Journal of Psycholinguistic Research最新文献

Persuasive texts aim to impact readers' behaviors through linguistic manipulations. Advertisements, for example, attempt to convince consumers to prefer and purchase a certain product or service. The objective of this study was to examine whether persuasive texts impact people differently than informational texts and whether the former can lead to behavioral changes in the short term. The 135 teenagers and young adults who participated in the study were asked to taste two different types of chocolate spread that were, in fact, the same. The research groups were asked to read a persuasive text about the product before tasting Chocolate #1 and an informational text before tasting Chocolate #2. On the other hand, the control groups were asked to read informational texts before tasting both "flavors". The results showed that both teenagers and adults were influenced by the persuasive texts when choosing their preferred flavor, yet to a different degree. These findings lead to a discussion about the power of words in shaping consciousness and minds.

The purpose of this study was to validate a novel reading comprehension assessment for college students named MOCCA-College. A random sample of college students (N = 63, average age of 22.5) were recruited from various education programs (e.g., first-year courses, TRIO, SONA) and completed MOCCA-College Online and were later recruited to complete face-to-face think-aloud and recall tasks, as well as standardized assessments such as the Nelson-Denny Reading Test (NDRT) and the Test of Word Reading Efficiency (TOWRE-2). Based on the think-aloud findings, correct answers on MOCCA-College were associated with meaningful connections to background knowledge. Incorrect answers were associated with irrelevant connections to background knowledge that are not helpful for comprehension. Moreover, efficiency on MOCCA-College (seconds per correct answer) demonstrated criterion validity based on the NDRT and TOWRE-2. Future research and analyses may examine assessment development, particularly for identifying nuanced individual differences in college readers' comprehension.

Bernard Maskit's work in developing computerized linguistic measures of the referential process has significantly advanced one of the most promising fields of psychotherapy research. His contributions offer the potential for empirical confirmation of the hypotheses contained in Wilma Bucci's multiple code theory, a general theory of information processing, emotional communication, and psychotherapeutic change. Three key aspects of Maskit's work yielded rich results for the purposes of both research and clinical practice are highlighted and described: (a) a truly transdisciplinary approach, characterized by the creation of conceptual and operational devices that do not belong to any of the disciplines potentially involved but are instead placed in a third terrain responding to broader, transversal knowledge problems; (b) the ability to develop graphic and formal ways of representing elusive aspects of emotional and linguistic communication, facilitating connections between theory and clinical data, and between clinicians and researchers; and (c) the capacity for a very functional intersubjective connection with Wilma Bucci, his scientific partner and wife, which created a productive new space intertwining psychology and mathematics. Lastly, the future development of Maskit's work is outlined for the next generation of clinicians and researchers. One of these is the development of the Time-Discourse Attribute Analysis Program, the most current version of the computerized program that applies linguistic measures to texts, which Maskit worked on in his final years. This program must be finalized and validated for its potential heuristic value in both research and clinical practice.