Sunday, January 6, 2019

The increase in homebuilding construction concentration in the past decade has led to lower production volume, fewer units in the production pipeline, & greater unit price volatility

Cosman, Jacob and Quintero, Luis, Market Concentration in Homebuilding (November 28, 2018). Johns Hopkins Carey Business School Research Paper No. 18-18. https://ssrn.com/abstract=3303984

Abstract: We investigate the impact of increasing concentration in local residential construction markets on housing production. We show that the increase in concentration in the past decade has led to lower production volume, fewer units in the production pipeline, and greater unit price volatility. Our results imply that the greater concentration has decreased the annual value of new housing production by $106 billion. Because housing is a determinant of the business cycle these findings provide further evidence that the secular decline in competitive intensity in the American economy is altering macroeconomic dynamics.

25% of the prosopagnosia sample scored in the tone deaf range; these subjects were impaired in pitch processing, but not rhythm; face recognition ability significantly predicted pitch processing ability

Perception Of Musical Pitch In Developmental Prosopagnosia. Sherryse L.Corrow et al. Neuropsychologia, https://doi.org/10.1016/j.neuropsychologia.2018.12.022

Highlights
•    Some prosopagnosic subjects showed deficits in pitch processing relative to controls
•    Individually, 25% of the prosopagnosia sample scored in the tone deaf range
•    These subjects were impaired in pitch processing, but not rhythm
•    Face recognition ability significantly predicted pitch processing ability

Abstract

Studies of developmental prosopagnosia have often shown that developmental prosopagnosia differentially affects human face processing over non-face object processing. However, little consideration has been given to whether this condition is associated with perceptual or sensorimotor impairments in other modalities. Comorbidities have played a role in theories of other developmental disorders such as dyslexia, but studies of developmental prosopagnosia have often focused on the nature of the visual recognition impairment despite evidence for widespread neural anomalies that might affect other sensorimotor systems.

We studied 12 subjects with developmental prosopagnosia with a battery of auditory tests evaluating pitch and rhythm processing as well as voice perception and recognition. Overall, three subjects were impaired in fine pitch discrimination, a prevalence of 25% that is higher than the estimated 4% prevalence of congenital amusia in the general population. This was a selective deficit, as rhythm perception was unaffected in all 12 subjects. Furthermore, two of the three prosopagnosic subjects who were impaired in pitch discrimination had intact voice perception and recognition, while two of the remaining nine subjects had impaired voice recognition but intact pitch perception.

These results indicate that, in some subjects with developmental prosopagnosia, the face recognition deficit is not an isolated impairment but is associated with deficits in other domains, such as auditory perception. These deficits may form part of a broader syndrome which could be due to distributed microstructural anomalies in various brain networks, possibly with a common theme of right hemispheric predominance.

What Laypeople Think the Big Five Trait Labels Mean: Lay beliefs corresponded generally well with standard Big Five inventories’ content, but there were notable disjunctions between beliefs and the standards

What Laypeople Think the Big Five Trait Labels Mean. Judith A.Hall et al. Journal of Research in Personality, https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jrp.2018.12.007

Highlights
•    Laypeople were able to describe how they apply the Big Five traits in daily life.
•    Each trait had 9 to 13 facets that varied in their centrality to the trait.
•    Lay beliefs corresponded generally well with standard Big Five inventories’ content.
•    But there were notable disjunctions between lay beliefs and inventories’ content.

Abstract: We asked what laypeople think the commonly used Big Five trait labels mean, and how well their beliefs match the content of standard Big Five scales. Study 1 established participants’ familiarity with the Big Five trait labels. In Studies 2 and 3, participants described persons high on the traits using a free response format. Responses were sorted into categories (facets), each of which earned a centrality index defined as the proportion of responses for the given trait that fell into that category. Studies 2 and 3 converged well. Comparisons with four standard Big Five inventories revealed substantial commonality but also notable areas of non-overlap consisting of content identified by laypeople that was not represented in the standard scales, as well as content in the standard scales that was not mentioned by laypeople.