bluuebunny/crossref_metadata_2025 huggingface dataset:
Processing real-world violations embedded within a fantasy-world narrative
Authors: Walsh Erinn K , Cook Anne E , O’Brien Edward J
Published: January 2018

Fantasy-text is a genre in which events routinely violate rules we know to be true in the real world. In four experiments, we explored the inherent contradiction between unrealistic fictional events and general world knowledge (GWK) to examine these competing information sources within the context of an extended fantasy-narrative. Experiments 1a and 1b demonstrated that fantasy-unrelated inconsistencies caused disruption to comprehension despite an abundance of contextual support for real-world impossible events that violate GWK. Experiment 2a demonstrated that fantasy-related inconsistencies caused disruption when they occurred at the local level and the fantasy-context stood in direct opposition to the target sentence. However, Experiment 2b demonstrated that disruption can be initially eliminated when readers encountered fantasy-related violations at the global level, but delayed-processing difficulty occurred on the spillover sentence, downstream of the target sentence. All four experiments are discussed within the context of the RI-Val model.
Foggy windows: Pupillary responses during task preparation
Authors: Trani Alexandra , Verhaeghen Paul
Published: January 2018

We investigated pupil dilation in 96 subjects during task preparation and during a post-trial interval in a visual search task and an auditory working memory task. Completely informative difficulty cues (easy, medium, or hard) were presented right before task preparation to examine whether pupil dilation indicated advance mobilisation of attentional resources; functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) studies have argued for the existence of such task preparation, and the literature shows that pupil dilation tracks attentional effort during task performance. We found, however, little evidence for such task preparation. In the working memory task, pupil size was identical across cues, and although pupil dilation in the visual search task tracked the cue, pupil dilation predicted subsequent performance in neither task. Pupil dilation patterns in the post-trial interval were more consistent with an effect of emotional reactivity. Our findings suggest that the mobilisation of attentional resources in the service of the task does not occur during the preparatory interval, but is delayed until the task itself is initiated.
Examining word processing via a megastudy of conditional reading aloud
Authors: Cortese Michael J , Yates Mark , Schock Jocelyn , Vilks Lizete
Published: January 2018

Results from a megastudy on conditional reading aloud for 2,145 monosyllabic words are reported. In stepwise regression analyses, the predictor variables accounted for over 66% of the reaction time (RT) variance. Linear mixed effect modelling on log RT indicated that every variable that related to RT in either reading aloud or lexical decision also related to RT in conditional reading aloud. Notably, differences among tasks were observed. Specifically, lexical decision showed stronger reliance on semantic information than the other two tasks, but conditional reading aloud also showed strong reliance on semantic information. Interestingly, feedback consistency affected reading aloud and conditional reading but not lexical decision. Pairwise correlations revealed that conditional reading aloud performance showed moderately strong relationships to lexical decision and reading aloud performance, whereas reading aloud and lexical decision performance were weakly related to each other. Conditional reading aloud produces reliable data that can be used to examine word processing. Theoretical challenges moving forward include how to best conceptualise and model processes involved in this task.
Spatial biases in deaf, blind, and deafblind individuals as revealed by a haptic line bisection task
Authors: Cattaneo Zaira , Rinaldi Luca , Geraci Carlo , Cecchetto Carlo , Papagno Costanza
Published: January 2018

In this study, we investigated whether auditory deprivation leads to a more balanced bilateral control of spatial attention in the haptic space. We tested four groups of participants: early deaf, early blind, deafblind, and control (normally hearing and sighted) participants. Using a haptic line bisection task, we found that while normally hearing individuals (even when blind) showed a significant tendency to bisect to the left of the veridical midpoint (i.e., pseudoneglect), deaf individuals did not show any significant directional bias. This was the case of both deaf signers and non-signers, in line with prior findings obtained using a visual line bisection task. Interestingly, deafblind individuals also erred significantly to the left, resembling the pattern of early blind and control participants. Overall, these data critically suggest that deafness induces changes in the hemispheric asymmetry subtending the orientation of spatial attention also in the haptic modality. Moreover, our findings indicate that what counterbalances the right-hemisphere dominance in the control of spatial attention is not the lack of auditory input per se, nor sign language use, but rather the heavier reliance on visual experience induced by early auditory deprivation.
Cutting through the MADness: Expectations about what a target is doing impact how likely it is to be found in dynamic visual displays
Authors: Scarince Collin , Hout Michael C
Published: January 2018

