Asymmetries in the processing of emotionally valenced words

Earlier research has shown a valence dependent encoding asymmetry of emotional words (e.g., Pratto & John, 1991; White, 1996; Stenberg, Wiking & Dahl, 1998). To further study this asymmetry, two word detection experiments were performed based on the following hypothesis: when there is a more thoroughly processing of the valence, in this case a valence categorisation, there will be, in a subsequent task, prolonged latencies for negative words, compared to positive words. The result gave significantly prolonged response latencies for negative words compared to positive ones in the subsequent detection task when using an affective orienting task, something not found using a non-affective orienting task. The results support the Mobilization-Minimization hypothesis (Taylor, 1991), according to which negative events and stimuli occupy more cognitive resources, but with some limitation: the affective asymmetry, with prolonged latencies for negative words, occurs only when there is a deepened encoding of the affective component of the words.     

语言理解的体验观

随着体验哲学和体验认知的蓬勃发展,在语言理解中出现了强调经验作用的新观点,这就是语言理解的体验观。其基本观点是语言根植于知觉和运动,语言理解就是对语言所描述的情境建构心理模拟。这种模拟是以理解者的身体的、情绪的和社会的经验为基础的,因此语言理解实质上是对语言所指代的情境的心理上的经验重演。在语言理解的体验观中,索引假设、浸入式经历者框架和语言的神经理论具有一定的代表性     

Language Acquisition is Language Change

According to the theory of Universal Grammar, the primary linguistic data guides children through an innately specified space of hypotheses. On this view, similarities between child-English and adult-German are as unsurprising as similarities between cousins who have never met. By contrast, experience-based approaches to language acquisition contend that child language matches the input, with nonadult forms being simply less articulated versions of the forms produced by adults. This paper reports several studies that provide support for the theory of Universal grammar, and resist explanation on experience-based accounts. Two studies investigate English-speaking children’s productions, and a third examines the interpretation of sentences by Japanese speaking children. When considered against the input children are exposed to, the findings of these and other studies are consistent with the continuity hypothesis, which supposes that child language can differ from the language spoken by adults only in ways that adult languages can differ from each other.     

A comparison of autogenous/reactive obsessions and worry in a nonclinical population: a test of the continuum hypothesis

Employing the autogenous-reactive model of obsessions (Behaviour Research and Therapy 41 (2003) 11-29), this study sought to test a hypothesized continuum where reactive obsessions fall in between autogenous obsessions and worry with respect to several thought characteristics concerning content appraisal, perceived form, and thought triggers. Nonclinical undergraduate students (n=435) were administered an online packet of questionnaires designed to examine the three different types of thoughts. Main data analyses included only those displaying moderate levels of obsessions or worries (n=252). According to the most distressing thought, three different groups were formed and compared: autogenous obsession (n=34), reactive obsession (n=76), and worry (n=142). Results revealed that (a) relative to worry, autogenous obsessions were perceived as more bizarre, more unacceptable, more unrealistic, and less likely to occur; (b) autogenous obsessions were more likely to take the form of impulses, urges, or images, whereas worry was more likely to take the form of doubts, apprehensions, or thoughts; and (c) worry was more characterized by awareness and identifiability of thought triggers, with reactive obsessions through these comparisons falling in between. Moreover, reactive obsessions, relative to autogenous obsessions, were more strongly associated with both severity of worry and use of worrying as a thought control strategy. Our data suggest that the reactive subtype represents more worry-like obsessions compared to the autogenous subtype.     

Interface Problems: Structural Constraints on Interpretation?

Five experiments investigated the interpretation of quantified noun phrases in relation to discourse structure. They demonstrated, using questionnaire and on-line reading techniques, that readers in English prefer to give a quantified noun phrase in (VP-external) subject position a presuppositional interpretation, in which the noun phrase limits or restricts the interpretation of an already available set, rather than giving it a nonpresuppositional or existential interpretation, in which it introduces completely new entities into the discourse. Experiment 1 showed that readers prefer a presuppositional interpretation of three ships over the existential interpretation in Five ships appeared on the horizon. Three ships sank. Experiment 2 showed longer reading times in sentences that are disambiguated toward the existential interpretation than in sentences that permit the presuppositional interpretation. Experiment 3 suggested that the presuppositional preference is greater when the phrase three ships occurs outside the verb phrase than when it occurs inside the verb phrase. Experiment 4 showed that Korean subjects marked with a topic marker received more presuppositional interpretations than subjects marked with a nominative marker. Experiment 5 showed that German subjects in VP-external (but nontopic) position received more presuppositional interpretations than VP-internal subjects. The results suggest the syntactic position of a phrase is one determinant of its interpretation, as expected according to the mapping hypothesis of Diesing (1992).This research was supported in part by grants HD-18708 and HD-17246 to the University of Massachusetts. Rayner was also supported by a Research Scientist Award (MH01255).     

