bluuebunny/crossref_metadata_2025 huggingface dataset:
Social information can undermine individual performance in exploration-exploitation tasks
Authors: Yahosseini Kyanoush Seyed , Reijula Samuli , Molleman Lucas , Moussaid Mehdi
Published: July 2018

In many daily life situations, people face decisions involving a trade-off between exploring new options and exploiting known ones. In these situations, observing the decisions of others can influence people’s decisions. Whereas social information often helps making better decisions, research has suggested that under certain conditions it can be detrimental. How precisely social information influences decision strategies and impacts performance is, however, disputed. Here we study how social information influences individuals’ exploration-exploitation trade-off and show that this adaptation can undermine their performance. Using a minimal experimental paradigm, we find that participants tend to copy the solution of other individuals too rapidly, thus decreasing the likelihood of discovering a better solution. Approximating this behavior with a simple model suggests, that individuals’ willingness to explore only depends on the value of known existing solutions. Our results allow for a better understanding of the interplay between social and individual factors in individual decision-making.
Sorting out the problem of inert knowledge: Category construction to promote spontaneous transfer
Authors: Kurtz Kenneth J. , Honke Garrett
Published: July 2018

A fundamental goal in the study of human cognition is to understand the transfer of knowledge. This goes hand-in-hand with the translational goal of promoting such transfer via instructional techniques. Despite a rich history of research using the analogical problem-solving paradigm, no study activity has been found to produce a robust rate of successful spontaneous transfer—even when the test is immediate. We propose the category status hypothesis as an explanation of the difficulty of transfer and as motivation for a novel approach to promoting transfer. We report a set of experiments evaluating a category construction technique based on a sorting task. In Experiment 1a, we found category construction to be significantly more effective than the ‘gold standard’ of schema abstraction through comparison of two analogous cases. In Experiment 1b, we explored a variation of the category construction technique that did not reliably differ in effectiveness from comparison-based schema abstraction—we also verified that both study tasks were superior to a baseline task of separate summarization of two cases. In Experiment 2, we conducted a replication of the initial design with higher power and confirmed the significant advantage for category construction over schema abstraction via comparison. In Experiment 3, we compared category construction to an information-consistent reading comprehension control in order to evaluate competing interpretations of the category construction advantage found in Experiments 1 and 2. We discuss theoretical and applied implications of these findings.
Do casual gaming environments evoke stereotype threat? Examining the effects of explicit priming and avatar gender.
Authors: Kaye Linda Katherine , Pennington Charlotte Rebecca , McCann Joseph
Published: July 2018

Despite relatively equal participation rates between females and males in casual gaming, females often report stigmatisation and prejudice towards their gaming competency within this sub-domain. Applying the theoretical framework of “stereotype threat”, this research examined the influence of explicit stereotype priming on females’ casual gameplay performance and related attitudes. It also investigated whether the gender of the game avatar heightens susceptibility to stereotype threat. One hundred and twenty females were allocated randomly to one of four experimental conditions in a 2 (Condition: Stereotype threat, Control) x 2 (Avatar gender: Feminine, Masculine) between-subjects design. They completed a short gaming task and measures of social identity, competence beliefs, gameplay self-efficacy and self-esteem. Findings indicate that priming explicitly a negative gender-related stereotype did not appear to have a significant detrimental impact on gameplay performance or gameplay-related attitudes. Additionally, gameplay performance was not affected significantly by manipulating the gender of the gaming avatar. These findings suggest that, although females appear to be knowledgeable about negative gender-gaming stereotypes, these might not impact performance. Moreover, females tend not to endorse these beliefs as a true reflection of their gaming ability, representing a positive finding in view of the prevailing negative attitudes they face in gaming domains.
Biased beliefs about random samples
Authors: Benjamin Daniel Jacob , Moore Don A , Rabin Matthew
Published: July 2018

Project examines intuitive misconceptions of chance. The authors affectionately referred to this as the "Barney" project. Don't ask us why.
Posture as index for approach-avoidance behavior
Authors: Eerland Anita , Guadalupe Tulio M. , Franken Ingmar H.A. , Zwaan Rolf Antonius
Published: July 2018

Approach and avoidance are two behavioral responses that make people tend to approach positive and avoid negative situations. This study examines whether postural behavior is influenced by the affective state of pictures. While standing on the Wii™ Balance Board, participants viewed pleasant, neutral, and unpleasant pictures (passively viewing phase). Then they had to move their body to the left or the right (lateral movement phase) to make the next picture appear. We recorded movements in the anterior-posterior direction to examine approach and avoidant behavior. During passively viewing, people approached pleasant pictures. They avoided unpleasant ones while they made a lateral movement. These findings provide support for the idea that we tend to approach positive and avoid negative situations.
Collaborative searchers outperform individuals in the absence of precise target information
Authors: Enright Alison , Leggett Nathan , McCarley Jason S.
Published: July 2018

