Strong versus weak embodiment: Spatial iconicity in physical, abstract, and social semantic categories.

BACKGROUND: Perceptual and action systems seem to be related to complex cognitive processes, but the scope of grounded or embodied cognition has been questioned. Zwaan and Yaxley (2003) proposed that cognitive processes of making semantic relatedness judgments can be facilitated when word pairs are presented in ways that their referents maintain their iconic configuration rather than their reverse-iconic configuration (the spatial iconicity effect). This effect has been observed in different semantic categories using specific experiments, but it is known that embodiment is highly dependent on task demands. METHOD: The present study analyzed the spatial iconicity effect in three semantic categories (physical, abstract, and social) using the same experimental criteria to determine the scope of embodied cognition. In this reaction-time experiment, 75 participants judged the semantic relatedness of 384 word pairs whose experimental items were presented in their iconic or reverse-iconic configurations. RESULTS: Two mixed-effects models with crossed random effects revealed that the interaction between word meaning and spatial position was present only for physical concepts but neither for abstract nor social concepts. CONCLUSIONS: Within the framework of strong and weak embodiment theories, the data support weak embodiment theory as the most explicative one.

Psychometric Properties of the Semantic Differential Scale in Studying Attitudes Toward Menstruation among Roman Catholics in India.

This article describes the psychometric properties of a semantic differential scale developed to evaluate the attitudes towards menstruation among Roman Catholics in India, which is referred to as Menstrual Semantic Differential Scale (MSDS). For this purpose, the south Indian state of Kerala was chosen as the location. First, exploratory factor analysis was conducted on the data collected from a sample of participants of different ages, gender, and caste groups. The analysis produced a 10 item scale with a tri-factorial structure that explained 74 percent of the variance. Subsequently, confirmatory factor analysis on a different sample established that the three-factor model was a good fit. Moreover, Cronbach's alpha coefficients of the subscales ranged from 0.73 to 0.93, confirming the acceptable reliability of the instrument. The findings suggest that the MSDS is a reliable and valid measure for assessing attitudes towards menstruation among Roman Catholics in India.

Validation of the HIV Pre-exposure Prophylaxis Stigma Scale: Performance of Likert and Semantic Differential Scale Versions.

Stigma regarding HIV pre-exposure prophylaxis (PrEP) is commonly implicated as a factor limiting the scale-up of this highly effective HIV prevention modality. To quantify and characterize PrEP stigma, we developed and validated a brief HIV PrEP Stigma Scale (HPSS) among a group of 279 men who have sex with men (MSM). Scale development was informed by a theoretical model to enhance content validity. We assessed two scale versions, Semantic Differential and Likert, randomizing the order in which scales were presented to participants. Both scales demonstrated high internal consistency. The Likert scale had substantially better construct validity and was selected as the preferred option. Scale scores demonstrated construct validity through association with constructs of interest: healthcare distrust, HIV knowledge, perceived proportion of friends/partners on PrEP, perceived community evaluation of PrEP, and perceived effectiveness of PrEP. The scale accounted for 25% of the total variance in reported willingness to be on PrEP, indicating the substantial role PrEP stigma may have on decisions to initiate PrEP. Given increased efforts to roll-out PrEP, having a valid tool to determine the level and types of PrEP stigma in individuals, groups, and communities can help direct implementation plans, identify goals for stigma reduction, and monitor progress over time.

Testing Differential Item Functioning in Small Samples.

Differential item functioning (DIF) is a pernicious statistical issue that can mask true group differences on a target latent construct. A considerable amount of research has focused on evaluating methods for testing DIF, such as using likelihood ratio tests in item response theory (IRT). Most of this research has focused on the asymptotic properties of DIF testing, in part because many latent variable methods require large samples to obtain stable parameter estimates. Much less research has evaluated these methods in small sample sizes despite the fact that many social and behavioral scientists frequently encounter small samples in practice. In this article, we examine the extent to which model complexity-the number of model parameters estimated simultaneously-affects the recovery of DIF in small samples. We compare three models that vary in complexity: logistic regression with sum scores, the 1-parameter logistic IRT model, and the 2-parameter logistic IRT model. We expected that logistic regression with sum scores and the 1-parameter logistic IRT model would more accurately estimate DIF because these models yielded more stable estimates despite being misspecified. Indeed, a simulation study and empirical example of adolescent substance use show that, even when data are generated from / assumed to be a 2-parameter logistic IRT, using parsimonious models in small samples leads to more powerful tests of DIF while adequately controlling for Type I error. We also provide evidence for minimum sample sizes needed to detect DIF, and we evaluate whether applying corrections for multiple testing is advisable. Finally, we provide recommendations for applied researchers who conduct DIF analyses in small samples.

