousta's (2009) framework of semantic representation, and more specifically using Cohen, Dunbar, and McClelland's (1990) model of Stroop task performance.     

The time course of access to semantic information in high-performing older adults: Behavioral evidence for the hemispheric asymmetry reduction in OLDer individuals

ABSTRACT

The possibility that the HAROLD phenomenon (i.e., Hemispheric Asymmetry Reduction in OLDer adults) is manifested in the course of access to semantic information, in particular the meaning of emotional words, was investigated using the visual half-field priming paradigm. The time course of priming was tracked in the cerebral hemispheres across three SOAs: 150, 300, and 750 ms. The results showed older and young adults had the same level of accuracy. While priming occurred unilaterally in young participants, the pattern of priming in older participants appeared to be bilateral whenever it was present, that is, at the 300- and 750-ms SOAs. The delay in the appearance of priming in older adults may be due to an increase in sensory thresholds that causes older adults to need more time to encode stimuli and fully activate their semantic network. It is concluded that the bilateral pattern of priming in the presence of an equivalent level of performance in older adults provides behavioral evidence supporting the compensatory role of the HAROLD phenomenon for this particular task.     

A decrease in conjunction error rates across lags on a continuous recognition task: A robust pattern

In four experiments, the lag retention interval from parent words (e.g., blackmail, jailbird) to a conjunction word (blackbird) was manipulated in a continuous recognition task. Alterations to the basic procedure of Jones and Atchley (2002) were employed in Experiments 1 and 2 to bolster recollection to reject conjunction lures, yet conjunction error rates still decreased across lags of 1 to 20 words. Experiment 3 and a multiexperiment analysis examined the increments of forgetting in familiarity across lags of 1–20 words. Finally, in Experiment 4, participants attempted to identify conjunction probes as “old”, and the data were contrasted with those from a previous experiment (Jones & Atchley, 2002, Exp. 1), in which participants attempted not to identify conjunction probes as “old”. In support of earlier findings, the decrease in familiarity across lags of 1–20 words appears robust, with a constant level of weak recollection occurring for parent words.     

Eye movements and parafoveal preview of compound words: Does morpheme order matter?

Recently, there has been considerable debate about whether readers can identify multiple words in parallel or whether they are limited to a serial mode of word identification, processing one word at a time (see, e.g., Reichle, Liversedge, Pollatsek, & Rayner, 2009). Similar questions can be applied to bimorphemic compound words: Do readers identify all the constituents of a compound word in parallel, and does it matter which of the morphemes is identified first? We asked subjects to read compound words embedded in sentences while monitoring their eye movements. Using the boundary paradigm (Rayner, 1975), we manipulated the preview that subjects received of the compound word before they fixated it. In particular, the morpheme order of the preview was either normal (cowboy) or reversed (boycow). Additionally, we manipulated the preview availability for each of the morphemes separately. Preview was thus available for the first morpheme only (cowtxg), for the second morpheme only (enzboy), or for neither of the morphemes (enztxg). We report three major findings: First, there was an effect of morpheme order on gaze durations measured on the compound word, indicating that, as expected, readers obtained a greater preview benefit when the preview presented the morphemes in the correct order than when their order was reversed. Second, gaze durations on the compound word were influenced not only by preview availability for the first, but also by that for the second morpheme. Finally, and most importantly, the results show that readers are able to extract some morpheme information even from a reverse order preview. In summary, readers obtain preview benefit from both constituents of a short compound word, even when the preview does not reflect the correct morpheme order.     

文化和情境影响亲属词的概念结构

以摩梭人和汉族的高中生为对象,采用自由分类法,考察在满月酒、结婚和吊唁情境的亲属词概念结构,揭示微观文化情境对亲属关系认知的影响以及与宏观文化情境的交互作用。结果发现:(1)在不同情境下,摩梭人和汉族人对亲属词的分类既有相同之处,又存在差异。两个民族都看重"亲属的亲密程度"和"辈分",但摩梭人还区分"照顾者/被照顾者",汉族人还考虑"性别"和"亲属关系的性质";(2)摩梭人对亲属词的分类体现了母系文化的特征,重视舅舅和外甥在亲属关系中的地位和作用;汉族人对亲属词的分类体现了汉文化的特征,重视媳妇和孙辈在亲属关系中的地位和作用。(3)亲属概念具有核心特征与情境依赖特征。文化和情境通过概念特征的激活和分类标准的采择影响对亲属词的分类。     

On the impact of words: interpretation,empathy and affect regulation

This paper offers a contribution towards furthering our understanding of a theme more usually associated with the Freudian tradition, namely the role and function of words as action, particularly in relation to the representational process and its somatic roots. Some reference to neuroscience research will be offered in this respect. It also considers the value of differentiating Empathy from Empathism, as defined by the Italian psychoanalyst Stefano Bolognini who distinguishes informing complementary countertransference from states of over‐concordance. Two analytic sessions taken from the intensive analysis of a deeply deprived late‐latency child showing violent behaviour are provided with the aim of illustrating the application of these concepts. It is argued that, given the same elaboration of the countertransference and the adequate empathic position on the part of the analyst, the difference in the outcome of the interpretation was made by the specific use of words—in this case the use or not of the personal pronoun―in the two sessions. As the case material is taken from the clinical work of a supervisee, some elements regarding the supervisory situation are also discussed in the paper.