Parafoveal preview effects from word N+1 and word N+2 during reading: A critical review and Bayesian meta-analysis

The use of gaze-contingent display techniques to study reading has shown that readers attend not only to the currently fixated word, but also to the word to the right of the current fixation. However, a critical look at the literature shows that there are a number of questions that cannot be readily answered from the available literature reviews on the topic. First, there is no consensus on whether readers also attend to the second word to the right of fixation. Second, it is not clear whether parafoveal processing is more efficient in languages such as Chinese. Third, it is not well understood whether the measured effects are confounded by the properties of the parafoveal mask. The present study addressed these issues by performing a Bayesian meta-analysis of 93 experiments that used the boundary paradigm (Rayner, 1975). There were three main findings: 1) the advantage of previewing the second word to the right is modest in size and likely not centred on zero; 2) Chinese readers seem to make a more efficient use of parafoveal processing, but this is mostly evident in gaze duration; 3) there are interference effects associated with using different parafoveal masks that roughly increase when the mask is less word-like

Well-being at the Polish Polar Station, Svalbard:Adaptation to extreme environments

While the psychological well-being of Antarctic crews has been investigated previously, Arctic crews have received little attention. Antarctic stressors include the permanent darkness of polar night, cramped quarters and harsh weather conditions which demand that the crews work together to survive. These stressors are also present for Arctic crews with the addition of dangerous polar bears. In this study, these psychological stressors were explored at the Polish Polar Station, Svalbard. Nine crew members three of whom were women, took part in the study. They filled in the Profile of Mood States (POMS) and the Symptom Checklist 90-Revised (SCL-90-R) after their arrival, at equinox, during polar night, in spring and during the midnight sun. Depression and hostility were highest in the spring following the isolation of polar night. Vigor reached its lowest point in spring and remained low until mission completion. Confusion continued to decline throughout the mission. The Polish crew adapted by monitoring their feelings to work together and ensure survival. Up until and during the polar night, negative feelings were low. Following the isolation period, depression and hostility increased while vigor declined. This suggests adaptation paradigm wherein the participants stopped to monitor their own feelings as closely after the polar night

Clarity of task difficulty moderates the impact of the explicit achievement motive on physical effort in hand grip tasks

Stable personality dispositions, like motives, are often assumed to exert a direct, stable impact on behavior. This also applies to the explicit achievement motive, which is supposed to influence the behavior that individuals select and how strongly they engage in it. Drawing on motivational intensity theory, we demonstrated in two studies that explicit achievement motive strength only predicted exerted force in a hand grip task if task difficulty was unclear. If task difficulty was clear, explicit achievement motive strength did not influence exerted force. Our findings suggest that the availability of information about the difficulty of motive satisfaction moderates the impact of the explicit achievement motive on behavior

Standardized covariance-A measure of association, similarity and co-riskiness between choice options

Predictions of prominent theories of decision making, such as decision field theory and regret theory, strongly depend on the association between outcomes of choice options. In the present work, we show that these associations reflect the similarity of two choice options and riskiness of one option with respect to the other. We propose a measure labeled standardized covariance that can capture the strength of the association, similarity and co-riskiness between two choice options. We describe the properties and interpretation of this measure and show its similarities to and differences from the correlation measure. Finally, we show how the predictions of different models of decision making vary depending on the value of the standardized covariance, which can have implications for research on decision making under risk. (C) 2014 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved