The semantic structure of accuracy in eyewitness testimony

In two studies, we examined if correct and incorrect statements in eyewitness testimony differed in semantic content. Testimony statements were obtained from participants who watched staged crime films and were interviewed as eyewitnesses. We analyzed the latent semantic representations of these statements using LSA and BERT. Study 1 showed that the semantic space of correct statements differed from incorrect statements; correct statements were more closely related to a dominance semantic representation, whereas incorrect statements were more closely related to a communion semantic representation. Study 2 only partially replicated these findings, but a mega-analysis of the two datasets showed different semantic representations for correct and incorrect statements, with incorrect statements more closely related to representations of communion and abstractness. Given the critical role of eyewitness testimony in the legal context, and the generally low ability of fact-finders to estimate the accuracy of witness statements, our results strongly call for further research on semantic content in correct and incorrect testimony statements.

The ABC of happiness: Validation of the tridimensional model of subjective well-being (affect, cognition, and behavior) using Bifactor Polytomous Multidimensional Item Response Theory

Background

Happiness is often conceptualized as subjective well-being, which comprises people's evaluations of emotional experiences (i.e., the affective dimension: positive and negative feelings and emotions) and judgements of a self-imposed ideal (i.e., the cognitive dimension: life satisfaction). Recent research has established these two dimensions as primary parts of a higher order factor. However, theoretical, conceptual, and empirical work suggest that people's evaluations of harmony in their life (i.e., the sense of balance and capacity to behave and adapt with both acceptance and flexibility to inter- and intrapersonal circumstances) constitutes a third dimension (i.e., the behavioral dimension). This tridemensional conceptualization of subjective well-being has recently been verified using Unidimensional Item Response Theory (UIRT) and Classical Test Theory (CTT). Here, we use a recently developed and more robust approach that combines these two methods (i.e., Multidimensional Item Response Theory, MIRT) to simultaneously address the complex interactions and multidimensionality behind how people feel, think, and behave in relation to happiness in their life.

Method

A total of 435 participants (197 males and 238 females) with an age mean of 44.84 (sd = 13.36) responded to the Positive Affect Negative Affect Schedule (10 positive affect items, 10 negative affect items), the Satisfaction with Life Scale (five items), and the Harmony in life Scale (five items). We used Bifactor-Graded Response MIRT for the main analyses.

Result

At the general level, each of the 30 items had a strong capacity to discriminate between respondents across all three dimensions of subjective well-being. The investigation of different parameters (e.g., marginal slopes, ECV, IECV) strongly reflected the multidimensionality of subjective well-being at the item, the scale, and the model level. Indeed, subjective well-being could explain 64 % of the common variance in the whole model. Moreover, most of the items measuring positive affect (8/10) and life satisfaction (4/5) and all the items measuring harmony in life (5/5) accounted for a larger amount of variance of subjective well-being compared to that of their respective individual dimensions. The negative affect items, however, measured its own individual concept to a lager extent rather than subjective well-being. Thus, suggesting that the experience of negative affect is a more independent dimension within the whole subjective well-being model. We also found that specific items (e.g., "Alert", "Distressed", "Irritable", "I am satisfied with my life") were the recurrent exceptions in our results. Last but not the least, experiencing high levels in one dimension seems to compensate for low levels in the others and vice versa.

Conclusion

As expected, the three subjective well-being dimensions do not work separately. Interestingly, the order and magnitude of the effect by each dimension on subjective well-being mirror how people define happiness in their life: first as harmony, second as satisfaction, third as positive emotions, and fourth, albeit to a much lesser degree, as negative emotions. Ergo, we argue that subjective well-being functions as a complex biopsychosocial adaptive system mirroring our attitude towards life in these three dimensions (A: affective dimension; B: behavioral dimension; C: cognitive dimension). Ergo, researchers and practitioners need to take in to account all three to fully understand, measure, and promote people's experience of the happy life. Moreover, our results also suggest that negative affect, especially regarding high activation unpleasant emotions, need considerable changes and further analyses if it is going to be included as a construct within the affective dimension of a general subjective well-being factor.

Psychometric properties of persian version of escapism scale among Iranian adolescents

The aim of this study was to assess the psychometric properties of the Persian version of the Escapism Scale among Iranian adolescents aged 14-18. Between January 2021 and August 2021, cross-sectional study was conducted using a convenience sampling method to select 566 participants (340 girls and 226 boys) to investigate the relationship between physical activity and mental health in adolescents. The participants completed several questionnaires, including the Escapism Scale, Erikson Psychosocial Stage Inventory (EPSI), Satisfaction with Life Scale (SWLS), Hope Scale (AHS), Smartphone Addiction Scale-Short Version (SAS-SV), and General Self-efficacy (GSE). Construct validity, reliability using Cronbach's alpha, and concurrent validity were used to evaluate the Escapism Scale's validity and reliability. Results of the Confirmatory Factor Analysis (CFA) indicated that a two-factor model provided a good fit for the data: sbX2 = 179.99 (p < 0.01); SRMR = 0.07; RMR = 0.56, CFI = 0.91; NFI = 0.89; IFI = 0.91; NFI = 0.89; GFI = 0.93; AGFI = 0.90, RMSEA = 0.076). The Cronbach's alpha coefficient for escapism was 0.73. The study found a significant positive relationship between escapism and smartphone addiction (r = 0.19). Additionally, a significant negative relationship was observed between escapism and hope (r=-0.31), satisfaction with life (r=-0.34), and general self-efficacy (r=-0.33). Furthermore, a significant relationship was found between escapism and gender. Lastly, the study found a significant relationship between escapism and identity confusion (r = 0.164, P < 0.01) and identity coherence (P < 0.01, r = 29). In conclusion, the Escapism Scale is a valid and reliable tool for assessing escapism and psychological evaluations in Iranian adolescents. These results may inform future research and suggest re-testing in clinical populations.