The effects of mood and retrieval cues on semantic memory and metacognition.

We investigated whether the previously established effect of mood on episodic memory generalizes to semantic memory and whether mood affects metacognitive judgments associated with the retrieval of semantic information. Sixty-eight participants were induced into a happy or sad mood by viewing and describing IAPS images. Following mood induction, participants saw a total of 200 general knowledge trivia items (50 open-ended and 50 multiple-choice after each of two mood inductions) and were asked to provide a metacognitive judgment about their knowledge for each item before providing a response. A sample trivia item is: Author - - To kill a mockingbird. Results indicate that mood affects the retrieval of semantic information, but only when the participant believes they possess the requested semantic information; furthermore, this effect depends upon the presence of retrieval cues. In addition, we found that mood does not affect the likelihood of different metacognitive judgments associated with the retrieval of semantic information, but that, in some cases, having retrieval cues increases accuracy of these metacognitive judgments. Our results suggest that semantic retrieval processes are minimally susceptible to the influence of affective state but does not preclude the possibility that affective state may influence encoding of semantic information.

Affective auditory stimulus database: An expanded version of the International Affective Digitized Sounds (IADS-E).

Using appropriate stimuli to evoke emotions is especially important for researching emotion. Psychologists have provided several standardized affective stimulus databases-such as the International Affective Picture System (IAPS) and the Nencki Affective Picture System (NAPS) as visual stimulus databases, as well as the International Affective Digitized Sounds (IADS) and the Montreal Affective Voices as auditory stimulus databases for emotional experiments. However, considering the limitations of the existing auditory stimulus database studies, research using auditory stimuli is relatively limited compared with the studies using visual stimuli. First, the number of sample sounds is limited, making it difficult to equate across emotional conditions and semantic categories. Second, some artificially created materials (music or human voice) may fail to accurately drive the intended emotional processes. Our principal aim was to expand existing auditory affective sample database to sufficiently cover natural sounds. We asked 207 participants to rate 935 sounds (including the sounds from the IADS-2) using the Self-Assessment Manikin (SAM) and three basic-emotion rating scales. The results showed that emotions in sounds can be distinguished on the affective rating scales, and the stability of the evaluations of sounds revealed that we have successfully provided a larger corpus of natural, emotionally evocative auditory stimuli, covering a wide range of semantic categories. Our expanded, standardized sound sample database may promote a wide range of research in auditory systems and the possible interactions with other sensory modalities, encouraging direct reliable comparisons of outcomes from different researchers in the field of psychology.

Multimodal Feature Integration in the Angular Gyrus during Episodic and Semantic Retrieval.

UNLABELLED: Much evidence from distinct lines of investigation indicates the involvement of angular gyrus (AnG) in the retrieval of both episodic and semantic information, but the region's precise function and whether that function differs across episodic and semantic retrieval have yet to be determined. We used univariate and multivariate fMRI analysis methods to examine the role of AnG in multimodal feature integration during episodic and semantic retrieval. Human participants completed episodic and semantic memory tasks involving unimodal (auditory or visual) and multimodal (audio-visual) stimuli. Univariate analyses revealed the recruitment of functionally distinct AnG subregions during the retrieval of episodic and semantic information. Consistent with a role in multimodal feature integration during episodic retrieval, significantly greater AnG activity was observed during retrieval of integrated multimodal episodic memories compared with unimodal episodic memories. Multivariate classification analyses revealed that individual multimodal episodic memories could be differentiated in AnG, with classification accuracy tracking the vividness of participants' reported recollections, whereas distinct unimodal memories were represented in sensory association areas only. In contrast to episodic retrieval, AnG was engaged to a statistically equivalent degree during retrieval of unimodal and multimodal semantic memories, suggesting a distinct role for AnG during semantic retrieval. Modality-specific sensory association areas exhibited corresponding activity during both episodic and semantic retrieval, which mirrored the functional specialization of these regions during perception. The results offer new insights into the integrative processes subserved by AnG and its contribution to our subjective experience of remembering. SIGNIFICANCE STATEMENT: Using univariate and multivariate fMRI analyses, we provide evidence that functionally distinct subregions of angular gyrus (AnG) contribute to the retrieval of episodic and semantic memories. Our multivariate pattern classifier could distinguish episodic memory representations in AnG according to whether they were multimodal (audio-visual) or unimodal (auditory or visual) in nature, whereas statistically equivalent AnG activity was observed during retrieval of unimodal and multimodal semantic memories. Classification accuracy during episodic retrieval scaled with the trial-by-trial vividness with which participants experienced their recollections. Therefore, the findings offer new insights into the integrative processes subserved by AnG and how its function may contribute to our subjective experience of remembering.

