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The congruency sequence effect (CSE) is one of the most investigated effects in the cognitive control literature. The conflict monitoring theory suggests that the CSE is the result of adjustments in cognitive control based on perceived conflict. A recent paper by Zhang and colleagues, has investigated whether the manipulation of conflict level by changing distractor incompatibility in a flanker task affects the amount of adjustments in cognitive control. Their study produced mixed findings, somewhat supporting the original conflict monitoring theory, but also suggesting other explanations, such as the repetition expectancy account. We replicated the experimental design in a multisite online study (N = 347), with Hungarian, Italian, and Singaporean participants. Our results supported the prediction that changes in the level of conflict trigger conflict adaptation, revealing that increasing conflict levels induced stronger adaptive control. Bayesian hypothesis testing indicated a monotonic reduction in congruency effects as a function of previous conflict strength. This finding is in line with the extension of the traditional conflict monitoring theory, as well as other theories like affective signaling and expected value of control, implying that the relationship between conflict and interference effects is gradual, rather than a binary function.

According to some accounts, the bilingual advantage is most pronounced in the domain of executive attention rather than inhibition and should therefore be more easily detected in conflict adaptation paradigms than in simple interference paradigms. We tested this idea using two conflict adaptation paradigms, one that elicits a listwide proportion-congruent effect and one that elicits an item-specific proportion-congruent effect. In both cases, the relevant finding is that congruency effects are reduced when the proportion of congruent to incongruent items is smaller. These effects are validated measures of proactive and reactive control, respectively, and are aspects of executive attention known to be associated with individual differences in working memory capacity. We reasoned that if bilingualism affects executive attention in a similar way as does working memory capacity, indices of proactive and reactive control should be comparably associated with continuous variation in language status and working memory capacity. In two experiments, we replicated previous findings that working memory capacity is associated with variation in congruency effects (suggesting greater reliance on proactive control). In contrast, language status had no consistent association with performance, save for a hint that bilingualism may be associated with greater reliance on reactive control. Thus, the bilingual advantage may exist, but not in proactive control or any other aspects of executive attention that have been proposed thus far.

In interference tasks (e.g., Stroop, 1935), congruency effects are larger following a congruent versus an incongruent trial. This “congruency sequence effect” has been traditionally explained in terms of a conflict-monitoring mechanism that focuses attention toward relevant information when conflict has recently been experienced. More recently, it has been suggested that effects of this sort result from differences in the temporal expectancies formed following congruent trials (fast responding) versus incongruent trials (slow responding). Evidence supporting this “temporal-learning” account was recently reported for a similar effect, the finding that congruency effects are larger in a mostly congruent list than in a mostly incongruent list. That is, consistent with the idea that this “proportion-congruent effect” is based on different temporal expectancies following congruent versus incongruent trials in interference tasks, the proportion-congruent effect was eliminated on normal (i.e., immediate-response) trials when temporal expectancies were equated by requiring a delayed response on the prior trial. In two experiments, we examined whether this delayed-response procedure would have a similar impact on the congruency sequence effect. Consistent with the temporal-learning account (but not inconsistent with conflict-monitoring accounts), the congruency sequence effect on immediate-response trials was eliminated when the previous trial required a delayed response. However, no evidence supporting the temporal-learning account emerged from reanalyses of experiments requiring only immediate responses in which the response latency in the previous trial functioned as the temporal-expectancy index. Overall, the present results and analyses do not provide much evidence favoring the temporal-learning account over conflict-monitoring accounts of the congruency sequence effect.

Recently, Colombo, Spinelli, and Lupker, using a masked transposed letter (TL) priming paradigm, investigated whether consonant/vowel (CV) status is important early in orthographic processing. In four experiments with Italian and English adults, they found equivalent TL priming effects for CC, CV, and VC transpositions. Here, we investigated that question with younger readers (aged 7–10) and adults, as well as whether masked TL priming effects might have a phonological basis. That is, because young children are likely to use phonological recoding in reading, the question was whether they would show TL priming that is affected by CV status. In Experiment 1, target words were preceded by primes in which two letters (either CV, VC, or CC) were transposed versus substituted (SL). We found significant TL priming effects, with an increasing developmental trend but, again, no letter type by priming interaction. In Experiment 2, the transpositions/substitutions involved only pairs of vowels with those vowels having either diphthong or hiatus status. The difference between these two types of vowel clusters is only phonological; thus, the question was, “Would TL priming interact with this factor?” TL priming was again found with an increasing trend with age, but there was no vowel cluster by priming interaction. There was, however, an overall vowel cluster effect (slower responding to words with hiatuses) which decreased with age. The results suggest that TL priming only taps the orthographic level, and that CV status only becomes important at a later phonological level.

