An eye movement analysis of "mental rotation" of simple scenes

Participants saw a standard scene of three objects on a desktop and then judged whether a comparison scene was either the same, except for the viewpoint of the scene, or different, when one or more of the objects either exchanged places or were rotated around their center. As in Nakatani, Pollatsek, and Johnson (2002), judgment times were longer when the rotation angles of the comparison scene increased, and the size of the rotation effect varied for different axes and was larger for same judgments than for different judgments. A second experiment, which included trials without the desktop, indicated that removing the desktop frame of reference mainly affected the y-axis rotation conditions (the axis going vertically through the desktop plane). In addition, eye movement analyses indicated that the process was far more than a simple analogue rotation of the standard scene. The total response latency was divided into three components: the initial eye movement latency, the first-pass time, and the second-pass time. The only indication of a rotation effect in the time to execute the first two components was for z-axis (plane of sight) rotations. Thus, for x- and y-axis rotations, rotation effects occurred only in the probability of there being a second pass and the time to execute it. The data are inconsistent either with an initial rotation of the memory representation of the standard scene to the orientation of the comparison scene or with a holistic alignment of the comparison scene prior to comparing it with the memory representation of the standard scene. Indeed, the eye movement analysis suggests that little of the increased response time for rotated comparison scenes is due to something like a time-consuming analogue process but is, instead, due to more comparisons on individual objects being made (possibly more double checking).     

Visual Creativity Across Cultures: A Comparison Between Italians and Japanese

Culture-related differences in visual creativity were investigated, comparing Italian and Japanese participants in terms of divergent (figural completion task) and product-oriented thinking (figural combination task). Visual restructuring ability was measured as the ability to reinterpret ambiguous figures and was included as a covariate. Results showed that in divergent thinking, Italians only outperformed Japanese participants in elaboration and in product-oriented thinking in terms of originality of products. Visual restructuring ability was found to play a key role both in originality and practicality of products. Both groups scored the same in terms of fluency, originality, and flexibility of visual divergent thinking, as well as in term of practicality of creative products. These findings are consistent with the idea that Italians and Japanese have the same creative potential, although from the early stages of the design Japanese seem to show a greater tendency to take practicality constraints into account when creating in the visual domain.     

Further psychometric evaluation of the Japanese version of an academic self-concept scale

In the present study, the author replicated earlier research (Paik & Michael, 1999) seeking additional information on the reliability and construct validity of a Japanese academic self-concept scale, a 70-item questionnaire comprising 5 subscales (Aspiration, Anxiety, Academic Interest and Satisfaction, Leadership and Initiative, and Identification vs. Alienation). A sample of 196 Japanese high school students completed the scale. Internal consistency reliability for the 5 subscales ranged from .75 to .87. Confirmatory factor analyses performed on several alternative models showed that the a priori 5-factor model fit the observed data best-a finding consistent with the previous study. Results of Z tests revealed statistically significant score differences between genders and between high and low academic achievers.     

Development and Psychometric Evaluation of an Item Bank for Computerized Adaptive Testing of the EORTC Insomnia Dimension in Cancer Patients (EORTC CAT-SL)

To further advance assessment of patient-reported outcomes, the European Organisation of Research and Treatment of Cancer (EORTC) Quality of Life Group has developed computerized adaptive test (CAT) versions of all EORTC Quality of Life Core Questionnaire (QLQ-C30) scales/items. The aim of this study was to develop and evaluate an item bank for CAT measurement of insomnia (CAT-SL). In line with the EORTC guidelines, the developmental process comprised four phases: (I) defining the concept insomnia and literature search, (II) selection and formulation of new items, (III) pre-testing and (IV) field-testing, including psychometric analyses of the final item bank. In phase I, the literature search identified 155 items that were compatible with our conceptualisation of insomnia, including both quantity and quality of sleep. In phase II, following a multistep-approach, this number was reduced to 15 candidate items. Pre-testing of these items in cancer patients (phase III) resulted in an item list of 14 items, which were field-tested among 1094 patients in phase IV. Psychometric evaluations showed that eight items could be retained in a unidimensional model. The final item bank yielded greater measurement precision than the original QLQ-C30 insomnia item. It was estimated that administering two or more items from the insomnia item bank with CAT results in a saving in sample size between approximately 15–25%. The 8-item EORTC CAT-SL item bank facilitates precise and efficient measurement of insomnia as part of the EORTC CAT system of health-related quality life assessment in both clinical research and practice.

