Psicológica

In the first part of the study, nine estimators of the first-order autoregressive parameter are reviewed and a new estimator is proposed. The relationships and discrepancies between the estimators are discussed in order to achieve a clear differentiation. In the second part of the study, the precision in the estimation of autocorrelation is studied. The performance of the ten lag-one autocorrelation estimators is compared in terms of Mean Square Error (combining bias and variance) using data series generated by Monte Carlo simulation. The results show that there is not a single optimal estimator for all conditions, suggesting that the estimator ought to be chosen according to sample size and to the information available on the possible direction of the serial dependence. Additionally, the probability of labelling an actually existing autocorrelation as statistically significant is explored using Monte Carlo sampling. The power estimates obtained are quite similar among the tests ass...

The purpose of this study was to investigate the potential contribution of decoding efficiency to the development of reading comprehension among skilled adult native Arabic speakers. In addition, we tried to investigate the influence of Arabic vowels on reading accuracy, reading speed, and therefore to reading comprehension. Seventy-five Arabic native speakers read fully pointed, unpointed and pseudowords lists of Arabic and silent reading comprehension of pointed and unpointed paragraphs were tested. Reading speed and accuracy measures revealed a slowest and less accurate in reading pseudowords, and fastest and most accurate in reading unpointed words with pointed word naming speed and accuracy in between. Subjects who were fast and accurate in reading isolated words were also fast and accurate in reading all varieties of printed words. Pearson correlation procedures indicated that silent reading comprehension of pointed and unpointed Arabic texts was uncorrelated with either oral reading speed or accuracy. Our findings with regard to the cross-linguistic research literature as well as the specific features of Arabic language are discussed.

This article reviews recent research on perception of tangible pictures in sighted and blind people. Haptic picture naming accuracy is dependent upon familiarity and access to semantic memory, just as in visual recognition. Performance is high when haptic picture recognition tasks do not depend upon semantic memory. Viewpoint matters for the ease or difficulty of interpreting haptic pictures of solid objects. Top views were easiest for sighted and blind persons when geometrical solids had constant crosssections in the vertical axis. The presence or absence of viewpoint effects depends upon the nature of the solids that are represented. Congenitally blind people do not spontaneously produce perspective drawings, but recent data suggests that depictions including linear perspective can be understood after minimal experience. The results suggest that two-dimensional configurations are not necessarily problematic for touch. Touch is a remarkable sense, and it is just beginning to reveal...

Resumen
Con la creación de La Casas de Orientación a la Mujer y a la Familia (COMF) en la Federación  de Mujeres Cubanas (FMC) en el año 1990, se inició una nueva etapa de atención a la mujer y la familia cubana, ofreciendo asesoría y ayuda sobre diversos temas como drogadicción, violencia doméstica, alcoholismo, etc. No obstante, en la COMF aún no se realizan estrategias de atención a la violencia psicológica ejercida en mujeres por sus parejas, fenómeno que se acrecienta, sobre todo en las comunidades rurales. El presente trabajo pretende atender la violencia psicológica ejercida contra la mujer en la comunidad rural Vivero, tributando así al desarrollo social de la misma desde una estrategia de marketing social. En la estrategia se dan a conocer acciones que funcionan en unidades de desarrollo, a través de las tres direcciones específicas, en aras de ejercer el sistema de influencias requerida, en función de lograr la adopción del producto social que se propone. El marketing social se plantea como objetivo apropiar a las mujeres de los conocimientos esenciales sobre la violencia psicológica, de una manera informativa con el uso de los medios de comunicación así como dinámica y participativa dentro de la misma comunidad.

Abstract
With the creation of The Houses of Orientation to the Woman and the Family (COMF) in the Federation of Cuban Women (FMC) in the year 1990, a new stage of attention began to the woman and the Cuban family, offering consultantship and he/she helps on diverse topics as drogadicción, domestic violence, alcoholism, etc. nevertheless, in the COMF they still are not carried out strategies of attention to the psychological violence exercised in women by its couples, phenomenon that increases, mainly in the rural communities. The present work seeks to assist the psychological violence exercised against the woman in the community rural Nursery, paying this way to the social development of the same one from a strategy of social marketing. In the strategy they are given to know actions that work in development units, through the three specificaddresses, for the sake of exercising the required system of influences, in function of achieving the adoption of the social product that intends. The social marketing thinks about as objective to adapt the women of the essential knowledge about the psychological violence, in an informative way with the use of the media as well as dynamics and participative inside the same community.