In compiti come lo Stroop, l’effetto di congruenza è ridotto in situazioni in cui gli stimoli usati sono maggiormente incongruenti (una freccia che punta verso l’alto presentata nella parte bassa dello schermo) rispetto a situazioni in cui sono maggiormente congruenti (una freccia che punta verso l’alto presentata in alto). Quando potenziali effetti confondenti sono controllati, questo effetto di Proporzione-Congruenza (PC) dimostra l’abilità di adattare l’attenzione al contesto. Tuttavia, quest’abilità non è stata dimostrata con chiarezza quando il contesto è una componente dello stimolo che non è né il target (per es., la direzione della freccia) né il distrattore (la posizione della freccia) ma una componente irrelevante che non produce interferenza (il colore della freccia). Per affrontare la questione, abbiamo usato una manipolazione PC definita da questo tipo di contesto in uno Stroop spaziale capace di produrre un forte effetto PC in manipolazioni PC più tipiche. Non abbiamo osservato un effetto PC sugli stimoli critici in nessuno dei nostri 4 esperimenti (N minimo 141), nemmeno aumentando la rilevanza del contesto o istruendo i partecipanti a usare il contesto. Questi risultati sembrano indicare dei limiti nella capacità di adattare l’attenzione al contesto quando questo è ininfluente al compito.

Rastle et al. (2004) reported that true (e.g., walker) and pseudo (e.g., corner) multi-morphemic words prime their stem words more than form controls do (e.g., brothel priming BROTH) in a masked priming lexical decision task. This data pattern has led a number of models to propose that both of the former word types are "decomposed" into their stem (e.g., walk, corn) and affix (e.g., -er) early in the reading process. The present experiments were designed to examine the models proposed to explain Rastle et al.'s effect, including models not assuming a decomposition process, using a more sensitive priming technique, sandwich priming (Lupker & Davis, 2009). Experiment 1, using the conventional masked priming procedure, replicated Rastle et al.'s results. Experiments 2 and 3, involving sandwich priming procedures, showed a clear dissociation between priming effects for true versus pseudo multi-morphemic words, results that are not easily explained by any of the current models. Nonetheless, the overall data pattern does appear to be most consistent with there being a decomposition process when reading real and pseudo multi-morphemic words, a process that involves activating (and inhibiting) lexical-level representations including a representation for the affix (e.g., -er), with the ultimate lexical decision being based on the process of resolving the pattern created by the activated representational units.

In the Stroop task, the identities of the targets (e.g., colours) and distractors (e.g., words) used are often correlated. For example, in a list in which 4 words and 4 colours are combined to form 16 stimuli, each of the 4 congruent stimuli is typically repeated 3 times as often as each of the 12 incongruent stimuli. Some accounts of the Stroop effect suggest that in this type of list, often considered as a baseline because of the matching proportion of congruent and incongruent stimuli (50%), the word dimension actually receives more attention than it does in an uncorrelated list in which words and colours are randomly paired. This increased attention would be an important determinant of the Stroop effect in correlated situations, an idea supported by the observation that higher target–distractor correlation lists are associated with larger Stroop effects. However, because target–distractor correlation tends to be confounded with congruency proportion in common designs, the latter may be the crucial factor, consistent with accounts that propose that attention is adapted to the list’s congruency proportion. In four experiments, we examined the idea that target–distractor correlation plays a major role in colour–word Stroop experiments by contrasting an uncorrelated list with a correlated list matched on relevant variables (e.g., congruency proportion). Both null hypothesis significance testing and Bayesian analyses suggested equivalent Stroop effects in the two lists, challenging accounts based on the idea that target–distractor correlations affect how attention is allocated in the colour–word Stroop task.

