Does matching up features mess up job choice? Boundary conditions on attribute‐salience effects

Research in decision making has suggested that the degree to which features of an option are shared versus unique influences preferences in a way that violates normative rules. The generalizability of these findings to job choice was investigated. Senior‐level, undergraduate job seekers (N = 216) were presented with three jobs from which they were asked to choose one. Attributes for two of the jobs (A and B) remained invariant across conditions, and attributes for a third job (C) were manipulated such that it shared unfavorable features with one of the invariant jobs (A or B) and favorable attributes with the other job (B or A). Results suggested that jobs with unique positive features and shared negative features were preferred over those with unique negative features and shared positive features only when information was presented in a simple (versus complex) format and when participants did not rate the importance of attributes prior to the choice task. We suggest that inferences from feature‐matching research should be qualified by these boundary conditions. Copyright © 2002 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

错误信息特征对学科领域知识丰富性不同学生学习的错误监控之影响

采用Go/No-Go范式,26名中学生参与实验。考察在基于主体错误反应和基于客体错误信息两类错误监控条件下,学科领域知识教学实验组和对照组对不同类型错误信息监控的脑电成分。结果显示,(1) 错误反应监控条件下,实验组对要义特征的错误反应诱发的ERN较字面特征的更负,而对照组则相反。(2) 错误信息监控条件下,两组学生均表现出监控字面特征错误诱发的ERN波幅较监控要义特征错误的更大。(3) 两种监控条件均表现出实验组产生的ERN波形较对照组的更负。表明：虽然两类监控条件均能诱发明显的ERN,但其影响因素并不相同：基于主体错误反应的监控主要受个体对其错误加工深度的影响;基于客体错误信息的监控则受错误信息的清晰性影响。     

比较应用题解题过程的眼动研究

采用2×2×4三因素混合实验设计,使用美国应用科学实验室(ASL)生产的504型台式眼动仪,对不同年级学生解比较应用题过程中的解题指标和眼动指标进行分析。结果表明:随着年级的增高,学生解题过程中的各种眼动指标之间的差异逐渐缩小;解题时数学成绩优生与差生的眼动模式差异显著,解一致性不同题目时的眼动指标差异显著。     

Sensitivity to general and specific numerical features in typical achievers and children with mathematics learning disability

We examined the development of sensitivity to general and specific numerical features in typical achievers and in 6th and 8th graders with mathematics learning disability (MLD), using two effects in mental multiplication: operand-relatedness (i.e., difficulty in avoiding errors that are related to the operands via a shared multiplication row) and decade-consistency (i.e., difficulty in avoiding errors that are operand related and also share a decade with the true result). Responses to decade-consistent products were quick but erroneous. In line with the processing sequence in adults, children first became sensitive to the general numerical feature of operand-relatedness (typical achievers—from 3rd grade; children with MLD in 8th grade) and only later to the specific feature of decade-consistency (typical achievers—from 4th grade, but only from 6th grade in a mature pattern). Implications of the numerical sensitivity in children with MLD are discussed.     

The role of surface discontinuity and shape in 4-month-old infants' object segregation

This research examined whether 4-month-old infants use a discontinuity in an object's front surface to visually segregate a display into two separate objects, and whether object shape enables its use. In Experiment 1, infants saw a three-dimensional display composed of two parts with distinctly different shapes. Two groups of infants saw a display in which these two shapes were divided by a visible discontinuity in the front surface (i.e., a boundary between the two objects). One of these groups saw the display move apart at the discontinuity when a gloved hand pulled one object; the second group saw the two objects move together as a single unit. A third group saw a modified version of this display that had no discontinuity present. The results suggested that infants regarded the discontinuity as an indication that the display could be composed of more than one object. In Experiment 2, infants saw the same display, but with a shape that did not highlight the discontinuity. The infants in this study showed no evidence of using the discontinuity. Together, the findings suggest that 4-month-old infants use the surface discontinuity between two objects as an indication that multiple objects could be present in a display, but only when scanning the outer edges of the display leads them to attend to it.     

What can megastudies tell us about the orthographic structure of English words?