When searching for things in the world, we seldom encounter the static environment so often afforded by laboratory search tasks. Dynamic events tend to capture attention; however, Kunar and Watson previously found that dynamic search displays (search for vowel targets among moving and blinking letter stimuli) resulted in strikingly high miss rates. A possible explanation for the high miss rates is that the presence of dynamic features resulted in participants becoming sensitive to the likelihood of appearance for each target category and dynamic feature combination (e.g., moving A, blinking A, moving E), even though dynamic features did not define the targets. Overall target prevalence was high in these studies, but the prevalence of each target + dynamic feature combination was low, which may have led to a low-prevalence effect, whereby infrequent targets were disproportionately missed. Searchers may have preferentially searched for (or avoided) certain dynamic features, even though the dynamic features did not differentiate targets from distractors. We investigated whether the frequency with which targets possessed particular dynamic features would affect the likelihood of search misses. We found that targets possessing features which rarely accompanied a “hit” were more often missed than those with dynamic features more strongly associated with target detection. This suggests that searchers are sensitive to the prevalence of non-defining features and use this information to direct their searches.
The magic hand: Plasticity of mental hand representation
Authors: Cocchini Gianna , Galligan Toni , Mora Laura , Kuhn Gustav
Published: January 2018

Internal spatial body configurations are crucial to successfully interact with the environment and to experience our body as a three-dimensional volumetric entity. These representations are highly malleable and are modulated by a multitude of afferent and motor information. Despite some studies reporting the impact of sensory and motor modulation on body representations, the long-term relationship between sensory information and mental representation of own body parts is still unclear. We investigated hand representation in a group of expert sleight-of-hand magicians and in a group of age-matched adults naïve to magic (controls). Participants were asked to localise landmarks of their fingers when their hand position was congruent with the mental representation (Experiment 1) and when proprioceptive information was “misleading” (Experiment 2). Magicians outperformed controls in both experiments, suggesting that extensive training in sleight of hand has a profound effect in refining hand representation. Moreover, the impact of training seems to have a high body-part specificity, with a maximum impact for those body sections used more prominently during the training. Interestingly, it seems that sleight-of-hand training can lead to a specific improvement of hand mental representation, which relies less on proprioceptive information.
Visual-auditory differences in duration discrimination depend on modality-specific, sensory-automatic temporal processing: Converging evidence for the validity of the Sensory-Automatic Timing Hypothesis
Authors: Rammsayer Thomas , Pichelmann Stefan
Published: January 2018

The Sensory-Automatic Timing Hypothesis assumes visual-auditory differences in duration discrimination to originate from sensory-automatic temporal processing. Although temporal discrimination of extremely brief intervals in the range of tens-of-milliseconds is predicted to depend mainly on modality-specific, sensory-automatic temporal processing, duration discrimination of longer intervals is predicted to require more and more amodal, higher order cognitive resources and decreasing input from the sensory-automatic timing system with increasing interval duration. In two duration discrimination experiments with sensory modality as a within- and a between-subjects variable, respectively, we tested two decisive predictions derived from the Sensory-Automatic Timing Hypothesis: (1) visual-auditory differences in duration discrimination were expected to be larger for brief intervals in the tens-of-milliseconds range than for longer ones, and (2) visual-auditory differences in duration discrimination of longer intervals should disappear when statistically controlled for modality-specific input from the sensory-automatic timing system. In both experiments, visual-auditory differences in duration discrimination were larger for the brief than for the longer intervals. Furthermore, visual-auditory differences observed with longer intervals disappeared when statistically controlled for modality-specific input from the sensory-automatic timing system. Thus, our findings clearly confirmed the validity of the Sensory-Automatic Timing Hypothesis.
High emotional contagion and empathy are associated with enhanced detection of emotional authenticity in laughter
Authors: Neves Leonor , Cordeiro Carolina , Scott Sophie K , Castro São Luís , Lima César F
Published: January 2018

Nonverbal vocalisations such as laughter pervade social interactions, and the ability to accurately interpret them is an important skill. Previous research has probed the general mechanisms supporting vocal emotional processing, but the factors that determine individual differences in this ability remain poorly understood. Here, we ask whether the propensity to resonate with others’ emotions—as measured by trait levels of emotional contagion and empathy—relates to the ability to perceive different types of laughter. We focus on emotional authenticity detection in spontaneous and voluntary laughs: spontaneous laughs reflect a less controlled and genuinely felt emotion, and voluntary laughs reflect a more deliberate communicative act (e.g., polite agreement). In total, 119 participants evaluated the authenticity and contagiousness of spontaneous and voluntary laughs and completed two self-report measures of resonance with others’ emotions: the Emotional Contagion Scale and the Empathic Concern scale of the Interpersonal Reactivity Index. We found that higher scores on these measures predict enhanced ability to detect laughter authenticity. We further observed that perceived contagion responses during listening to laughter significantly relate to authenticity detection. These findings suggest that resonating with others’ emotions provides a mechanism for processing complex aspects of vocal emotional information.
How much does orthography influence the processing of reduced word forms? Evidence from novel-word learning about French schwa deletion
Authors: Viebahn Malte C , McQueen James M , Ernestus Mirjam , Frauenfelder Ulrich H , Bürki Audrey
Published: January 2018