In recent years, increasing efforts have been made to develop advanced techniques that could predict the potential of implantation of each single embryo and prioritize the transfer of those at higher chance. The most promising include non-invasive preimplantation genetic testing for aneuploidy and artificial intelligence-based algorithms using time lapse images. The psychological effect of these add-ons is neglected. One could speculate that embarking on another transfer after one or more failures with the prospect of receiving an embryo of lower potential may be distressing for the couple. In addition, the symbolic and mental representation of an embryo with ‘lower capacity to implant’ is currently unknown but could affect couples’ choices and wellbeing. These emotional responses may also undermine adherence to the programme and, ultimately, its real effectiveness. Future trials aimed at evaluating the validity of prioritization procedures must also consider the emotional burden on the couples.

Learning to pronounce a written word implies assigning a stress pattern to that word. This task can present a challenge for speakers of languages like Italian, in which stress information must often be computed from distributional properties of the language, especially for individuals learning Italian as a second language (L2). Here, we aimed to characterize the processes underlying the development of stress assignment in native English and native Chinese speakers learning L2 Italian. Both types of bilinguals produced evidence supporting a role of vocabulary size in modulating the type of distributional information used in stress assignment, with an early bias for Italian's dominant stress pattern being gradually replaced by use of associations between orthographic sequences and stress patterns in more advanced bilinguals. We also obtained some evidence for a transfer of stress assignment habits from the bilinguals' native language to Italian, although only in English native speakers.

Norris, Kinoshita and colleagues (Kinoshita & Norris, Journal of Experimental Psychology: Learning, Memory, and Cognition, 35(1), 1–18, 2009; Journal of Experimental Psychology: General, 137(3), 434–455, 2010; Norris & Kinoshita, Quarterly Journal of Experimental Psychology, 63(1), 194–204, 2008) have suggested that the masked priming same-different task (SDT) is an excellent tool for studying the orthographic coding process because, in most circumstances, performance in that task is driven entirely by orthographic codes. More specifically, although evidence of phonological influences (i.e., phonological priming effects in the SDT) have been reported, Kinoshita, Gayed, and Norris (Journal of Experimental Psychology: Human Perception and Performance, 44(11), 1661–1671, 2018) have claimed that phonological priming does not arise in the SDT when the prime and target are written in the same script and the targets are words, the most typical experimental situation. Indeed, it does appear that no-one has yet reported phonological priming effects in such situations. The question of whether it is possible to observe phonological priming in such situations was more fully examined in the present experiments. Experiment 1 involved a masked priming SDT using Japanese Kanji script in which the primes and targets were homophonic but shared no characters. Experiment 2 was a parallel experiment using Chinese stimuli. In both experiments, phonological priming effects were observed for both one- and two-character words. These experiments indicate that, although the priming effects in masked priming SDTs undoubtedly have a strong orthographic basis, phonological codes also play a role even when the prime and (word) target are written in the same script.

There are now a number of reports in the literature that transposed letter (TL) priming effects emerge when two consonants are transposed (e.g., caniso-CASINO) but not when two vowels are transposed (e.g., cinaso-CASINO). In the present article, four masked priming lexical decision experiments, two in Italian and two in English, are reported in which TL priming effects involving the transposition of two adjacent consonants (e.g., atnenna-ANTENNA) were contrasted with those involving the transposition of a vowel and an adjacent consonant (e.g., anetnna-ANTENNA), a contrast not directly examined in the previous literature. In none of the experiments was there any indication that the priming effects were different sizes for the two types of transpositions, including Experiment 4 in which a sandwich priming paradigm was used. These results support the assumption of most orthographic coding models that the consonant–vowel status of the letters is not relevant to the nature of the orthographic code. The question of how to reconcile these results with other TL manipulations investigating vowel versus consonant transpositions is discussed.

