Do item-dependent context representations underlie serial order in cognition? Commentary on Logan (2021)

Logan (2021) presented an impressive unification of serial order tasks including whole report, typing, and serial recall in the form of the context retrieval and updating (CRU) model. Despite the wide breadth of the model’s coverage, its reliance on encoding and retrieving context representations that consist of the previous items may prevent it from being able to address a number of critical benchmark findings in the serial order literature that have shaped and constrained existing theories. In this commentary, we highlight three major challenges that motivated the development of a rival class of models of serial order, namely positional models. These challenges include the mixed-list phonological similarity effect, the protrusion effect, and interposition errors in temporal grouping. Simulations indicated that CRU can address the mixed list phonological similarity effect if phonological confusions can occur during its output stage, suggesting that the serial position curves from this paradigm do not rule out models that rely on inter-item associations, as has been previously been suggested. The other two challenges are more consequential for the model’s representations, and simulations indicated the model was not able to provide a complete account of them. We highlight and discuss how revisions to CRU’s representations or retrieval mechanisms can address these phenomena and emphasize that a fruitful direction forward would be to either incorporate positional representations or approximate them with its existing representations.

Similarity Effect and Purchase Behavior of Organic Food Under the Mediating Role of Perceived Values in the Context of COVID-19

Due to the influence of COVID-19, people pay more attention to the balance between human and nature and pursue more healthy, environmental and nutritional sustainable products (such as organic food). However, the mainstream consumption of organic food is far less, especially in developing countries like China. Therefore, it is urgent to take effective measures to promote the development of China's organic food market. This current study investigated the relationships between consumers' similarity (i.e., information anxiety, uncertainty, and sustainable consumption attitude), perceived values (i.e., functional value, health value, and environmental value) and organic purchasing behavior based on the Stimulus-Organism-Response (S-O-R) theoretical model and information similarity effect. And considering gender differences in consumers' similarity, perceived values and organic purchasing behavior. Meanwhile, the mediating effects of perceived values on the relationship between consumers' similarity and purchasing behavior were also discussed, considering the background of COVID-19. Data were collected using structured questionnaire survey in first-tier cities in China. A total of 344 consumers of organic foods participated in the study. Structural equation modeling was employed for data analysis. The results indicated the significant association of information anxiety, uncertainty and sustainable consumption attitude with perceived values. And perceived values and sustainable consumption attitude had a positively significant influence on purchase behavior. In addition, environmental value played mediating effects in the relationships between organic purchasing behavior and information anxiety, uncertainty and sustainable consumption attitude. And the impact of sustainable consumption attitude and environmental value on organic purchasing behavior differed in gender. The research not only provides novel insights for understanding organic consumption, but also provides reference for organic sellers to develop sales strategies and policy makers to formulate policies to guide organic consumption, which are conducive to promoting China's organic food industry.

Rater Attributions of Malfunctions in Videoconference Interviews

Virtual interviews have become ubiquitous, yet research on the psychological effects of their technological characteristics remains sparse. Many practitioners caution that malfunctions that commonly occur during interviews may negatively influence interviewers’ perceptions of an applicant. This concern is heightened for some groups of applicants, particularly those of certain age groups. Age stereotypes characterize older adults as technologically inept, and per the similarity effect, the dual ages of an applicant and an interviewer likely influence an interviewer’s attributions of a technology malfunction. We explored these propositions by investigating the effects that one such malfunction, an echo, has on raters. This experiment used a 2 (younger applicant vs. older applicant) × 2 (younger rater vs. older rater) × 3 (no echo vs. minor echo vs. severe echo) between-subject design to test hypotheses. Results showed that raters generally made situational attributions of malfunctions. Raters blamed the echo on older applicants slightly more than younger applicants, but attributions did not predict perceptions of interview performance, decisions to hire, or salary recommendations. Malfunctions and age similarity were generally not related to hiring outcomes. These findings advance theories surrounding attributions and age biases while offering no clear evidence that specific age groups are at a disadvantage in virtual interviews.

Elementary math in elementary school: To learn the multiplication table, avoid proactive interference

A major challenge for elementary school students is memorizing the multiplication table. This is difficult because there are many facts to learn and they are similar to each other, which creates proactive interference in memory. Here, we examined whether reducing interference would improve the memorization of the multiplication table by first graders. In a series of 16 short training sessions over a period of 4 weeks, each child learned 16 multiplication facts – 4 facts per week. Learning was better when the 4 facts in a given week were dissimilar from each other, a situation that reduces the proactive interference among them. Critically, this similarity effect originated in the specific learning context, i.e., the grouping of facts to weeks, and could not be explained as an intrinsic advantage of some facts over others. The similarity effect persisted 5 weeks after the end of the training period, i.e., proactive interference affected the long-term memory. Furthermore, during training, the similarity effect was not observed immediately but only in later training sessions, and only when examined in the beginning of a session. This indicates that proactive interference affected the long-term memory directly – it did not originate in short-term memory processes and then “leak” to long-term memory. We propose that the effectivity of this low-interference training method, which is dramatically different from currently-used pedagogical methods, calls for a serious reconsideration of the way we teach the multiplication table in school.

Cultural Similarity Effect on the Relationship Quality between Exporters and Intermediaries and Export Performance of SMEs

Quality is a crucial component for developing a relationship between SME exporters and exporter intermediaries. The key role that quality plays in enhancing the performance of SMEs in foreign markets has been highlighted. Additionally, in order to support the development of such a relationship, cultural similarity is a fundamental catalyst particularly for initial stages of theinternationalization process due to the belief that companies perform better in foreign markets if they possess similar cultural backgrounds. However,there have beenprevious studies have reported inconsistencies in findings between cultural similarity andperformance. Hence, the purpose of this study is to examine what are the mechanisms inwhich cultural similarity can lead to relationship quality as well as performance. This current study usedthe Internationalization Process (IP) Theory and the Relational Exchange Theory (RET) to examine the synergistic effect of several factors on export performance within the context of Malaysian exporting SMEs and exporter intermediaries. A quantitative method was employed in this study where the primary data derived from 203 SME manufacturing exporting firms in Malaysia. Structural Equation Modeling using SmartPLS was used for data analysis. The result indicates that all hypotheses are supported. Findings may contribute to enriching the existing literature on export performance of Malaysian SMEs which use foreign intermediaries.

Do Bilinguals Acquire Similar Words to Monolinguals? An Examination of Word Acquisition and the Similarity Effect in Japanese–English Bilinguals’ Vocabularies

Previous research has paid much attention to the overall acquisition of vocabularies among bilingual children in comparison to their monolingual counterparts. Much less attention has been paid to the type of words acquired and the possible transfer or cross-linguistic effects of the other language on vocabulary development. Thus, this study aims to explore similarities and dissimilarities in the vocabularies of simultaneous bilinguals and Japanese monolinguals and considers the possible cross-linguistic similarity effect on word acquisition. Six simultaneous Japanese–English bilingual children (mean age = 34.75 months (2.56)) were language–age-matched with six Japanese monolinguals; their productive vocabularies were compared regarding size and categories. Additionally, characteristic acquired words were compared using correspondence analyses. Results showed that, although delayed due to the reduced inputs, young bilinguals have a similar set of vocabularies in terms of word category as monolinguals. However, bilingual children’s vocabularies reflect their unevenly distributed experience with the language. Fewer interactive experiences with language speakers may result in a lower acquisition of interactive words. Furthermore, there is a cross-linguistic effect on acquisition, likely caused by form similarity between Japanese katakana words and English words. Even between languages with great dissimilarities, resources and cues are sought and used to facilitate bilingual vocabulary acquisition.

Whether and how semantic similarity impairs short-term memory: A test with a new index of semantic similarity

Semantic similarity appears to have a facilitative effect on short-term memory (STM), which contrasts with the detrimental effects of phonological and visual similarity on STM. Given that STM theories generally posit detrimental effects of similarity, it is theoretically and empirically important to test the semantic similarity effect. Recently, a review study proposed that semantic similarity per se would have a detrimental effect while semantic association and additional retrieval cues, which are facilitative of STM, would work as confounding factors for the semantic similarity effect. The present study tested this view by minimizing the influence of these possible confounding factors in the experiment and by utilizing a new index of semantic similarity in the analysis. The results of the present study indicated that the semantic similarity indeed had a detrimental effect on immediate serial recall correct-in-position scores. An examination based on two other scoring methods (i.e., item correct and absolute order errors) further suggested that the locus of the detrimental effect of semantic similarity is in order memory. In addition, other semantico-lexical variables (e.g., word length, frequency, and imageability) were also analyzed. Patterns of these variables’ effects on item memory were complementary to the effect of semantic similarity on order memory. From a theoretical point of view, as the detrimental effect of semantic similarity demonstrated by the present study is comparable to phonological and visual similarity effects, this finding implies a store based on semantic information or a general process for various types of information.

