How to Listen More Efficiently: Self-monitoring Strategies in Listening

The efficiency of cognitive strategies in information processing has been established by a considerable body of research on text comprehension. Caution needs to be used, however, when it comes to generalizing the results to listening. It is argued that, in order to decide if cognitive strategies meet the processing demands of listening, and if so, which strategies, the specifics of the listening situation must be taken into consideration. An empirical basis is needed to investigate the facilitative and possibly interfering effects of using metacognitive strategies during listening. Using qualitative methodology, listening logs collected from 35 undergraduate students were evaluated for the effects - as perceived by listeners - of three types of cognitive strategies, namely, interest management, asking pre-questions, and elaboration techniques. The results support the hypothesis that these strategies, when appropriately adapted to the listening context, facilitate information processing from aural input.     

Exact Designs Minimising the Integrated Variance in Quadratic Regression

Exact designs are given which minimise the average variance of a quadratic regression polynomial fitted by the method of least squares.     

Tax rules

Tax schemes are more restricted by constitutional rules than subsidies. We introduce a model of public good provision with incentive problems in agenda-setting and identify several advantages of restrictions on tax schemes. In particular, tax rules may prevent the proposal and adoption of inefficient projects that benefit only a small minority. We also propose “redistribution efficiency” as a socially desirable property of proposals and find that tax rules guarantee this kind of efficiency. Moreover, a constitution that requires certain restrictions on both taxes and subsidies satisfies a criterion we label “robustness against counter-proposals.” We provide an axiomatic characterization of this constitution. Finally, we perform utilitarian welfare comparisons.     

Intercultural Listening: Measuring Listening Concepts with the LCI-R

Listening is an integral part of communication, yet more research is conducted on the speaker as opposed to the listener. Previous research established a general schema of listening as a concept-driven behavior with four factors (Imhof & Janusik, 2006). Further testing by Bodie (2010) confirmed the factor structure and reduced the number of items from 33 to 15 (LCI-R). What is not known is whether the constructs are consistent across cultures. This study investigates whether the LCI-R can fit independent data comprising samples from the United States, Europe, and Japan. Results show that the instrument can be used cross-culturally when listening concepts are of interest and need to be measured.     

Bayesian and maximin optimal designs for heteroscedastic regression models

The authors consider the problem of constructing standardized maximin D‐optimal designs for weighted polynomial regression models. In particular they show that by following the approach to the construction of maximin designs introduced recently by Dette, Haines & Imhof (2003), such designs can be obtained as weak limits of the corresponding Bayesian _q‐optimal designs. They further demonstrate that the results are more broadly applicable to certain families of nonlinear models. The authors examine two specific weighted polynomial models in some detail and illustrate their results by means of a weighted quadratic regression model and the Bleasdale–Nelder model. They also present a capstone example involving a generalized exponential growth model.