Semantic priming of different affective categories

The authors investigated affective semantic priming using a lexical decision task with 4 affective categories of related word pairs: neutral, happy, fearful, and sad. Results demonstrated a striking and reliable effect of affective category on semantic priming. Neutral and happy prime-targets yielded significant semantic priming. Fearful pairs showed no or modest priming facilitation, and sad primes slowed reactions to sad targets. A further experiment established that affective primes do not have generalized facilitatory-inhibitory effects. The results are interpreted as showing that the associative mechanisms that support semantic priming for neutral words are also shared by happy valence words but not for negative valence words. This may reflect increased vigilance necessary in adverse contexts or suggest that the associative mechanisms that bind negative valence words are distinct.     

Children's time production for concurrent nontemporal motor tasks

An internal clock model has often been used to explain disruptions in timing production that occur when temporal and nontemporal tasks are performed simultaneously. In this study, participants' ability to walk 8 m in 8 sec. while executing various secondary concurrent nontemporal tasks was assessed for 16 children enrolled in sports at school. Children participated in six trials under five randomized task conditions involving different coordinative and cognitive workloads. The duration of timing production increased as the attention requirements or cognitive demands placed upon the completion of the task increased. However, participants also showed learning of timing over the six trials. Significant differences were found between the timing task and the concurrent nontemporal tasks depending on the difficulty and cognitive load of the secondary tasks. Results are discussed using attention models of time estimation and production.     

Regression toward the mean or heuristic processing in detecting deception? Reply to Elaad (2010)

Masip, et al. (2009) conducted a study in which observers had to make truth-lie judgments at the beginning, middle, or end of a series of videotaped statements. They found a decline in truth judgments over time and explained this finding in terms of information processing mode. Recently, Elaad (2010) challenged this explanation and contended that the decline could be a result of regression toward the mean. In the present paper, it is argued that because Masip, et al. took multiple Moment 1 judgments over time and then averaged across judgments, regression toward the mean was extremely unlikely. Furthermore, the decrease in truth judgments was found under several separate conditions; this cannot be explained by random fluctuations alone. Finally, Masip, et al.'s data were re-analyzed adjusting for the effects of regression toward the mean. The outcomes of these analyses were the same as those reported in the original article.     

Transperformative education: Toward a new educational paradigm based on transdisciplinarity and artistic performativity

The study we are presenting in this article is based on an analysis of the critical observations of the state of the art of the prevailing educational systems today through evaluations by institutions like the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO) and the Organisation for Economic Co-Operation and Development and the logical demand for reform that they call for. As a consequence, we posit an approach to the construction of an educational paradigm based on performative education that draws from performance art, transdisciplinary methodology, and a survey of the specialized literature that frames the epistemological and methodological field of education in complex, ever-changing settings. The methodology used is a heuristic comparison in a pedagogical sense that, based on our analysis of state of the art publications from the educational system, outlines the transfer of the characteristics of performance art and transdisciplinary methodology to the model we call Transperformative Education. As a result of this model, we came up with a proposal for a deep-seated paradigmatic shift that entails everything from the modification of institutional educational policies to the ways of teaching and learning, including, of course, a major challenge: a shift in the direction of educational research.     

‘What Would You Say if You Were Guilty?’ Suspects' Strategies During a Hypothetical Behavior Analysis Interview Concerning a Serious Crime

Previous research has shown that the Behavior Analysis Interview (BAI) indicators of guilt or innocence are merely commonsense notions. In this study, we examined whether this would lead suspects of a serious crime to try to manipulate their behavior during a BAI in order to look innocent. A serious crime was described to 74 undergraduates who were asked to imagine that they were guilty or innocent. They then completed a questionnaire about the strategies that they would use during a BAI. Both guilty and innocent suspects were more willing to show the innocence rather than guilt indicators of the BAI. Innocent suspects had a blind faith in the power of innocence to demonstrate that they were not guilty. The general (non‐BAI) strategies coincided with those of previous studies; this indicates that prior findings on strategies can be generalized to serious crimes and that strategies can be examined with uncomplicated procedures such as the one used in this study. Copyright © 2012 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.