Verbal structure of numerals and digits handwriting: New evidence from kinematics

Two experiments used a digitizing tablet to analyse the temporal, spatial, and kinematic characteristics of handwritten production of arabic numbers. They addressed a specific issue of the numerical domain: Does the lexical and syntactic structure of verbal numerals influence the production of arabic numerals (Experiments 1 and 2), even after enforced semantic processing in a comparison task (Experiment 2)? Subjects had to write multi-digit arabic numerals (e.g., 1200) presented in two different verbal structures: a multiplicative one (e.g., teen-hundred, douze cents (twelve hundred)) or an additive one (e.g., thousand-unit-hundred, mille deux cents (one thousand two hundred)). Results show differences in the inter-digit jumps that reflect the influence of the structure of verbal numerals, even after the semantic task. This finding is discussed with regard to different models of number transcoding (McCloskey, Caramazza, & Basili, 1985; Power & Dal Martello, 1990, 1997).     

The Influence of Applicant Communication Style and Interviewer Characteristics on Hiring Decisions1

This study examined the influence of the gender and communication style of job applicants, as well as the gender and sex-role stereotyping of interviewers, on hiring decisions. Fifty-six personnel officers viewed videotapes of simulated employment interviews, in which male and female candidates used either aggressive, assertive, or nonassertive styles of communication. Personnel officers rated job candidates on likeability, similarity to the officers themselves, and hireability. Interviewers were most likely to employ assertive applicants, and the sex-role stereotypes of interviewers did not influence their perceptions of these candidates. Sex-role beliefs, however, did affect evaluations of aggressive and nonassertive job applicants. Interviewers who were low in sex-role stereotyping were more likely to hire a nonassertive than an aggressive candidate, while interviewers with higher levels of sex-role stereotyping were more likely to hire aggressive candidates. For assertive candidates, judgments by the interviewers of the perceived similarity of the candidate to themselves and their liking for the applicant both influenced their decision to hire the candidate. For aggressive and nonassertive candidates, however, the interviewers' liking toward the candidate mediated the relationship between perceived similarity and hiring decisions.     

Miracles and the case for theism

I would like to thank Keith Parsons for reviving my interest in this topic, and Robert McKim, Patrick Maher, Hugh Chandler, Jordan Howard Sobel, and William Alston for helpful remarks concerning previous versions of this paper.     

Multifactor measurement of bodily feelings: Conceptual development,scale construction,and empirical validation

A series of studies is described demonstrating a coherent exploratory and confirmatory factor-analytic approach to the scaling of self-reported bodily feelings. This approach attempts to optimize the orthogonality, parsimony, and meaningfulness of a multifactor inventory. Psychometric properties of the resulting 35-item Bodily Feeling Scale (BFS) are presented and its comparability with other inventories is discussed. A validity study using item-content-based scales of the Minnesota Multiphasic Personality Inventory showed both concurrent and discriminative validity of the BFS. Implications for clinical and research utility are discussed.Portions of this research were conducted while the first author was supported by a University Graduate Fellowship awarded by the Graduate School of Arts and Sciences at Vanderbilt University.Professor Nunnally passed away in August 1982. His major contributions to the several stages of this research program are recognized through coauthorship.     

New perspectives on child and adolescent depression

The Children's Depression Index (CDI) was administered to a group of 304 regular school students in Grades 3–12. It was found that 21% of the students reported mild to moderate levels and 7% reported severe levels of depression. Females reported more overall depression than did males. Specific CDI items selected more frequently by females than by males supports previous work suggesting that females tend to internalize difficulties whereas males are more likely to externalize problems. There were no age differences associated with overall depression; however, there were some developmental differences in specific items cited. Finally, “red flags” were identified that may be helpful in spotting children suffering from severe levels of depression.     

The influence of flavor preexposure and test interval on conditioned taste aversions in the rat

The effects of flavor preexposure and test interval on conditioned taste aversions were examined in four experiments. In the first three experiments, prior experience with a flavor different from that used as a conditioned-stimulus (CS) produced attenuated aversions when testing occurred after a 1-day interval but not after a 21-day interval. Preexposure to the same stimulus used as a CS produced attenuated aversions at both 1- and 21-day intervals. In Experiment 4, a delay interval between flavor preexposure and conditioning eliminated the attenuating effect of preexposure, but only when different stimuli were used for preexposure and conditioning. These data could not be easily accounted for by contemporary interpretations of preexposure as an event that interferes with subsequent acquisition of a conditioned aversion. An alternative retrieval interference hypothesis was outlined.     

Sense of purpose and food insecurity during the COVID-19 pandemic

The COVID-19 pandemic brought new attention to the issues of food insecurity faced by individuals throughout the United States, a stressor exacerbated by disruptions to work status and supply chains. The burden of food insecurity likely carries consequences for whether individuals feel capable of pursuing their broad goals and life engagements; put differently, food insecurity may pose a threat to people perceiving a sense of purpose in life. The current study tested this claim across three samples taken during 2020 (n = 2009), 2021 (n = 1666), and 2022 (n = 1975). Participants completed inventories for perceived food insecurity, sense of purpose, depressive symptoms, and anxiety, among other measures. Results found consistent negative associations between food insecurity and sense of purpose across all three samples. In addition, food insecurity moderated associations between sense of purpose and depressive or anxiety symptoms. Sense of purpose was more strongly negatively associated with depressive and anxiety symptoms for those participants who reported no food insecurity. That said, sense of purpose remained negatively associated with psychological distress even among those reporting food insecurity.     

Mapping physical characteristics in face images to social judgements

Sutherland and Young (Br. J. Psychol., 113, 2022, 1056) provide a comprehensive and timely overview of recent developments in research on social judgements of faces, emphasizing the utility of data-driven approaches. Here, we expand on this theme, focusing on how data-driven approaches can provide new insights into the physical characteristics in face images that best predict social judgements.     

A note on further experiments on the effects of meprobamate on discrimination performance in the monkey

A previous experiment (Gross and Weiskrantz, 1961) has shown that performance on a successive auditory discrimination task is impaired by injections of meprobamate. The present two brief experiments indicate that the drug also impairs simultaneous visual discrimination performance, although not to the same degree as found earlier for auditory discrimination. The original finding, therefore, cannot be attributed simply to unique features of the auditory discrimination situation, such as the “go—no-go” response contingency. Since neither overtraining nor drug habituation appears to be of great importance, it is suggested that the lesser effect of the drug in these experiments reflects the greater stability of visual than auditory habits in the monkey.

Earlier work has shown that meprobamate and reserpine can cause a severe deterioration in auditory discrimination performance of monkeys (Gross and Weiskrantz, 1961). This result was taken as supporting a hypothesis, growing out of still earlier research, that tranquillizers decrease the utilization of sensory information (Weiskrantz and Wilson, 1956; Weiskrantz, 1957).

The auditory task, as is almost always the case with monkeys as subjects, involved a “go—no-go” type of response contingency—i.e. the animal had to respond to the positive stimulus and had not to respond to the negative stimulus in order to achieve reward. It might be objected, therefore, that the deterioration in performance was associated not with discrimination as such but with the animals' willingness to perform at all. In fact, it was found that the animals tended to make most of their errors under the drugs by responding when they should not rather than not responding when they should.

The purpose of the present experiments, therefore, was to test the animals with a visual discrimination task in which both the positive and negative stimuli were presented simultaneously. An effect of the drug could not, in this situation, be characterized simply as altering the responsiveness of the animal. A further purpose in using visual stimuli was to test the generality of the earlier finding in a sense modality other than audition.