¿Quién es Márgara Sáenz? ¿Por qué a unos poetas peruanos se les ocurre imaginarse a una mujer que a la vez se imagina y rememora desde el más puro erotismo, la pasión amorosa con uno de ellos? ¿Qué necesidad afectiva, psicológica, intelectual, sexual o todas juntas tenían estos jóvenes escritores Antonio Cisneros, Mirko Lauer y Abelardo Oquendo, de crear a esta poeta imaginaria y lanzarla al ruedo de la historia de la literatura como la autora ecuatoriana que, según las referencias, escribió un único poema erótico, que también lo inventaron ellos y que consta en una Antología de poemas del amor erótico (Editorial Mosca Azul, 1972) prologada por Cisneros?

En el presente estudio se analizaron los efectos del olvido dirigido en pruebas directas (reconocimiento y recuerdo) e indirectas (categorización y detección de letras). Los resultados mostraron que las palabras marcadas para aprender se recordaban mejor y se reconocían más rápido y con mayor precisión que las marcadas para olvidar. Este patrón de resultados se replicó con la prueba de categorización. Sin embargo, no se encontró olvido dirigido en la prueba de detección de letras. Los resultados se discuten en función de la hipótesis basada en el repaso diferencial como mecanismo implicado en el olvido dirigido con el método de las palabras.

El objetivo de este estudio es determinar las propiedades psicométricas de la Escala de Autoeficacia en el Trabajo de Pepe et al. (2010): validez de constructo, análisis de ítems, análisis de fiabilidad y validez discriminante. El estudio consistió en un análisis secundario de datos con una muestra total de 678 personas trabajando en diversos sectores laborales en Puerto Rico. Los resultados de esta investigación demuestran, que la escala no cumple con los criterios de validez discriminante entre los factores de voluntad y compromiso. Concluimos, que uno de los factores que influye en que la escala no posea las características psicométricas adecuadas es la carencia de diferentes grados de desafío o impedimento para un rendimiento exitoso en la redacción de los ítems de la escala lo cual es recomendado por Bandura.

Universidad Nacional Autónoma de México Grammatical gender embedded in determiners, nouns and adjectives allows indirect and more rapid processing of the referents implied in sentences. However in a language such as Spanish, this useful information cannot be reliably retrieved from a single source of information. Instead, noun gender may be extracted either from phono-morphological, semantic or syntactic cues, such as determiner-noun frames. This experimental work sought to explore toddlers' ability to use feminine and masculine determiners to infer a referent whose name was marked for grammatical gender, ending in 'o' or 'a', as well as a referent whose name was unmarked. Using the intermodal preferential looking paradigm, 24-, 30-and 36-month-old children were presented with pairs of images, target and distracter, of familiar objects while, at the same time, they heard a feminine or masculine definite (Experiment 1) or indefinite (Experiment 2) article that cou...

Considerable research has examined the contrasting predictions of configural and elemental associative accounts of learning. One of the simplest methods to distinguish between these approaches is the summation test, in which the associative strength of a novel compound (AB) made of two separatelytrained cues (A+ and B+) is examined . The configural view predicts that the strength of the compound will approximate the average strength of its components, whereas the elemental approach predicts that the strength of the compound will be greater than the strength of either component. The summation test has lead to contradictory evidence in experiments with animals as well as with human adults. The purpose of this research was to examine summation in predictive learning of 5� 9 years old children. The results provided evidence of summation (i.e., AB greater than A and B) after training with a "simple summation" procedure (A+ B+ test with AB; Experiment 1, n=26); but no summation ...