Two-person teams outperform individuals in search tasks, and even exceed expectations based on statistical limitations (Enright & McCarley, 2019). Here, we aimed to replicate and extend this result. We used Bayesian hierarchical modelling of receiver operating characteristics to examine collaborative performance in a visual search task wherein top-down target information was constrained. Participants (N = 16 teams per experiment in Experiments 1 and 2; N = 24 teams in Experiment 3), working independently or collaboratively, performed a search task framed as a medical image reading task. Stimuli were polygons generated by randomly distorting a prototype shape. Observers judged whether an extreme distortion was present among a set of low-distortion distractor objects. Team members’ individual sensitivity levels were used to predict collaborative sensitivity using two versions of a uniform judgment weighting model, one that assumed stochastically independent judgements and one that accounted for correlations in the team members’ judgments. Collaborative search was better than that from single observers in all three experiments, and consistently trended higher than predictions of the correlated UW model. Results imply that collaborative search can be highly efficient even when target foreknowledge is limited.
Satisfaction in Motion: Subsequent Search Misses are More Likely in Moving Search Displays
Authors: Stothart Cary , Clement Andrew , Brockmole James
Published: July 2018

People often conduct visual searches in which multiple targets are possible (e.g., medical x-rays can contain multiple abnormalities). In this type of search, observers are more likely to miss a second target after having found a first one (a subsequent search miss). Recent evidence suggests that this effect may be due to a depletion of cognitive resources from tracking the identities and locations of found targets. Given that tracking moving objects is resource-demanding, would finding a moving target further increase the chances of missing a subsequent one? To address this question, we had participants search for one or more targets hidden among distractors. Subsequent search misses were more likely when targets and distractors moved throughout the display than when they remained stationary. However, when found targets were highlighted in a unique color, subsequent search misses were no more likely in moving dis-plays. Together, these results suggest that the effect of movement was likely due to the in-creased cognitive demands of tracking moving targets. Overall, our findings reveal that activities that involve searching for moving targets (e.g., driving) are more susceptible to subsequent search misses than those that involve searching for stationary targets (e.g., baggage screening).
The 52 different symptoms of major depression: lack of content overlap among seven common depression scales
Authors: Fried Eiko I
Published: July 2018

Background. Depression severity is assessed in numerous researchdisciplines, ranging from the social sciences to genetics, and used as adependent variable, predictor, covariate, or to enroll participants. Theroutine practice is to assess depression severity with one particulardepression scale, and draw conclusions about depression in general, relyingon the assumption that scales are interchangeable measures of depression.The present paper investigates to which degree 7 common depression scalesdiffer in their item content and generalizability.Methods: A content analysis is carried out to determine symptom overlapamong the 7 scales via the Jaccard index (0=no overlap, 1=full overlap).Per scale, rates of idiosyncratic symptoms, and rates of specific vs.compound symptoms, are computed.Results: The 7 instruments encompass 52 disparate symptoms. Mean overlapamong all scales is low (0.36), mean overlap of each scale with all othersranges from 0.27–0.40, overlap among individual scales from 0.26–0.61.Symptoms feature across a mean of 3 scales, 40% of the symptoms appear inonly a single scale, 12% across all instruments. Scales differ regardingtheir rates of idiosyncratic symptoms (0%–33%) and compound symptoms(22%–90%).Limitations: Future studies analyzing more and different scales will berequired to obtain a better estimate of the number of depression symptoms;the present content analysis was carried out conservatively and likelyunderestimates heterogeneity across the 7 scales.Conclusion: The substantial heterogeneity of the depressive syndrome andlow overlap among scales may lead to research results idiosyncratic toparticular scales used, posing a threat to the replicability andgeneralizability of depression research. Implications and future researchopportunities are discussed.
Usability and Effectiveness of the Finnish Investigative Instrument of Child Sexual Abuse
Authors: Tadei Alessandro , Santtila Pekka , Antfolk Jan
Published: July 2018

The Finnish Investigative Instrument of Child Sexual Abuse (FICSA) is a computerized tool that uses Bayesian statistics to estimate the probability that a reported child sex abuse (CSA) is true or false based on population level information regarding the correlates of CSA. FICSA can be used to assist decision-making in investigations of CSA. We compared forensic experts’ and students’ ability to use FICSA and whether its use affected the estimates of the probability of CSA in mock-scenarios. The use of FICSA was compared to only having access to the empirical information about CSA risk and protective factors, which FICSA is based on, and to unassisted decision-making. The 54 participants analyzed two scenarios of possible CSA and estimated the probability of the CSA allegation being true. The results show that participants using FICSA were prone to make technical mistakes that affect the correctness of the probability estimation. The performance of experts and students was equivalent in all the conditions, but in the group using FICSA, where experts tended to deviate from the probability provided by FICSA more than students. Having only access to empirical information did not improve estimates compared to unassisted decision-making. Both students and experts tended to adjust the estimates provided by FICSA downwards, that is, to decrease the probability of abuse. We conclude that FICSA can assist investigators to correctly integrate evidence and calculate probabilities but that proper training is required.
Individual differences in absolute pitch performance: Contributions of working memory, musical expertise, and tonal language background
Authors: Van Hedger Stephen Charles , Nusbaum Howard
Published: July 2018

