Sensitivity to speech rhythm explains individual differences in reading ability independently of phonological awareness

This study considered whether sensitivity to speech rhythm can predict concurrent variance in reading attainment after individual differences in age, vocabulary and phonological awareness have been controlled. Five to six-year-old English-speaking children completed a battery of phonological processing assessments and reading assessments, along with a simple word stress manipulation task. The results showed that performance on the stress manipulation measure predicted a significant amount of variance in reading attainment after age, vocabulary, and phonological processing had been taken into account. These results suggest that stress sensitivity is an important, yet neglected aspect of English-speaking children?s phonological representations, which needs to be incorporated into theoretical accounts of reading development

Distributional effects and individual differences in L2 morphology learning

Second language (L2) learning outcomes may depend on the structure of the input and learners’ cognitive abilities. This study tested whether less predictable input might facilitate learning and generalization of L2 morphology while evaluating contributions of statistical learning ability, nonverbal intelligence, phonological short-term memory, and verbal working memory. Over three sessions, 54 adults were exposed to a Russian case-marking paradigm with a balanced or skewed item distribution in the input. Whereas statistical learning ability and nonverbal intelligence predicted learning of trained items, only nonverbal intelligence also predicted generalization of case-marking inflections to new vocabulary. Neither measure of temporary storage capacity predicted learning. Balanced, less predictable input was associated with higher accuracy in generalization but only in the initial test session. These results suggest that individual differences in pattern extraction play a more sustained role in L2 acquisition than instructional manipulations that vary the predictability of lexical items in the input

Motion planning with dynamics awareness for long reach manipulation in aerial robotic systems with two arms

Human activities in maintenance of industrial plants pose elevated risks as well as significant costs due to the required shutdowns of the facility. An aerial robotic system with two arms for long reach manipulation in cluttered environments is presented to alleviate these constraints. The system consists of a multirotor with a long bar extension that incorporates a lightweight dual arm in the tip. This configuration allows aerial manipulation tasks even in hard-to-reach places. The objective of this work is the development of planning strategies to move the aerial robotic system with two arms for long reach manipulation in a safe and efficient way for both navigation and manipulation tasks. The motion planning problem is addressed considering jointly the aerial platform and the dual arm in order to achieve wider operating conditions. Since there exists a strong dynamical coupling between the multirotor and the dual arm, safety in obstacle avoidance will be assured by introducing dynamics awareness in the operation of the planner. On the other hand, the limited maneuverability of the system emphasizes the importance of energy and time efficiency in the generated trajectories. Accordingly, an adapted version of the optimal Rapidly-exploring Random Tree algorithm has been employed to guarantee their optimality. The resulting motion planning strategy has been evaluated through simulation in two realistic industrial scenarios, a riveting application and a chimney repairing task. To this end, the dynamics of the aerial robotic system with two arms for long reach manipulation has been properly modeled, and a distributed control scheme has been derived to complete the test bed. The satisfactory results of the simulations are presented as a first validation of the proposed approach.Unión Europea H2020-644271Ministerio de Ciencia, Innovación y Universidades DPI2014-59383-C2-1-

The effect of mindful eating on subsequent intake of a high calorie snack

This study examined the effects of applying a mindful eating strategy during lunch on subsequent intake of a palatable snack. It also looked at whether this effect occurred due to improved memory for lunch and whether effects varied with participant gender, level of interoceptive awareness or sensitivity to reward. Participants (n = 51) completed a heartbeat perception task to assess interoceptive awareness. They were then provided with a lunch of 825 calories. Participants in the experimental group ate lunch while listening to an audio clip encouraging them to focus on the sensory properties of the food (e.g. its smell, look, texture). Those in the control group ate lunch in silence. Two hours later participants were offered a snack. They then completed a questionnaire assessing sensitivity to reward as well as other measures assessing various aspects of their memory for lunch. The results showed no significant difference in lunch intake between the two groups but participants in the experimental group consumed significantly less snack than those in the control group; mean = 112.30 calories (SD = 70.24) versus mean = 203.20 calories (SD = 88.05) respectively, Cohen's d = 1.14. This effect occurred regardless of participant gender or level of interoceptive awareness. There was also no significant moderation by sensitivity to reward although one aspect, reward interest, showed a trend towards significance. There was no evidence to indicate that the mindful eating strategy enhanced participants' memory for their lunch. Further research is needed to assess the long-term effects of this strategy, as well as establish the underlying mechanisms. Future work on the relationship between sensitivity to reward and the effects of mindful eating may also benefit from larger sample sizes

