The Way They Look: Phenotypic Prototypicality Shapes the Perceived Intergroup Attitudes of In- and Out-group Members

Even when people hold little prejudice themselves, expectations about how members of other groups perceive them may negatively influence interracial interactions. In four pre-registered experiments each using a full intergroup design with Black and White participants, we show that people infer negative meta-attitudes from out-group members’ whose appearance is phenotypically prototypical, which in turn leads to less favorable orientations towards intergroup contact, independent of personal attitudes. In Experiment 1, Black Americans but not White Americans, perceived phenotypically prototypical out-group members to hold less favorable meta-attitudes and this explained less favorable contact orientations. In Experiment 2, this pattern emerged for both groups of participants and was pronounced among stigma conscious individuals. Experiment 3 replicated and extended Experiment 2 with representative samples, further demonstrating that the effect of phenotypic prototypicality is pronounced among participants who report previous rejection by the out-group. In Experiment 4, direct evidence for the causal effect of the mediator meta-attitudes on orientations toward contact was obtained. In all studies, effects held controlling for participants’ general intergroup attitudes and experiences, demonstrating the unique role of attitudes at the meta-perceptual level in shaping intergroup relations. Participants also perceived phenotypically prototypical in-group members as having less favorable intergroup attitudes, suggesting a general tendency to infer meta-attitudes from phenotypic prototypicality. We discuss our results in light of previous research, highlight social implications, and suggest future directions.

Non-Concatenative Morpheme Segmentation in Adults and Children

While most morphemes in the world’s language involve continuous structure or concatenation (e.g., prefixes and suffixes), many languages show some form of non-adjacent, non-concatenative morphology. Non-concatenative morphology poses a challenge for statistical learning approaches to morpheme segmentation because the combinatorial possibilities greatly increase for non-adjacent dependencies. The present study explores the types of dependencies that human learners (school-aged children and adults) are able to extract from exposure to a miniature, artificial non-concatenative system. In Experiment 1, participants were exposed to 12 CCC ‘roots’ that fit into 72 CVCVC skeletons with a high variety of VV ‘residue’. Experiment 2 extended Experiment 1 to school-aged children (with adult controls). Experiment 3 replicated Experiment 1, but with ‘mixed’ consonant-vowel roots and residues. Across all three experiments, participants were able to recognize familiar items compared to novel items, but had limited ability to generalize the CCC roots to novel items, suggesting a limited ability to parse consonantal roots. Adults were better at generalizing to novel items compared to children.

Officina Degli Errori: An Extended Experiment to Bring Constructionist Approaches to Public Schools in Bologna

In this contribution we describe an extended experiment to bring constructionist approaches to public schools in Bologna. Specifically, we focus on our latest project called Officina degli Errori, which is an extended teacher training program for primary school teachers based on tinkering. We highlight our motivation, the structure of Officina degli Errori and the lessons learned co-designing the activities and implementing them in the reality of public schools in Bologna. We also interviewed teachers to understand the critical issues affecting implementation of constructionist approaches in public primary schools.

Stage 2 Registered Report: How subtle linguistic cues prevent unethical behaviors

Background: Differences in descriptions can influence people’s evaluations and behaviors. A previous study by Bryan and colleagues suggested that subtle linguistic differences in ethical reminders can differentially prevent readers’ unethical behavior. The present study tried to replicate the previous finding in the Japanese context (Experiment 1); additionally, we explored the influence of unfamiliar Japanese instruction words that captured participants’ attention (Experiment 2). Methods: In two online experiments, participants were asked to make 10 coin-tosses and report the number of “heads” results, which would indicate the amount of money that they could earn. In Experiment 1, we analyzed the difference in the number of “heads” results as reported by 768 participants under three conditions with different instructions (“Don’t cheat” vs. “Don’t be a cheater” vs. baseline as a control). In Experiment 2, we conducted an extended experiment with an additional task in which more attention was directed toward the text. Results: In Experiment 1, we successfully replicated the results of the original experiment. The results of Experiment 2 showed no evidence that the results in Experiment 1 were influenced by attentional factors. Conclusions: In conclusion, the results of the present study supported the hypothesis that self-identity-related words of moral reminder curb unethical behaviors more effectively. Stage 1 report: https://doi.org/10.12688/f1000research.20183.4

Stage 2 Registered Report: How subtle linguistic cues prevent unethical behaviors

Background: Differences in descriptions can influence people’s evaluations and behaviors. A previous study by Bryan and colleagues suggested that subtle linguistic differences in ethical reminders can differentially prevent readers’ unethical behavior. The present study tried to replicate the previous finding in the Japanese context (Experiment 1); additionally, we explored the influence of unfamiliar Japanese instruction words that captured participants’ attention (Experiment 2). Methods: In two online experiments, participants were asked to make 10 coin-tosses and report the number of “heads” results, which would indicate the amount of money that they could earn. In Experiment 1, we analyzed the difference in the number of “heads” results as reported by 768 participants under three conditions with different instructions (“Don’t cheat” vs. “Don’t be a cheater” vs. baseline as a control). In Experiment 2, we conducted an extended experiment with an additional task in which more attention was directed toward the text. Results: In Experiment 1, we successfully replicated the results of the original experiment. The results of Experiment 2 showed no evidence that the results in Experiment 1 were influenced by attentional factors. Conclusions: In conclusion, the results of the present study supported the hypothesis that self-identity-related words of moral reminder curb unethical behaviors more effectively. Stage 1 report: https://doi.org/10.12688/f1000research.20183.4