Assessment of depression and anxiety in young and old with a question-based computational language approach

Middle aged adults experience depression and anxiety differently than younger adults. Age may affect life circumstances, depending on accessibility of social connections, jobs, physical health, etc, as these factors influence the prevalence and symptomatology. Depression and anxiety are typically measured using rating scales; however, recent research suggests that such symptoms can be assessed by open-ended questions that are analysed by question-based computational language assessments (QCLA). Here, we study middle aged and younger adults' responses about their mental health using open-ended questions and rating scales about their mental health. We then analyse their responses with computational methods based on natural language processing (NLP). The results demonstrate that: (1) middle aged adults describe their mental health differently compared to younger adults; (2) where, for example, middle aged adults emphasise depression and loneliness whereas young adults list anxiety and financial concerns; (3) different semantic models are warranted for younger and middle aged adults; (4) compared to young participants, the middle aged participants described their mental health more accurately with words; (5) middle-aged adults have better mental health than younger adults as measured by semantic measures. In conclusion, NLP combined with machine learning methods may provide new opportunities to identify, model, and describe mental health in middle aged and younger adults and could possibly be applied to the older adults in future research. These semantic measures may provide ecological validity and aid the assessment of mental health.

Women Are Perceived to Have More Power Than Men in Domains That Are Viewed As Important in U.S. Tweets

Previous research of gender differences in power has largely focused on the public domain (e.g., leadership positions), and to a lesser extent power on the private domain (e.g., power in private relationships), where people may perceive these domains to be more or less important in their lives. We studied gender differences in preference weighted power (PWP) in different domains by weighting the perceived power by the perceived importance in life in a large set of Twitter messages from the United States (N = 9,286,471). The results showed that men (tweets including "he") are semantically related to general power, and women (tweets including "she") are related to importance in life, which in previous research have been connected to the public and private domains, respectively. Importantly, women had higher PWP than men. In conclusion, men are perceived to have more general power and women more PWP in U.S. tweets.

Precise language responses versus easy rating scales-Comparing respondents' views with clinicians' belief of the respondent's views

BACKGROUND

Closed-ended rating scales are the most used response format for researchers and clinicians to quantify mental states, whereas in natural contexts people communicate with natural language. The reason for using such scales is that they are typically argued to be more precise in measuring mental constructs; however, the respondents' views as to what best communicates mental states are frequently ignored, which is important for making them comply with assessment.

METHODS

We assessed respondents' (N = 304) degree of depression using rating scales, descriptive words, selected words, and free text responses and probed the respondents for their preferences concerning the response formats across twelve dimensions related to the precision of communicating their mental states and the ease of responding. This was compared with the clinicians' (N = 40) belief of the respondent's view.

RESULTS

Respondents found free text to be more precise (e.g., precision d' = .88, elaboration d' = 2.0) than rating scales, whereas rating scales were rated as easier to respond to (e.g., easier d' = -.67, faster d' = -1.13). Respondents preferred the free text responses to a greater degree than rating scales compared to clinicians' belief of the respondents' views.

CONCLUSIONS

These findings support previous studies concluding that future assessment of mental health can be aided by computational methods based on text data. Participants prefer an open response format as it allows them to elaborate, be precise, etc., with respect to their mental health issues, although rating scales are viewed as faster and easier.

Language and gender: Computerized text analyses predict gender ratios from organizational descriptions

Previous research has shown that language in job adverts implicitly communicates gender stereotypes, which, in turn, influence employees' perceived fit with the job. In this way, language both reflects and maintains a gender segregated job market. The aim of this study was to test whether, and how, language in organizational descriptions reflects gender segregation in the organizations by the use of computational text analyses. We analyzed large Swedish companies' organizational descriptions from LinkedIn (N = 409), testing whether the language in the organizational descriptions is associated with the organizations' employee gender ratio, and how organizational descriptions for organizations with a majority of women and men employees differ. The statistical analyses showed that language in the organizational descriptions predicted the employee gender ratio in organizations well. Word clouds depicting words that differentiate between organizations with a majority of women and men employees showed that the language of organizations with a higher percentage of women employees was characterized by a local focus and emphasis on within-organizations relations, whereas the language of organizations with a higher percentage of men employees was characterized by an international focus and emphasis on sales and customer relations. These results imply that the language in organizational descriptions reflects gender segregation and stereotypes that women are associated with local and men with global workplaces. As language communicates subtle signals in regards to what potential candidate is most sought after in recruitment situations, differences in organizational descriptions can hinder underrepresented gender groups to apply to these jobs. As a consequence, such practices may contribute to gender segregation on the job market.

Voters' view of leaders during the Covid-19 crisis: Quantitative analysis of keyword descriptions provides strength and direction of evaluations

OBJECTIVES

Previous research suggests that governments usually gain support during crises such as the Covid-19. However, these findings are based on rating scales that only allow us to measure the strength of this support. This article proposes a new measure of how voters evaluate Prime Ministers (PM) by asking for descriptive keywords that are analyzed by natural language processing.

METHODS

By collecting a representative sample of citizens' own key words describing their PM in 15 countries in Europe during the outbreak of Covid-19, and analyzing these by latent semantic analysis and a multiple OLS regression, we could quantify the strength and direction of voters' view.

RESULTS

The strength analysis supported previous studies that describing the PM with positive words was strongly associated with vote intention. Furthermore, a change in the direction of the attitudes from "good" to "honest" was found. A new finding was that the pandemic was associated with an increase in polarization.

CONCLUSIONS

The keyword evaluation analysis provides opportunities of evaluating both strength and direction of voters' view of their PM, where we show new results related to increased polarization and shift in the direction of attitudes.

