A note on the asymptotic variance-covariance matrix of item parameter estimates in the rasch model

Lord and Wingersky have developed a method for computing the asymptotic variance-covariance matrix of maximum likelihood estimates for item and person parameters under some restrictions on the estimates which are needed in order to fix the latent scale. The method is tedious, but can be simplified for the Rasch model when one is only interested in the item parameters. This is demonstrated here under a suitable restriction on the item parameter estimates.     

Toward an empirically based parameter selection for time-sampling observation systems

The measurement error of time-sampling observation systems, used to estimate the frequencyof behavioral events, was analyzed by means of a five-factor design, computer simulation experiment. The first three factors represented response parameters: the relative frequency and duration of the behavior and the pattern of response distribution. For each combination of frequency, pattern, and duration, five simulated behavior events were generated within a simulated observation period of 900 sec. A total of 21 different time-sampling systems was employed. As a fourth factor three different observe and record lengths were included (6, 12, and 60 sec). In addition, there were seven different ratios of “observe” to “record” interval length (5∶1, 3∶1, 2∶1, 1∶1, 1∶2, 1∶3, and 1∶5) representing the fifth factor. Thus, 21 time-sampling systems scanned a total of 120 different behavior simulations from 24 types of behavior parameter combinations. The data were analyzed by means of a five-factor (2 × 3 × 4 × 3 × 7) analysis of variance with repeated measures on two factors. The study demonstrated that time sampling leads to high average measurement errors, which are determined by complex interrelationships among a variety of variables. Choosing a time-sampling system arbitrarily may lead to highly erroneous data. It was also shown, however, that time-sampling systems have the potential to yield very accurate results. An empirical selection procedure for time-sampling intervals is proposed to minimize measurement error. Exemplary tables are presented from which time-sampling parameters can be chosen given that the rate, duration, and pattern of occurrence of a behavior to be observed are known.     

Commission errors of active intentions: the roles of aging,cognitive load,and practice

Performing an intended action when it needs to be withheld, for example, when temporarily prescribed medication is incompatible with the other medication, is referred to as commission errors of prospective memory (PM). While recent research indicates that older adults are especially prone to commission errors for finished intentions, there is a lack of research on the effects of aging on commission errors for still active intentions. The present research investigates conditions which might contribute to older adults’ propensity to perform planned intentions under inappropriate conditions. Specifically, disproportionally higher rates of commission errors for still active intentions were observed in older than in younger adults with both salient (Experiment 1) and non-salient (Experiment 2) target cues. Practicing the PM task in Experiment 2, however, helped execution of the intended action in terms of higher PM performance at faster ongoing-task response times but did not increase the rate of commission errors. The results have important implications for the understanding of older adults’ PM commission errors and the processes involved in these errors.     

Age effects shrink when motor learning is predominantly supported by nondeclarative,automatic memory processes: Evidence from golf putting

Can motor learning be equivalent in younger and older adults? To address this question, 48 younger (M?=?23.5 years) and 48 older (M?=?65.0 years) participants learned to perform a golf-putting task in two different motor learning situations: one that resulted in infrequent errors or one that resulted in frequent errors. The results demonstrated that infrequent-error learning predominantly relied on nondeclarative, automatic memory processes whereas frequent-error learning predominantly relied on declarative, effortful memory processes: After learning, infrequent-error learners verbalized fewer strategies than frequent-error learners; at transfer, a concurrent, attention-demanding secondary task (tone counting) left motor performance of infrequent-error learners unaffected but impaired that of frequent-error learners. The results showed age-equivalent motor performance in infrequent-error learning but age deficits in frequent-error learning. Motor performance of frequent-error learners required more attention with age, as evidenced by an age deficit on the attention-demanding secondary task. The disappearance of age effects when nondeclarative, automatic memory processes predominated suggests that these processes are preserved with age and are available even early in motor learning.     

Advances in experimental psychopatholinguistics: What can we learn from simulation of disorder-like symptoms in human volunteers?

For more than a century, work on patients with acquired or developmental language disorders has informed psycholinguistic models of normal linguistic processing in healthy persons. On the other hand, such models of healthy language processing have been used as blue-prints to gain further insights into the impairments of patients with language pathologies. Against the exemplary background of language production, the first part of this paper reflects this relationship and formulates a desideratum for naturalistic albeit controlled experimental settings. Two recent examples of behavioural and neurofunctional research are presented in which aphasia-like speech symptoms were elicited in healthy control subjects. In the second part, this idea to investigate disorder-like symptoms which are being experimentally induced for the course of the study is further pursued in the field of reading and dyslexia research. Here, it is argued, again on the basis of behavioural and neurofunctional data, that such an approach is advantageous in at least two respects:1. It allows a much more stringent control of experimental factors and confounds than could be potentially achieved in a clinical setting.2. It allows in-extenso piloting of experiments with healthy volunteers before actually recruiting selected (and sometimes rare) patients.It will be concluded that the experimental simulation of disorder-like symptoms in easily accessible healthy volunteers may be a useful approach to understand novel aspects of a language disorder on the basis of a human neurocognitive model of this disorder.     

