The combination of human forecasters’ subjective probability estimates usually improves upon the estimates provided by individual forecasters. In order to combine the probability estimates in a Bayes optimal way, prior work proposed a normative Bayesian fusion model that models the estimates with a beta distribution conditioned on their truth value. However, this model assumes conditionally independent probability estimates, although estimates provided by different forecasters are usually correlated. Here, we introduce a Bayesian model for combining subjective probability estimates that explicitly considers their correlation. We assume that an estimate provided by a forecaster for a given query depends on both the forecaster’s skill and the query’s difficulty. The correlation between probability estimates provided by different forecasters is assumed to be caused by the queries that make the forecasters provide similar estimates, for example, correct and highly confident estimates for very easy queries. Our model represents the probability estimates with a beta distribution conditioned on their truth value. It explicitly models the forecasters’ skills and the queries’ difficulties with skill parameters specific for each forecaster and difficulty parameters specific for each query. In this way, it can model the correlations between probability estimates and consider it when combining the estimates. Evaluations on a data set consisting of the subjective probability estimates of 85 human forecasters for 180 queries show improved fusion performance in terms of Brier score compared to related Bayesian fusion models. In particular, it outperforms independent fusion models that suffer from overconfidence.

Irritability is a core symptom and diagnostic criterion in several childhood psychiatric disorders. Research has documented bidirectional associations between child irritability and parenting practices; however, cultural variations in these associations remain underexplored.

Using three-wave longitudinal data (N = 2,408) from the Future of Families and Child Wellbeing Study (FFCWS) in the United States, this study examined associations between child irritability, parenting behaviors (psychological aggression, physical assault, neglect, and non-violent discipline) and parenting stress across three racial–ethnic groups: non-Latine Black (n = 1,167; 605 males), non-Latine White (n = 614; 314 males), and Latine (n = 627; 316 males) using cross-sectional and temporal network analyses.

Parenting behaviors and stress were associated with child irritability concurrently and longitudinally across groups. Results showed bidirectional effects between parenting behaviors/stress and child irritability across ages 3, 5, and 9, with more similarities than differences between groups. Physical assault and lower use of non-violent discipline predicted higher future child irritability (partial correlations = 0.03–0.18 for physical assault and 0.04–0.07 for non-violent discipline) across racial–ethnic groups.

These findings suggest parenting interventions may be scalable across cultural contexts to promote positive child outcomes and well-being, though future work should elucidate culturally specific factors that inform tailored practices.

This study explores the complex interplay between academic, social and cultural pressures and the mental health of female university students in Pakistan. Operating within a collectivist society, these students face unique challenges, including high academic expectations, financial constraints and rigid gender roles, which significantly increase their vulnerability to psychological distress, anxiety and depression. Despite the high prevalence of these issues, help-seeking behaviours remain markedly low. This research investigates the formidable barriers to seeking professional psychological support, focusing on the potent influence of pervasive social stigma, fear of reputational damage and a widespread lack of mental health literacy. Cultural norms that prioritize family honour and misinterpret emotional suffering as personal weakness further compound these obstacles, often leading to silence and isolation. Utilizing a qualitative approach, this paper highlights the critical need for culturally sensitive, university-based mental health interventions. Recommendations include establishing accessible on-campus counselling services, implementing de-stigmatization awareness campaigns and integrating mental health education into the academic curriculum to foster a more supportive environment and encourage proactive help-seeking among this demographic.

The study examines the influence of bilingual experience, age and verbal working memory (WM) on the comprehension of passive voice by 116 typically developing (TD) and 65 autistic children aged 3 to 13, who were tested in their societal languages, German or French. Some children were mainly exposed to the societal language while some children were also exposed to other languages. We adopt a continuous approach to bilingual experience and operationalize it as a balance of cumulative exposure, measured through entropy scores. We found that the comprehension of passive voice improved with age in both groups, and higher verbal WM predicted better performance in autistic but not TD children. Although autistic children were less accurate than TD children, bilingual experience did not contribute to the differences between the two groups. These findings suggest that bilingualism has no detrimental effect on the comprehension of complex syntactic structures in autistic children.

The current study investigated two heuristic processing strategies, the agent-first strategy and an animacy-based strategy, in visual world eye-tracking data as well as sentence final interpretations of wh-questions in adolescent L1 German learners of English in both their L1 and their L2. We observed differences between online and offline measures, as well as L1-L2 differences, both in the selection and the time course of application of the heuristics. In L1 German, heuristics were visible only in online data, and the dominant heuristic was animacy-based. In L2 English, the animacy-based heuristic was applied later and to a lesser degree than the agent-first heuristic. The results speak against a direct transfer of heuristic strategies from the L1 to the L2. Instead, we suggest that low-proficiency learners may not have the capacity to use several heuristics at once, and may thus prioritize the agent-first strategy due to its broad domain of application.

This study investigates how lexical, phrasal, and contrastive stress are acoustically realized in American English, focusing on whether men and women differ in how they use pitch, amplitude, and duration to convey stress. Thirty-six native speakers completed minimal-pair stress production tasks online. We analyzed the resulting speech using prosodic contour measures, Bayesian ANOVAs, mixed-effects regression, Random Forest Classification, and human coder judgments. Results show greater acoustic overlap between lexical and contrastive stress than between either of those and phrasal stress. Duration was the primary cue for phrasal stress, while lexical and contrastive stress relied more evenly on multiple cues. Gender-based differences were especially evident in contrastive stress, which, to our knowledge, has not previously been studied in relation to gender: women relied more on pitch, while men emphasized amplitude and duration. These findings highlight the multidimensional acoustic nature of stress realization and demonstrate the value of combining computational and perceptual approaches in prosody research.