     

The Legend of the White Snake: A Personal Amplification

As a cultural myth the Legend of the White Snake could be a commentary on the historical and social conditions of China during the time of the Song Dynasty (907–1276 A.D.). The battle between the snake goddess and the monk evokes empathy for the indomitable spirit of the feminine principle, which was subdued but not destroyed. Furthermore, the legend is connected to a revitalization of the very ancient creation myth of the goddess Nuwa, who was half woman and half snake.

Parallel to the collective myth is the significance of the snake image in the writer's personal story. The snake, both in the writer's dreams and synchronistic experiences, was crucial in supporting her psychological development, especially in her struggles with the negative mother complex and her creative process.

The new China of the 21st century has a renewed interest in the white snake legend, except now the story is being tailored by the ruling power to maximize its impact on collective thinking.     

Further Psychometric Evaluation of the Japanese Version of an Academic Self-Concept Scale

In the present study, the author replicated earlier research (Paik & Michael, 1999) seeking additional information on the reliability and construct validity of a Japanese academic self-concept scale, a 70-item questionnaire comprising S subscales (Aspiration, Anxiety, Academic Interest and Satisfaction, Leadership and Initiative, and Identification vs. Alienation). A sample of 1% Japanese high school students completed the scale. Internal consistency reliability for the S subscales ranged from .75 to .87. Confirmatory factor analyses performed on several alternative models showed that the a priori 5-factor model fit the observed data best—a finding consistent with the previous study. Results of Z tests revealed statistically significant score differences between genders and between high and low academic achievers.     

Human figure drawing size and body image in preschool children from a self-physique perspective

To learn about the relationship between size of human figure drawings and the physiques of children, we investigated body image characteristics in childhood by using the Human Figure Drawing test. Height, weight, Kaup Index (a body mass index for children) and Human Figure Drawing traits (vertical height, horizontal width, waist size, surface area of head, surface area of the self-drawing) were measured for drawings of 122 4- to 6-yr.-old children (62 boys, 60 girls). Analysis showed that boys, who are physically larger than girls, produced self-drawings with somewhat larger surface areas. For vertical height of self-drawings of boys, 4-yr.-olds characteristically made taller self-drawings than 5-yr.-olds. While we hypothesized that taller children would make vertically taller self-drawings, we observed a negative relationship between children's physical height and the vertical height of the self-drawings. 4-yr.-old boys showed the most interest in their own physical height, making taller drawings and in doing so gave a clue to an early childhood feature of body image.     

Viewpoint-dependent recognition of scenes

Three experiments investigated scene recognition across viewpoint changes, involving same/different judgements on scenes consisting of three objects on a desktop. On same trials, the comparison scene appeared either from the same viewpoint as the standard scene or from a different viewpoint with the desktop rotated about one or more axes. Different trials were created either by interchanging the locations of two or three of the objects (location change condition), or by rotating either one or all three of the objects around their vertical axes (orientation change condition). Response times and errors increased as a function of the angular distance between the standard and comparison views, but this effect was bigger for rotations around the vertical axis than for those about the line of sight or horizontal axis. Furthermore, the time to detect location changes was less than that to detect orientation changes, and this difference increased with increasing angular disparity between the standard and comparison scenes. Rotation times estimated in a double-axis rotation were no longer than other rotations in depth, indicating that alignment was not necessarily simpler around a "natural" axis of rotation. These results are consistent with the hypothesis that scenes, like many objects, may be represented in a viewpoint dependent manner and recognized by aligning standard and comparison views, but that the alignment of scenes is not a holistic process.     

Immediate use of prosody and context in predicting a syntactic structure

Numerous studies have reported an effect of prosodic information on parsing but whether prosody can impact even the initial parsing decision is still not evident. In a visual world eye-tracking experiment, we investigated the influence of contrastive intonation and visual context on processing temporarily ambiguous relative clause sentences in Japanese. Our results showed that listeners used the prosodic cue to make a structural prediction before hearing disambiguating information. Importantly, the effect was limited to cases where the visual scene provided an appropriate context for the prosodic cue, thus eliminating the explanation that listeners have simply associated marked prosodic information with a less frequent structure. Furthermore, the influence of the prosodic information was also evident following disambiguating information, in a way that reflected the initial analysis. The current study demonstrates that prosody, when provided with an appropriate context, influences the initial syntactic analysis and also the subsequent cost at disambiguating information. The results also provide first evidence for pre-head structural prediction driven by prosodic and contextual information with a head-final construction.