By definition, individuals with absolute pitch (AP) can categorize an isolated musical note with near perfect accuracy without a reference pitch. This definition implies a uniformity of performance across people; however, in reality AP is a complex, multidimensional ability, shaped by both early and recent auditory experiences. In the present study we assess whether AP possessors’ accuracy for identifying isolated notes is more distributed when judging more challenging instrumental timbres and octaves, as well as whether variability in note categorization could be explained through individual differences in musical expertise, language background, or working memory. In a standard test of AP, all participants performed virtually perfectly. When tested on the challenging notes, performance was more normally distributed. In exploratory analyses, we found (1) lower accuracy among participants who speak a tonal language, (2) less musical expertise among tonal language participants, and (3) a positive relationship between working memory and note performance among tonal language participants that was not present for non-tonal language participants. Taken together, these results highlight the complexity of AP categorization when considered as an auditory skill rather than a native talent. The observation that working memory may be an important in AP categorization under some challenging circumstances is consistent with recent theoretical accounts of how working memory and expertise relate to auditory recognition more broadly.
Exploratory Graph Analysis of the Multidimensional Schizotypy Scales
Authors: Christensen Alexander P. , Gross Georgina , Golino Hudson , Silvia Paul , Kwapil Thomas Richard
Published: July 2018

The present study examined the dimensional structure underlying the Multidimensional Schizotypy Scale (MSS) and its brief version (MSS-B). The MSS and MSS-B were developed to assess current multidimensional conceptualizations of schizotypy. We used Exploratory Graph Analysis (EGA) to evaluate the dimensional structure of the scales in two large, independent samples (n = 6,265 and n = 1,000). We then used Confirmatory Factor Analysis (CFA) to compare the fit of the theoretical dimensions with the EGA dimensions. For the MSS, EGA identified four dimensions: positive schizotypy, two dimensions of negative schizotypy (affective and social anhedonia), and disorganized schizotypy. For the MSS-B, EGA identified three dimensions, which corresponded to the theorized positive, negative, and disorganized dimensions. Based on the MSS’s EGA dimensions, we also estimated a four-factor model for the MSS-B. The CFA comparison found that the four-factor model fit significantly better than the theoretical three-factor model for both the MSS and MSS-B. In short, we propose that the four-factor model supports the theoretical model and offers a more nuanced interpretation of the negative schizotypy dimension. Our findings offer new implications for future research on the MSS and MSS-B dimensions that may provide differential associations with interview and questionnaire measures.
Procedural sensitivities of effect sizes for single-case designs with directly observed behavioral outcome measures
Authors: Pustejovsky James E
Published: July 2018

A wide variety of effect size indices have been proposed for quantifying the magnitude of treatment effects in single-case designs. Commonly used measures include parametric indices such as the standardized mean difference, as well as non-overlap measures such as the percentage of non-overlapping data, improvement rate difference, and non-overlap of all pairs. Currently, little is known about the properties of these indices when applied to behavioral data collected by systematic direct observation, even though systematic direct observation is the most common method for outcome measurement in single-case research. This study uses Monte Carlo simulation to investigate the properties of several widely used single-case effect size measures when applied to systematic direct observation data. Results indicate that the magnitude of the non-overlap measures and of the standardized mean difference can be strongly influenced by procedural details of the study's design, which is a significant limitation to using these indices as effect sizes for meta-analysis of single-case designs. A less widely used parametric index, the log-response ratio, has the advantage of being insensitive to sample size and observation session length, although its magnitude is influenced by the use of partial interval recording.
The Racial and Economic Context of Trump Support: Evidence for Threat, Identity, and Contact Effects in the 2016 Presidential Election
Authors: Knowles Eric , Tropp Linda
Published: July 2018

Donald Trump's ascent to the Presidency of the United States defied the expectations of many social scientists, pundits, and laypeople. To date, most efforts to understand Trump's rise have focused on personality and demographic characteristics of White Americans. In contrast, the present work leverages a nationally representative sample of Whites to examine how contextual factors may have shaped support for Trump during the 2016 presidential primaries. Results reveal that neighborhood-level exposure to racial and ethnic minorities is associated with greater group threat and racial identification among Whites, as well as greater intentions to vote for Trump in the general election. At the same time, however, neighborhood diversity afforded Whites with opportunities for intergroup contact, which is associated with lower levels of threat, White identification, and Trump support. Further analyses suggest that a healthy local economy mutes threat effects in diverse contexts, allowing contact processes to come to the fore.
The impact of affective information on working memory: A pair of meta-analytic reviews of behavioral and neuroimaging evidence
Authors: Schweizer Susanne , Satpute Ajay , Atzil Shir , Field Andy Peter , Hitchcock Caitlin , Black Melissa , Barrett Lisa Feldman , Dalgleish Tim
Published: July 2018