The Children’s Anxiety and Pain Scales – CAPS (Kuttner & LePage, 1989) is the only faces measure to date aimed at separately assessing anxiety and pain intensity through self-report. Despite early indications that the two sets of schematic faces included in the CAPS possess face validity regarding the constructs of anxiety/fear and pain, the extent to which they allow differentiating between them has remained controversial, especially in younger children. In this study, the inner features of CAPS’s faces were taken as factors in integration tasks performed by children differing in age (6-8 and 9-11 years old) and pain experience (pain-free and acute postoperative pain). Different integration patterns were found for the CAPS-pain and the CAPS-anxiety subscales, along with distinct profiles of relative importance among upper- and lower-face features. These differences did not depend on the assigned judgment dimension (conveyed pain or conveyed fear), and partly concurred with collater...

Monte Carlo simulation was used to determine how violation of the independence assumption affects the empirical probability distribution and Type I error rates of Revusky's Rn statistical test. Simulation results show that the probability distribution of Rn was distorted when the ...

The purpose of the present study was to compare the Type I error rate and power of two model-based procedures, the mean and covariance structure model (MACS) and the item response theory (IRT), and an observed-score based procedure, ordinal logistic regression, for detecting differential item functioning (DIF) in polytomous items. A simulation study was employed in which polytomous data with five ordered categories were generated using Samejima's graded response model under three crossed factors: sample size per group (300-, 500-, and 1,000-examinees), type of DIF (b-parameter, aparameter, and a-and b-parameter DIF), and magnitude of DIF (small and large magnitudes of DIF). The Type I error rate was inflated for IRT based tests and ordinal logistic regression when some of the items contained DIF. For the uniform DIF conditions, MACS and IRT exhibited similar power rates; however, ordinal logistic regression exhibited slightly higher power compared to the other two methods for smaller sample sizes. Lastly, for nonuniform DIF, IRT exhibited much more power compared to MACS and ordinal logistic regression.

James Madison University (USA)* Northwest Evaluation Association (USA) ** The basic principles of computerized adaptive testing are relatively straightforward. The practice of implementing and maintaining an adaptive testing program, however, is far more complex. A number of practical challenges await measurement professionals; we discuss four general types: establishing and maintaining item pools, choosing test administration procedures, protecting test security, and responding to examinee issues. The success of an adaptive testing program will largely depend on how well the measurement practitioner deals with these challenges.

Resumen: A pesar de su amplio uso, las escalas de Ryff han presentado problemas de validez factorial y en recientes investigaciones han mostrado efectos de método que, sin embargo, no han sido exhaustivamente investigados en la literatura, especialmente en ...

R e s u m e n El estudio del engagement en el trabajo es cada vez más común en la literatura científica. La estructura factorial del instrumento más utilizado por los investigadores para evaluar el engagement, la Utrecht Work Engagement Scale (UWES), ha mostrado múltiples inconsistencias en diversos países. El objetivo de este trabajo es examinar las propiedades psicométricas de la UWES en una muestra de 2.796 trabajadores en Puerto Rico. Se examinó la estructura factorial de la escala mediante ecuaciones estructurales, con el método de estimación de máxima verosimilitud. Los resultados muestran que el modelo de tres factores posee un mejor ajuste a los datos de la escala, siendo consistente con la concepción del engagement como constructo compuesto por tres dimensiones: vigor, dedicación y absorción. La validez y la fiabilidad de la UWES son adecuadas, por lo que se concluyó que la escala posee las cualidades para ser utilizada en investigaciones en el contexto laboral puertorriqueño. Palabras clave Engagement en el trabajo; análisis confirmatorio de factores; validez de constructo; análisis confiabilidad; Utrecth Work Engagement Scale a b s t R a c t The study of work engagement is becoming increasingly common in the scientific literature. There are many inconsistencies regarding the factorial structure of the Utrecht Work Engagement Scale (UWES) the most widely used instrument by researchers in different countries. The objective of this study is to examine the psychometric properties of the UWES using a sample of 2,796 employees in Puerto Rico. We examined the psychometric properties of UWES using structural equations with the method of maximum likelihood estimation. The results show that the three-factor model has a better fit, being consistent with the conception of engagement as a construct formed by three dimensions: vigor, dedication, and absorption. The validity and reliability of UWES are appropriate, and we conclude that the scale has the qualities to be used in research in the Puerto Rican labor context.