What you say and what I hear-Investigating differences in the perception of the severity of psychological and physical violence in intimate partner relationships

The correct communication of the severity of violence is essential in the context of legal trials, custody cases, support of victims, etc., for providing fair treatment. A narrator that communicates their experiences of interpersonal violence may rate the seriousness of the incident differently than a rater reading the narrator's text, suggesting that there exist perceptual differences (PD) in severity ratings between the narrator and the rater. We propose that these perceptual differences may depend on whether the narrative is based on physical or psychological violence, and on gender differences. Physical violence may be evaluated as more serious by the receiver of the narrative than by the narrator (Calibration PD), whereas the seriousness of psychological violence may be difficult to convey, leading to a discrepancy in the seriousness ratings between the narrator and the rater (Accuracy PD). In addition, gender stereotypes may influence the seriousness rating (Gender PD), resulting in violence against women being perceived as more serious than the same violence against men. These perceptual differences were investigated in 3 phases using a new experimental procedure. In Phase 1, 113 narrators provided descriptions and seriousness ratings of self-experienced physical and psychological violence in relationships. In Phase 2, 340 independent raters rated the seriousness of 10 randomly selected narrations from Phase 1. In Phase 3, the genders in the narrations were changed to the opposite gender, and seriousness ratings were collected from 340 different raters. Our results confirmed the hypothesized perceptual differences. Violence to male victims was considerably more likely to be seen as severe when the raters were misled to believe the victim was a woman. We propose that these data provide practical guidelines for how to deal with misinformation in the communication of violence. The data also show that mean values and the confidence of such severity ratings need to be adjusted for several factors, such as whether it is self-experienced or communicated, the type of violence, and the gender of the victims and raters.

Freely Generated Word Responses Analyzed With Artificial Intelligence Predict Self-Reported Symptoms of Depression, Anxiety, and Worry

BACKGROUND

Question-based computational language assessments (QCLA) of mental health, based on self-reported and freely generated word responses and analyzed with artificial intelligence, is a potential complement to rating scales for identifying mental health issues. This study aimed to examine to what extent this method captures items related to the primary and secondary symptoms associated with Major Depressive Disorder (MDD) and Generalized Anxiety Disorder (GAD) described in the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders (DSM-5). We investigated whether the word responses that participants generated contained information of all, or some, of the criteria that define MDD and GAD using symptom-based rating scales that are commonly used in clinical research and practices.

METHOD

Participants (N = 411) described their mental health with freely generated words and rating scales relating to depression and worry/anxiety. Word responses were quantified and analyzed using natural language processing and machine learning.

RESULTS

The QCLA correlated significantly with the individual items connected to the DSM-5 diagnostic criteria of MDD (PHQ-9; Pearson's r = 0.30-0.60, p < 0.001) and GAD (GAD-7; Pearson's r = 0.41-0.52, p < 0.001; PSWQ-8; Spearman's r = 0.52-0.63, p < 0.001) for respective rating scales. Items measuring primary criteria (cognitive and emotional aspects) yielded higher predictability than secondary criteria (behavioral aspects).

CONCLUSION

Together these results suggest that QCLA may be able to complement rating scales in measuring mental health in clinical settings. The approach carries the potential to personalize assessments and contributes to the ongoing discussion regarding the diagnostic heterogeneity of depression.

Reevaluating the Influence of Leaders Under Proportional Representation: Quantitative Analysis of Text in an Electoral Experiment

We propose that leaders play a more important role in voters’ party sympathy in proportional representation systems (PR) than previous research has suggested. Voters, from the 2018 Swedish General Election, were in an experiment asked to describe leaders and parties with three indicative keywords. Statistical models were conducted on these text data to predict their vote choice. The results show that despite that the voters vote for a party, the descriptions of leaders predicted vote choice to a similar extent as descriptions of parties. However, the order of the questions mattered, so that the first questions were more predictive than the second question. These analyses indicate that voters tend to conflate characteristics of leaders with their parties during election campaigns, and that leaders are a more important aspect of voting under PR than previous literature has suggested. Overall, this suggests that statistical analysis of words sheds new light of underlying sympathies related to voting.

Computational Language Assessments of Harmony in Life - Not Satisfaction With Life or Rating Scales - Correlate With Cooperative Behaviors

Different types of well-being are likely to be associated with different kinds of behaviors. The first objective of this study was, from a subjective well-being perspective, to examine whether harmony in life and satisfaction with life are related differently to cooperative behaviors depending on individuals' social value orientation. The second objective was, from a methodological perspective, to examine whether language-based assessments called computational language assessments (CLA), which enable respondents to answer with words that are analyzed using natural language processing, demonstrate stronger correlations with cooperation than traditional rating scales. Participants reported their harmony in life, satisfaction with life, and social value orientation before taking part in an online cooperative task. The results show that the CLA of overall harmony in life correlated with cooperation (all participants: r = 0.18, p < 0.05, n = 181) and that this was particularly true for prosocial participants (r = 0.35, p < 0.001, n = 96), whereas rating scales were not correlated (p > 0.05). No significant correlations (measured by the CLA or traditional rating scales) were found between satisfaction with life and cooperation. In conclusion, our study reveals an important behavioral difference between different types of subjective well-being. To our knowledge, this is the first study supporting the validity of self-reported CLA over traditional rating scales in relation to actual behaviors.

Weighting power by preference eliminates gender differences

Power can be applied in different domains (e.g., politics, work, romantic relationships, family etc.), however, we do not always reflect on which domains we have power in and how important power in these domains is. A dominant idea is that men have more power than women. This notion may be biased because the concept of power is associated with public life. We introduce the concept of preference-weighted power (PWP), a measure of power that includes different domains in life, weighted by the domains’ subjective importance. Two studies investigated power from this perspective. In Study 1, participants generated words related to power, which were quantified/categorized by latent semantic analysis to develop a semantic measure of the power construct. In Study 2, we computed a PWP index by weighting the participants' self-rated power in different power domains with the importance of having power in that domain. Together the studies suggest that men have more perceived power in the public domain, however, this domain has a lower preference weighting than the private domain where women have more power than men. Finally, when preferences for power in different domains were considered, no gender differences were observed. These results emphasize gender difference in different domains and may change how we perceive men’s and women’s power in our society.

