Spelling monosyllabic English words.

We conducted a megastudy to examine the spelling of American English monosyllables with typewritten responses. We related both sublexical and lexical/semantic factors to spelling accuracy and reaction time (RT) for the first keypress and response duration for spelling 1,856 monophonic monosyllables. We found that (a) each of 13 predictor variables was significantly related to performance for at least one measure, (b) orthographic length was unrelated to the first key RT, but did relate to accuracy and response duration, (c) sound-spelling and spelling-sound consistency was related to performance, and in particular, onset consistency related to accuracy and first key RT, but was unrelated to response duration, (d) contextual diversity was consistently related to performance across all measures, and (e) age of acquisition (AoA) was related to all measures, but was related more to the first key RT than response duration.

Supporting the transition to practice: preceptor behaviors that foster a positive student preceptorship experience.

Objectives: Preceptors support nursing students when transitioning to the professional nursing role. This study explored student perceptions of preceptor characteristics that promoted or hindered learning.

Methods: A Likert-scale survey including two open-ended questions was sent to 571 nursing students completing a preceptorship experience.

Relating emotional variables to recognition memory performance: a large-scale re-analysis of megastudy data.

The megastudy paradigm has become an important tool for cognitive science. One advantage to the megastudy is that existing data can be reanalysed in light of novel hypotheses. In the current study, recognition memory data for 4819 words were obtained.

How well imageability, concreteness, perceptual strength, and action strength predict recognition memory, lexical decision, and reading aloud performance.

We examined how well imageability, concreteness, perceptual strength, and action strength predicted recognition memory, lexical decision, and reading aloud performance. We used our imageability estimates [Cortese, M. J.

AoA effects in reading aloud and lexical decision: Locating the (semantic) locus in terms of the number of backward semantic associations.

In the present study, we analyse data from the English Lexicon Project to assess the extent to which age of acquisition (AoA) effects on word processing stem from the number of semantic associations tied to a word. We show that the backward number of associates (bNoA; that is, the log transformed number of words that produce the target word in free association) is an important predictor of both lexical decision and reading aloud performance, and reduces the typical AoA effect as represented by subject ratings in both tasks. Although the AoA effect is reduced, it remains a significant predictor of performance above and beyond bNoA.

Word length negatively predicts recognition memory performance.

We examined how word length affects performance in three recognition memory experiments to resolve discrepant results in the literature for which there are theoretical implications. Shorter and longer words were equated on frequency, orthographic similarity, age of acquisition, and imageability. In Experiments 1 and 2, orthographic length (i.

Attention bias variability and posttraumatic stress symptoms: the mediating role of emotion regulation difficulties.

Growing literature has linked attention bias variability (ABV) to the experience and treatment of posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD). Unlike assessments of attention bias in only one direction, ABV captures dynamic fluctuations in attention toward and away from threat. While mechanisms underlying the ABV-PTSD relations are unclear, some research implicates emotion regulation difficulties.

Traumatic Events Are Associated with Diverse Psychological Symptoms in Typically-Developing Children.

Childhood traumatic events are significant risk factors for psychopathology according to adult retrospective research; however, few studies examine trauma exposure and psychological symptoms in pre-adolescent children. Typically-developing children, aged 9-12 years ( = 114), were recruited from the community and selected from the Developmental Chronnecto-Genomics (Dev-CoG) study examining child development. Children completed questionnaires about traumatic life events, posttraumatic stress, anxiety, depression, dissociation, anger, and internalizing and externalizing behaviors.

Incidental memory for colour word associates processed in colour naming and reading aloud tasks: is a blue more memorable than a yellow one?

Congruency effects for colour word associates (e.g., ) have been reported in Stroop colour naming tasks.

Writing Across the Curriculum: Reliability Testing of a Standardized Rubric.

Background: Rubrics positively affect student academic performance; however, accuracy and consistency of the rubric and its use is imperative. The researchers in this study developed a standardized rubric for use across an undergraduate nursing curriculum, then evaluated the interrater reliability and general usability of the tool.

Method: Faculty raters graded papers using the standardized rubric, submitted their independent scoring for interrater reliability analyses, then participated in a focus group discussion regarding rubric use experience.

Veterans with PTSD demonstrate amygdala hyperactivity while viewing threatening faces: A MEG study.

Posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD) is a major psychiatric disorder that is prevalent in combat veterans. Previous neuroimaging studies have found elevated amygdala activity in PTSD in response to threatening stimuli, but previous work has lacked the temporal specificity to study fast bottom-up fear responses involving the amygdala. Forty-four combat veterans, 28 with PTSD and 16 without, completed psychological testing and then a face-processing task during magnetoencephalography (MEG).

Attention training modulates resting-state neurophysiological abnormalities in posttraumatic stress disorder.

