Processing biological gender and number information during Chinese pronoun resolution: ERP evidence for functional differentiation

There have been a number of behavioral and neural studies on the processing of syntactic gender and number agreement information, marked by different morpho-syntactic features during sentence comprehension. By using the event-related potential (ERP) technique, the present study investigated whether the processing of semantic gender information and the processing of notional number information can be differentiated and to what extent they might interact during Chinese pronoun resolution. The pronoun (with singular form in Experiment 1 and with plural form in Experiment 2) in a sentence matched its antecedent or mismatched it with respect to either biological gender or notional number or both. While the number mismatch elicited a P600 effect starting from 550 ms (for singular pronoun) or 400 ms (for plural pronoun) post-onset of the pronoun, the gender mismatch elicited an earlier (for singular) and larger (for both singular and plural) P600 effect. More importantly, the double mismatch produced a P600 effect identical to the effect elicited by the single gender mismatch. These results demonstrate that biological gender information and notional number information are processed differentially and have different processing priorities during Chinese pronoun resolution.     

Clinical effects of biofeedback treatment in migraine: The relation to achieved self-control and pretreatment predictors

Abstract

Factors contributing to the headache reduction six months after treatment of sixty-three migraine subjects were examined in three different studies. Subjects had originally been treated with either peripheral skin temperature biofeedback, biofeedback for blood-volume-pulse amplitude of the temporal artery, or applied relaxation. In Study 1 it was found that biofeedback subjects who had achieved self-control of the trained physiological parameter had significantly greater headache reductions than “nonlearners”. In Studies 2 and 3, potential predicting factors of clinical effects were studied. Age and whether subjects had achieved self-control emerged as (weak) predictors in different analyses using discriminant analysis. Using “PLS” (partial least squares projections to latent structures) a model emerged which gave a more complex picture, and which might indicate for example that there are different sets of factors which predict success and predict nonsuccess in treatment.     

Information quality in personality judgment: The value of personal disclosure

We examined the relative quality of different types of information and its effects on accuracy in personality judgment. Three hundred and forty-four unacquainted undergraduates participated in a small group round-robin rating scheme. In one condition, participants were asked to disclose three things that were very important to them in life. In a second condition, participants were asked to disclose three distinctive personal facts: things that differentiated them from others. We found that (a) people believed values information was more personality-relevant than facts information and (b) although there was no clear advantage for one condition over the other in terms of generalized accuracy, there were some differences across conditions for specific traits. Implications for the study of information quality in personality judgment are discussed.     

Acquaintanceship and self/observer agreement in personality judgment

Self/observer agreement on HEXACO-PI-R scale scores was examined as a function of observers’ subjective ratings of acquaintanceship. For each participant (N = 2199), personality self-reports were obtained along with observer reports from a friend. Each factor-level scale displayed a different pattern of upward accuracy (agreement) trends in personality judgment. Self/observer agreement for Extraversion, Emotionality, and Openness was noticeably stronger at lower acquaintanceship than that for Conscientiousness, Agreeableness, and Honesty-Humility. Conscientiousness showed a steep upward accuracy trend across acquaintanceship levels, reaching a level of accuracy comparable to that of Extraversion and Emotionality. Self/observer agreement for Honesty-Humility and Agreeableness showed slower upward trends than that of Conscientiousness. In several cases, facet-level traits within the same broad factor differed in their accuracy trends.     

影响动作图片命名的因素

图片是研究词汇习得与加工的重要材料, 而名词和动词是最主要的两类实词。然而, 目前较少有研究考察汉语中的动词加工过程, 也没有标准化的动词图片库。本研究通过成人图片命名和评定任务, 获得了265张动词图片的中文名称、命名反应时, 以及H值、命名一致性、熟悉性、视觉复杂性、表象一致性和口语习得年龄等指标, 同时也探索了影响动作图片命名反应时的因素。逐步回归分析结果发现, H值、熟悉性和视觉复杂性这三个变量可解释动词图片命名反应时72.4%的变异。此外, 本研究根据图片命名反应时将动词图片加工难度分成了五个等级。研究发现, 与名词图片相比, 动词图片的视觉复杂性更高、命名一致性更低、命名反应时更长。本研究获得的各项心理语言学指标有望为后续关于动词加工的实验研究提供重要的参考资料。     