Although the majority of research in visual word recognition has targeted single-syllable words, most words are polysyllabic. These words engender special challenges, one of which concerns their analysis into smaller units. According to a recent hypothesis, the organization of letters into groups of successive consonants (C) and vowels (V) constrains the orthographic structure of printed words. So far, evidence has been reported only in French with factorial studies of relatively small sets of items. In the present study, we performed regression analyses on corpora of megastudies (English and British Lexicon Project databases) to examine the influence of the CV pattern in English. We compared hiatus words, which present a mismatch between the number of syllables and the number of groups of adjacent vowel letters (e.g., client), to other words, controlling for standard lexical variables. In speeded pronunciation, hiatus words were processed more slowly than control words, and the effect was stronger in low-frequency words. In the lexical decision task, the interference effect of hiatus in low-frequency words was balanced by a facilitatory effect in high-frequency words. Taken together, the results support the hypothesis that the configuration of consonant and vowel letters influences the processing of polysyllabic words in English.     

小议中国特色词汇的英译

汉语词汇蕴藏着丰富的文化沉淀,带有浓烈的民族特色,明显地反映中国文化及政治各个方面的实体特征,体现了中国文化起源及其精神。但在国际大趋势下,具有中国特色的词汇和表达由于在西方文化中找不到对等而成为汉英翻译中的一大难题,很多中国特色词汇的翻译也不尽如人意。本文重点研究了中国特色词语特点,通过对大量例子的分析,提出了一些针对中国特有词汇及表达的翻译方法。     

Integration of internal and external facial features in 8- to 10-year-old children and adults

Investigation of whole-part and composite effects in 4- to 6-year-old children gave rise to claims that face perception is fully mature within the first decade of life (Crookes & McKone, 2009). However, only internal features were tested, and the role of external features was not addressed, although external features are highly relevant for holistic face perception (Sinha & Poggio, 1996; Axelrod & Yovel, 2010, 2011). In this study, 8- to 10-year-old children and adults performed a same–different matching task with faces and watches. In this task participants attended to either internal or external features. Holistic face perception was tested using a congruency paradigm, in which face and non-face stimuli either agreed or disagreed in both features (congruent contexts) or just in the attended ones (incongruent contexts). In both age groups, pronounced context congruency and inversion effects were found for faces, but not for watches. These findings indicate holistic feature integration for faces. While inversion effects were highly similar in both age groups, context congruency effects were stronger for children. Moreover, children's face matching performance was generally better when attending to external compared to internal features. Adults tended to perform better when attending to internal features. Our results indicate that both adults and 8- to 10-year-old children integrate external and internal facial features into holistic face representations. However, in children's face representations external features are much more relevant. These findings suggest that face perception is holistic but still not adult-like at the end of the first decade of life.     

A cross‐cultural comparison of verbal learning and memory functions in reading disabled American and Norwegian adolescents

The present study reports the results of a cross‐cultural analysis of the role of phonetic and semantic cues in verbal learning and memory. A newly developed memory test procedure, the Bergen‐Tucson Verbal Learning Test (BTVLT), expands earlier test procedures as phonetic cues are applied in addition to semantic cues in a cued recall procedure. Samples of reading disabled and typically developed adolescents from the US and from Norway were recruited as voluntary participants. The results indicate that the stimulus materials chosen for the memory test are working well in both American and in Norwegian samples, yielding acquisition results comparable to similar list learning procedures, and also yielding high internal consistency across learning trials. The procedure also reliably differentiates between reading disabled samples in both languages, and also yields cross‐cultural differences that seem to reflect differences in transparency and differences in the orthography of the included languages. The BTVLT with its focus on phonetic coding is a promising supplement to established tests of verbal memory for assessment of reading and language impaired individuals.     

Facial width-to-height ratio and celebrity endorsements

This study hypothesized that the facial WHR of celebrity endorsers is associated with their endorsement income. Our sample consisted of the top 100 male and female celebrity endorsers (male = 50 and female = 50) in Seoul. The average annual total endorsement income of celebrity endorsers in 2012 was $1,691,924 for male endorsers and $1,684,474 for female endorsers. A statistical analysis demonstrated a significant negative correlation between celebrity endorsers’ facial WHR and their endorsement income in 2012 among male (r = −.390, p = .007, n = 47) but not among female (r = .166, p = . 248, n = 50) endorsers. Our findings imply that males with narrower faces are more popular among the media as well as among advertisers. Our study is the first to explore the relationship between physical features, such as facial WHR and monetary income in the entertainment industry.