The present study explored the perceptual process of integration of luminance information in the production of the gray color of an object placed in an environment viewed from a window. The mean luminance of the object was varied for each mean luminance of the environment. Participants matched the gray color of the object with that of Munsell chips in a viewing box. The results show that the Munsell values so obtained are linear measures of gray color. The results support the possibility that the gray color of the object derives from an additive integration of the information about mean luminance of the object and about mean luminance of the environment, with the weights of this information varying with the mean luminances.

R e s u m e n El estudio del engagement en el trabajo es cada vez más común en la literatura científica. La estructura factorial del instrumento más utilizado por los investigadores para evaluar el engagement, la Utrecht Work Engagement Scale (UWES), ha mostrado múltiples inconsistencias en diversos países. El objetivo de este trabajo es examinar las propiedades psicométricas de la UWES en una muestra de 2.796 trabajadores en Puerto Rico. Se examinó la estructura factorial de la escala mediante ecuaciones estructurales, con el método de estimación de máxima verosimilitud. Los resultados muestran que el modelo de tres factores posee un mejor ajuste a los datos de la escala, siendo consistente con la concepción del engagement como constructo compuesto por tres dimensiones: vigor, dedicación y absorción. La validez y la fiabilidad de la UWES son adecuadas, por lo que se concluyó que la escala posee las cualidades para ser utilizada en investigaciones en el contexto laboral puertorriqueño. Palabras clave Engagement en el trabajo; análisis confirmatorio de factores; validez de constructo; análisis confiabilidad; Utrecth Work Engagement Scale a b s t R a c t The study of work engagement is becoming increasingly common in the scientific literature. There are many inconsistencies regarding the factorial structure of the Utrecht Work Engagement Scale (UWES) the most widely used instrument by researchers in different countries. The objective of this study is to examine the psychometric properties of the UWES using a sample of 2,796 employees in Puerto Rico. We examined the psychometric properties of UWES using structural equations with the method of maximum likelihood estimation. The results show that the three-factor model has a better fit, being consistent with the conception of engagement as a construct formed by three dimensions: vigor, dedication, and absorption. The validity and reliability of UWES are appropriate, and we conclude that the scale has the qualities to be used in research in the Puerto Rican labor context.

The Attention Networks Test (ANT) has been widely used to assess the three attentional networks proposed by Posner and his collaborators. Here we present a version of the ANT that uses emotionally laden words as cues to evaluate the functioning of the attention networks and their interactions. University students participated in the task and the results replicated those found in previous studies with the original version of the test. Then, those with extreme scores on a trait anxiety scale, STAI (State Trait Anxiety Inventory) were assigned to the low or the high anxiety group. The high anxiety group showed normal patterns in the functioning of the three attentional networks, but negative cues modulated the interaction between the orienting and the executive network. These participants failed to narrow the attention focus to cover the region containing the target, affecting conflict resolution in incongruent trials.

This study aims at understanding how a general positive attitude toward the environment results in a limited purchase of environmentally friendlier cars, often referred to as the attitude-action gap. In a first experiment 27 volunteers performed a judgment task on car purchase intention. Participants were asked to evaluate the probability of buying cars varying in purchase price, environmental performance, operating cost and vehicle quality. A second experiment required 47 participants to express their purchase intention of vehicles varying in driving experience, environmental aspects, Life-Cycle Costs and vehicle quality. Results in both experiments show that participants integrate car attribute information according to a differential weighting averaging rule. Model weight and scale values show to be indicative of a positive attitude toward environmental performance. On the other hand, the empirically established model weights consistently indicate that environmental performance is outweighed by other car attributes. Conceptually, the averaging integration model provides an explanation about the psychology of the attitude-action gap. Implications for policy making are discussed.