This study examines the influence of orthography on the processing of reduced word forms. For this purpose, we compared the impact of phonological variation with the impact of spelling-sound consistency on the processing of words that may be produced with or without the vowel schwa. Participants learnt novel French words in which the vowel schwa was present or absent in the first syllable. In Experiment 1, the words were consistently produced without schwa or produced in a variable manner (i.e., sometimes produced with and sometimes produced without schwa). In Experiment 2, words were always produced in a consistent manner, but an orthographic exposure phase was included in which words that were produced without schwa were either spelled with or without the letter . Results from naming and eye-tracking tasks suggest that both phonological variation and spelling-sound consistency influence the processing of spoken novel words. However, the influence of phonological variation outweighs the effect of spelling-sound consistency. Our findings therefore suggest that the influence of orthography on the processing of reduced word forms is relatively small.
Photographs of real human figures: Item types and persistent sex differences in mental rotation
Authors: Doyle Randi A , Voyer Daniel
Published: January 2018

The goal of the current study was to provide a better understanding of the role of image familiarity, embodied cognition, and cognitive strategies on sex differences in performance when rotating blocks and photographs of real human bodies. Two new Mental Rotation Tests (MRTs) were created: one using photographs of real human models positioned as closely as possible to computer drawn figures from the human figures MRT used in Doyle and Voyer’s 2013 study, and one using analogous block figures. It was hypothesised that, when compared to the analogous block figures, the real human figures would lead to improved accuracy among both men and women, a reduced magnitude of sex differences in accuracy, and a reduced effect of occlusion on women’s performance when compared to analogous block figures. The three-way interaction between test, sex, and occlusion reported in Doyle and Voyer’s 2013 study was not replicated in the current study. However, women’s scores on the real human figures improved significantly more than men’s scores on the real human figures test compared to gender differences in improvement on the block figures test. This finding points to a greater strategy shift among women than men when rotating human figures.
Long-lasting effects of family-related factors on adults’ ability to recognise brief facial expressions of emotion
Authors: Felisberti Fatima M
Published: January 2018

This study investigated whether adults’ ability to attribute emotions to brief facial expressions (microexpressions) is associated with family-related environmental factors (FrFs) such as one’s number of siblings (Experiment 1), attachment style (Experiment 2), or perceived parental authority style (Experiment 3). Participants’ accuracy and reaction time (RT) to the recognition of anger, contempt, disgust, fear, happiness, and sadness to facial microexpressions (exposure: 100 ms) were measured with a six-alternative forced choice computerised method (6AFC). The attachment style and the authority style of the participants’ parents were accessed using questionnaires. The findings revealed that up to 13% of the variance in participants’ responses could be explained by FrFs, with modest to moderate effect sizes. Microexpressions linked to signs of hostility or threat (i.e., contempt and fear) were decoded faster and/or more accurately by adults with few or no siblings or with a fearful attachment. Conversely, participants who recalled their fathers as authoritarian were worse at recognising contempt and fear than participants who perceived them as permissive or authoritative. The findings suggest that early FrFs may still be involved in the fine-tuning of responses to signs of contextual danger when the time for cognitive processing of facial expressions is severely restricted.
On the reliability of the foreign language effect on risk-taking
Authors: Hayakawa Sayuri , Lau Becky Ka Ying , Holtzmann Sophie , Costa Albert , Keysar Boaz
Published: January 2018

People consider choices that involve risk on a daily basis. In principle, willingness to take risks should be independent of the language used while considering the available options. However, research has shown that using a foreign language can increase willingness to take risks, presumably because a foreign language is less emotional. Here, we investigate the robustness of this effect of language on risk by varying participant language background and methodological design features. In addition, we investigate whether using a foreign language increases risk-seeking behaviour in general, or whether it promotes a more strategic approach to risk. Four experiments reveal mixed results regarding the effect that using a foreign language has on risk-taking. Experiment 1 clearly shows that using a foreign language increases strategic risk-taking compared with using a native tongue. In contrast, Experiments 2 and 3 find no effect of the native-ness of language on risk-taking. Experiment 4 supports the idea that using a foreign language promotes risk-taking in general compared with using a native language. We discuss these mixed results in the context of previous findings and suggest potential directions for future research to clarify the effect of language on risk-taking.
Egocentric bias across mental and non-mental representations in the Sandbox Task
Authors: Samuel Steven , Legg Edward W , Lurz Robert , Clayton Nicola S
Published: January 2018

