Illusory illusions: the significance of fixation on the perception of geometrical illusions

Some well-known geometrical illusions disappear when the eyes are fixating and saccades are suppressed for a period of time. This disappearance is not accompanied by fading due to stabilisation of the retinal image. Any saccade made on purpose restores the illusion immediately. The fixation time after which some illusions disappeared was measured for four illusions and four subjects each. Effects of practice have been observed after measurements were repeated on successive days. Present theories of vision cannot readily explain the effect.     

Hindsight bias in political elections

Two studies on political hindsight bias were conducted on the occasions of the German parliament election in 1998 and the Nordrhein-Westfalen state parliament election in 2000. In both studies, participants predicted the percentage of votes for several political parties and recalled these predictions after the election. The observed hindsight effects were stronger than those found in any prior study on political elections (using percentage of votes as the dependent variable). We argue that the length of the retention interval between original judgement and recollection is mainly responsible for this difference. In our second study, we investigated possible artifacts in political hindsight biases using a control-group design where half of the participants recalled their predictions shortly before or after the election. Hindsight bias was preserved, reinforcing the results of earlier studies with non-control-group designs. Finally, we discuss the possibility that the hindsight experience (in political judgement and in general) actually consists of three different, partly independent components.     

Promoting responsible conduct in research through “survival skills” workshops: Some mentoring is best done in a crowd

For graduate students to succeed as professionals, they must develop a set of general "survival skills". These include writing research articles, making oral presentations, obtaining employment and funding, supervising, and teaching. Traditionally, graduate programs have offered little training in many of these skills. Our educational model provides individuals with formal instruction in each area, including their ethical dimensions. Infusion of research ethics throughout a professional skills curriculum helps to emphasize that responsible conduct is integral to succeeding as a researcher. It also leads to the consideration of ethical dimensions of professional life not covered in traditional ethics courses.     

Probing spatial working memory with the Corsi Blocks task

The Corsi Blocks task (CBT) measures spatial memory span, but methodological differences across previous studies prevent a clear appreciation of perceptual, memory, and motor contributions to spatial span. CBT performance in a standard condition was compared to performance with longer encoding intervals (3 vs 1 s), longer memory intervals (9 vs 1 s), or fewer response alternatives (all nine vs only the relevant positions). All experiments also contrasted ascending vs descending order of item difficulty and recorded response-initiation times. Performance improved with longer encoding and maintenance intervals and with fewer response alternatives. Item order had no reliable effects. Response-initiation times were a useful additional measure of spatial span. Implications of these findings for research using the CBT are discussed.     

Family, personality, and social risk factors impacting the retention rates of first-year Hispanic and Anglo college students

This study investigated familial and behavioral differences between Hispanic and Anglo-American first-year college students. Analyses of variance and chi-square analyses were used to test for ethnic differences in (a) risk factors associated with family dysfunction, family addictions, personality factors, and social experiences, (b) student problem behaviors, namely alcohol use, drug use, and eating disorders, (c) a one-year follow-up of student retention, and (d) specific factors related to retention at the one-year follow-up. The Hispanic freshmen appeared to demonstrate resilience despite a lack of mentoring and greater paternal addiction. However, the one-year follow-up suggested that Hispanic females were at particular risk for leaving school. To improve college retention rates, social policy should focus on Hispanic students' vulnerabilities and strengths in making important developmental transitions.     

Memory for word locations in reading

Sentences were presented in various spatial formats, and readers localised one word of each sentence using a mouse cursor directly after reading. There was a localisation advantage for cumulative over single-word displays, for left-to-right presentation over presentation in a 3 x 3 grid, and for complete over incomplete sentences. Comparing performance for predictable and unpredictable word locations suggests that word location memory in reading decays within three seconds to a span of only 2-3 entries, and that readers can then reconstruct word locations from item memory. Implications for the role of spatial cognition in reading are discussed.     

Partner Preferences as a Function of Gender,Age, Political Orientation and Level of Education

An important current debate concerns the originof gender differences in partner preferences. Thesedifferences have been explained both in terms ofevolutionary theory and in terms of social role theory. The present study determines the relativestrengths of both perspectives by investigating, apartfrom gender, the influence of three other importantfactors on partner preferences and for which the two approaches offer divergent hypotheses: age,political orientation and level of education of therespondent. About 95% of the participants were WhiteDutch citizens, the rest were Dutch with one or twoparents from a different ethnic background.Participants were requested to write down the mostimportant characteristics of a potential partner(open-ended format), followed by an instruction toindicate the importance of 39 pre-selected characteristics. Resultsshow that men and women have highly similar preferencesfor characteristics in a potential partner. In addition,it is demonstrated that on crucial characteristics from an evolutionary perspective (i.e.,physical attractiveness and status) significantinteractions between age, political orientation, levelof education and/or gender of the respondents emerge.Most results offer support for a social role theoryof human mate selection. It is concluded that becausegender on its own merely explains a small proportion ofthe total variance in human mate selection, it is important to include other factors, not onlyin order to facilitate our understanding of the fullcomplexity of partner preferences, but also in order tomake theoretical progress in this area.     

Couple‐based Intervention for Depression: An Effectiveness Study in the National Health Service in England

This study represents an effectiveness study and service evaluation of a cognitive behavioral, couple‐based treatment for depression (BCT‐D) provided in London services that are part of the “Improving Access to Psychological Therapies” (IAPT) program in England. Twenty‐three therapists in community clinics were trained in BCT‐D during a 5‐day workshop, followed by monthly group supervision for 1 year. The BCT‐D treatment outcome findings are based on 63 couples in which at least one partner was depressed and elected to receive BCT‐D. Eighty‐five percent of couples also demonstrated relationship distress, and 49% of the nonclient partners also met caseness for depression or anxiety. Findings demonstrated a recovery rate of 57% with BCT‐D, compared to 41% for all IAPT treatments for depression in London. Nonclient partners who met caseness demonstrated a 48% recovery rate with BCT‐D, although they were not the focus of treatment. BCT‐D was equally effective for clients regardless of the clinical status of the nonclient partner, suggesting its effectiveness in assisting both members of the couple simultaneously. Likewise, treatment was equally effective whether or not both partners reported relationship distress. The findings are promising regarding the successful application of BCT‐D in routine clinical settings.     

Why they leave: the impact of stereotype threat on the attrition of women and minorities from science, math and engineering majors

This paper examines the effects of group performance anxiety on the attrition of women and minorities from science, math, and engineering majors. While past research has relied primarily on the academic deficits and lower socioeconomic status of women and minorities to explain their absence from these fields, we focus on the impact of stereotype threat—the anxiety caused by the expectation of being judged based on a negative group stereotype. Using data from the National Longitudinal Survey of Freshmen, our findings indicate that minorities experience stereotype threat more strongly than whites, although women do not suffer from stereotype threat more than men. Our findings also reveal that stereotype threat has a significant positive effect on the likelihood of women, minorities, and surprisingly, white men leaving science, technology, engineering and math majors.