Attention can operate on semantic objects defined by individual Chinese characters

Attention can select perceptual objects, but it is less clear whether attention can operate on objects defined by higher level cognition, such as semantic associations. Recent studies have shown that attention may be based on objects defined by Chinese two-character compound words, suggesting that attention can operate on semantic objects. In the present study, object-based attention (OBA) effect was investigated at the level of individual Chinese characters, and the role of character structure and radical order in OBA was explored by using a spatial cueing paradigm. In Experiment 1, we found OBA effect for conditions that had legal radical order, but not for other conditions in which the radical order information was disrupted. Character structure, however, had no influence on the OBA effect. In Experiment 2, we observed OBA effect for all conditions after enhancing the radical order and character structure information by adding perceptual cues. The results extend previous findings of a “semantic object”-based attention effect from the two-character word level to the individual character level. Moreover, we found that radical order but not character structure was important for this semantic OBA effect. We conclude that visual attention can be based on semantic objects at the level of individual characters, and that the development of semantic objects is affected by the perceptual grouping of the radicals.     

Feedback environment and well-being at work: The mediating role of personal control and feelings of helplessness

This study examines employees' personal control and feelings of helplessness at work as partial mediators of the relationship between the supervisor–employee feedback environment and well-being (job satisfaction, job depression, job anxiety, turnover intentions) at work. Findings are reported from a cross-sectional field study with 345 participants from three different industries. Hierarchical regression analyses showed that feedback environment was positively related to job satisfaction, personal control over information and decisions, and was negatively related to helplessness, job depression, and turnover intentions. Furthermore, personal control partially mediated the relationships between feedback environment and job satisfaction as well as job depression. Helplessness partially mediated the relationships between feedback environment and job depression, job satisfaction, and turnover intentions. This study adds to the literature on feedback environment in highlighting the importance of the supervisor–employee feedback environment for well-being at work and introducing personal control and helplessness as mediating variables.     

School adjustment of adolescents affected by HIV and AIDS: A case study

The study examined the school adjustment of South African adolescents affected by HIV and AIDS . Participants were a convenient sample of 60 adolescents from a secondary school in a major South African city (females = 73 .33%, 50% affected by HIV and AIDS, grade 8 = 40%, grade 9 = 30%, grade 10 = 30%, age range = 16–18 years) . Data on their personal functioning were gathered using the Beck Youth Inventory^TM and the Enhanced School Support Inventory (ESSI) . The data analysis comprised between-group and within-group comparisons, using the t-test statistic . Findings suggest that adolescents affected by HIV and AIDS had significantly lower psychological and behavioural functioning than their typical other peers . Results also show that these affected learners had lower school adjustment than their typical peers . The schools environment can support comprehensive interventions to addresses psychosocial vulnerability among adolescents affected by HIV and AIDS .     

Developmental and Social Determinants of Religious Social Categorization

The purpose of this study was to assess developmental and social determinants of the age at which children become aware that the social environment can be marked by categorization into religious groups and that those groups are associated with different religious beliefs. The results show that middle childhood is a critical period for this religious social categorization. Moreover, social factors play a role in the development. Religious categorization is likely to appear sooner in children attending heterogeneous schools than in those at homogeneous schools, and children from the minority religious group in the country understand religious categorization earlier than children from the majority group. However, no relation was found between the age at which religious categorization was understood and parents’ religious socialization practices. This study is of both theoretical and practical interest: It complements what is already known about gender, race, and ethnic categorization by integrating developmental and social frameworks, and it can serve as a guideline for educational programs.     

Index to Volume 129

This study addresses the basic structure of playfulness in adults from a psy-cho-lexical approach and its relationship with the sense of humor. Using items derived from a corpus analysis of written accounts in the German language, five factors were derived (N = 195); that is, (a) cheerful-engaged; (b) whimsical; (c) creative-loving; (d) intellectual; and (e) impulsive. Their contents strongly overlap in comparison with an earlier study using this approach. However, the correlation of the intellectual component with two current measures of adult playfulness was low, and the impulsive component was not correlated with these measures. The question arises as to whether these aspects exist only as components in the implicit psychological and linguistic theories. The sense of humor was most strongly related with the cheerful-engaged factor while some “humor skills” were particularly related to other factors; for example, finding humor under stress with the intellectual component. This study helps toward a better understanding of the basic structure of playfulness in adults.     

Designing post‐industrial organizations for ecological sustainability

The post‐industrial world is now at a cross‐roads where the choice of evolutionary paths means the difference between ensuring the long‐term survival of human communities and preservation of biodiversity, or the eventual downgrading of life quality and biospheric complexity. An emerging path towards ecological sustainability is explored in relation to its implications for the design of post‐industrial organizations. The shift from a sociotechnical to a socio‐ecological systems paradigm is discussed, with references to the theoretical and methodological expansions required to advance this paradigm in management practice. Concepts which revision organizational‐environment relationships, and lead to social and technical innovations in the transition towards an ecologically sustainable society are also discussed.     

The Origin of Foresight

The purpose of this article is to develop a framework for the origin of foresight. Following a review of arguments for foresight as genetically inherited versus environmentally acquired, the understanding of foresight is expanded through a behaviorist perspective and through an evolutionary perspective. The framework established makes it possible to deploy evolutionary logic to explain foresight as well as to enhance our understanding of foresight, both on individual (e.g., managerial) and aggregated (e.g., organizational) levels.     

The role of specificity in the lexical encoding of participants

In addition to information about phonology, morphology and syntax, lexical entries contain semantic information about participants (e.g., Agent). However, the traditional criteria for determining how much participant information is lexically encoded have proved unreliable. We have proposed two semantic criteria (obligatoriness and selectivity) that jointly identify the participants that are lexically encoded in verbs. We tested whether one of these criteria, semantic selectivity, makes psychologically real distinctions between participant information that is lexically encoded and participant information that is not. We examined how readers integrated syntactically optional WH-constituents in filler-gap sentences when the participant information conveyed by the WH-filler was specific to a restricted class of verbs (i.e., source locations) and when it was not (i.e., event locations). Our results provide support for the role of specificity in the lexical encoding of participant information of syntactically optional constituents.     

不同阅读水平与文章熟悉程度条件下文章标记效应的研究

探讨文章阅读过程中读者的阅读水平与文章熟悉程度对文章标记效应的影响。结果表明,文章标记与文章主题熟悉程度存在显著的交互作用,文章标记对熟悉文章的信息保持无明显的促进效应．但对不熟悉文章信息保持的促进效应非常明显;文章标记对不同阅读水平读者的文章信息保持都有显著的促进效应,但对阅读水平高的读者的促进效应大于对阅读水平低的读者的促进效应。文章阅读中的结构搜索加工的观点得到初步证明。