Validation of a general subjective well-being factor using Classical Test Theory

BACKGROUND

Subjective Well-Being (SWB) is usually conceptualized in terms of an affective (i.e., judgements of biological emotional reactions and experiences) and a cognitive component (i.e., judgements of life satisfaction in relation to a psychological self-imposed ideal). Recently, researchers have suggested that judgements of harmony in life can replace or at least complement the cognitive component of SWB. Here, however, we go beyond that suggestion and propose that harmony in life should be seen as SWB's social component since it is the sense of balance between the individual and the world around her-a process that comprises acceptance, adaptation, and balance. By adding judgements of one's social interactions (i.e., harmony in life) to judgments of one's life satisfaction (psycho) and judgements of one's emotional reactions (bio), we propose a tentatively biopsychosocial model of SWB. As a first step, we used different factorial models in order to determine if both a general factor and specific sub-factors contribute to the biopsychosocial model of SWB.

METHOD

A total of 527 participants responded to the Positive Affect Negative Affect Schedule (PANAS; 20 items), the Satisfaction with Life Scale (SWLS; five items), and the Harmony in life Scale (HILS; five items). We conducted exploratory and confirmatory factor analyses to validate the biopsychosocial model of subjective well-being and a general factor (SWBS).

RESULTS

The 20 PANAS items reflected a mixture of general latent structure saturation and specific latent structure saturation, but contributed to their respective specific latent factor (PA: 48%; NA: 49%) more than to the general latent SWBS factor (positive affect: 25%; negative affect: 32%). The five SWLS items contributed to a larger degree to the general SWBS factor (72%) than to life satisfaction itself (22%), while the five HILS items contributed to even a larger degree to the general SWBS factor (98%) than to harmony in life (0%). The bifactor model was the best model compared with all other models we tested (χ2 = 1,660.78, df = 375, p < 0.001); Satorra Bentler χ2 = 1,265.80, df = 375, p < 0.001; CFI = 0.92; Tucker-Lewis Index = 0.91; RMSEA = 0.067. This model of a general SWBS factor explained about 64% of the total variance in the model, while specific SWBS components together explained 15% of the total variance.

CONCLUSION

Our study suggests SWB as a general factor in a multidimensional biopsychosocial model. Indeed, as much as 64% of the variance of SWB was explained by this general factor. The SWB components, however, contributed to a different degree to each corresponding factor in the model. For instance, while the affective and cognitive components seem to be their own constructs and also part of the general SWB factor, the social component tested here contributed 0% to its own variance but 98% to the general factor.

Validation of Two Short Personality Inventories Using Self-Descriptions in Natural Language and Quantitative Semantics Test Theory

Background

If individual differences are relevant and prominent features of personality, then they are expected to be encoded in natural language, thus manifesting themselves in single words. Recently, the quantification of text data using advanced natural language processing techniques offers innovative opportunities to map people’s own words and narratives to their responses to self-reports. Here, we demonstrate the usefulness of self-descriptions in natural language and what we tentatively call Quantitative Semantic Test Theory (QuSTT) to validate two short inventories that measure character traits.

Method

In Study 1, participants (N₁ = 997) responded to the Short Character Inventory, which measures self-directedness, cooperativeness, and self-transcendence. In Study 2, participants (N₂ = 2373) responded to Short Dark Triad, which measures Machiavellianism, narcissism, and psychopathy. In both studies, respondents were asked to generate 10 self-descriptive words. We used the Latent Semantic Algorithm to quantify the meaning of each trait using the participants’ self-descriptive words. We then used these semantic representations to predict the self-reported scores. In a second set of analyses, we used word-frequency analyses to map the self-descriptive words to each of the participants’ trait scores (i.e., one-dimensional analysis) and character profiles (i.e., three-dimensional analysis).

Results

The semantic representation of each character trait was related to each corresponding self-reported score. However, participants’ self-transcendence and Machiavellianism scores demonstrated similar relationships to all three semantic representations of the character traits in their respective personality model. The one-dimensional analyses showed that, for example, “loving” was indicative of both high cooperativeness and self-transcendence, while “compassionate,” “kind,” and “caring” was unique for individuals high in cooperativeness. The words “kind” and “caring” indicated low levels of Machiavellianism and psychopathy, whereas “shy” or “introvert” indicated low narcissism. We also found specific keywords that unify or that make the individuals in some profiles unique.

Conclusion

Despite being short, both inventories capture individuals’ identity as expected. Nevertheless, our method also points out some shortcomings and overlaps between traits measured with these inventories. We suggest that self-descriptive words can be quantified to validate measures of psychological constructs (e.g., prevalence in self-descriptions or QuSTT) and that this method may complement traditional methods for testing the validity of psychological measures.