Everyday life is defined by goal states that are continuously reprioritized based on available, often affective information. To pursue these goals, individuals need to process and maintain goal-relevant information, while ignoring potentially salient information that distracts resources from these goals. Empirically, this ability has typically been operationalized as working memory (WM) capacity. Interestingly, however, until recently there have been few concerted research efforts to investigate the impact of information’s affective salience on WM capacity. In the present review we address this question by exploring the potential differential impact of affective compared to neutral information on WM, and the underlying neural substrates. One hundred and sixty-five individual studies were included in the meta-analysis (N = 7433). Results showed negligible to small (d ̂ = –.07 – .20) effects of affective information on behavioral measures of WM in healthy individuals (n = 4936) that varied as a function of valence and task-relevance. For all behavioral results heterogeneity analyses were significant, demonstrating the need to identify further task-specific factors and individual differences that moderate affective WM. At the neural level (33 studies; n = 683), processing affective versus neutral material during WM tasks was associated with more frequent recruitment of the vlPFC, the amygdala and the temporo-occipital cortex. In contrast to healthy individuals, across behavioral studies those suffering from mental health problems (n = 2041) showed an impairment of WM accuracy (d ̂ = –0.21) in the presence of affective material. These findings highlight the importance of integrating behavioral and neural levels of analysis. Finally, these findings suggest that affective WM capacity may be a transdiagnostic mechanism associated with poor mental health.
Valuation of Morality and Mind: Morality as a Metacognitive Byproduct
Authors: Baxter Richard
Published: July 2018

The organism has evolved to view itself as a sentient being. It is theorised that morality is a byproduct of the high valuation of mental properties (the nature of its theory of mind). Five studies were conducted with 2675 participants. A positive association was confirmed between valuation of explicit morality, neutral (general) mind as measured by sentience, and significance of (specific) mind as measured by integrity (1). The moral worth ratings of a protagonist were affected by manipulating perceived significance of mind as expressed by scope and intensity of thought (2). 50% of participants thought morality applies exclusively to creatures with minds (3). A positive association was found between the self-awareness and moral worth ratings of a variety of creatures and human characters (4). Furthermore, the moral worth ratings of a human being and `philosophical phantom' (sentient inanimate object) were greater than those of a philosophical zombie and rock (5). Like H. Gray et al. [1], this research suggests that morality is based on the belief in mind (1-5). Specifically, the results suggest that valuation of experience (sentience) and agency (significance of mind) are not independent, as assignment of morality appears preconditioned upon the perception of (or assumption of) sentience (5). Furthermore, contrary to dyadic models [2], preliminary analysis supported the prediction of self and other-directed morality (1).
Components of the Triarchic Model of Psychopathy are nested within the Five-Factor Model
Authors: Hyatt Courtland , Lynam Donald , Miller Josh
Published: July 2018

The Triarchic Model of Psychopathy (TPM; Patrick, Krueger, & Fowles, 2009) is a recently developed measure of psychopathy that identifies three primary domains: Boldness, Meanness, and Disinhibition. These traits overlap substantially with general and pathologicalfive-factor models (FFM) of personality (Boldness = low Neuroticism, high Extraversion; Meanness = low Agreeableness; Disinhibition = low Conscientiousness). In the current study, (total N = 702) we compare TPM and FFM domains in relation to self- and informant-report ofexternal criteria (i.e., pathological traits, antisocial behavior), and quantified their absolute similarity using a profile matching approach. The corresponding traits from these models share large interrelations and very similar convergent and divergent relations, suggesting that unaltered traits from one can be considered excellent proxies for the other. Results are discussed interms of the benefits of using a unifying trait-based model to study psychopathy, as well as personality disorders more broadly.
Linking language and events: Spatiotemporal cues drive children's expectations about the meanings of novel transitive verbs
Authors: Kline Struhl Melissa , Snedeker Jesse , Schulz Laura
Published: July 2018

