Reading inflectionally incogruent texts: The automatic and strategic processes in language performance

Subjects were asked to read out loud at the fastest possible speed texts containing incorrectly inflected verbs exactly as the texts were printed. A control condition (errorfree texts) and two error conditions were used, one with half of the verbs (50%) containing errors, and the other with all the verbs (100%) containing error. Compared with reading correct texts, reading in the 50% condition was slower and more frequently impeded by different kinds of perturbations. This lowered performance was considered to have resulted from interference produced by covert involuntary activation of prior linguistic associations between the contexts and the appropriate verb forms. Performance in the 100% condition improved over the 50% condition. The improvement suggests that a strategic process had been induced to deal with the task demands. The main theoretical point is that complex mental processes such as language performance are automatic, and yet not rigid, unlike what the classic view of automaticity would predict.     

CHINESE VALUE SYSTEM AND MANAGERIAL BEHAVIOUR*

This is a paper which reviews and discusses the implications of Chinese value systems for managerial behaviour in Taiwan. With a central assumption that managerial behaviour and styles are largely shaped by the values and normative systems of senior members of corporate management, a study of 43 industrial firms in Taiwan investigating their organisational structure and the managerial assumptions, values and other socio-demographical features of their senior managers was conducted. The results of the research lead to the construction of a typology of four managerial patterns in Taiwan today, viz. the ‘grass-roots’ type, the ‘Mainlander’ type, the ‘specialist’ type and the ‘transitional’ type. While the ‘transitional’ type is more or less by definition ‘transient’, a tendency is postulated by the authors for both the ‘grass-roots’ and ‘Mainlander’ types to move gradually to converge with the ‘specialist’ type which will become increasingly widespread in Taiwan.     

Event order versus syntactic structure in recall of adverbial complex sentences

Two experiments using recall of sentences examined two contrasting principles of clause ordering in a type of complex sentences: the main-clause-first (syntactic) principle and the event-order (or temporal-causal order) prir ciple. In Experiment 1, these two principles were studied in complex sentences with a main clause and a subordinate adverbial clause-e.g., When she heard the thunder, she stopped playing Frisbee. In sentences of this type the subordinate clause typically describes a temporally or causally antecedent event, while the main clause describes a subsequent event in the temporal-causal sequence. These two principles make opposite predictions on what is the psychologically simpler or preferred order of the two clauses in this type of complex sentence. Results of Experiment 1 showed an overall preference in memory for main-clause-first order. In Experiment 2, complex sentences with a main clause and a subordinate clause not temporally or causally related were also used in a sentence recall task. Similar results were obtained. The implication of these findings for the determinants of linguistic structures was discussed.     

Influences of Social Supports and Personality on Adjustment of Chinese Students in Japan

The present study longitudinally examined the effects of personality and social support on adjustment. Questionnaires were responded to over 4 periods of stay: just before arrival in Japan and three months, 9 months, and 21 months after arrival in Japan. Extraversion and neuroticism were measured in the 1st period; and needed, actual support, and adjustment in the 2nd, 3rd, and 4th periods. Thirty-three participants' completed data were analyzed. Three multiple regression analyses indicated that (a) needed support was a negative predictor and (b) actual support was a positive predictor of adjustment over all periods, while (c) extraversion was a positive predictor of the 4th period adjustment, and (d) there was no association between neuroticism and adjustment. The effects of support and personality on adjustment, which varied according to the period of stay, were discussed.     

Contraction bias in memorial quantifying judgment: does it come from a stable compressed memory representation or a dynamic adaptation process?

A common response bias in psychophysical judgments is regression toward the mean (overestimation of small and underestimation of large values, or the response contraction bias). The same bias is observed in magnitude estimation from memorized quantities. Participants estimated alphabetic interval distances between 2 letters for different levels of interletter distances. The underestimated and overestimated values and the point of least error changed, depending on the level of alphabetic distances judged; furthermore, their estimation showed a progressively increasing tendency toward the mean, rendering the estimation progressively less accurate as the estimation task was repeated. We conclude that the regression toward the mean in memorial quantifying judgment derives from a cognitive adaptation process rather than from a permanent, compressed memory representation of the stimuli. Two opposing views on the adaptive meaning of this judgment bias are discussed.     