Affective meanings of 1,469 Bengali concepts.

This article provides semantic differential ratings of 1,469 concepts in Bengali, a language spoken by about 250 million individuals in eastern India and Bangladesh. These data were collected from 20 male and 20 female Calcutta respondents who rated stimuli on three culturally universal affective dimensions: evaluation-potency-activity (EPA). This study employs pan-respondent component analyses as a means of examining the respondents' usage of the standard EPA scales. The pan-respondent component analyses indicate that some respondents used the rating scales in unexpected ways, recording their feelings about one component of concepts' EPA with ratings on a scale intended to measure a different dimension. When scores were based only on respondents who used the scales appropriately, several interesting patterns were found. For respondents of both genders, potency scores have a curvilinear relation with evaluation, such that very good and very bad concepts are mostly seen as very potent, whereas evaluatively neutral concepts are seen as somewhat impotent or just slightly potent. A moderate linear correlation exists between activity and evaluation, and a modest positive relation exists between potency and activity. Gender correlations are high on evaluation, .93, but much lower for potency scores, with a correlation of .55, and even lower for activity, .30. In this article we examine several explanations for why scales denoting potency and activity were reinterpreted as indicating goodness by certain respondents, and consider the matter of including data collected from respondents who used scales in this way.

The Aging Semantic Differential in Mandarin Chinese: Measuring Attitudes toward Older Adults in China.

The Aging Semantic Differential (ASD) is the most widely used instrument to measure young people's attitudes towards older adults. This study translated the ASD to Mandarin and examined its psychometric properties. The Mandarin-ASD contains three latent factors (Personality and Mental Health, Societal Participation, and Physical) that have high internal reliability and reasonable discriminate validity. Social work researchers, practitioners and allied professionals may utilize the ASD-Mandarin instrument to measure young people's attitudes towards older adults in China. We issue a call for a universal-ASD that can be applied across different cultural contexts.

Development and psychometric testing of a semantic differential scale of sexual attitude for the older person.

The purpose of this study was to develop and test a semantic differential scale of sexual attitudes for older people in Korea. The scale was based on items derived from a literature review and focus group interviews. A methodological study was used to test the reliability and validity of the instrument. A total of 368 older men and women were recruited to complete the semantic differential scale. Fifteen pairs of adjective ratings were extracted through factor analysis. Total variance explained was 63.40%. To test for construct validity, group comparisons were implemented. The total score of sexual attitudes showed significant differences depending on gender and availability of sexual activity. Cronbach's alpha coefficient for internal consistency was 0.96. The findings of this study demonstrate that the semantic differential scale of sexual attitude is a reliable and valid instrument.

Norms and reading times for acronyms in French.

We collected subjective frequency, age-of-acquisition, and imageability norms for 319 acronyms from French adults. Objective printed frequency, bigram frequency, and lengths in letters, phonemes, and syllables, as well as orthographic neighbors, were computed. The time taken to read acronyms aloud was also recorded. Correlational analyses indicated that the relations between the psycholinguistic variables were similar to those usually found for common words (e.g., highly imageable acronyms were more frequent and learned earlier in life than less imageable acronyms), but were generally weaker in the former than in the latter. Linear mixed-model analyses performed on the reading latencies revealed that the main determinants were the voicing feature of initial phonemes, the type of pronunciation of the acronyms (ambiguous vs. unambiguous, typical vs. atypical characteristics), length (number of letters and number of syllables), together with bigram frequency, printed frequency, and imageability. Both objective frequency and imageability interacted reliably with the ambiguous typical and ambiguous atypical properties. Accuracy was predicted by the number of letters and by imageability factors: More errors occurred on longer than on shorter acronyms, and also more errors on less imageable than on more imageable acronyms. The theoretical and methodological implications of the findings for the understanding of acronym reading are discussed. The entire set of norms and the acronym reading times (and accuracy scores), together with the acronym definitions, are provided as supplemental materials.