How do children map linguistic representations onto the conceptual structures that they encode? In the present studies, we provided 3-4 year old children with minimal-pair scene contrasts in order to determine the effect of particular event properties on novel verb learning. Specifically, we tested whether spatiotemporal cues to causation also inform children’s interpretation of transitive verbs either with or without the causal/inchoative alternation (She broke the lamp/the lamp broke). In Experiment 1, we examined spatiotemporal continuity. Children saw scenes with puppets that approached a toy in a distinctive manner, and toys that lit up or played a sound. In the causal events, the puppet contacted the object, and activation was immediate. In the noncausal events, the puppet stopped short before reaching the object, and the effect occurred after a short pause (apparently spontaneously). Children expected novel verbs used in the inchoative transitive/intransitive alternation to refer to spatiotemporally intact causal interactions rather than to 'gap' control scenes. In Experiment 2, we manipulated the temporal order of sub-events, holding spatial relationships constant, and provided evidence for only one verb frame (either transitive or intransitive). Children mapped transitive verbs to scenes where the agent's action closely preceded the activation of the toy over scenes in which the timing of the two events was switched, but did not do so when they heard an intransitive construction. These studies reveal that children’s expectations about transitive verbs are at least partly driven by their nonlinguistic understanding of causal events: children expect transitive syntax to refer to scenes where the agent's action is a plausible cause of the outcome. These findings open a wide avenue for exploration into the relationship between children’s linguistic knowledge and their nonlinguistic understanding of events.
Self and Identity Development in Adolescence
Authors: Pfeifer Jennifer H , Berkman Elliot
Published: July 2018

Following a key developmental task of childhood, namely building a foundation of self-knowledge in the form of domain-specific self-concepts, adolescents begin to explore their emerging identities in ways that foster both autonomy and connectedness. Neuroimaging studies of self-related processes demonstrate enhanced engagement of ventromedial prefrontal cortex (vmPFC) in adolescence, which may both facilitate and reflect identity development by integrating across multiple sources of value. Drawing from neuroeconomic and social cognitive accounts, we propose that motivated behavior during adolescence can be modeled by a general value-based decision-making process centered around value accumulation in vmPFC. This approach advances models of adolescent neurodevelopment that focus on reward sensitivity and cognitive control by considering more diverse value inputs, including contributions of developing self- and identity-related processes. It also considers adolescent decision-making and behavior from their point of view, rather than primarily taking adults’ perspectives on what adolescents should value or how they should behave.
A Hierarchical Taxonomy of Psychopathology Can Transform Mental Health Research
Authors: Conway Christopher C
Published: July 2018

For over a century, research on psychopathology has focused on categorical diagnoses. Although this work has produced major discoveries, growing evidence points to the superiority of a dimensional approach to the science of mental illness. Here we outline one such dimensional system—the Hierarchical Taxonomy of Psychopathology (HiTOP)—that is based on empirical patterns of psychological symptom co-occurrence. We highlight key ways in which this framework can advance mental health research, and we provide a heuristic for using HiTOP to test theories of psychopathology. We then review emerging evidence that supports the value of a hierarchical, dimensional model of mental illness across diverse research areas in psychological science. These new data suggest that the HiTOP system has the potential to reform the study of mental health problems and to accelerate efforts to assess, prevent, and treat mental illness effectively.
An Evaluation of Four Solutions to the Forking Paths Problem: Adjusted Alpha, Preregistration, Sensitivity Analyses, and Abandoning the Neyman-Pearson Approach
Authors: Rubin Mark
Published: July 2018

Gelman and Loken (2013, 2014) proposed that when researchers base their statistical analyses on the idiosyncratic characteristics of a specific sample (e.g., a nonlinear transformation of a variable because it is skewed), they open up alternative analysis paths in potential replications of their study that are based on different samples (i.e., no transformation of the variable because it is not skewed). These alternative analysis paths count as additional (multiple) tests and, consequently, they increase the probability of making a Type I error during hypothesis testing. The present article considers this forking paths problem and evaluates four potential solutions that might be used in psychology and other fields: (a) adjusting the prespecified alpha level, (b) preregistration, (c) sensitivity analyses, and (d) abandoning the Neyman-Pearson approach. It is concluded that although preregistration and sensitivity analyses are effective solutions to p-hacking, they are ineffective against result-neutral forking paths, such as those caused by transforming data. Conversely, although adjusting the alpha level cannot address p-hacking, it can be effective for result-neutral forking paths. Finally, abandoning the Neyman-Pearson approach represents a further solution to the forking paths problem.
The Impossible Mediation Test: A Method for Dealing with Plausibly Confounded Mediation
Authors: Yeager David Scott , Krosnick Jon
Published: July 2018

In much psychology research, mediators are measured, not manipulated. Therefore, the paths from mediators to outcomes—the so-called b paths—can be confounded by omitted variable bias, as in any other correlational analysis. The present research builds on the logic of falsification tests in econometrics and sensitivity analysis in statistics to propose the impossible mediation test, which can quantify the amount of confounded mediation. Researchers can add to an experiment a condition in which the dependent variable is measured first, then the manipulation is implemented, and finally, the posited mediator is measured. This allows for assessment of the spurious association between the dependent variable and the mediator, and statistics can be estimated as if the dependent variable was measured after the manipulation was implemented, to assess whether the spurious association is sufficiently strong to yield the false appearance of mediation. This estimate of “impossible” mediation can be compared to the results obtained from data where the dependent variable is actually measured in the conventional order after the mediator, to determine whether evidence of mediation is stronger in the latter case than the former. Evidence of mediation that survives the impossible mediation test constitutes a strong basis for a claim about mediation of a causal process. The paper illustrates this procedure with an empirical example.
Still suspicious: The suspicious coincidence effect revisited
Authors: Lewis Molly , Frank Michael C.
Published: July 2018