Stage 1 Registered Report: How subtle linguistic cues prevent unethical behaviors

Different ways of description can easily influence people’s evaluations and behaviors. A previous study by Bryan and colleagues suggested that subtle linguistic differences in ethical reminders can differentially prevent readers’ unethical behavior. The present study aims to replicate the previous finding in the Japanese context, additionally exploring the influence of unfamiliar instruction words that capture participants’ attention. In two experiments, which are planned to be conducted online, participants are asked to make 10 coin-tosses and report the number of “heads” results, indicating the amount of money that they can earn. We will manipulate instructions (“Don’t cheat” vs. “Don’t be a cheater” vs. baseline as a control) for each participant group, including nearly 270 participants (Experiment 1). Next, we will conduct an extended experiment with an additional task in which more attention is directed toward the text (Experiment 2). Through these registered experiments, we examine the credibility of the previous finding that type of instruction affects the occurrence of unethical behaviors.

Stage 1 Registered Report: How subtle linguistic cues prevent unethical behaviors

Different ways of description can easily influence people’s evaluations and behaviors. A previous study by Bryan and colleagues suggested that subtle linguistic differences in ethical reminders can differentially prevent readers’ unethical behavior. The present study aims to replicate the previous finding in the Japanese context, additionally exploring the influence of unfamiliar instruction words that capture participants’ attention. In two experiments, which are planned to be conducted online, participants are asked to make 10 coin-tosses and report the number of “heads” results, indicating the amount of money that they can earn. We will manipulate instructions (“Don’t cheat” vs. “Don’t be a cheater” vs. baseline as a control) for each participant group, including nearly 270 participants (Experiment 1). Next, we will conduct an extended experiment with an additional task in which more attention is directed toward the text (Experiment 2). Through these registered experiments, we examine the credibility of the previous finding that type of instruction affects the occurrence of unethical behaviors.

Stage 1 Registered Report: How subtle linguistic cues prevent unethical behaviors

Different ways of description can easily influence people’s evaluations and behaviors. A previous study by Bryan and colleagues suggested that subtle linguistic differences in ethical reminders can differentially prevent readers’ unethical behavior. The present study aims to replicate the previous finding in the Japanese context, additionally exploring the influence of unfamiliar instruction words that capture participants’ attention. In two experiments, which are planned to be conducted online, participants are asked to make 10 coin-tosses and report the number of “heads” results, indicating the amount of money that they can earn. We will manipulate instructions (“Don’t cheat” vs. “Don’t be a cheater” vs. no instruction as a control) for each participant group, including nearly 270 participants (Experiment 1). Next, we will conduct an extended experiment with an additional task in which more attention is directed toward the text (Experiment 2). Through these registered experiments, we examine the credibility of the previous finding that type of instruction affects the occurrence of unethical behaviors.

FFESSD: An Accurate and Efficient Single-Shot Detector for Target Detection

The Single Shot MultiBox Detector (SSD) is one of the fastest algorithms in the current target detection field. It has achieved good results in target detection but there are problems such as poor extraction of features in shallow layers and loss of features in deep layers. In this paper, we propose an accurate and efficient target detection method, named Single Shot Object Detection with Feature Enhancement and Fusion (FFESSD), which is to enhance and exploit the shallow and deep features in the feature pyramid structure of the SSD algorithm. To achieve it we introduced the Feature Fusion Module and two Feature Enhancement Modules, and integrated them into the conventional structure of the SSD. Experimental results on the PASCAL VOC 2007 dataset demonstrated that FFESSD achieved 79.1% mean average precision (mAP) at the speed of 54.3 frame per second (FPS) with the input size 300 × 300, while FFESSD with a 512 × 512 sized input achieved 81.8% mAP at 30.2 FPS. The proposed network shows state-of-the-art mAP, which is better than the conventional SSD, Deconvolutional Single Shot Detector (DSSD), Feature-Fusion SSD (FSSD), and other advanced detectors. On extended experiment, the performance of FFESSD in fuzzy target detection was better than the conventional SSD.

Stage 1 Registered Report: How subtle linguistic cues prevent unethical behaviors

Different ways of description can easily influence people’s evaluation and behaviors. A previous study suggested that subtle linguistic differences in ethical reminder instructions can cause differences in preventing readers’ unethical behavior. The present study aims to replicate the previous finding by Bryan and his colleagues (2013) in the Japanese context, additionally exploring the influence of unfamiliar instructions that capture participants’ attention. In two experiments, which are planned to be conducted online, participants are asked to make 10 coin-tosses and report the number of “heads,” indicating the amount of money that could be earned. We will manipulate instructions (“Don’t cheat” vs. “Don’t be a cheater” vs. no instruction as a control) for each participant group including nearly 270 participants (Experiment 1). Next, we will conduct an extended experiment with an additional task in which more attention is directed toward the text (Experiment 2). Through these registered experiments, we examine the credibility of the previous finding that type of instruction affects the occurrence of unethical behaviors.