Morphological priming survives a language switch

In a long-lag morphological priming experiment, Dutch (L1)-English (L2) bilinguals were asked to name pictures and read aloud words. A design using non-switch blocks, consisting solely of Dutch stimuli, and switch-blocks, consisting of Dutch primes and targets with intervening English trials, was administered. Target picture naming was facilitated by morphologically related primes in both non-switch and switch blocks with equal magnitude. These results contrast some assumptions of sustained reactive inhibition models. However, models that do not assume bilinguals having to reactively suppress all activation of the non-target language can account for these data.     

Confounding of Big Five Personality Assessments in Emotional Disorders by Comorbidity and Current Disorder

Foremost cross‐sectional studies of personality in common mental disorders show similar Big Five trait profiles [i.e. high neuroticism (N), low conscientiousness (C) and low extraversion (E)]. It remains undecided whether this lack of distinct personality profiles is partly due to comorbidity among disorders or contamination by current state. Using data from the Netherlands Study of Depression and Anxiety, we investigated 1046 participants with panic disorder (PD), social anxiety disorder (SAD) and/or major depressive disorder (MDD) and 474 healthy controls. Personality traits at baseline and two‐year follow‐up were assessed with the NEO‐Five Factor Inventory. The Composite International Diagnostic Interview was used to determine the presence of emotional disorders at baseline and at two‐year follow‐up; the Life Chart Interview determined symptom severity in the month prior to baseline and during follow‐up. By analysing pure cases and investigating the effects in remitted cases, PD participants were found to be higher in N, but not lower in E and C than controls. Pure PD participants were also lower in N and higher in E than SAD and MDD participants. Both SAD and MDD participants were characterized by high levels of N and low levels of E, irrespective of comorbidity or current disorder state. Future studies should be more attentive to confounding of personality profiles by comorbidity and state effects. Copyright © 2012 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Obese, older adults with knee osteoarthritis: weight loss, exercise, and quality of life.

This study examined the effects of dietary weight loss and exercise on the health-related quality of life (HRQL) of overweight and obese, older adults with knee osteoarthritis. A total of 316 older men and women with documented evidence of knee osteoarthritis were randomly assigned to 1 of 4 18-month interventions: dietary weight loss, exercise, dietary weight loss and exercise, or healthy lifestyle control. Measures included the SF-36 Health Survey and satisfaction with body function and appearance. Results revealed that the combined diet and exercise intervention had the most consistent, positive effect on HRQL compared with the control group; however, findings were restricted to measures of physical health or psychological outcomes that are related to the physical self.     

Homophonic context effects when naming Japanese kanji: evidence for processing costs?

The current study investigated the effects of phonologically related context pictures on the naming latencies of target words in Japanese and Chinese. Reading bare words in alphabetic languages has been shown to be rather immune to effects of context stimuli, even when these stimuli are presented in advance of the target word (e.g., Glaser & Düngelhoff, 1984 ; Roelofs, 2003 ). However, recently, semantic context effects of distractor pictures on the naming latencies of Japanese kanji (but not Chinese hànzì) words have been observed (Verdonschot, La Heij, & Schiller, 2010 ). In the present study, we further investigated this issue using phonologically related (i.e., homophonic) context pictures when naming target words in either Chinese or Japanese. We found that pronouncing bare nouns in Japanese is sensitive to phonologically related context pictures, whereas this is not the case in Chinese. The difference between these two languages is attributed to processing costs caused by multiple pronunciations for Japanese kanji.     

The processing difference between person names and common nouns in sentence contexts: an ERP study

Person names and common nouns differ in how they are stored in the mental lexicon. Using event-related potentials, this study compared the integration of names and nouns into sentence contexts. Both person names and common nouns were highly related in meaning and either congruent or incongruent within the previous contexts. Name incongruence elicited an N400 effect, suggesting that people were able to rapidly retrieve the semantic meaning of names from long-term memory even when this process was mediated by person identification. Conversely, participants showed a “good enough” processing of the nouns due to their low specificity level and, thus, rich semantic associations, leading to a P600 effect. These distinctive ERP effects provide clear evidence for the distinctive semantic representations of these word categories by showing that the activation of a name’s meaning is mediated by a single connection between identity-specific information and person identity, whereas multiple connections exist between nouns and their meanings.     

Book review

Long-standing beliefs about one's self-efficacy and learning ability accumulate over the school years. Attributions, or causal perceptions and interpretations, of behavioural outcomes are also based on a person's learning history. And, it is evident from research on attributional bias and self-esteem that the perceived causes of success and failure have consequences for academic success. An important perspective on attributions, frequently neglected in educational research, pertains to content-specific beliefs about one's competence. We set up a field study in which students from the first form of secondary education were asked to report their causal attributions of regular school examinations in three school subjects: history, native language, and mathematics. The results suggest that students generate different causal attributions for successful or unsuccessful examinations, belonging to different school-subjects. Perception of specific examination conditions may or may not urge students to generate specific attributions. There is evidence for both school-subject specificity and examination-specificity in the observed causal attributions. But, the effect of school-subject seems to be more pronounced than the effect of examination. Information at the momentary level (examination conditions) interacts with information at the middle level (school-subject). Closer analyses of the observed causal attributions vis-à-vis perceived success and failure in the three school-subjects displayed marked differences, especially in relation to the effort attributions.     

Dutch immigrant policies before and after the Van Gogh murder

The murders of the Dutch politician Pim Fortuyn and the filmmaker Theo van Gogh have made headlines internationally and made readers wonder what happened in the country that used to have a reputation for tolerance and practice integration policies for immigrants that were seen as progressive in the European context. This article outlines the background of these spectacular and tragic events. Specifically it tries to assess the consequences for integration policies in the Netherlands. First an outline is given of the “Ethnic Minorities Policies” started in the Netherlands in the early 1980s, how the framing of that policy changed gradually in the 1990s to a more Republican integration policy and underwent a final change from 2002 on towards an assimilationist policy that serves restrictive and selective admission of immigrants. Secondly, as a background to these changes the public and political discourse on immigration and integration and integration is analyzed: from a depoliticized, consensus-policy in the 1980s, the gradual politicization of these topics in the 1990s, towards the populist rhetoric and policy argumentations after the turn of the century. Thirdly, the murder on Van Gogh and its interpretations by politics, media and society is specifically analysed. Finally the consequences for integration policies in the Netherlands are assessed.