Recent research indicates the relative benefits of computerized attention control treatment (ACT) and attention bias modification treatment (ABMT) for posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD); however, neural changes underlying these therapeutic effects remain unknown. This study examines how these two types of attention training modulate neurological dysfunction in veterans with PTSD. A community sample of 46 combat veterans with PTSD participated in a randomized double-blinded clinical trial of ACT versus ABMT and 32 of those veterans also agreed to undergo resting-state magnetoencephalography (MEG) recordings.

Resting-State Neurophysiological Abnormalities in Posttraumatic Stress Disorder: A Magnetoencephalography Study.

Posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD) is a debilitating psychiatric condition that is common in veterans returning from combat operations. While the symptoms of PTSD have been extensively characterized, the neural mechanisms that underlie PTSD are only vaguely understood. In this study, we examined the neurophysiology of PTSD using magnetoencephalography (MEG) in a sample of veterans with and without PTSD.

Participants shift response deadlines based on list difficulty during reading-aloud megastudies.

We tested the list homogeneity effect in reading aloud (e.g., Lupker, Brown, & Colombo, 1997) using a megastudy paradigm.

Attention training improves aberrant neural dynamics during working memory processing in veterans with PTSD.

Posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD) is associated with executive functioning deficits, including disruptions in working memory (WM). Recent studies suggest that attention training reduces PTSD symptomatology, but the underlying neural mechanisms are unknown. We used high-density magnetoencephalography (MEG) to evaluate whether attention training modulates brain regions serving WM processing in PTSD.

Male veterans with PTSD exhibit aberrant neural dynamics during working memory processing: an MEG study.

Background: Posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD) is associated with executive functioning deficits, including disruptions in working memory. In this study, we examined the neural dynamics of working memory processing in veterans with PTSD and a matched healthy control sample using magnetoencephalography (MEG).

Methods: Our sample of recent combat veterans with PTSD and demographically matched participants without PTSD completed a working memory task during a 306-sensor MEG recording.

Attention training normalises combat-related post-traumatic stress disorder effects on emotional Stroop performance using lexically matched word lists.

We examined two groups of combat veterans, one with post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) (n = 27) and another without PTSD (n = 16), using an emotional Stroop task (EST) with word lists matched across a series of lexical variables (e.g. length, frequency, neighbourhood size, etc.

Effect of Attention Training on Attention Bias Variability and PTSD Symptoms: Randomized Controlled Trials in Israeli and U.S. Combat Veterans.

Objective: Attention allocation to threat is perturbed in patients with posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD), with some studies indicating excess attention to threat and others indicating fluctuations between threat vigilance and threat avoidance. The authors tested the efficacy of two alternative computerized protocols, attention bias modification and attention control training, for rectifying threat attendance patterns and reducing PTSD symptoms.

Method: Two randomized controlled trials compared the efficacy of attention bias modification and attention control training for PTSD: one in Israel Defense Forces veterans and one in U.

Boys, not girls, are negatively affected on cognitive tasks by lead exposure: a pilot study.

The study described in this article provides behavioral evidence that boys experience the deleterious cognitive effects of lead more than girls do. In fact, girls with elevated blood lead levels (BLLs - 10 μg/dL) performed as well as girls without elevated BLLs on behavioral measures of cognition. This was shown by testing executive function and reading readiness skills of 40 young children (aged three to six years; 23 with elevated blood lead levels, 17 without) residing within a U.

Age of acquisition estimates for 3,000 disyllabic words.

Age of acquisition (AoA) ratings based on a 1-7 scale for 3,000 disyllabic words were obtained from 32 participants. We demonstrate that these estimates are both reliable and valid. These estimates add to those collected on monosyllabic words and are of value to researchers interested in factors that contribute to word processing.

Imageability estimates for 3,000 disyllabic words.

We provide imageability estimates for 3,000 disyllabic words (as supplementary materials that may be downloaded with the article from www.springerlink.com ).

Age of acquisition estimates for 1,208 ambiguous and polysemous words.

Age of acquisition (AoA) estimates are provided for 3,460 senses of 1,208 words (i.e., words with multiple meanings e.

Recognition memory for 2,578 monosyllabic words.

In two studies, participants studied 30 lists of 50 words and were tested on 30 lists of 100 words. Item-level multiple regression analyses were conducted on hits, false alarms, hits minus false alarms, d', and C. The predictor variables were objective frequency, subjective frequency, imageability, orthographic similarity, phonological similarity, phonological-to-orthographic N (PON), age of acquisition (AoA), and word length.

Children's use of language context in lexical ambiguity resolution.

Lexical ambiguity resolution was examined in children aged 7 to 10 years and adults. In Experiment 1, participants heard sentences supporting one (or neither) meaning of a balanced ambiguous word in a cross-modal naming paradigm. Naming latencies for context-congruent versus context-incongruent targets and judgements of the relatedness of targets to the sentence served as indices of appropriate context use.