Evaluative conditioning: recent developments and future directions

CONTINGENCY AWARENESS; ATTITUDE-CHANGE; EFFECTS DEPEND; IMPLICIT; ASSOCIATION; DISLIKES; VALENCE; LIKES; US; MISATTRIBUTION; Automaticity; Evaluative conditioning; Functional definition; Mental process theorie

The dark side of employee referral bonus programs : potential applicants’ awareness of a referral bonus and perceptions of organizational attractiveness

The purpose of this study is to examine the effects of potential applicants’ awareness of employees being rewarded for referrals on organizational attractiveness, based on credibility theory and the multiple inference model. In a first study (N=450), final-year students were less attracted to the organization when they knew employee referrals were rewarded, which was partially explained by lower credibility perceptions. Moreover, varying the specific characteristics of the referral bonus program (i.e., timing, size, type, recipient) did not improve potential applicants’ perceptions of credibility and attractiveness. A second study (N=127) replicated the negative effect of referral bonuses on organizational attractiveness and found that it could be explained by both potential applicants’ inferences about the referrer’s other-oriented motive and lower referrer credibility. Whether employees explicitly stated their referral reason was bonus-driven or not did not affect these results

Hopelessly Mortal: The Role of Mortality Salience, Immortality and Trait Self-esteem in Personal Hope

Do people lose hope when thinking about death? Based on Terror Management Theory, we predicted that thoughts of death (i.e., mortality salience) would reduce personal hope for people low, but not high, in self-esteem, and that this reduction in hope would be ameliorated by promises of immortality. In Studies 1 and 2, mortality salience reduced personal hope for people low in self-esteem, but not for people high in self-esteem. In Study 3, mortality salience reduced hope for people low in self-esteem when they read an argument that there is no afterlife, but not when they read “evidence” supporting life after death. In Study 4, this effect was replicated with an essay affirming scientific medical advances that promise immortality. Together, these findings uniquely demonstrate that thoughts of mortality interact with trait self-esteem to cause changes in personal hope, and that literal immortality beliefs can aid psychological adjustment when thinking about death. Implications for understanding personal hope, trait self-esteem, afterlife beliefs and terror management are discussed

Unveiling residual, spontaneous recovery from subtle hemispatial neglect three years after stroke

A common and disabling consequence of stroke is the difficulty in processing contralesional space (i.e., hemispatial neglect). According to paper-and-pencil tests, neglect remits or stabilizes in severity within a few months after a brain injury. This arbitrary temporal limit, however, is at odds with neglect's well-known dependency on task-sensitivity. The present study tested the hypothesis that the putative early resolution of neglect might be due to the insensitivity of testing methods rather than to the lack of spontaneous recovery at later stages. A right hemisphere stroke patient was studied longitudinally for 3 years. According to paper-and-pencil tests the patient showed no symptom of hemispatial neglect 1 month post stroke. Awareness of spatially lateralized visual targets was then assessed by means of computer based single-and dual tasks requiring an additional top-down deployment of attention for the parallel processing of visual or auditory stimuli. Errorless performance at computer-based tasks was reached at month 12 and maintained until month 29 after stroke. A bottom-up manipulation was then implemented by reducing target diameter. Following this change, more than 50% of contralesional targets were omitted, mostly under dual-tasking. At months 40 and 41 the same task revealed a significant (but not complete) reduction in the number of contralesional omissions. lpsilesional targets were, in contrast, still errorless detected. The coupling of a bottom-up (target change) and a top-down (dual-tasking) manipulation revealed the presence of a long-lasting spontaneous recovery from contralesional spatial awareness deficits. In contrast, neither manipulation was effective when implemented separately. After having excluded the potential confound of practice effects, it was concluded that not only the presence but also the time course of hemispatial neglect strongly depends on the degree of attentional engagement required by the task