A consistent finding in the Stroop literature is that congruency effects (i.e., the color-naming latency difference between words presented in incongruent vs. congruent colors) are larger for mostly-congruent items (e.g., the word RED presented most often in red) than for mostly-incongruent items (e.g., the word GREEN presented most often in yellow). This "item-specific proportion-congruent effect" might be produced by a conflictadaptation process (e.g., fully focus attention to the color when the word GREEN appears) and/or by a more general learning mechanism of stimulus-response contingencies (e.g., respond "yellow" when the word GREEN appears). Under the assumption that limited-capacity resources are necessary for learning stimulusresponse contingencies, we examined the contingency-learning account using both Stroop and nonconflict (i.e., noncolor words written in colors) versions of a color identification task while participants maintained a working memory (WM) load. Consistent with the contingency-learning account, WM load modulated people's ability to learn contingencies in the nonconflict task. In contrast, across 3 experiments, WM load did not affect the item-specific proportion-congruent effect in the Stroop task even though we employed a design (the "2-item set" design) in which contingency learning should be the dominant process. These results imply that the item-specific proportion-congruent effect is not merely a byproduct of contingency learning but a manifestation of reactive control, a mode of control engagement that may be especially useful when WM resources are scarce.

A word's exterior letters, particularly its initial letter, appear to have a special status when reading. Therefore, most orthographic coding models incorporate assumptions giving initial letters and, in some cases, final letters, enhanced importance during the orthographic coding process. In the present article, 3 masked priming experiments were carried out, using the conventional lexical-decision task, the sandwich priming lexical-decision task and the masked priming same-different task, in an attempt to examine a number of those models with a specific focus on the implications of the models' assumptions concerning the different letter positions. The related primes and targets were 6-letter strings that differed in 2 letter positions, initial (e.g., jnckey-HOCKEY), middle (e.g., hojney-HOCKEY), or final (hockjn- HOCKEY), with the middle-letters different primes being the primes that maintained both end letters. To the extent possible, the predictions of the models were derived by using easyNet, the simulation program recently developed by Adelman, Gubian, and Davis (2017). In all experiments, the final-letters different primes were the most effective primes with there being no clear distinction between the other 2 prime types, a pattern that none of the models predicted. The lack of an advantage for the middle-letters different primes suggests that the orthographic code driving masked priming is not one that places a special emphasis on the identities of the exterior letters.

Three masked priming paradigms, the conventional masked priming lexical-decision task (Forster & Davis, 1984), the sandwich priming task (Lupker & Davis, 2009), and the masked priming same-different task (Norris & Kinoshita, 2008), were used to investigate priming for a given target (e.g., JUDGE) from primes created by either adding a letter to the beginning of the target (e.g., zjudge) or replacing the target’s initial letter (e.g., zudge). Virtually all models of orthographic coding that allow calculation of orthographic similarity measures predict that zjudge should be the better prime because zjudge contains all the letters in JUDGE in their correct order whereas zudge does not. Nonetheless, Adelman et al.’s (2014) megastudy data indicated no difference in the effectiveness of these two prime types. The present experiments provide additional support for the conclusion of no difference between these two prime types with the only observed difference being a small zudge prime advantage in Experiment 1b (sandwich priming). These results suggest that models of orthographic coding/word recognition may be well served by allowing inconsistent information (e.g., the “z” in both zjudge and zudge indicates that the presented prime is not JUDGE) to be given considerable weight during the orthographic coding/word recognition process. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2020 APA, all rights reserved)Public Significance Statement: To understand the reading process, it is crucial to understand how the orthographic coding process is carried out. Our findings suggest that the importance of negative information in that process (e.g., there is not a “j” in the word being read) has been overlooked in most models of the reading process, implying that the importance of positive information may be being overstated in current models and in reading instruction.

In the present work, culture-based and culture-independent investigations were performed to determine the microbiota structure of the coelomic fluid of Mediterranean sea urchin Paracentrotus lividus individuals collected from two distinct geographical sites neighboring a high-density population bay and a nature reserve, respectively. Next Generation Sequencing analysis of 16S rRNA gene (rDNA) showed that members of the Proteobacteria, Bacteroidetes and Fusobacteria phyla, which have been previously reported to be commonly retrieved from marine invertebrates, dominate the overall population of microorganisms colonizing this liquid tissue, with minority bacterial genera exhibiting remarkable differences among individuals. Our results showed that there is a correlation between microbiota structure and geographical location of the echinoderm collection site, highlighting over-representation of metagenomic functions related to amino acid and bioactive peptides metabolism in specimens inhabiting the nature reserve. Finally, we also described the developmental delay and aberrations exhibited by sea urchin embryos exposed to distinct bacterial isolates, and showed that these defects rely upon hydrophilic compound(s) synthesized by the bacterial strains assayed. Altogether, our findings lay the groundwork to decipher the relationships of bacteria with sea urchins in their aquatic environment, also providing an additional layer of information to understand the biological roles of the coelomic fluid.