Validation of Subjective Well-Being Measures Using Item Response Theory

Background: Subjective well-being refers to the extent to which a person believes or feels that her life is going well. It is considered as one of the best available proxies for a broader, more canonical form of well-being. For over 30 years, one important distinction in the conceptualization of subjective well-being is the contrast between more affective evaluations of biological emotional reactions and more cognitive evaluations of one's life in relation to a psychologically self-imposed ideal. More recently, researchers have suggested the addition of harmony in life, comprising behavioral evaluations of how one is doing in a social context. Since measures used to assess subjective well-being are self-reports, often validated only using Classical Test Theory, our aim was to focus on the psychometric properties of the measures using Item Response Theory. Method: A total of 1000 participants responded to the Positive Affect Negative Affect Schedule. At random, half of the participants answered to the Satisfaction with Life Scale or to the Harmony in life Scale. First, we evaluate and provide enough evidence of unidimensionality for each scale. Next, we conducted graded response models to validate the psychometric properties of the subjective well-being scales. Results: All scales showed varied frequency item distribution, high discrimination values (Alphas), and had different difficulty parameters (Beta) on each response options. For example, we identified items that respondents found difficult to endorse at the highest/lowest point of the scales (e.g., "Proud" for positive affect; item 5, "If I could live my life over, I would change almost nothing," for life satisfaction; and item 3, "I am in harmony," for harmony in life). In addition, all scales could cover a good portion of the range of subjective well-being (Theta): -2.50 to 2.30 for positive affect, -1.00 to 3.50 for negative affect, -2.40 to 2.50 for life satisfaction, and -2.40 to 2.50 for harmony in life. Importantly, for all scales, there were weak reliability for respondents with extreme latent scores of subjective well-being. Conclusion: The affective component, especially low levels of negative affect, were less accurately measured, while both the cognitive and social component were covered to an equal degree. There was less reliability for respondents with extreme latent scores of subjective well-being. Thus, to improve reliability at the level of the scale, at the item level and at the level of the response scale for each item, we point out specific items that need to be modified or added. Moreover, the data presented here can be used as normative data for each of the subjective well-being constructs.

Latent Semantic Analysis Discriminates Children with Developmental Language Disorder (DLD) from Children with Typical Language Development

Computer based analyses offer a possibility for objective methods to assess semantic-linguistic quality of narratives at the text level. The aim of the present study is to investigate whether a semantic language impairment index (SELIMI) based on latent semantic analysis (LSA) can discriminate between children with developmental language disorder (DLD) and children with typical language development. Spoken narratives from 54 children with DLD and 54 age matched controls with typical language development were summarized in a semantic representation generated using LSA. A statistical model was trained to discriminate between children with DLD and children with typical language development, given the semantic vector representing each individual child's narrative. The results show that SELIMI could distinguish between children with DLD and children with typical language development significantly better than chance and thus has a potential to complement traditional analyses focussed on form or on the word level.

Creative utterances about person-centered care among future health care professionals are related to reward dependence rather than to a creative personality profile

Background

Creativity can be defined as the creation of something that is novel, useful, and valuable for society (i.e., high-level creativity) and/or everyday life. In this context, people have implicit theories of creativity as being either non-malleable (i.e., a fixed creative mindset) or malleable (i.e., a growth creative mindset). Our aim was twofold: (1) to test an improved creative mindset priming paradigm (i.e., adding high-level/everyday creativity perspectives and using an organizational important task) by assessing if participants used different ways to answer to the prime and (2) to analyse the relationship between personality and creative utterances regarding an important topic in participants' future professions.

Method

Students (N = 73) from different health care professions were randomly assigned to the non-malleable or malleable creative mindset priming paradigm (i.e., fixed vs. growth) and then asked to write about (a) their own creativity, (b) person-centered care in their professions (i.e., unusual use test), and to (c) self-rate their personality (Temperament and Character Inventory). We used natural language processing methods (i.e., Latent Semantic Algorithm) to analyse participants' responses in the different conditions and also responses in relation to self-reported personality.

Results

The fixed versus growth condition was predicted (r = .55, p < 0.0001), following Bonferroni correction for multiple comparisons by participants' descriptions about creativity. Although the condition was not predicted (r = .07, p < 0.2755) by participants' utterances about person-centered care, a t-test suggested that participants used words that were semantically different depending on the condition they were randomly assigned to (t(2371) = 5.82, p = .0000). For instance, participants in the growth condition used verbs more frequently, while those in the fixed condition used the personal pronoun I more often. Finally, only the temperament trait of reward dependence (r = .32, p < 0.01) predicted the person-centered care utterances.

Conclusion

We argue that the paradigm successfully primed participants to write about creativity and person-centered care using narratives with different semantic content. However, individuals' ambition to be socially accepted, rather than creative personality traits, elicited the utterances about person-centered care. The creative mindset priming paradigm presented here along language processing methods might be useful for measuring creative potential at work. We suggest that if health care personnel's notions of the activities related to care are generated from their drive to be socially accepted and not from a truly creative profile, the activities might be self-serving and not person-centered.

The Promotion of a Bright Future and the Prevention of a Dark Future: Time Anchored Incitements in News Articles and Facebook's Status Updates

Background: Research suggests that humans have the tendency to increase the valence of events when these are imagined to happen in the future, but to decrease the valence when the same events are imagined to happen in the past. This line of research, however, has mostly been conducted by asking participants to value imagined, yet probable, events. Our aim was to re-examine this time-valence asymmetry using real-life data: a Reuter’s news and a Facebook status updates corpus.

Method: We organized the Reuter news (120,000,000 words) and the Facebook status updates data (41,056,346 words) into contexts grouped in chronological order (i.e., past, present, and future) using verbs and years as time markers. These contexts were used to estimate the valence of each article and status update, respectively, in relation to the time markers using natural language processing tools (i.e., the Latent Semantic Analysis algorithm).

Results: Our results using verbs, in both text corpus, showed that valence for the future was significantly higher compared to the past (future > past). Similarly, in the Reuter year condition, valence increased approximately linear from 1994 to 1999 for texts written 1996–1997. In the Facebook year condition, the valence of the future was also significantly higher than past valence.

Conclusion: Generally, the analyses of the Reuters data indicated that the past is devaluated relative to both the present and the future, while the analyses of the Facebook data indicated that both the past and the present are devaluated against the future. On this basis, we suggest that people strive to communicate the promotion of a bright future and the prevention of a dark future, which in turn leads to a temporal-valence asymmetrical phenomenon (valence = past < present < future).

