Do facial first impressions reflect a shared social reality?

Influential facial impression models have repeatedly shown that trustworthiness, youthful–attractiveness, and dominance dimensions subserve a wide variety of first impressions formed from strangers’ faces, suggestive of a shared social reality. However, these models are built from impressions aggregated across observers. Critically, recent work has now shown substantial inter-observer differences in facial impressions, raising the important question of whether these dimensional models based on aggregated group data are meaningful at the individual observer level. We addressed this question with a novel case series approach, using factor analyses of ratings of twelve different traits to build individual models of facial impressions for different observers. Strikingly, three dimensions of trustworthiness, youthful/attractiveness, and competence/dominance appeared across the majority of these individual observer models, demonstrating that the dimensional approach is indeed meaningful at the individual level. Nonetheless, we also found differences in the stability of the competence/dominance dimension across observers. Taken together, results suggest that individual differences in impressions arise in the context of a largely common structure that supports a shared social reality.     

等级效标分数的概率神经网络预测方法研究

针对基于统计学的等级效标分数预测存在的问题,提出了运用概率神经网络进行等级效标分数预测的方法。在20种条件下进行了计算机模拟实验,包括测验分数为单变量和多变量,以及各种水平的白噪声干扰条件,结果表明在测验分数为多变量的情况下,或者在有白噪声干扰的条件下,运用概率神经网络方法可以比统计学方法更好地对等级效标分数进行预测。     

课堂成就目标定向、任务难度、学业水平与元认知监控策略运用

以217名高中生为被试,采用计算机监控的活动操作法,探讨课堂成就目标定向、任务难度对不同学业水平学生元认知监控策略运用的影响。结果表明：（1）课堂掌握目标定向下均比在课堂成绩目标定向下更多地运用元认知监控策略;（2）高学业学生在较难任务上比较易任务上更多地运用元认知监控策略;低学业学生,在课堂掌握目标定向下．在较难任务上比较易任务上更多地使用元认知监控策略;在课堂成绩目标定向下,与课堂掌握目标定向情形相反;（3）临场动机中的自我效能感、目标方向、努力程度在课堂成就目标定向、任务难度对元认知监控策略的影响中具有中介作用。     

Rejoinder: Remaining Challenges in Investigating Grade-Retention Effectiveness

This rejoinder, in response to the commentaries of Steiner, Park, and Kim (this issue) and Reshetnyak, Cham, and Hughes (this issue), discusses remaining challenges in grade retention research. First, a same-age comparison assumes that the instruments used in different grades measure ability equally well. We discuss the importance of evaluating the properties of the scaling process to address whether this assumption has been met. Second, we discuss issues in the selection of covariates to be included in the weights. Third, we discuss the unconfoundedness assumption and the problem of remaining imbalance. Finally, we provide an empirical illustration showing that studying grade-retention effectiveness comes with multiple methodological decisions that are rooted in a bias–variance trade-off.     

Using Marginal Structural Modeling for Grade Retention Effects

Vandecandelaere, Vansteelandt, De Fraine, and Van Damme (this issue) described marginal structural modeling (MSM) and used it to estimate the effects of a time-varying intervention, retention (holding back) in school grades, on students' math achievement. This commentary supplements Vandecandelaere et al. (this issue) and discusses several topics in retention studies and MSM. First, we discuss the importance of equating time-varying confounders in retention studies. Second, we discuss same-grade and same-age comparisons in retention studies. Third, we discuss one important section in the authors' overview of MSM: why standard methods (e.g., ANCOVA, propensity score analysis) cannot properly adjust for time-varying confounders. Finally, using the grade retention analyses in Vandecandelaere et al. (this issue) as an example, we provide our insights on four aspects of MSM: (a) covariate selection, (b) estimation of weights, (c) evaluation of balance properties, and (d) missing data handling.     

Can we distinguish an “I” and “ME” during listening?—an event-related EEG study on the processing of first and second person personal and possessive pronouns

Theoretically, stimuli can be related to the self as subject (“I”) or object (“ME”) of experience. This event-related brain potential (ERP) study investigated whether listening to personal and possessive pronouns elicits different modes of self-processing regarding time-course and neural sources. Going beyond previous research, first (1PP) and second person (2PP) pronouns were included to determine the specificity of self-processing. Participants listened passively to German pronouns while the electroencephalogram was recorded. Modulation of ERPs revealed a processing advantage for the 2PP personal pronoun “du” (“you”) already in early time windows. Regarding possessive pronouns, N1 amplitudes indicated increased attention orientation to the 1PP pronoun “mein” (“my”), whereas during later time windows, processing of 1PP and 2PP possessive pronouns did not differ but differed from the third person pronoun “sein” (“his”). ERP source imaging suggests that primary sensory brain regions (auditory cortex), the insula and cortical midline structures are differentially involved into these two processing modes. The results support the idea of distinct self-processing modes (“I” and “ME”) and confirm their dynamic nature. Moreover, they demonstrate that on a neural level neither “I” or “ME” are invariantly tied to the first person, in line with the hypothesis that self-processing is relational and context-dependent.