Causing Students to Choose More Language Arts Work: Enhancing the Validity of the Additive Interspersal Procedure

Research on the additive interspersal procedure was extended by exposing seventh-grade students to curricula-based (e.g., educationally valid) language arts assignments. In Experiment I, each student was given a control language arts assignment containing 20 discrete target items and an experimental assignment containing 24 equivalent target items, plus eight interspersed briefer items. After working on both assignments for 10 minutes, significantly more students chose a new experimental assignment for homework. Individual analysis showed that 85% of the students preferred or chose the assignment associated with higher discrete task completion rates. In Experiment II, students completed both assignments. Results extended previous research by showing that even after expending more effort to complete the 20% more target items plus the additional interspersed items on the experimental assignments, significantly more students chose an experimental assignment for homework. Applied and theoretical implications are discussed along with limitations of the current study and directions for future research.     

Behavior change after context disruption: Opportunities and pitfalls

Many behaviors are performed automatically in response to contextual cues rather than conscious intentions, which can make behavior change challenging. The combined discontinuity and self-activation hypotheses predict that disruption to a context that cues behaviors can provide opportunity for behavior change guided by intentions rather than contextual cues. In this study, we asked an online sample of participants (N = 452) to report on desired change in the frequency of new, unwanted, or potentially habitual behaviors following a contextual disruption due to the COVID-19 pandemic. We find a distinction between new ‘start’ behaviors and unwanted ‘stop’ behaviors where new behaviors appear more personally meaningful (i.e. higher in autonomous motivation and positive affective attitude) than unwanted or potentially habitual behaviors. Our results suggest that behavior change theory and interventions that acknowledge differential processes between starting new behaviors and stopping old unwanted behaviors would provide greater insights for behavior science.     

Effects of prior knowledge and response bias upon recognition memory for a story: Implications for children's eyewitness testimony

Abstract: The present study was designed to evaluate the integration hypothesis and the response bias hypothesis for explaining the fragility of children's eyewitness memory, by varying the plausibility of postevent information and the strength of response bias in recognition tests. Preschool children were told a story in which a boy named Ken saw a housebreaker stealing various objects and the postevent information was also incorporated into the story. The first recognition test was administered immediately following the presentation of an interpolated story, and the second recognition test was administered 10 weeks later. The results indicated that high-plausibility objects tended to be recognized as the stolen objects in the second recognition test, and that recognition accuracy was higher for a new-distractor condition than for a misleading-distractor condition. These findings were interpreted as suggesting that the memory representation of the story might be changed through the integration processes and/or rendered inaccessible in terms of the response bias.     

Choice with uncertain outcomes: conditioned reinforcement effects.

Pigeons responded on concurrent chains with equal initial- and terminal-link durations. In all conditions, the terminal links of one chain ended reliably in reinforcement; the terminal links on the alternative chain ended in either food or blackout. In Experiment 1, the terminal-link stimuli were correlated with (signaled) the outcome, and the durations of the initial and terminal links were varied across conditions. Preference did not vary systematically across conditions. In Experiment 2, terminal-link durations were varied under different stimulus conditions. The initial links were variable-interval 80-s schedules. Preference for the reliable alternative was generally higher in unsignaled than in signaled conditions. Preference increased with terminal-link durations only in the unsignaled conditions. There were no consistent differences between conditions with and without a common signal for reinforcement on the two chains. In the first series of conditions in Experiment 3, a single response was required in the initial links, and the stimulus conditions during 50-s terminal links were varied. Preference for the reliable outcome approached 1.0 in unsignaled conditions and was considerably lower (below .50 for 3 of 5 subjects) in signaled conditions. In a final series of signaled conditions with relatively long terminal links, preference varied with duration of the initial links. The results extend previous findings and are discussed in terms of the delay reduction signaled by terminal-link stimuli.