“I have a dream that one day this nation will rise up and live out the true meaning of its creed: “We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal.”

I have a dream that one day on the red hills of Georgia, the sons of former slaves and the sons of former slave owners will be able to sit down together at the table of brotherhood.

I have a dream that one day even the state of Mississippi, a state sweltering with the heat of injustice, sweltering with the heat of oppression, will be transformed into an oasis of freedom and justice.

I have a dream that my four little children will one day live in a nation where they will not be judged by the color of their skin but by the content of their character.

I have a dream today!”

Martin Luther King, Jr., 28th of August 1963, at the Lincoln Memorial, Washington, DC, United States

Transcranial direct current stimulation based on quantitative electroencephalogram combining positive psychotherapy for major depression

Frontal cortex activity is reduced in the left hemisphere during depression. Transcranial direct current stimulation is a noninvasive neuromodulation technique that can increase frontal cortex activity. Therapy based on transcranial Direct Current Stimulation and positive psychology therapy was applied for improving patients’ quality of life. The present study compared three conditions of subjects with clinical depression; (a) transcranial Direct Current Stimulation therapy, (b) positive psychotherapy, and(c) combined treatment. Hamilton Depression Rating Scale, Adult State Hope Scale and Optimism/Pessimism Scale was used at baseline, 2-week, 4-week, and 3-month follow-up. Combined condition participants showed greater reduction in depressed mood, improved hope and optimism after 4-weeks as well as during 3-month follow-up than the other conditions. Results are discussed in terms of additive or synergistic relation between transcranial direct current stimulation and positive psychology treatment.

Semantic measures: Using natural language processing to measure, differentiate, and describe psychological constructs

Psychological constructs, such as emotions, thoughts, and attitudes are often measured by asking individuals to reply to questions using closed-ended numerical rating scales. However, when asking people about their state of mind in a natural context ("How are you?"), we receive open-ended answers using words ("Fine and happy!") and not closed-ended answers using numbers ("7") or categories ("A lot"). Nevertheless, to date it has been difficult to objectively quantify responses to open-ended questions. We develop an approach using open-ended questions in which the responses are analyzed using natural language processing (Latent Semantic Analyses). This approach of using open-ended, semantic questions is compared with traditional rating scales in nine studies (N = 92-854), including two different study paradigms. The first paradigm requires participants to describe psychological aspects of external stimuli (facial expressions) and the second paradigm involves asking participants to report their subjective well-being and mental health problems. The results demonstrate that the approach using semantic questions yields good statistical properties with competitive, or higher, validity and reliability compared with corresponding numerical rating scales. As these semantic measures are based on natural language and measure, differentiate, and describe psychological constructs, they have the potential of complementing and extending traditional rating scales. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2019 APA, all rights reserved).

Self-descriptions on LinkedIn: Recruitment or friendship identity?

We used quantitative semantics to find clusters of words in LinkedIn users' self-descriptions to an employer or a friend. Some of these clusters discriminated between worker and friend conditions (e.g., flexible vs. caring) and between LinkedIn users with high and low education (e.g., analytical vs. messy).

From I to We: Group formation and linguistic adaption in an online xenophobic forum

Much of identity formation processes nowadays takes place online, indicating that intergroup differentiation may be found in online communities. This paper focuses on identity formation processes in an open online xenophobic, anti-immigrant, discussion forum. Open discussion forums provide an excellent opportunity to investigate open interactions that may reveal how identity is formed and how individual users are influenced by other users. Using computational text analysis and Linguistic Inquiry Word Count (LIWC), our results show that new users change from an individual identification to a group identification over time as indicated by a decrease in the use of “I” and increase in the use of “we”. The analyses also show increased use of “they” indicating intergroup differentiation. Moreover, the linguistic style of new users became more similar to that of the overall forum over time. Further, the emotional content decreased over time. The results indicate that new users on a forum create a collective identity with the other users and adapt to them linguistically.

Quantifying Semantic Linguistic Maturity in Children

We propose a method to quantify semantic linguistic maturity (SELMA) based on a high dimensional semantic representation of words created from the co-occurrence of words in a large text corpus. The method was applied to oral narratives from 108 children aged 4;0-12;10. By comparing the SELMA measure with maturity ratings made by human raters we found that SELMA predicted the rating of semantic maturity made by human raters over and above the prediction made using a child's age and number of words produced. We conclude that the semantic content of narratives changes in a predictable pattern with children's age and argue that SELMA is a measure quantifying semantic linguistic maturity. The study opens up the possibility of using quantitative measures for studying the development of semantic representation in children's narratives, and emphasizes the importance of word co-occurrences for understanding the development of meaning.

Multimodal retrieval of autobiographical memories: sensory information contributes differently to the recollection of events

Previous studies on autobiographical memory have focused on unimodal retrieval cues (i.e., cues pertaining to one modality). However, from an ecological perspective multimodal cues (i.e., cues pertaining to several modalities) are highly important to investigate. In the present study we investigated age distributions and experiential ratings of autobiographical memories retrieved with unimodal and multimodal cues. Sixty-two participants were randomized to one of four cue-conditions: visual, olfactory, auditory, or multimodal. The results showed that the peak of the distributions depends on the modality of the retrieval cue. The results indicated that multimodal retrieval seemed to be driven by visual and auditory information to a larger extent and to a lesser extent by olfactory information. Finally, no differences were observed in the number of retrieved memories or experiential ratings across the four cue-conditions.