In the Sandbox Task, participants indicate where a protagonist who has a false belief about the location of an object will look for that object in a trough filled with a substrate that conceals the hidden object’s location. Previous findings that participants tend to indicate a location closer to where they themselves know the object to be located have been interpreted as evidence of egocentric bias when attributing mental states to others. We tested the assumption that such biases occur as a result of reasoning about mental states specifically. We found that participants showed more egocentric bias when reasoning from a protagonist’s false belief than from their own memory, but found equivalent levels of bias when they were asked to indicate where a false film would depict the object as when they were asked about a protagonist’s false belief. Our findings suggest that that egocentric biases found in adult false belief tasks are more likely due to a general difficulty with reasoning about false representations than a specialised difficulty with reasoning about false mental states.
Script differences and masked translation priming: Evidence from Hindi-English bilinguals
Authors: Dubey Namrata , Witzel Naoko , Witzel Jeffrey
Published: January 2018

This study reports on two experiments investigating the effects of script differences on masked translation priming in highly proficient early Hindi-English bilinguals. In Experiment 1 (the cross-script experiment), L1 Hindi was presented in the standard Devanagari script, while L2 English was presented in the Roman alphabet. In Experiment 2 (the same-script experiment), both L1 Hindi and L2 English were presented in the Roman alphabet. Both experiments revealed translation priming in the L1-L2 direction. However, L2-L1 priming was obtained in the same-script experiment, but not in the cross-script experiment. These findings are discussed in relation to the orthographic cue hypothesis as well as hypotheses that hold that script differences influence the distance between the L1 and L2 in lexical space and/or cross-language lateral inhibition. We also provide alternative accounts for these results in terms of how orthographic cues provided by L1 targets might lead to the discontinuation or disruption of processing for L2 primes.
It is magic! How impossible solutions prevent the discovery of obvious ones?
Authors: Thomas Cyril , Didierjean André , Kuhn Gustav
Published: January 2018

When confronted with an insight problem, some factors limit our capacity to discover the optimal solution. Previous research on problem solving has shown that the first idea that comes to participants’ minds can inhibit them from finding better alternative solutions. We used a magic trick to demonstrate that this mind fixing effect is more general than previously thought: a solution that participants knew to be incorrect and impossible inhibited the discovery of an easy alternative. We show that a simple exposure to an obvious false solution (e.g., the magician hides the card in the palm of his hand to secretly transfer it to his back pocket) can inhibit participants from finding the real secret of the trick (e.g., he used a duplicate card), even if the magician proves that this false solution is impossible (e.g., he shows his hand is empty). We discuss the psychological processes underlying this robust fixing effect.
Following instructions in a dual-task paradigm: Evidence for a temporary motor store in working memory
Authors: Jaroslawska Agnieszka J , Gathercole Susan E , Holmes Joni
Published: January 2018

Evidence from dual-task studies suggests that working memory supports the retention and implementation of verbal instructions. One key finding that is not readily accommodated by existing models of working memory is that participants are consistently more accurate at physically performing rather than verbally repeating a sequence of commands. This action advantage has no obvious source within the multi-component model of working memory and has been proposed to be driven by an as yet undetected limited-capacity store dedicated to the temporary maintenance of spatial, motoric, and temporal features of intended movements. To test this hypothesis, we sought to selectively disrupt the action advantage with concurrent motor suppression. In three dual-task experiments, young adults’ immediate memory for sequences of spoken instructions was assessed by both action-based and spoken recall. In addition to classic interference tasks known to tax the phonological loop and central executive, motor suppression tasks designed to impair the encoding and retention of motoric representations were included. These required participants to produce repetitive sequences of either fine motor gestures (Experiment 1, N = 16) or more basic ones (Experiments 2, N = 16, and 3, N = 16). The benefit of action-based recall was reduced following the production of basic gestures but remained intact under all other interference conditions. These results suggest that the mnemonic advantage of enacted recall depends on a cognitive system dedicated to the temporary maintenance of motoric representations of planned action sequences.
Anticipatory access to group-level information in working memory
Authors: Farrell Simon
Published: January 2018

One assumption common to many serial recall models is that lists can be stored in a structured manner, as groups nested inside larger sequences. However, many of these theories fail to explain the dynamics by which those groups are accessed, and those models that do provide such an account have not been comprehensively tested. This article presents three experiments using a probed recall paradigm in which potential target positions were precued. Across all the experiments, it was found that a precue that targeted only a single group led to faster recall than one that targeted multiple groups, in cases where the number of positions precued was equated. In two of the three experiments, there was evidence (quantified using Bayes factors [BFs]) that responding under a precue targeting multiple groups was no faster than an uniformative control precue. The results suggest that retrieval of groups is a major bottleneck to recall items in structured lists and are consistent with models assuming that information about groups is retrieved prior to accessing elements in the groups themselves.
The effect of scrambling upright and inverted faces on the N170
Authors: Civile Ciro , Elchlepp Heike , McLaren Rossy , Galang Carl Michael , Lavric Aureliu , McLaren IPL
Published: January 2018