In previous work, Xu and Tenenbaum (2007a) provide evidence that learners are able to infer the subordinate meaning of a word from only positive examples of the category. Under their proposal, learners assume that examples are sampled from the true underlying category ("strong sampling''), making certain data patterns more consistent with a subordinate meaning than others (the "suspicious coincidence'' effect). More recent work (Spencer, Perone, Smith & Samuelson, 2011) questions the relevance of this finding by arguing that the effect only occurs when the examples are presented to the learner simultaneously. Across a series of 12 studies, we systematically manipulate several experimental parameters that vary between the previous studies, and successfully replicate the findings of both sets of authors. Taken together, our data suggest that the suspicious coincidence effect in fact is robust to presentation timing of examples, but is sensitive to a confound in previous experiments, namely, trial order.
Why ‘piss’ is ruder than ‘pee’? The role of sound in affective meaning making
Authors: Aryani Arash , Conrad Markus , Schmidtke David , Jacobs Arthur M.
Published: July 2018

Most language users agree that some words sound harsh (e.g. grotesque) whereas others sound soft and pleasing (e.g. lagoon). While this prominent feature of human language has always been creatively deployed in art and poetry, it is still largely unknown whether the sound of a word in itself makes any contribution to the word’s meaning as perceived and interpreted by the listener. In a large-scale lexicon analysis, we focused on the affective substrates of words’ meaning (i.e. affective meaning) and words’ sound (i.e. affective sound); both being measured on a two-dimensional space of valence (ranging from pleasant to unpleasant) and arousal (ranging from calm to excited). We tested the hypothesis that the sound of a word possesses affective iconic characteristics that can implicitly influence listeners when evaluating the affective meaning of that word. The results show that a significant portion of the variance in affective meaning ratings of printed words depends on a number of spectral and temporal acoustic features extracted from these words after converting them to their spoken form (study1). In order to test the affective nature of this effect, we independently assessed the affective sound of these words using two different methods: through direct rating (study2a), and through acoustic models that we implemented based on pseudoword materials (study2b). In line with our hypothesis, the estimated contribution of words’ sound to ratings of words’ affective meaning was indeed associated with the affective sound of these words; with a stronger effect for arousal than for valence. Further analyses revealed crucial phonetic features potentially causing the effect of sound on meaning: e.g. words with short vowels, voiceless consonants, and hissing sibilants (as in ‘piss’) feel more arousing and negative. Our findings suggest that the process of meaning making is not solely determined by arbitrary mappings between formal aspects of words and concepts they refer to. Rather, even in silent reading, words’ acoustic profiles provide affective perceptual cues that language users may implicitly use to construct words’ overall meaning.
Адаптация опросника «Особенности тактильного взаимодействия» (TEAQ) на русскоязычной выборке
Authors: Belovol Elena , Varlamov Anton , Trotter Paula , McGlone Francis
Published: July 2018

[Article in Russian] The article describes construction of a Russian version of the Touch Experiences and Attitudes Questionnaire (TEAQ) including 37 items comprising 5 subscales (intimate touch, attitude to friendly touch, attitude to self-care, current intimate touch experiences, and childhood touch experiences). We anticipate that this questionnaire will be a valuable tool for researchers of social touch, touch perception abnormalities, and the importance of touch experiences foremotional and mental health.
Reducing the standard serving size of alcoholic beverages prompts reductions in alcohol consumption
Authors: Kersbergen Inge , oldham melissa , Jones Andrew , Field Matt , Angus Colin , Robinson Eric
Published: July 2018

