Combining Nonlinear Biometric and Psychometric Models

Abstract It is well-established that genetic factors account
for large proportions of individual differences in multiple
cognitive abilities. It is also well-established that individual
differences in performance onmany different cognitive ability
measures are strongly correlated. Recent empirical investigations,
however, have suggested two interesting qualifications
to these well-established findings: Genetic variance in
cognitive abilities is higher in richer home environments
(gene-by-environment interaction), and common variance in
different cognitive abilities is lower at higher levels of overall
ability (nonlinear factor structure). Although they have been
investigated independently, these two phenomena may
interact, because richer environments are routinely associated
with higher ability levels. Using simulation we demonstrate
how un-modeled nonlinear factor structure can obscure
interpretation of gene-by-environment interaction. We then
reanalyze data from the National Collaborative Perinatal
Project, previously used by Turkheimer et al. (2003; Psychol
Science), with a two-step method to model both phenomena

Reconsidering the Role of Sleep for Motor Memory

Previous studies suggest that sleep may play an important role in memory consolidation of motor skills.
It has been difficult, however, to tease apart the effect of sleep from circadian and homeostatic factors.
We examined the effect of sleep on a popular motor sequence task, utilizing a design that controlled for
time of day and time since sleep between wake and sleep groups. When these factors were controlled,
there was no benefit of sleep to motor memory, suggesting that previous work may have been influenced
by circadian and homeostatic confounds.

Are Specific Emotions Narrated Differently?

Os dejo el abstract:

Two studies test the assertion that anger, sadness, fear, pride, and happiness are typically narrated in
different ways. Everyday events eliciting these 5 emotions were narrated by young women (Study 1) and
5- and 8-year-old girls (Study 2). Negative narratives were expected to engender more effort to process
the event, be longer, more grammatically complex, more often have a complication section, and use more
specific emotion labels than global evaluations. Narratives of Hogan’s (2003) juncture emotions anger
and fear were expected to focus more on action and to contain more core narrative sections of orientation,
complication, and resolution than narratives of the outcome emotions sadness and happiness. Hypotheses
were confirmed for adults except for syntactic complexity, whereas children showed only some of these
differences. Hogan’s theory that juncture emotions are restricted to the complication section was not
confirmed. Finally, in adults, indirect speech was more frequent in anger narratives and internal
monologue in fear narratives. It is concluded that different emotions should be studied in how they are
narrated, and that narratives should be analyzed according to qualitatively different emotions.

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