Long-term memory for odors: influences of familiarity and identification across 64 days

Few studies have investigated long-term odor recognition memory, although some early observations suggested that the forgetting rate of olfactory representations is slower than for other sensory modalities. This study investigated recognition memory across 64 days for high and low familiar odors and faces. Memory was assessed in 83 young participants at 4 occasions; immediate, 4, 16, and 64 days after encoding. The results indicated significant forgetting for odors and faces across the 64 days. The forgetting functions for the 2 modalities were not fundamentally different. Moreover, high familiar odors and faces were better remembered than low familiar ones, indicating an important role of semantic knowledge on recognition proficiency for both modalities. Although odor recognition was significantly better than chance at the 64 days testing, memory for the low familiar odors was relatively poor. Also, the results indicated that odor identification consistency across sessions, irrespective of accuracy, was positively related to successful recognition.

Stimulus-dependent dopamine release in attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder

Attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) is related to an attenuated and dysfunctional dopamine system. Normally, a high extracellular dopamine level yields a tonic dopaminergic input that down-regulates stimuli-evoked phasic dopamine responses through autoreceptors. Abnormally low tonic extracellular dopamine in ADHD up-regulates the autoreceptors so that stimuli-evoked phasic dopamine is boosted. The authors propose that these boosted phasic responses yield hypersensitivity to environmental stimuli in ADHD. Stimuli evoking moderate brain arousal lead to well-functioning performance, whereas either too little or too much stimuli attenuate cognitive performance. Strong, salient stimuli may easily disrupt attention, whereas an environment with impoverished stimuli causes low arousal, which is typically compensated for by hyperactivity. Stochastic resonance is the phenomenon that makes a moderate noise facilitate stimulus discrimination and cognitive performance. Computational modeling shows that more noise is required for stochastic resonance to occur in dopamine-deprived neural systems in ADHD. This prediction is supported by empirical data.

Biases in News Media as Reflected by Personal Pronouns in Evaluative Contexts

This paper examines whether pronouns in news media occurred in evaluative contexts reflecting psychological biases. Contexts of pronouns were measured by computerized semantic analysis. Results showed that self-inclusive personal pronouns (We, I) occurred in more positive contexts than self-exclusive pronouns (He/She, They), reflecting self- and group-serving biases. Contexts of collective versus individual pronouns varied; We occurred in more positive contexts than I, and He/She in more positive contexts than They. The enhancement of collective relative to individual self-inclusive pronouns may reflect that media news is a public rather than private domain. The reversed pattern among self-exclusive pronouns corroborates suggestions that outgroup derogation is most pronounced at the category level. Implications for research on language and social psychology are discussed.

The semantic representation of event information depends on the cue modality: an instance of meaning-based retrieval

The semantic content, or the meaning, is the essence of autobiographical memories. In comparison to previous research, which has mainly focused on the phenomenological experience and the age distribution of retrieved events, the present study provides a novel view on the retrieval of event information by quantifying the information as semantic representations. We investigated the semantic representation of sensory cued autobiographical events and studied the modality hierarchy within the multimodal retrieval cues. The experiment comprised a cued recall task, where the participants were presented with visual, auditory, olfactory or multimodal retrieval cues and asked to recall autobiographical events. The results indicated that the three different unimodal retrieval cues generate significantly different semantic representations. Further, the auditory and the visual modalities contributed the most to the semantic representation of the multimodally retrieved events. Finally, the semantic representation of the multimodal condition could be described as a combination of the three unimodal conditions. In conclusion, these results suggest that the meaning of the retrieved event information depends on the modality of the retrieval cues.

Iranian and Swedish adolescents: differences in personality traits and well-being

Introduction. This study addresses the need to further contextualize research on well-being (e.g., Kjell, 2011) in terms of cross-cultural aspects of personality traits among adolescents and by examining two different conceptualizations of well-being: subjective well-being (i.e., life satisfaction, positive and negative affect) and psychological well-being (i.e., positive relations with others, environmental mastery, self-acceptance, autonomy, personal growth, and life purpose).

Methods. Iranian (N = 122, mean age 15.23 years) and Swedish (N = 109, mean age 16.69 years) adolescents were asked to fill out a Big Five personality test, as well as questionnaires assessing subjective well-being and psychological well-being.

Results. Swedes reported higher subjective and psychological well-being, while Iranians reported higher degree of Agreeableness, Openness and Conscientiousness. Neuroticism and Extraversion did not differ between cultures. Neuroticism was related to well-being within both cultures. Openness was related to well-being only among Iranians, and Extraversion only among Swedes. A mediation analysis within the Swedish sample, the only sample meeting statistical criteria for mediation analysis to be conducted, demonstrated that psychological well-being mediated the relationship between Neuroticism and subjective well-being as well as between Extraversion and subjective well-being.

Conclusions. Certain personality traits, such as Extraversion, Openness, and Conscientiousness, relate differently to well-being measures across cultures. Meanwhile, Neuroticism seems to relate similarly across cultures at least with regard to subjective well-being. Furthermore, the results give an indication on how psychological well-being might mediate the relationship between certain personality traits and subjective well-being. Overall, the complexity of the results illustrates the need for more research whilst supporting the importance of contextualizing well-being research.

Reactivation in working memory: an attractor network model of free recall

The dynamic nature of human working memory, the general-purpose system for processing continuous input, while keeping no longer externally available information active in the background, is well captured in immediate free recall of supraspan word-lists. Free recall tasks produce several benchmark memory phenomena, like the U-shaped serial position curve, reflecting enhanced memory for early and late list items. To account for empirical data, including primacy and recency as well as contiguity effects, we propose here a neurobiologically based neural network model that unifies short- and long-term forms of memory and challenges both the standard view of working memory as persistent activity and dual-store accounts of free recall. Rapidly expressed and volatile synaptic plasticity, modulated intrinsic excitability, and spike-frequency adaptation are suggested as key cellular mechanisms underlying working memory encoding, reactivation and recall. Recent findings on the synaptic and molecular mechanisms behind early LTP and on spiking activity during delayed-match-to-sample tasks support this view.

