Psicologica 

About: Psicologica is an academic journal. The journal publishes majorly in the area(s): Context (language use) & Population. Over the lifetime, 1010 publications have been published receiving 7811 citations.

A New Nonparametric Levene Test for Equal Variances

Abstract: Tests of the equality of variances are sometimes used on their own to compare variability across groups of experimental or nonexperimental conditions but they are most often used alongside other methods to support assumptions made about variances. A new nonparametric test of equality of variances is described and compared to current 'gold standard' method, the medianbased Levene test, in a computer simulation study. The simulation results show that when sampling from either symmetric or skewed population distributions both the median based and nonparametric Levene tests maintain their nominal Type I error rate; however, when one is sampling from skewed population distributions the nonparametric test has more statistical power.

A review of attentional capture: On its automaticity and sensitivity to endogenous control.

Abstract: Una revision sobre captura atencional: automaticidad y susceptibilidad de control endogeno Es bien conocido que estimulos irrelevantes pueden determinar donde atendemos Sin embargo, en la literatura sobre el fenomeno de cuptura atencional, ha habido bastaste discusion acerca de hasta que punto esos efectos son automaticos o son modulados por factores endogenos En este articulo se revisan los datos y teorias pertinentes a este debate Aunque tanto los factores exogenos como los endogenos parecen influenciar la asignacion de la atencion, los estados mentales relacionados con la tares en curso parecen ser los que modulan en mayor medida la captura atencional De esta forma, aunque la captura atencional parece ser automatica "por defecto", en el sentido de que se produce en ausencia de un estado mental especifico, parece claro que es susceptible de modulacion endogena

Atenuación de la asimetría y de la curtosis de las puntuaciones observadas mediante transformaciones de variables: Incidencia sobre la estructura factorial

Abstract: En este trabajo se evalua la incidencia de la atenuacion, mediante transformaciones de variables, del sesgo y de la curtosis de las puntuaciones observadas, sobre la estructura factorial, estimada mediante analisis factorial exploratorio y confirmatorio Los datos proceden de una escala de opinion estudiantil para la evaluacion de profesores universitarios, de 16 items medidos en escala Likert Las distribuciones observadas no se aproximan a la normalidad, por lo que se aplican distintos procedimientos para la correccion del sesgo y de la curtosis Los resultados sugieren que tanto los estadisticos globales de bondad de ajuste como las saturaciones factoriales de los modelos son mas sensibles al metodo de estimacion (para una misma transformacion) que a la transformacion (para un mismo metodo de estimacion) Como conclusion, cuando la muestra tiene un tamano moderado y el modelo esta especificado correctamente la estimacion de maxima verosimilitud proporciona los mejores resultados, aun en condiciones de distanciamiento del supuesto de normalidad multivariante, siempre que el coeficiente de Mardia no supere el valor 70 Una limitacion del trabajo es que no se ha valorado el efecto de la complejidad de la estructura factorial y/o el grado de comunalidad teorica de las variables

SUBTLEX-ESP: Spanish word frequencies based on film subtitles

Abstract: Recent studies have shown that word frequency estimates obtained from films and television subtitles are better to predict performance in word recognition experiments than the traditional word frequency estimates based on books and newspapers. In this study, we present a subtitle-based word frequency list for Spanish, one of the most widely spoken languages. The subtitle frequencies are based on a corpus of 41M words taken from contemporary movies and TV series (screened between 1990 and 2009). In addition, the frequencies have been validated by correlating them with the RTs from two megastudies involving 2,764 words each (lexical decision and word naming tasks). The subtitle frequencies explained 6% more of the variance than the existing written frequencies in lexical decision, and 2% extra in word naming.

Bias in Estimation and Hypothesis Testing of Correlation

Abstract: This study examined bias in the sample correlation coefficient, r, and its correction by unbiased estimators Computer simulations revealed that the expected value of correlation coefficients in samples from a normal population is slightly less than the population correlation, ρ, and that the bias is almost eliminated by an estimator suggested by RA Fisher and is more completely eliminated by a related estimator recommended by Olkin and Pratt Transformation of initial scores to ranks and calculation of the Spearman rank correlation, rS, produces somewhat greater bias Type I error probabilities of significance tests of zero correlation based on the Student t statistic and exact tests based on critical values of rS obtained from permutations remain fairly close to the significance level for normal and several non-normal distributions However, significance tests of non-zero values of correlation based on the r to Z transformation are grossly distorted for distributions that violate bivariate normality Also, significance tests of non-zero values of rS based on the r to Z transformation are distorted even for normal distributions This paper examines some unfamiliar properties of the Pearson product-moment correlation that have implications for research in psychology, education, and various social sciences Some characteristics of the sampling distribution of the correlation coefficient, originally discovered by RA Fisher (1915), were largely ignored throughout most of the 20th century, even though correlation is routinely employed in many kinds of research in these disciplines It is known that the sample correlation coefficient is a biased estimator of the population correlation, but in practice researchers rarely recognize the bias and attempt to correct for it