Emotional connotations of words related to authority and community.

We present a database of 858 German words from the semantic fields of authority and community, which represent core dimensions of human sociality. The words were selected on the basis of co-occurrence profiles of representative keywords for these semantic fields. All words were rated along five dimensions, each measured by a bipolar semantic-differential scale: Besides the classic dimensions of affective meaning (valence, arousal, and potency), we collected ratings of authority and community with newly developed scales. The results from cluster, correlational, and multiple regression analyses on the rating data suggest a robust negativity bias for authority valuation among German raters recruited via university mailing lists, whereas community ratings appear to be rather unrelated to the well-established affective dimensions. Furthermore, our data involve a strong overall negative correlation-rather than the classical U-shaped distribution-between valence and arousal for socially relevant concepts. Our database provides a valuable resource for research questions at the intersection of cognitive neuroscience and social psychology. It can be downloaded as supplemental materials with this article.

The Dual-Dialectical Conceptualization in Psychotherapy.

The current paper describes the dual-dialectical conceptualization, a theoretical psychotherapeutic conceptualization based on three major rules: duality, contradiction, and complementarity. The paper surveys these rules with respect to various theoretical approaches in philosophy and psychotherapy. The essential feature of this conceptualization lies in its reinterpretation of problems that patients habitually regard as being one dimensional (e.g., patients are "stuck" in a solely negative attitude). Within the conceptualization, problems are reframed as dual dimensional, thereby offering patients more options and freeing them to better contend with the problems. Introduction of a novel psychotherapeutic tool known as the differentiation/integration approach provides patients with freedom of choice and enables them to distinguish between alternatives in verbal expressions and psychotherapeutic themes.

[Psychosemantic diagnostics of aircrew professional fitness].

The process of becoming a professional pilot tends to a constant complication. This entails an increase in requirements for the professional competence of flight crews. Further improvement of the professional selection of pilots associated with the obvious need substantial expansion of methodological bases of psychological selection. Proposed improvements psychodiagnosis professional fitness, building on research of value-semantic sphere of professional motivation and structure, including methods of experimental psycho-semantics.

Generation Y, wine and alcohol. A semantic differential approach to consumption analysis in Tuscany.

The aim of the study is the elicitation of the consumer's semantic perception of different alcoholic beverages in order to provide information for the definition of communication strategies for both the private sector (and specifically the wine industry) and the public decision maker. Such information can be seen as the basis of a wider social marketing construct aimed at the promotion of responsible drinking among young consumers. The semantic differential approach was used in this study. The data collection was based on a survey to 430 consumers between 18 and 35years old in Tuscany, Italy. The database was organized in a three-way structure, indexing the data in a multiway matrix. The data were processed using a Multiple Factor Analysis (MFA). Moreover, homogeneous clusters of consumers were identified using a Hierarchical Clustering on Principal Components (HCPC) approach. The results of the study highlight that beer and spirits are mainly perceived as "Young", "Social", "Euphoric", "Happy", "Appealing" and "Trendy" beverages, while wine is associated mostly with terms such as "Pleasure", "Quality" and "Comfortable". Furthermore, the cluster analysis allowed for the identification of three groups of individuals with different approaches to alcohol drinking. The results of the study supply a useful information framework for the elaboration of specific communication strategies that, based on the drinking habits of young consumers and their perception of different beverages, can use a language that is very close to the consumer typologies. Such information can be helpful for both private and public communication strategies.

[Development of an attitude-measurement questionnaire using the semantic differential technique: defining the attitudes of radiological technology students toward X-ray examination].

BACKGROUND: In general, it is difficult to objectively evaluate the results of an educational program. The semantic differential (SeD) technique, a methodology used to measure the connotative meaning of objects, words, and concepts, can, however, be applied to the evaluation of students' attitudes. In this study, we aimed to achieve an objective evaluation of the effects of radiological technology education. We therefore investigated the attitude of radiological students using the SeD technique. We focused on X-ray examinations in the field of radiological technology science. METHODS: Bipolar adjective scales were used for the SeD questionnaire. To create the questionnaire, appropriate adjectives were selected from past reports of X-ray examination practice. The participants were 32 senior students at Hokkaido University at the Division of Radiological Technology at the School of Medicine's Department of Health Sciences. All the participants completed the questionnaire. The study was conducted in early June 2012. Attitudes toward X-ray examination were identified using a factor analysis of 11 adjectives. RESULTS: The factor analysis revealed the following three attitudes: feelings of expectation, responsibility, and resistance. Knowledge regarding the attitudes that students have toward X-ray examination will prove useful for evaluating the effects of educational intervention. In this study, a sampling bias may have occurred due to the small sample size; however, no other biases were observed.