The face inversion effect refers to a decrement in performance when we try to recognise familiar faces turned upside down (inverted), compared with familiar faces presented in their usual (upright) orientation. Recently, we have demonstrated that the inversion effect can also be found with checkerboards drawn from prototype-defined categories when the participants have been trained with these categories, suggesting that factors such as expertise and the relationships between stimulus features may be important determinants of this effect. We also demonstrated that the typical inversion effect on the N170 seen with faces is found with checkerboards, suggesting that modulation of the N170 is a marker for disruption in the use of configural information. In the present experiment, we first demonstrate that our scrambling technique greatly reduces the inversion effect in faces. Following this, we used Event-Related Potentials ( ERPs) recorded while participants performed an Old/New recognition study on normal and scrambled faces presented in both upright and inverted orientations to investigate the impact of scrambling on the N170. We obtained the standard robust inversion effect for normal faces: The N170 was both larger and delayed for normal inverted faces as compared with normal upright faces, whereas a significantly reduced inversion effect was recorded for scrambled faces. These results show that the inversion effect on the N170 is greater for normal compared with scrambled faces, and we interpret the smaller effect for scrambled faces as being due to the reduction in expertise for those faces consequent on scrambling.
Biasing and debiasing health decisions with bar graphs: Costs and benefits of graph literacy
Authors: Okan Yasmina , Garcia-Retamero Rocio , Cokely Edward T , Maldonado Antonio
Published: January 2018

Bar graphs can improve risk communication in medicine and health. Unfortunately, recent research has revealed that bar graphs are associated with a robust bias that can lead to systematic judgement and decision-making errors. When people view bar graphs representing means, they tend to believe that data points located within bars are more likely to be part of the underlying distributions than equidistant points outside bars. In three experiments, we investigated potential consequences, key cognitive mechanisms, and generalisability of the within-the-bar bias in the medical domain. We also investigated the effectiveness of different interventions to reduce the effect of this bias and protect people from errors. Results revealed that the within-the-bar bias systematically affected participants’ judgements and decisions concerning treatments for controlling blood glucose, as well as their interpretations of ecological graphs designed to guide health policy decisions. Interestingly, individuals with higher graph literacy showed the largest biases. However, the use of dot plots to replace bars improved the accuracy of interpretations. Perceptual mechanisms underlying the within-the-bar bias and prescriptive implications for graph design are discussed.
Affect as an antecedent of synchrony: A spectrum analysis with wavelet transform
Authors: Fujiwara Ken , Daibo Ikuo
Published: January 2018

This study explored whether affect could be an antecedent of synchrony (i.e., the convergence of rhythm and timing) in face-to-face conversations. Although previous studies have failed to illustrate that affective valence causes synchrony, they did not employ experimental manipulation of affective state and did not consider the affective contrast between interacting participants. In this study, two experiments were conducted on dyadic interactions with a same-sex stranger. Experiment 1 focused on affective valence, and Experiment 2 investigated the influence of affective contrast on synchrony. Participants engaged in a 6-min chat. Positive or negative affect was separately induced using a video (Experiment 1) or an affective picture set (Experiment 2) before conversation to stimulate each two conditions: positive versus negative affective state (Experiment 1) or low versus high contrast in affective state (Experiment 2). Synchrony was evaluated using wavelet transform, via calculation of the cross-wavelet coherence (WTC) and relative phasing pattern (i.e., in-phase and anti-phase), as well as cross-correlation. Results showed that cross-WTC and proportion of in-phase patterning were not influenced by affective valence (Experiments 1 and 2); however, they were higher in the low-contrast condition compared with the high-contrast condition (Experiment 2). Cross-correlation, on the contrary, could not find a significant difference in Experiments 1 and 2. These results were discussed from the perspective of cognitive and motivational processes.
Stronger, sooner, and more certain climate change: A link between certainty and outcome strength in revised forecasts
Authors: Løhre Erik
Published: January 2018

What do lay people think about revised forecasts of future outcomes? A series of experiments show that when climate change forecasts are revised in an upward direction (e.g., a higher sea level rise is predicted in light of new information), the forecast is perceived as more certain in contrast to revisions in a downward direction. This association is bidirectional so that people also think a forecast that has become more certain (uncertain) indicates a stronger (weaker) outcome. Furthermore, when the timing of the outcome is revised, a predicted sooner occurrence (a “stronger” outcome) was judged to be more certain than a predicted delayed occurrence. Upward revisions may also lead to more positive impressions of the forecast and the forecaster, with clear implications for the communication of uncertainty, both for climate change and in other domains. Different theoretical explanations for the results are discussed.
The contrast effect in reading general conditionals
Authors: Wang Moyun , Yao Xinyun
Published: January 2018