Aims: We tested whether reducing the standard serving size of alcoholic beverages would reduce voluntary alcohol consumption in a laboratory (study 1) and a real-world drinking environment (study 2). Additionally, we modelled the potential public health benefit of reducing the standard serving size of on-trade alcoholic beverages in the UK.Design: Studies 1 and 2 were cluster-randomised experiments. In study 1, participants were randomly assigned to receive standard or reduced serving sizes (by 25%) of alcohol during a laboratory drinking session. In study 2, customers at a bar were served alcohol in either standard or reduced serving sizes (by 28.6% – 33.3%). Finally, we used the Sheffield Alcohol Policy Model to estimate the number of deaths and hospital admissions that would be averted per year in the UK if a policy that reduces alcohol serving sizes in the on-trade was introduced.Setting: A semi-naturalistic laboratory (study 1), a bar in Liverpool, UK (study 2).Participants: Students and university staff members (study 1: N = 114, mean age 24.8 years, 74.6% female), residents from local community (study 2: N = 164, mean age 34.9 years, 57.3% female).Measurements: Outcome measures were units of alcohol consumed within one hour (study 1) and up to three hours (study 2). Serving size condition was the primary predictor. Findings: In study 1, a 25% reduction in alcohol serving size led to a 20.7% - 22.3% reduction in alcohol consumption. In study 2, a 28.6% - 33.3% reduction in alcohol serving size led to a 32.4% - 39.6% reduction in alcohol consumption. Modelling results indicated that decreasing the serving size of on-trade alcoholic beverages by 25% could reduce the number of alcohol-related hospital admissions and deaths per year in the UK by 4.4% - 10.5% and 5.6% - 13.2%, respectively. Conclusions: Reducing the serving size of alcoholic beverages leads to a reduction in alcohol consumption within a single drinking occasion. Reducing the standard serving sizes of alcoholic beverages may reduce alcohol consumption and alcohol-related harm at the population level.
Wait a second! Delayed impact of argument roles on on-line verb prediction
Authors: Chow Wing Yee , Lau Ellen , Wang Suiping , Phillips Colin
Published: July 2018

Comprehenders can use rich contextual information to anticipate upcoming input on the fly, but recent findings suggest that salient information about argument roles may not impact verb prediction. We took advantage of the word order properties of Mandarin Chinese to examine the time course with which argument role information impacts verb prediction. We isolated the contribution of argument role information by manipulating the order of pre-verbal noun phrase arguments while holding lexical information constant, and we examined its effects on accessing the verb in long-term semantic memory by measuring the amplitude of the N400 component. Experiment 1 showed when the verb appeared immediately after its arguments, even strongly constraining argument role information failed to modulate the N400 response to the verb. An N400 effect emerged in Experiment 2 when the verb appeared at a greater delay. Experiment 3 corroborated the contrast between the first two experiments through a within-participants manipulation of the time interval between the arguments and the verb, by varying the position of an adverbial phrase. These results suggest time is a key factor governing how diverse contextual information contributes to predictions. Here argument role information is shown to impact verb prediction, but its effect is not immediate.
A Unified Theory of Implicit Attitudes, Stereotypes, Self-Esteem, and Self-Concept
Authors: Greenwald Anthony G. , Banaji Mahzarin R. , Rudman Laurie Ann , Farnham Shelly D. , Nosek Brian A. , Mellott Deborah S.
Published: July 2018

This theoretical integration of social psychology’s main cognitive and affective constructs was shaped by three influences: (a) recent widespread interest in automatic and implicit cognition, (b) development of the Implicit Association Test (IAT: Greenwald, McGhee, & Schwartz, 1998), and (c) social psychology's consistency theories of the 1950s – especially Heider's (1958) balance theory. The balanced identity design is introduced as a method to test correlational predictions of the theory. Data obtained with this method revealed that predicted consistency patterns were strongly apparent in the data for implicit (IAT) measures, but not in those for parallel explicit (self-report) measures. Two additional not-yet-tested predictions of the theory are described.
Bayesian evaluation of behavior change interventions: A brief introduction and a practical example
Authors: Heino Matti Toivo Juhani , Vuorre Matti , Hankonen Nelli
Published: July 2018

Introduction: Evaluating effects of behavior change interventions is a central interest in health psychology and behavioral medicine. Researchers in these fields routinely use frequentist statistical methods to evaluate the extent to which these interventions impact behavior and the hypothesized mediating processes in the population. However, calls to move beyond exclusive use of frequentist reasoning are now widespread in psychology and allied fields. We suggest adding Bayesian statistical methods to the researcher’s toolbox of statistical methods. Objectives: We first present the basic principles of Bayesian approach to statistics and why they are useful for researchers in health psychology. We then provide a practical example on how to evaluate intervention effects using Bayesian methods, with a focus on Bayesian hierarchical modeling. We provide the necessary materials for introductory level readers to follow the tutorial. Conclusion: Bayesian analytical methods are now available to researchers through easy-to-use software packages, and we recommend using them to evaluate the effectiveness of interventions for their conceptual and practical benefits.
What are psychological constructs? On the nature and statistical modeling of emotions, intelligence, personality traits and mental disorders.
Authors: Fried Eiko I
Published: July 2018

Many scholars have raised two related questions: what are psychological constructs such as cognitions, emotions, attitudes, personality characteristics, and intelligence? And how are they best modeled statistically? This paper provides (1) an overview of common theories and statistical models, (2) connects these two domains, and (3) discusses how the recently proposed framework pragmatic nihilism (Peters & Crutzen, 2017) fits in.
The Columnar Hypothesis for the High-Pass Filter Effect in Autism Spectrum Disorder (ASD)
Authors: Dellanna Luca
Published: July 2018