Z2F: Heterogeneous graph-based Android malware detection.

Android malware is becoming more common, and its invasion of smart devices has brought immeasurable losses to people's lives. Most existing Android malware detection methods extract Android features from the original application files without considering the high-order hidden information behind them, but these hidden information can reflect malicious behaviors. To solve this problem, this paper proposes Z2F, a detection framework based on multidimensional Android feature extraction and graph neural networks for Android applications. Z2F first extracts seven types of Android features from the original Android application and then embeds them into a heterogeneous graph. On this basis, we design 12 kinds of meta-structures to analyze different semantic spaces of heterogeneous graphs, mine high-order hidden semantic information, and adopt a multi-layer graph attention mechanism to iteratively embed and update information. In this paper, a total of 14429 Android applications were detected and 1039726 Android features were extracted, with a detection accuracy of 99.7%.

Using response consistency to probe olfactory knowledge.

Although we know much about familiar faces or objects that we temporarily cannot name, what do we know about familiar odors that we cannot name? Two experiments here examined this issue, by comparing the reliability of responses to various questions using 2 tests, with odors that were consistently named or given similar or very different names on each test occasion. Reliability estimates for various types of questions were then compared against each other and with a random baseline control, which reflected response consistency among the different odors on each test occasion. Experiment 1 probed response consistency for the core olfactory attributes-familiarity, edibility, and intensity-and for the components of the semantic differential (liking, activity, and potency). Experiment 2 probed response consistency for these latter items, as well as conceptual questions relating to the odors' source (e.g., solid or liquid?) and its similarity to other odors (e.g., how fruity?). In both experiments, when an odor was named very differently on each test occasion, the only response to remain consistent was "liking." We suggest that liking reflects the most basic form of information conveyed by the olfactory system.

DTLR-CS: Deep tensor low rank channel cross fusion neural network for reproductive cell segmentation.

In recent years, with the development of deep learning technology, deep neural networks have been widely used in the field of medical image segmentation. U-shaped Network(U-Net) is a segmentation network proposed for medical images based on full-convolution and is gradually becoming the most commonly used segmentation architecture in the medical field. The encoder of U-Net is mainly used to capture the context information in the image, which plays an important role in the performance of the semantic segmentation algorithm. However, it is unstable for U-Net with simple skip connection to perform unstably in global multi-scale modelling, and it is prone to semantic gaps in feature fusion. Inspired by this, in this work, we propose a Deep Tensor Low Rank Channel Cross Fusion Neural Network (DTLR-CS) to replace the simple skip connection in U-Net. To avoid space compression and to solve the high rank problem, we designed a tensor low-ranking module to generate a large number of low-rank tensors containing context features. To reduce semantic differences, we introduced a cross-fusion connection module, which consists of a channel cross-fusion sub-module and a feature connection sub-module. Based on the proposed network, experiments have shown that our network has accurate cell segmentation performance.

The Emotional Impact of Negative Language in People With Diabetes: A Descriptive Study Using a Semantic Differential Scale.

PURPOSE: Explore the emotional experience of people with diabetes as they encounter words and phrases that have been previously identified as problematic and evaluate potential differences in their emotional impact based on type of diabetes and demographic characteristics. METHODS: A cross-sectional descriptive study employing an online survey of 107 adults with type 1 diabetes and 110 adults with type 2 diabetes. A semantic differential scale was used to examine feeling states associated with negative diabetes language. Descriptive statistics including means, standard deviations, and frequencies were calculated for all study variables. For each target word, frequencies of participants who endorsed a positive, neutral, or negative affective response on the sematic differential scale are reported. RESULTS: People with diabetes reported feeling blamed, misunderstood, hopeless, judged, not motivated, and not trusting in response to "noncompliant," "unmotivated," "in denial," "preventable," "failed," "should," "uncontrolled," "what did you do wrong," and "you could end up blind or on dialysis." Participants who have type 1 diabetes and are female, White, more educated, and younger reported more negative feelings about the target words. CONCLUSION: People with diabetes experience highly negative affective responses when they read and hear previously identified words and phrases considered to be judgmental and unhelpful.