Two experiments were conducted with the aim of exploring extinction and renewal in humans using a predictive judgments task. Experiment 1 found that pairing a fictitious medicine with a fictitious illness led the subjects to predict the illness in the presence of the medicine. When the medicine was subsequently presented without outcomes subjects learned to predict that the medicine was

Los objetivos de este trabajo fueron en primer lugar, demostrar la fiabilidad y las condiciones necesarias del condicionamiento de segundo orden (CSO) en tareas de aprendizaje causal (Experimento 1); en segundo lugar, mostrar que la extinción de la relación causal de primer orden, no produce el mismo efecto de extinción en la relación causal de segundo orden (Experimento 2). Las aportaciones de este estudio fueron por un lado, que durante la fase de extinción de la causa de primer orden, se conservó el nivel de excitación en la condición de control; y por otro, que en la fase de prueba se evaluaba el efecto de la extinción no sólo sobre las claves de segundo orden, sino también sobre todas las de primer orden, extinguidas o no. Los resultados comprobaron que la extinción y ruptura de la relación causal de primer orden, no genera la extinción de la relación de segundo orden (CSO) una vez establecida, aunque sí produjo una atenuación de la fuerza de dicha relación causal. El conjunto de resultados es fácil de explicar desde los mismos modelos asociativos utilizados para explicar dicho efecto (CSO) en condicionamiento animal, basados en el aprendizaje de relaciones independientes entre estímulos condicionados y estímulos incondicionados. De manera similar y desde una perspectiva cognitiva, los resultados sugieren que el individuo durante el proceso de aprendizaje del CSO no forma relaciones causales encadenadas, sino más bien relaciones relativamente independientes entre cada causa y sus efectos.

The methods to measure vocabulary size vary across disciplines. This heterogeneity hinders direct comparisons between studies and slows down the understanding of research findings. A quick, free and efficient test of English language proficiency, LexTALE, was recently developed to remedy this problem. LexTALE has been validated and shown to be an effective tool for distinguishing between different levels of proficiency in English.

The purpose of this study was to investigate the potential contribution of decoding efficiency to the development of reading comprehension among skilled adult native Arabic speakers. In addition, we tried to investigate the influence of Arabic vowels on reading accuracy, reading speed, and therefore to reading comprehension. Seventy-five Arabic native speakers read fully pointed, unpointed and pseudowords lists of Arabic and silent reading comprehension of pointed and unpointed paragraphs were tested. Reading speed and accuracy measures revealed a slowest and less accurate in reading pseudowords, and fastest and most accurate in reading unpointed words with pointed word naming speed and accuracy in between. Subjects who were fast and accurate in reading isolated words were also fast and accurate in reading all varieties of printed words. Pearson correlation procedures indicated that silent reading comprehension of pointed and unpointed Arabic texts was uncorrelated with either oral ...

In two experiments we compared normal reading and reading for translation of object relative sentences presented word-by-word. In Experiment 1, professional translators were asked either to read and repeat Spanish sentences, or to read and translate them into English. In addition, we manipulated the availability of pragmatic information given in the sentences. In Experiment 2, we reversed the source language and translators were instructed to read and repeat English sentences or to read and translate them into Spanish. Compared to normal reading, in both experiments, online comprehension was slower under reading for translation, showing that sentence comprehension varies depending on the goal of the reading. Pragmatic cues facilitated on-line comprehension only when Spanish was used as input, indicating an asymmetrical use of pragmatic information induced by the source language. Results agreed with a horizontal perspective of the translation task. Language comprehension includes a s...

The purpose of this study was to investigate the potential contribution of decoding efficiency to the development of reading comprehension among skilled adult native Arabic speakers. In addition, we tried to investigate the influence of Arabic vowels on reading accuracy, reading speed, and therefore to reading comprehension. Seventy-five Arabic native speakers read fully pointed, unpointed and pseudowords lists of Arabic and silent reading comprehension of pointed and unpointed paragraphs were tested. Reading speed and accuracy measures revealed a slowest and less accurate in reading pseudowords, and fastest and most accurate in reading unpointed words with pointed word naming speed and accuracy in between. Subjects who were fast and accurate in reading isolated words were also fast and accurate in reading all varieties of printed words. Pearson correlation procedures indicated that silent reading comprehension of pointed and unpointed Arabic texts was uncorrelated with either oral ...