Electroencephalography when meditation advances: a case-based time-series analysis

Increased alpha and theta activities in electroencephalography (EEG) have been found during various forms of meditation. However, advanced stage of meditation drew less attention to date. We aimed at exploring EEG characteristics during advanced meditation. Bilateral absolute alpha and theta EEG powers were recorded when a single meditator at rest, exercising breath meditation, and reaching the advanced meditative stage in 10 sessions of meditation. Averaged time-series data were analyzed using simulation modeling analysis to compare the powers during different meditative phases. During breath meditation, significantly higher activities compared with baseline were found only in bilateral theta (P = 0.0406, 0.0158 for left and right sides, respectively), but not in alpha (P = 0.1412, 0.0978 for left and right sides, respectively) bands. When meditation advanced, significantly increased activities were found both in bilateral alpha (P = 0.0218, 0.0258 for left and right sides, respectively) and theta (P = 0.0308, 0.0260 for left and right sides, respectively) bands compared against breath meditation. When advanced meditation compared against baseline, bilateral alpha (P = 0.0001, 0.0001 for left and right sides, respectively) and theta (P = 0.0001, 0.0001 for left and right sides, respectively) bands revealed significantly increased activities. Our findings support that internalized attention manifested as theta activity continuingly enhances significantly in sequential phases of meditation, while relaxation manifested as alpha activity is significant only after the advanced meditative phase is reached.     

Unconscious integration of pointing relation between two masked arrows

In the present study, by using a briefly masked prime display paradigm, we investigated whether the pointing relation (same or different) between two unconsciously perceived arrows in the prime could be processed. Since only motor response priming can reflect unconscious processing of two arrows’ pointing-direction relation (i.e., a relational integration), we could distinguish the motor response priming from the visual priming in this study which in other studies were not separated. We also manipulated the prime-to-target stimulus onset asynchronies (SOA) by using a 70?ms and a 180?ms SOA. In this experiment, two masked arrow signs pointing in the same or different directions (> > or > <) were simultaneously presented in the prime, followed by two arrow symbols also pointing in the same or different directions in the target. The participants were asked to decide whether the two arrows in the target were pointing in the same or different directions. The results did not show any visual priming effect, but did show that the unconsciously perceived pointing relation in the prime elicited a positive motor response priming effect in RT under the 70?ms SOA condition, and a negative motor response priming effect in accuracy under the 180?ms SOA condition. The results were discussed in terms of self-motor-inhibition (or mask-triggered inhibition) and attention mechanisms. Overall, this study indicated that the pointing relation between the two subliminal arrows in the prime could influence the subsequent responses to the target and suggested that people can integrate unconsciously perceived information.     

Conscious and unconscious discriminations between true and false memories

When subjects give higher confidence or memory ratings to a test word in a recognition test, do they simply raise their criterion without making better discrimination, or do they raise both criterion and true discrimination between the studied words (SW) and the lures? Given that previous studies found subjects’ false alarm responses to lures slower than to SW, and recognition latency inversely correlated with the confidence rating, can the latency difference between the lures and SW be accounted for by confidence or memory ratings? The present results showed that when subjects gave higher confidence or memory ratings, both their bias and sensitivity were raised, indicating that they could consciously distinguish the lures from the SW. However, a latency difference between true and false recognitions persisted after confidence and memory ratings were held constant, suggesting an unconscious source of discrimination between the two types of memory.     

Stress,health, and reciprocity and sufficiency of social support: the case of university students in Japan

The authors examined the effects of reciprocity and sufficiency of social support on the mental and physical health of 488 Japanese university students with different levels of stressors. The questionnaire included items that measured support provided for, requested by, requested of, and received from others. It also addressed negative affect associated with support relationships, as well as the levels of stressors and mental and physical health. The participants' support relationships with others were fairly reciprocal. Although being overbenefited (i.e., receiving more support than one provides) was related to stronger feelings of indebtedness, being underbenefited (i.e., providing more support than one receives) was related to stronger feelings of burden. In sum, when the participants received less support than they requested and when they provided less support than others requested, they tended to become less mentally and physically healthy. Reciprocity of support appeared to have both direct and buffering effects; however, the effects of sufficient support on health did not vary with levels of stressors.     

Transfer of learning in avoiding false memory: the roles of warning, immediate feedback, and incentive

Participants learned semantic associates and were tested in the Deese-Roediger-McDermott (DRM) paradigm. A multiple-trial learning procedure with warning, feedback, and monetary incentive was employed to reduce false memory. Results showed that there was a progressive reduction of false memory over the trials as well as a generalization of learning to new lists of words in avoiding the critical nonpresented words attributable to explicit warning, feedback, and incentive, respectively. Both the feedback and the monetary incentive had an effect beyond what an explicit warning could obtain. In addition, participants were found to achieve false-memory reduction by enhancing the activation of the critical words and the monitoring process, rather than by strengthening the verbatim processing of the list words. It was concluded that false memory may not be as impervious to correction as was believed insofar as an effective training method is applied.