To adjudicate between deterministic and probabilistic accounts of the meaning of conditionals, we examined the influence of context on the reading of general conditionals. Context was varied with the contrast context, where participants judged uncertain conditionals after certain conditionals, and the control context, where participants judged only uncertain conditionals. Experiment 1 had participants to judge whether a set of truth table cases was possible for the conditional. Experiment 2 had participants to judge whether the conditional was true for a set of truth table cases. The findings are as follows. Possibility and truth judgments showed a similar response pattern. The reading of general conditionals varied with conditional contexts. The predominant reading was deterministic in the contrast context but was probabilistic in the control context. Conditional contexts yielded a significant contrast effect. Meanwhile, conditional probability P( q| p) made a smaller difference to the acceptance rate in the contrast context than in the control context. The overall pattern is beyond both the deterministic and probabilistic accounts. Alternatively, we propose a dynamic-threshold account for the relative reading of general conditionals.
The influence of conflict monitoring on meta-reasoning and response times in a base rate task
Authors: Dujmović Marin , Valerjev Pavle
Published: January 2018

We examined the role of conflict monitoring processes in forming metacognitive judgements of confidence while performing base rate tasks. Recently proposed models of dual-process reasoning, as well as research, have shown that conflict detection might represent a link between Type 1 and Type 2 processing. Conflict detection has also been shown to affect metacognitive processes in reasoning tasks. By varying base rate probability and congruence, we generated base rate tasks of four distinct levels of congruence. The results of two experiments showed that participants were slower and less confident in conflict conditions regardless of their response. However, there were two distinct subsets of participants with different levels of sensitivity to conflict which resulted in different patterns of results when using low base rate ratios. In-depth analyses showed that the impact of base rate information in the formation of metacognitive judgements depended on congruence and response type. Base rate information was a more salient cue for metacognitive processes when responding according to base rates compared with responding according to belief. There is evidence that base rate information may serve as a direct cue for metacognition, independent of fluency.
Exploring the sentence advantage in working memory: Insights from serial recall and recognition
Authors: Allen Richard J , Hitch Graham J , Baddeley Alan D
Published: January 2018

Immediate serial recall of sentences has been shown to be superior to that of unrelated words. This study was designed to further explore how this effect might emerge in recall and to establish whether it also extends to serial recognition, a different form of response task that has relatively reduced output requirements. Using auditory or visual presentation of sequences, we found a substantial advantage for sentences over lists in serial recall, an effect shown on measures of recall accuracy, order, intrusion, and omission errors and reflected in transposition gradients. In contrast however, recognition memory based on a standard change detection paradigm gave only weak and inconsistent evidence for a sentence superiority effect. However, when a more sensitive staircase procedure imported from psychophysics was used, a clear sentence advantage was found although the effect sizes were smaller than those observed in serial recall. These findings suggest that sentence recall benefits from automatic processes that utilise long-term knowledge across encoding, storage, and retrieval.
No lexical competition without priming: Evidence from the picture–word interference paradigm
Authors: Gauvin Hanna S , Jonen Magdalena K , Choi Jessica , McMahon Katie , de Zubicaray Greig I
Published: January 2018

Over the past 40 years, researchers have assumed that semantic interference effects in picture naming reflect competition among lexical candidates during retrieval. In this study, we examined the role of the familiarisation phase in which participants are shown the target pictures and required to rehearse the appropriate names before the picture–word interference (PWI) paradigm is performed. A previous study reported that omitting the familiarisation phase reversed the polarity of the semantic effect to facilitation. In two experiments using between- and within-participants design, respectively, we compared PWI performance with and without familiarisation while using matched stimuli and task parameters. Overall, the results showed the typical semantic interference effect following familiarisation. However, in both experiments, naming latencies did not differ significantly between related and unrelated distractors when familiarisation was omitted. The current findings suggest that familiarisation plays an important role in determining semantic interference in PWI, most likely via raising lexical competitor activation by priming links between targets and related concepts. We also discuss broader implications of our findings with respect to the replicability of reported semantic facilitation effects in PWI.
Management of primary Sjögren’s syndrome: recent developments and new classification criteria
Authors: Del Papa Nicoletta , Vitali Claudio
Published: January 2018

For many years primary Sjögren’s syndrome (pSS) has been considered an orphan disease, since no specific therapies were recognized as being capable of contrasting the development and progression of this disorder. The treatment of oral and ocular features, as well as of the systemic organ involvement, has been entrusted to the joint management of different subspecialty physicians, like ophthalmologists, otolaryngologists, dentists and rheumatologists. These latter subspecialty doctors are usually more involved in the treatment of systemic extraglandular involvement and, to do it, they have long been using the conventional therapies borrowed by the treatment schedules adopted in other systemic autoimmune diseases. The increasing knowledge of the biological pathways that are operative in patients with pSS, and the parallel development of molecular biology technology, have allowed the production and availability of a number of biological agents able to positively act on different disease mechanisms, and thus are candidates for testing in therapeutic trials. Meanwhile, the scientific community has made a great effort to develop new accurate and validated classification criteria and outcome measures to be applied in the selection of patients to be included and monitored in therapeutic studies.