The difference between living biblically and just imagining it: A study on experiential-based learning among Swedish adolescents

As an assignment in their course on worldwide religions, a group of Swedish High School pupils followed 12 biblical rules for two weeks, while another group from the same school just imagined the experience. Groups were asked to reflect and write down either how it was (experience) or how it would have been (imagine) to follow the rules. By applying a semantic test, based on a Latent Semantic Analysis generated representation of the statements, we first found that the semantic representations of the written reflections differed between the experience and imagine groups, and between gender. Analysis of word frequency count suggests that the group that followed the rules were more likely to use words related to their task in their reflections, while the group that imagined the experience generated words related to themself and problems. The results suggest that the consequences of learning by experience might culminate in greater student engagement.

The Isolation, Primacy, and Recency Effects Predicted by an Adaptive LTD/LTP Threshold in Postsynaptic Cells

An item that stands out (is isolated) from its context is better remembered than an item consistent with the context. This isolation effect cannot be accounted for by increased attention, because it occurs when the isolated item is presented as the first item, or by impoverished memory of nonisolated items, because the isolated item is better remembered than a control list consisting of equally different items. The isolation effect is seldom experimentally or theoretically related to the primacy or the recency effects-that is, the improved performance on the first few and last items, respectively, on the serial position curve. The primacy effect cannot easily be accounted for by rehearsal in short-term memory because it occurs when rehearsal is eliminated. This article suggests that the primacy, the recency, and the isolation effects can be accounted for by experience-dependent synaptic plasticity in neural cells. Neurological empirical data suggest that the threshold that determines whether cells will show long-term potentiation (LTP) or long-term depression (LTD) varies as a function of recent postsynaptic activity and that synaptic plasticity is bounded. By implementing an adaptive LTP-LTD threshold in an artificial neural network, the various aspects of the isolation, the primacy, and the recency effects are accounted for, whereas none of these phenomena are accounted for if the threshold is constant. This theory suggests a possible link between the cognitive and the neurological levels.

The effects of background white noise on memory performance in inattentive school children

Background

Noise is typically conceived of as being detrimental for cognitive performance; however, a recent computational model based on the concepts of stochastic resonance and dopamine related internal noise postulates that a moderate amount of auditive noise benefit individuals in hypodopaminergic states. On the basis of this model we predicted that inattentive children would be enhanced by adding background white noise while attentive children's performance would deteriorate.

Methods

Fifty-one secondary school pupils carried out an episodic verbal free recall test in two noise conditions. In the high noise condition, verb-noun sentences were presented during auditory background noise (white noise, 78 dB), and in the low noise condition sentences were presented without noise.

Results

Exposure to background noise improved performance for inattentive children and worsened performance for attentive children and eliminated episodic memory differences between attentive and inattentive school children.

Conclusions

Consistent with the model, our data show that cognitive performance can be moderated by external background white noise stimulation in a non-clinical group of inattentive participants. This finding needs replicating in a larger sample using more noise levels but if replicated has great practical applications by offering a non-invasive way to improve school results in children with attentional problems.

Computational perspectives on neuromodulation of aging

Cognitive functions, such as memory, attention, and perception, decline with age. Besides other neuroanatomical changes, the level of dopamine also attenuates during aging. We review how computational modeling can provide insights in how these lifetime changes in dopamine levels are expressed at the behavioral level yielding a bridge across different levels. Results indicate that attenuation of dopamine lowers the signal to noise ratio providing a less distinctive neural representation, and detrimental cognitive performance.

Listen to the noise: noise is beneficial for cognitive performance in ADHD

BACKGROUND

Noise is typically conceived of as being detrimental to cognitive performance. However, given the mechanism of stochastic resonance, a certain amount of noise can benefit performance. We investigate cognitive performance in noisy environments in relation to a neurocomputational model of attention deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) and dopamine. The Moderate Brain Arousal model (MBA; Sikström & Söderlund, 2007) suggests that dopamine levels modulate how much noise is required for optimal cognitive performance. We experimentally examine how ADHD and control children respond to different encoding conditions, providing different levels of environmental stimulation.

METHODS

Participants carried out self-performed mini tasks (SPT), as a high memory performance task, and a verbal task (VT), as a low memory task. These tasks were performed in the presence, or absence, of auditory white noise.

RESULTS

Noise exerted a positive effect on cognitive performance for the ADHD group and deteriorated performance for the control group, indicating that ADHD subjects need more noise than controls for optimal cognitive performance.

CONCLUSIONS

The positive effect of white noise is explained by the phenomenon of stochastic resonance (SR), i.e., the phenomenon that moderate noise facilitates cognitive performance. The MBA model suggests that noise in the environment, introduces internal noise into the neural system through the perceptual system. This noise induces SR in the neurotransmitter systems and makes this noise beneficial for cognitive performance. In particular, the peak of the SR curve depends on the dopamine level, so that participants with low dopamine levels (ADHD) require more noise for optimal cognitive performance compared to controls.

How something can be said about telling more than we can know: on choice blindness and introspection

The legacy of Nisbett and Wilson's classic article, Telling More Than We Can Know: Verbal Reports on Mental Processes (1977), is mixed. It is perhaps the most cited article in the recent history of consciousness studies, yet no empirical research program currently exists that continues the work presented in the article. To remedy this, we have introduced an experimental paradigm we call choice blindness [Johansson, P., Hall, L., Sikström, S., & Olsson, A. (2005). Failure to detect mismatches between intention and outcome in a simple decision task. Science, 310(5745), 116-119.]. In the choice blindness paradigm participants fail to notice mismatches between their intended choice and the outcome they are presented with, while nevertheless offering introspectively derived reasons for why they chose the way they did. In this article, we use word-frequency and latent semantic analysis (LSA) to investigate a corpus of introspective reports collected within the choice blindness paradigm. We contrast the introspective reasons given in non-manipulated vs. manipulated trials, but find very few differences between these two groups of reports.