Competencia conceptual y de procedimiento: comprensión de la propiedad conmutativa de la adición y estrategias de solución

Resumen

En esta investigación se analizan los factores implicados en la adquisición de la estrategia aditiva de contar desde el sumando mayor y su relación con el conocimiento de la propiedad conmutativa de la suma. Tres grupos de niños con edades comprendidas entre los 5 y los 8 años resuelven tres tareas (resolver sumas, comparar sumas y encontrar el sumando desconocido), en dos condiciones experimentales (presencia/ausencia del resultado) y con cuatro tipos de sumandos (1 + N; círculos + guarismos; hechos numéricos; y hechos numéricos superiores a la decena). En general, los resultados muestran que los factores grupo, tarea, presencia/ausencia del resultado y tipo de sumandos influyen en el rendimiento de los niños. Asimismo, el análisis de las estrategias y errores nos ha permitido constatar la existencia de diferencias evolutivas entre los grupos. Por último, nuestros datos ponen de manifiesto que las estrategias aditivas de contar desde el mayor se acompañan de un cierto éxito en las tareas de conmutatividad y que el fracaso en la tarea de sumar no implica fracaso igualmente en las tareas de conmutatividad.     

Accountability and ideology: When left looks right and right looks left

Managers face hard choices between process and outcome systems of accountability in evaluating employees, but little is known about how managers resolve them. Building on the premise that political ideologies serve as uncertainty-reducing heuristics, two studies of working managers show that: (1) conservatives prefer outcome accountability and liberals prefer process accountability in an unspecified policy domain; (2) this split becomes more pronounced in a controversial domain (public schools) in which the foreground value is educational efficiency but reverses direction in a controversial domain (affirmative action) in which the foreground value is demographic equality; (3) managers who discover employees have subverted their preferred system favor tinkering over switching to an alternative system; (4) but bipartisan consensus arises when managers have clear evidence about employee trustworthiness and the tightness of the causal links between employee effort and success. These findings shed light on ideological and contextual factors that shape preferences for accountability systems.     

An Empirical Study of the Production of Affectively Toned Items

(Masserman, J. H. Principles of Dynamic Psychiatry. Philadelphia: Saunders, 1946. Pp. 322.) Reviewed by C. H. Patterson.     

To err again is human: exploring a bidirectional relationship between pressure and performance failure feedback

ABSTRACT

Background and Objectives: While the potentially negative effects of pressure on skilled performance have been well studied in laboratory-based research, theoretically driven questions based on real-world performance data are lacking.

Design: We aimed to test the predictions of the newly developed Attentional Control Theory: Sport (ACTS), using archived play-by-play data from the past seven seasons of the National Football League (American Football).

Methods: An additive scoring system was developed to characterize the degree of pressure on 212,356 individual offensive plays and a Bayesian regression model was used to test the relationship between performance, pressure and preceding negative outcomes, as outlined in ACTS.

Results: There was found to be a clear increase in the incidence of failures on high pressure plays (odds ratio?=?1.20), and on plays immediately following a previous play failure (odds ratio?=?1.09). Additionally, a combined interactive effect of previous failure and pressure indicated that the feedback effect of negative outcomes was greater when pressure was already high (odds ratio?=?1.10), in line with the predictions of ACTS.

Conclusions: These findings reveal the importance of exploring momentary changes in pressure in real-world sport settings, and the role of failure feedback in influencing the pressure-performance relationship.     

Exploring the Association between Aggression and Anxiety in Youth: A Look at Aggressive Subtypes,Gender, and Social Cognition

We examined the associations among dimensions of aggression and anxiety disorder symptoms in an ethnically diverse community sample of youth (N = 83; 46% female). Research supports the existence of four aggressive subtypes (i.e., reactive overt, reactive relational, proactive overt, and proactive relational), and past research has found associations between relational aggression and anxiety, as well as between reactive aggression and anxiety. However, past studies have not examined the associations among anxiety symptoms and the combined subtypes of aggression mentioned above. Results of our study provided support for an association between anxiety and reactive relational aggression. In addition, gender was found to moderate the association, in that males with high anxiety showed higher levels of reactive relational aggression than males with low anxiety and girls. Further, we found that socially based negative cognitive errors mediated the association between reactive relational aggression and anxiety. Results are discussed in terms of clarifying gender differences in aggression, treatment implications, and the need for longitudinal studies to delineate the temporal associations between aggression and anxiety.