气氛强度:理论基础及其研究框架

随着多层次理论的发展,气氛强度成为组织管理研究中受到关注的新概念。以多层次理论中的合成模型和文化强度为理论基础,研究者对气氛强度的前因变量及其作用开展了一系列的研究。本文在回顾气氛强度的理论基础和研究框架的基础上,提出未来研究首先应补充气氛强度前因变量的探索;并在不同行业和不同工作类型中去验证气氛强度的作用;最后应关注对气氛的概念界定,从而扩展对气氛强度的研究。     

On Association Coefficients for 2×2 Tables and Properties That Do Not Depend on the Marginal Distributions

We discuss properties that association coefficients may have in general, e.g., zero value under statistical independence, and we examine coefficients for 2×2 tables with respect to these properties. Furthermore, we study a family of coefficients that are linear transformations of the observed proportion of agreement given the marginal probabilities. This family includes the phi coefficient and Cohen’s kappa. The main result is that the linear transformations that set the value under independence at zero and the maximum value at unity, transform all coefficients in this family into the same underlying coefficient. This coefficient happens to be Loevinger’s H.     

Agreement Between Parent and Teacher Ratings of Disruptive Behavior Disorders in Children with Clinically Diagnosed ADHD

This study investigated the agreement between parent and teacher ratings of DSM-IV symptoms of Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder (ADHD) and related disorders: Oppositional Defiant Disorder (ODD) and Conduct Disorder (CD). A sample of 55 children in the age range of 6–12 years with clinically diagnosed ADHD participated in the study. Parents and teachers were asked to complete the Disruptive Behavior Disorder Rating Scale (DBDRS; W. E., Pelham, E. M., Gnagy, K. E., Greenslade, & R. Milich, 1992). No association was found between parent and teacher ratings of inattention and hyperactivity/impulsivity. However, moderate to high levels of agreement were obtained for ratings of symptoms that characterized ODD and CD. The observed low levels of agreement between parent and teacher ratings of ADHD symptoms may be attributed to different perceptions of the problem behavior by parents and teachers, medication effects, or the situation specificity of children's behavior. It is recommended that the diagnostic criterion of symptom pervasiveness for the diagnosis of ADHD be operationalized more clearly.     

An ordinal coefficient of relational agreement for multiple judges

In a recent article, Fagot proposed a generalized family of coefficients of relational agreement for multiple judges, focusing on the concept of empirically meaningful relationships. In this paper an ordinal coefficient of relational agreement, based on ranking data, is presented as a special case of the generalized family. It is shown that the proposed ordinal coefficient encompasses other ordinal coefficients, such as the Kendall coefficient of concordance, the average Spearman rank-order coefficient, and intraclass correlation based on ranks. It is also shown that the Kendall coefficient of concordance, corrected for chance agreement, is equivalent to the ordinal coefficient proposed in this paper.     

The effects of instructions and calculation procedures on observers' accuracy, agreement, and calculation correctness

Although the quality of observational data is generally evaluated by observer agreement, measures of both observer agreement and accuracy were available in the present study. Videotapes with a criterion protocol were coded by 16 observers. All observers calculated agreement scores both on their own and their partner's data and on a contrived data set misrepresented as data collected by other observers. Compared with agreement scores calculated by the experimenter, observers erroneously inflated their own agreement scores and deflated the agreement scores on the contrived data. Half of the observers (n = 8) had been given instructions emphasizing the importance of accuracy during observation while the other half had been given instructions emphasizing interobserver agreement. Accuracy exceeded agreement for the former group, whereas agreement exceeded accuracy for the latter group. The implications are that agreement should be calculated by the experimenter and that the accuracy-agreement relationship can be altered by differential observer instructions.