Resumen: Se diseñaron dos experimentos para evaluar la reinstauración selectiva de respuestas instrumentales asociadas a consecuencias diferentes (Experimento 1), y el efecto del número de sesiones de extinción en dicha reinstauración (Experimento 2). En el Experimento 1 se entrenó a dos grupos de ratas en tres fases. En la primera fase se condujeron dos sesiones diarias, en una la respuesta (R) 1 se asoció con la consecuencia (C) 1 y en la otra la R2 se asoció con la C2 para el Grupo Diferente, y para el Grupo ...

Durante las dos últimas décadas, la investigación sobre el sesgo en los tests ha estado centrada en el desarrollo de métodos estadísticos adecuados para detectar ítems con un funcionamiento diferencial. La comprensión del funcionamiento diferencial de los ítems (DIF) no ha recibido tanta atención. Este estudio investiga el efecto de las diferencias instruccionales sobre el DIF. Se utilizó un diseño experimental para inducir DIF manipulando la instrucción que recibían dos grupos de personas. El estudio también comparó la capacidad para detectar DIF de los métodos estadísticos χ 2 de Mantel-Haenszel (Holland y Thayer, 1988) y la regresión logística (Swaminathan y . El procedimiento experimental pretendía producir DIF en 9 ítems. Los dos métodos estadísticos identificaron los 9 ítems con DIF previsto.

Newton's cradle, a device consisting of a chain of steel balls suspended in alignment, has been used extensively in physics teaching to demonstrate the principles of conservation of momentum and kinetic energy in elastic collisions. The apparent simplicity of the device allows one to test commonly hold views regarding the intuitive understanding of physics by lay people. We present and discuss the results of two experiments wherein the extension of the chain, the height of release (experiment 1) and the material of the balls (experiment 2) were systematically varied in graphical depictions of the Newton's cradle. Participants had to estimate the height that the last ball in the chain would reach if a collision took place. The outcomes revealed a sophisticated cognitive model wherein the magnitude of the displacement of the target ball increased in direct proportion with the acceleration of the launcher and in inverse proportion with the number of balls in the chain. The results closely mimicked the predicted behavior of a Newton's cradle if the collisions were not perfectly elastic. This isomorphism shows that judgments of physical events are not detached from the environment, as one seldom sees a perfectly elastic collision, and it speaks unfavorably to the hypothesis that, in such tasks, people rely on simple heuristics.

It has been assumed , Perception & Psychophysics) that a visual imagery process is involved in the haptic identification of raised-line drawings of common objects. The finding of significant correlations between visual imagery ability and performance on picture-naming tasks was taken as experimental evidence in support of this assumption. However, visual imagery measures came from self-report procedures, which can be unreliable. The present study therefore used an objective measure of visuospatial imagery abilities in sighted participants and compared three groups of high, medium and low visuospatial imagers on their accuracy and response times in identifying raised-line drawings by touch. Results revealed between-group differences on accuracy, with high visuospatial imagers outperforming low visuospatial imagers, but not on response times. These findings lend support to the view that visuospatial imagery plays a role in the identification of raised-line drawings by sighted adults.

The Attention Networks Test (ANT) has been widely used to assess the three attentional networks proposed by Posner and his collaborators. Here we present a version of the ANT that uses emotionally laden words as cues to evaluate the functioning of the attention networks and their interactions. University students participated in the task and the results replicated those found in previous studies with the original version of the test. Then, those with extreme scores on a trait anxiety scale, STAI (State Trait Anxiety Inventory) were assigned to the low or the high anxiety group. The high anxiety group showed normal patterns in the functioning of the three attentional networks, but negative cues modulated the interaction between the orienting and the executive network. These participants failed to narrow the attention focus to cover the region containing the target, affecting conflict resolution in incongruent trials.