It has been suggested that one of the underlying causes of Autism Spectrum Disorder (ASD) is the presence of a High-Pass Filter Effect applied to cognitive perception (DellAnna, 2018a). Such an effect leads to an enhancement of local details at the expense of global patterns. This paper proposes a possible cause for the High-Pass Filter Effect, which is increased columnar density.It is already known that brains of people affected with ASD tend to have denser cortical column fields (Casanova, Buxhoeveden, Switala, & Roy, 2002). This paper, however, explains the way in which denser cortical columns fields lead to sharper, narrower categorizations in the intermediate perceptual areas of the cortex, which in turn induce the High-Pass Filter Effect and, consequently, most of the symptoms characteristic of ASD.
On Non-Regularized Estimation of Psychological Networks
Authors: Williams Donald Ray , Rhemtulla Mijke , Wysocki Anna , Rast Philippe
Published: July 2018

An important goal for psychological science is developing methods to characterize relationships between variables. The customary approach uses structural equation models to connect latent factors to a number of observed measurements. More recently, regularized partial correlation networks have been proposed as an alternative approach for characterizing relationships among variables through covariances in the precision matrix. While the graphical lasso (glasso) method has merged as the default network estimation method, it was optimized in fields outside of psychology with very different needs, such as high dimensional data where the number of variables (p) exceeds the number of observations (n). In this paper, we describe the glasso method in the context of the fields where it was developed, and then we demonstrate that the advantages of regularization diminish in settings where psychological networks are often fitted (p ≪ n). We first show that improved properties of the precision matrix, such as eigenvalue estimation, and predictive accuracy with cross-validation are not always appreciable. We then introduce non-regularized methods based on multiple regression, after which we characterize performance with extensive simulations. Our results demonstrate that the non-regularized methods consistently outperform glasso with respect to limiting false positives, and they provide more consistent performance across sparsity levels, sample composition (p=n), and partial correlation size. We end by reviewing recent findings in the statistics literature that suggest alternative methods often have superior than glasso, as well as suggesting areas for future research in psychology.
The status of women cognitive scientists in Canada: Insights from publicly available NSERC funding data
Authors: Titone Debra , Tiv Mehrgol , Pexman Penny M.
Published: July 2018

A crucial question within science and academia, and cognitive science specifically, is whether there is gender disparity in opportunity and advancement over the professional lifespan (e.g., Ceci, Ginther, Kahn, & Williams, 2014; Geraci, Balsis, & Busch, 2015; Valian, 1998). To investigate this question, we analyzed gender distributions in publicly available federal funding data from the Natural Sciences and Engineering Research Council (NSERC) of Canada that are specific to cognitive psychology and cognitive neuroscience. There were three key results. First, the proportion of women cognitive scientists progressively diminished at each career stage, particularly at the transition between graduate and postdoctoral studies. Second, female principal investigators (PI) received smaller average Discovery Grant amounts, and were less likely to receive Discovery Accelerator Supplements as a proportion of all Discovery Grants funded. Finally, at the PI level, gender differences were relatively smaller for institution-initiated grants (i.e., Canada Research Chairs) vs. investigator-initiated grants (i.e., Discovery Grants). It is our hope that presentation of such data, in concert with other recent reports for our field (e.g., Klatzky, Holt, & Behrmann, 2015; Peelle, 2016; Vaid & Geraci, 2016), continues to raise awareness that gender parity issues remain a concern that deserves ongoing attention within the field of cognitive science in Canada.
Using Tools to Help Us Think: Actual But also Believed Reliability Modulates Cognitive Offloading
Authors: Weis Patrick P. , Wiese Eva
Published: July 2018

Objective: A distributed cognitive system is a system in which cognitive processes are distributed between brain-based internal and environment-based external resources. In the current exper-iment, we examined the influence of metacognitive processes on external resource use (i.e., cog-nitive offloading) in such systems. Background: High-tech working environments oftentimes represent distributed cognitive systems. Since cognitive offloading can both support and harm performance, depending on the specific circumstances, it is essential to understand when and why people offload their cognition. Methods: An extension of the mental rotation paradigm was used. It allowed participants to rotate stimuli either internally as in the original paradigm or with a rota-tion knob that afforded rotating stimuli externally on a computer screen. Two parameters were manipulated: the knob’s actual reliability (AR) and an instruction altering participants’ beliefs about the knob’s reliability (believed reliability; BR). Cognitive offloading proportion and per-ceived knob utility were measured. Results: Participants were able to quickly and dynamically adjust their cognitive offloading proportion and subjective utility assessments in response to AR, suggesting a high level of offloading proficiency. However, when BR instructions were presented that falsely described the knob’s reliability to be lower than it actually was, participants reduced cognitive offloading substantially. Conclusion: How much people offload their cognition is not solely based on utility maximization but is additionally affected by possibly erroneous pre-existing beliefs. Application: To support users in efficiently operating in a distributed cognitive system, an external resource’s utility should be made transparent and pre-existing beliefs should be adjusted prior to interaction.