Some of the new-generation biotechnological agents have been tested in a number of open-label and randomized controlled trials that have produced in many cases inconclusive or contradictory results. Behind the differences in trial protocols, adopted outcome measures and predefined endpoints, reasons for such unsatisfactory results can be found in the large heterogeneity of clinical subtypes in the examined cohorts. The future challenge for a substantial advancement in the therapeutic approach to pSS could be to identify the pathologic mechanisms, outcome tools and biomarkers that characterize the different subsets of the disease in order to test carefully selected target therapies with the highest probability of success in each different clinical phenotype.
Medical Imaging and Laboratory Analysis of Diagnostic Accuracy in 107 Consecutive Hospitalized Patients With Diabetic Foot Osteomyelitis and Partial Foot Amputations
Authors: Ramanujam Crystal L. , Han David , Zgonis Thomas
Published: January 2018

The primary aim of our study was to compare the preoperative diagnostic accuracy of plain radiographic findings with the accuracy of magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) findings for diabetic foot osteomyelitis in hospitalized patients who underwent first-time partial foot amputations with confirmed histopathological specimens positive for osteomyelitis. Second, it was desired to determine whether certain variables within the initial clinical presentation and preoperative laboratory findings were associated with more accurate diagnosis of diabetic foot osteomyelitis in this study population. Finally, it was desired to determine the most common bacterial organisms found in bone and soft-tissue cultures taken intraoperatively and to determine how often the same organism was found in both. After applying the inclusion and exclusion criteria to the initial 329 patients identified through chart review, the final sample size for further analysis was n =107. In this study, after adjusting for the effects of covariates such as age, erythrocyte sedimentation rate (ESR) and C-reactive protein, plain radiographs seemed to have statistically more significant power than MRI in predicting and diagnosing diabetic foot osteomyelitis. In addition, higher ESR values were confirmed to predict a higher chance of positive diagnosis for diabetic foot osteomyelitis. Furthermore, the presence of positive bacterial identification from intraoperative bone cultures did not always indicate true osteomyelitis on histopathological examination.

Levels of Evidence: Level II: Diagnostic study
The 50 Most-Cited Articles in Meniscal Allograft Transplantation Research: A Bibliometric Analysis
Authors: Chaudhry Zaira S. , Fram Brianna , Henn R. Frank , Sherman Seth L. , Hammoud Sommer
Published: January 2018

Objective

To identify the 50 most-cited articles in meniscal allograft transplantation (MAT) research and analyze their characteristics.

Design

In September 2017, the Scopus database was queried to identify the 50 most-cited articles in MAT research. Variables analyzed include number of citations, publication year, journal, institution, country of origin, article type, study design, and level of evidence. Citation density was calculated for each article. The correlation between citation density and publication year and the correlation between level of evidence and number of citations, citation density, and publication year were computed.

Results

The 50 most-cited articles were published in 12 journals between 1986 and 2011. The number of citations ranged from 59 to 290 (109.3 ± 48.6). Citation density ranged from 2.7 to 17.6 citations per year (7.0 ± 3.3). There was a positive correlation between citation density and publication year ( r = +0.489, P < 0.001). Overall, 56% of the articles were clinical and 44% were basic science. Of the 28 clinical articles, 61% were level IV or V evidence. Level of evidence was not significantly correlated with number of citations ( r = −0.059, P = 0.766), citation density ( r = +0.030, P = 0.880), or publication year ( r = −0.0009, P = 0.996).

Conclusion

This analysis provides the orthopedic community with a readily accessible list of the classic citations in MAT research and provides insight into the historical development of this procedure. Although there was a moderate positive correlation between citation density and publication year, articles with stronger levels of evidence were not more frequently cited despite the increasing trend toward evidence-based practice.
Cylindrical cavity expansion approximations using different constitutive models for the target material
Authors: Johnsen Joakim , Holmen Jens Kristian , Warren Thomas L , Børvik Tore
Published: January 2018