Many studies have analysed how goal directed movements are corrected in response to changes in the properties of the target. However, only simple movements to single targets have been used in those studies, so little is known about movement corrections under more complex situations. Evidence from studies that ask for movements to several targets in sequence suggests that whole sequences of movements are planned together. Planning related segments of a movement together makes it possible to optimise the whole sequence, but it means that some parts are planned quite long in advance, so that it is likely that they will have to be modified. In the present study we examined how people respond to changes that occur while they are moving to the first target of a sequence. Subjects moved a stylus across a digitising tablet. They moved from a specified starting point to two targets in succession. The first of these targets was always at the same position but it could have one of two sizes. The second target could be in one of two different positions and its size was different in each case. On some trials the first target changed size, and on some others the second target changed size and position, as soon as the subject started to move. When the size of the first target changed the subjects slowed down the first segment of their movements. Even the peak velocity, which was only about 150 ms after the change in size, was lower. Beside this fast response to the change itself, the dwell time at the first target was also affected: its duration increased after the change. Changing the size and position of the second target did not influence the first segment of the movement, but also increased the dwell time. The dwell time was much longer for a small target, irrespective of its initial size. If subjects knew in advance which target could change, they moved faster than if they did not know which could change. Taken together, these results suggest that the whole sequence is treated as one action, which can be corrected if the properties of any of the targets change. The precise nature and timing of the correction depends on how the change influences the task. * Acknowledgements: We wish to thank Chris L. Chizk for helpful comments on the manuscript.

It is well known that irrelevant stimuli can control where we attend. However, in the literature about the so-called attentional capture phenomenon, there has been a great deal of discussion about the extent to which such effects are automatic or rather modulated by endogenous factors. The present article reviews data and theory related to this debate. Although both exogenous and

The goal of this experiment was to assess the impact that experience with a task has on the context specificity of the learning that occurs. Participants performed an instrumental task within a computer game where different responses were performed in the presence of discriminative stimuli to obtain reinforcers. The number of training trials (3, 5, or 8) with each discriminative stimulus varied between participants. A single test trial was conducted in the context where training occurred or in a different but equally familiar context. The change in context attenuated performance in participants that received 3 training trials, but not in the others, suggesting that the influence of context on performance decreases when training increases.

En este estudio hemos investigado si la memoria implícita de palabras se encuentra preservada en el envejecimiento normal y en el envejecimiento con diabetes mellitus. El estudio también ha evaluado la posible disociación entre dos formas de acceder a la información previamente codificada, implícita y explícita. Los resultados han mostrado un priming de repetición similar en los tres grupos que han participado en el estudio (adultos jóvenes, mayores sanos y pacientes diabéticos). Por el contrario, los tres grupos han diferido en la capacidad de su memoria de reconocimiento. La memoria explícita se encuentra deteriorada en el grupo de mayores diabéticos con respecto a los mayores sanos. Además, los adultos jóvenes actuaron mejor que los dos grupos de mayores. El mantenimiento del priming visual de palabras en pacientes diabéticos y mayores sanos en relación al priming obtenido por los adultos jóvenes apoya la idea de que la memoria implícita depende de un sistema de memoria perceptivo diferente del sistema temporal medio del que depende la memoria explícita.

METHODS Three experimental conditions with different background contexts (institutional, interpersonal, or organizational) were presented to three different groups of participants. They were asked to read the 6 different situational descriptions inherent in their own contexts (see Appendix). Then, for each one of them, they read each single item and, according to their personal preferences, placed a mark on a response scale; ie, they judged the trustworthiness of an individual represented by different levels

A theoretical advantage of item response theory (IRT) models is that trait estimates based on these models provide more test information than any other type of test score. It is still unclear, however, whether using IRT trait estimates improves external validity results in comparison with the results that can be obtained by using simple raw scores. This paper discusses some methodological results based on the 2-parameter logistic model (2PLM) and is concerned with three issues: first, how validity coefficients based on IRT trait estimates must be interpreted; second, how inferences about these coefficients can be made; and third, which differences in external validity can be expected if the 2PLM is correct for the data and IRT scores are used in place of raw scores. Four empirical examples in the personality domain provided further evidence for the results that can be expected in real research in which the model is, at best, a good approximation to the data. A general result of thes...