Morphological generalization of Hebrew verb classes

The present work investigated how morphological generalization, namely the way speakers extend their knowledge to novel complex words, is influenced by sources of variability in language and speaker properties. For this purpose, the study focused on a Semitic language (Hebrew), characterized by unique non-concatenative morphology, and native (L1) as well as non-native (L2) speakers. Two elicited production tasks tested what information sources speakers employ in verbal inflectional class generalization, i.e., in forming complex novel verbs. Phonological similarity was tested in Experiment 1 and argument structure in Experiment 2. The analysis focused on the two most common Hebrew inflectional classes, Paal and Piel, which also constituted the vast majority of responses in the two tasks. Unlike the commonly found outcomes in Romance inflectional class generalization, the results yielded, solely for Piel, a graded phonological similarity effect and a robust argument structure effect, i.e., more Piel responses in a direct object context than without. The L2 pattern partially differed from the L1: (i) argument structure effect for L2 speakers was weaker, and (ii) L2 speakers produced more Paal than Piel responses. The results are discussed within the framework of rule-based and input-based accounts.

The Coupling-Transplantation Effect (CTE) and Differential Analytical-Physics-Topology Principle (DAPTP) in Ionospheric-Atmospheric-Oceonagraphic-Climatic-Seismic Processes Complex (IAOCSPC) with Observations in Specific Istanbul Domain Topology (SIDT)

<p>If A and B are physical events at t=t<sub>1</sub> and t=t<sub>2</sub>, respectively, in the same differential topological domain where t<sub>1</sub><t<sub>2</sub> then A and B may attract each other through bidirectional communication-like information even if A and B are not in the same physical cathegory. This fact comes from the similarity effect of physical events those obey always to a 2nd order partial differential equation, PDE at specific boundary conditions, SBCs. The coefficients in the operator part and the source function part of the PDE and propagation factors of the eigenfunctions in the solution and SBCs differ from an event cathegory to other event cathegory; however stochastic interpretations of these coefficients, source functions, eigenfunctions, and SBCs bring a unique and compact boundary value problem, BVP. We call network BVP this type of extended BVPs. The common parts of different types of events A and B in the same BVP scheme are topology and boundary surfaces of the same domain. The relationship between event A and event B is based on inversely transferring of boundary values, source functions, and coefficients between each other of the events through topological transformations, TTs. These TTs establish the bidirectional information communication between both climatic and seismic processes. All the natural events and hazards involving disasters are the self-control mechanism of the Completely Compact Earth Network, CCEN. The sea is a way and transfer medium for waves by Pascal’s rule.</p><p>The constrainers of Present Natural Hazards, PrNHs, are the Future Natural Hazards, FuNHs. The Past and/or Backward NHs (PaNHs, BwNHs) completed their results and could not effect to the PrNHs.</p><p>The results obtained with the methods of classical geophysics built on the classical Newton’s mechanics does not reflect the real processes, RPs for the magnitudes more than 5.9 Richter. The approaches built on Einstein’s relativity can not generate RPs for the interwall of over 6.9 Richter; i.e., a temporal transportation occurs in the last domain: Kocaeli-Mediterranean Sea EQ in 1999 is a result of both backward majorant propagation effect, BMaPE of Hector Mine EQ occured after itself and forward majorant propagation effect, FoMaPE of the seismicity to Future İstanbul Earthquake, sFIEQ. This means the raising period of FIEQ is released.The constrainer of 1999 Taiwan EQ is a result of BMaPE of Duzce EQ occured after itself. The constrainers of 2019 Silivri, Albania, and Athens EQs are the FIEQ desired in demand for future but never come. 1999 Avcilar EQ is a result of backward minorized propagation effect, BMiPE of the sFIEQ. This means the waiting/relaxation period of FIEQ is suspended. These  are figured from the specific records of these events observed during 1999-2004 and 2018-2020. The couplings among ionospheric, atmospheric, oceanographic, climatic, and/or seismic processes provide the communication among the events of different cathegories in here. We define this principle as the spati-o-temporal transplantation effect in EQ processes.</p><p>The SIDT is the most safe region on the Earth for the majorant earthquakes and preserves this property iff unconvenient/unnatural buildings and major excavations are excluded from this topology.</p>