In this article, we investigate the results obtained using different constitutive models for the solution of the cylindrical cavity expansion problem under plane strain conditions. The cylindrical cavity expansion solutions are employed with the cylindrical cavity expansion approximation to obtain ballistic limit and residual velocities for ductile metals perforated by rigid projectiles. Many of the previously developed cylindrical cavity expansion approximations use simplified constitutive models. However, in the present work, we first extend the cylindrical cavity expansion theory with the Voce strain hardening rule, before we utilize three different strain hardening constitutive models in cylindrical cavity expansion calculations to predict ballistic limit and residual velocities of aluminum and steel target plates struck by rigid projectiles. The results show that when strain hardening is accurately represented by the constitutive models until necking in a uniaxial tension test, all cylindrical cavity expansion models predict ballistic limit velocities that are close to the experimental data.
Blast protection in urban areas using protective plants
Authors: Gebbeken Norbert , Warnstedt Paul , Rüdiger Lars
Published: January 2018

The increased threats by terroristic actions require the protection of urban areas. The protective potential of currently available protective systems is often recognizable, which may therefore raise the perceived threat. This is acceptable for temporary solutions but in the long-term contrary to the idea of a modern and open society. For permanent use, new solutions, which are not recognized as protective elements and deploy their protective potential inconspicuously, should be considered. Among them, there are elements of city furniture and landscape architecture. This article addresses theoretical, numerical, and experimental research towards protection capabilities of plants against blast. The research shows that plants of certain characteristics reduce the blast pressure by up to 60% compared to unimpeded blast wave propagation. These first studies pose specific questions that need to be answered in further research.
Case Series of 3 Patients Diagnosed With Atypical Hemolytic Uremic Syndrome Successfully Treated With Steroids, Plasmapheresis, and Rituximab
Authors: Patterson Jeffery M. , Bolster Lauren , Larratt Loree
Published: January 2018

Rationale:

Atypical hemolytic uremic syndrome, which has a high probability of chronic kidney disease, morbidity, and mortality, needs to be promptly recognized when patients present with microangiopathic hemolysis.

Presenting Concerns of the Patient:

Three patients present with laboratory parameters consistent with a thrombotic microangiopathy. With a suspected diagnosis of thrombotic thrombocytopenic purpura, steroids with plasmapheresis were initiated.

Diagnoses:

With ADAMTS13 levels reported normal, the suspected diagnoses were reevaluated. Given ongoing renal impairment, atypical hemolytic uremic syndrome was strongly considered.

Interventions:

When local funding issues precluded the prompt use of eculizumab, 4 doses of weekly rituximab were trialed.

Outcome:

Over 2 years later, all 3 patients have sustained durable remissions defined by the absence of kidney impairment or laboratory investigations concerning for microangiopathic hemolytic relapse.

Lessons Learned:

In cases of a suspected autoimmune mechanism leading to atypical hemolytic uremic syndrome, long-term use of eculizumab may not be required.
Developing Online Modules for a “Health and Wellness” Course: Adapting Active Learning Strategies to the Online Environment
Authors: Kas-Osoka Chioma N. , Bradley Lilanta Joy , Coffman Robert , Orpinas Pamela
Published: January 2018

Active learning refers to activities that engage students in the learning process. To make the learning process more active, instructors should add opportunities for reflection. However, reflection is not limited to the classroom environment. Instruction is shifting toward incorporating opportunities for active learning through online platforms. We developed four online health topic modules—sexual health, nutrition, environmental health, and alcohol awareness—and evaluated 1,090 student responses to course content. Students provided feedback on the activities that aided in learning course content. Thematic analysis was conducted to systematically review the data and elicit meaning. Using an inductive approach to students’ feedback, we synthesized the excerpts, quotations, and entire passages from students’ open-ended responses. Three major themes constructed from the data were (a) mode of delivery of the course content, (b) applicability of the content to students’ lives and the community, and (c) structure of the modules. The design and implementation resulted in six lessons for educators: students were engaged when the content was applicable to their personal life, students valued learning about how public health affects their community, course content must provide opportunities for critical thinking and self-reflection, students valued the hybrid nature of the course, student feedback of the online modules promoted self-reflection, and students and instructors appreciated the worksheet that guided the online class.
Heterozygous RTEL1 variants in bone marrow failure and myeloid neoplasms
Authors: Marsh Judith C. W. , Gutierrez-Rodrigues Fernanda , Cooper James , Jiang Jie , Gandhi Shreyans , Kajigaya Sachiko , Feng Xingmin , Ibanez Maria del Pilar F. , Donaires Flávia S. , Lopes da Silva João P. , Li Zejuan , Das Soma , Ibanez Maria , Smith Alexander E. , Lea Nicholas , Best Steven , Ireland Robin , Kulasekararaj Austin G. , McLornan Donal P. , Pagliuca Anthony , Callebaut Isabelle , Young Neal S. , Calado Rodrigo T. , Townsley Danielle M. , Mufti Ghulam J
Published: January 2018

Key Points

RTEL1 variants associate with AA, idiopathic cytopenias, and hypocellular myelodysplastic syndromes. Detailed clinical/family history, functional assays, and in silico tools are critical for interpreting the pathogenicity of RTEL1 variants.