Sexual violence is a widespread phenomenon, as it has been estimated that about 35.6% of women have experienced some forms of sexual abuse, with variable prevalence estimates worldwide. Sexual violence has remarkable negative consequences on women's health and quality of life, with a specific harmful impact on women's psychological well-being and sexuality. In this narrative review, we provide an overview on the phenomenon of sexual violence against adult women and adolescents, discussing its associated multiple negative consequences with a specific focus on clinical and sexological aspects. "Women-centered care" and a multidisciplinary approach appear of pivotal importance when working with sexual violence survivors. Woman should be engaged in all the clinical activities as equal partners in the decision-making process, and should be supported by multiple and different professional figures (i.e. gynecologists, psychologists, sexologists, forensic medical doctors, lawyers) working within the framework of a cooperative integrated model.

L'importanza dell'azione di Ludovico Barbo nella nascita e nello sviluppo della Congregazione "de Unitate". Il suo impegno culturale e organizzativo entro le direttrici della sua forte situazione spirituale e scritturistica. I rapporti con il papato e con i poteri politici di Venezia. Il suo legame con le esperienze venete e con i papi sino alla metà del Quattrocento.

In the standard Proportion-Congruent (PC) paradigm, performance is compared between a list containing mostly congruent (MC) stimuli (e.g., the word RED in the color red in the Stroop task; Stroop, 1935) and a list containing mostly incongruent (MI) stimuli (e.g., the word BLUE in red). The PC effect, the finding that the congruency effect (i.e., the latency difference between incongruent and congruent stimuli) is typically larger in an MC list, has been interpreted by the popular conflict-monitoring account (Botvinick et al., 2001) as reflecting a proactive process whereby attention to task-relevant information is adapted based on how frequently conflict from task-irrelevant information arises. Recently, however, alternative accounts of the PC effect have emerged that assume either that the PC effect reflects processes other than proactive conflict adaptation (e.g., stimulus-response contingency learning) or that proactive conflict adaptation is only engaged as a last resort (e.g., when contingency learning cannot be used to minimize interference). We examined these ideas in three experiments in which proactive conflict adaptation could be evaluated independently from processes that are normally confounded with it in the PC paradigm, while still allowing those processes, particularly contingency learning, to be used to minimize interference. Consistent with the conflict-monitoring account of the PC effect, but inconsistent with all the alternative accounts of the PC effect, evidence for proactive conflict adaptation emerged in all experiments. Although multiple processes may be engaged in the PC paradigm, this paradigm remains a valid tool for examining proactive conflict adaptation, its typical use.

Adapting attention flexibly is a fundamental ability of the human control system. In the color-word Stroop task, for example, congruency effects are typically smaller for colors and words that appear mainly in incongruent stimuli (mostly-incongruent items) than for colors and words that appear mainly in congruent stimuli (mostly-congruent items). At least part of this item-specific proportion-congruent (ISPC) effect is due to a process of reactive conflict adaptation that affords higher selectivity (i.e., more efficient selection of task-relevant information) when a specific stimulus is presented that is frequently associated in the experiment with conflicting task-irrelevant information. What is unclear, however, is whether, normally, this stimulus-specific adaptation is triggered by the task-relevant component, the task-irrelevant component, or both components of the stimulus. In two experiments, using modified color-word (Experiment 1) and spatial (Experiment 2) Stroop tasks that allowed task-relevant and task-irrelevant triggering processes to be dissociated, we found that the two processes have approximately equivalent impacts. Because these results were obtained in experiments imposing no limitations on the processes potentially contributing to the ISPC effect, these results challenge claims that the ISPC effect involves conflict-adaptation processes only in special situations. The ISPC effect may involve conflict-adaptation processes in most situations, with both task-relevant and task-irrelevant information triggering such processes.