Orienting numbers in mental space: Horizontal organization trumps vertical

While research on the spatial representation of number has provided substantial evidence for a horizontally oriented mental number line, recent studies suggest vertical organization as well. Directly comparing the relative strength of horizontal and vertical organization, however, we found no evidence of spontaneous vertical orientation (upward or downward), and horizontal trumped vertical when pitted against each other (Experiment 1). Only when numbers were conceptualized as magnitudes (as opposed to nonmagnitude ordinal sequences) did reliable vertical organization emerge, with upward orientation preferred (Experiment 2). Altogether, these findings suggest that horizontal representations predominate, and that vertical representations, when elicited, may be relatively inflexible. Implications for spatial organization beyond number, and its ontogenetic basis, are discussed.     

Priming effects of arithmetic signs in 10- to 15-year-old children

In this research, 10- to 12- and 13- to 15-year-old children were presented with very simple addition and multiplication problems involving operands from 1 to 4. Critically, the arithmetic sign was presented before the operands in half of the trials, whereas it was presented at the same time as the operands in the other half. Our results indicate that presenting the ‘x’ sign before the operands of a multiplication problem does not speed up the solving process, irrespective of the age of children. In contrast, presenting the ‘+’ sign before the operands of an addition problem facilitates the solving process, but only in 13 to 15-year-old children. Such priming effects of the arithmetic sign have been previously interpreted as the result of a pre-activation of an automated counting procedure, which can be applied as soon as the operands are presented. Therefore, our results echo previous conclusions of the literature that simple additions but not multiplications can be solved by fast counting procedures. More importantly, we show here that these procedures are possibly convoked automatically by children after the age of 13 years. At a more theoretical level, our results do not support the theory that simple additions are solved through retrieval of the answers from long-term memory by experts. Rather, the development of expertise for mental addition would consist in an acceleration of procedures until automatization.     

Caught on camera: Cross-race interactions captured in daily life

The present study examined the prevalence of cross-race interactions occurring in daily life using wearable camera technology that captures photographs of a participants’ immediate environment and social interactions. Coders used appearance-based cues to identify the number of interaction partners captured in the photos who appeared to be White or a racial minority. We found that 29.6% of Whites’ social interactions were with racial minorities and 23.9% of racial minorities’ social interactions were with Whites. Furthermore, we examined whether personality and other individual differences correlated with being captured in more cross-race interactions. We found that Whites who used more emotion-focused coping and less emotional suppression were more likely to be captured engaging in cross-race interactions.     

社会网络分析在心理研究中的应用

个体不是孤立存在的, 其心理与行为的变化常依赖于与他人存在的关系。社会网络分析正是考虑到了这种依赖性, 发展出相应的处理关系变量的方法。在介绍社会网络理论的中心思想、社会网络分析的基本概念、数据表示方法和研究方法以及在个体水平和关系水平上的静态统计模型后, 使用UCINET软件展现了处理关系数据的基本步骤, 并简述社会网络分析在人格心理学、发展与教育心理学和管理心理学中的应用。     

Functional analysis of aberrant behavior through measurement of separate response topographies

Functional analysis results for multiple topographies of aberrant behavior were graphed in an aggregate fashion and then separately for 48 clients. The results indicated that multiple topographies of behavior may be maintained by different contingencies. These results indicate that graphing functional analysis data in an aggregate fashion and then separately may improve the accuracy of their interpretation.     

Bayesian factor analysis for multilevel binary observations

Multilevel covariance structure models have become increasingly popular in the psychometric literature in the past few years to account for population heterogeneity and complex study designs. We develop practical simulation based procedures for Bayesian inference of multilevel binary factor analysis models. We illustrate how Markov Chain Monte Carlo procedures such as Gibbs sampling and Metropolis-Hastings methods can be used to perform Bayesian inference, model checking and model comparison without the need for multidimensional numerical integration. We illustrate the proposed estimation methods using three simulation studies and an application involving student's achievement results in different areas of mathematics. The authors thank Ian Westbury, University of Illinois at Urbana Champaign for kindly providing the SIMS data for the application.     

文本阅读中数量比较信息整合的过程与内容

引入数量比较信息,采用移动窗口阅读技术对文本阅读中推理的过程与内容进行研究。实验1探讨当文本阅读中存在数量比较信息时,是否能够进行即时整合,实验2和实验3分别探讨了数量比较信息即时整合的过程与内容。结果发现:当文本阅读中存在数量比较信息时,读者能够进行即时的信息整合,这种整合是自下而上的,支持记忆基础文本加工理论,如果时间足够,这种整合能够达到量化程度。