Memory aberrations, transliminality, and delusional ideation

This study investigated the relationships between cognitive-perceptual personality dimensions (transliminality and delusional ideation) and self-report measures of memory error (Oblivion Scale and the Prospective and Retrospective Memory Questionnaire). 100 full- and part-time psychology undergraduate students completed the measures (18 men and 82 women; M = 19.3 yr., SD = 4.4). A positive correlation was found between transliminality and reported memory aberrations (Oblivion Scale scores) and also between transliminality and Prospective and Retrospective Memory Questionnaire scores. Correlations were positive between Peters, et al. Delusions Inventory and the self-report memory measures. Transliminality and Peters, et al. Delusions Inventory scores predicted the number of memory aberrations or slips reported on the Oblivion Scale and Prospective and Retrospective Memory Questionnaire. To explore whether transliminality explained additional variance to that accounted for by the Peters, et al. Delusions Inventory, forward regression was applied and showed aspects of transliminality not accounted for by Peters, et al. Delusions Inventory did not explain additional variance within the self-report memory measures.     

Relation of transliminality and sensation seeking

The Revised Transliminality Scale and Zuckerman's Sensation Seeking Scale (Form V) were administered to 83 psychology undergraduates. Weak positive correlations suggested that participants scoring high on the Transliminality Scale tended to be more experience seeking and, overall, more inclined to score sensation seeking.     

Attitudes toward the male role and their correlates

This study investigated relationships between college men's attitudes toward the male role and five theoretical concomitants of the role. It was expected that males endorsing traditional male-role norms would be more homophobic, more strongly support the Type A behavior orientation, support less self-disclosure to male and female friends, and approve of the maintenance of asymmetrical decision-making power with their intimate partner. Men from two liberal arts college in a New England metropolitan area (N=223) provided the data to test the hypotheses. Endorsement of the traditional role was associated with all predicted concomitants, expect the measure of disclosure to male friend. The results are discussed in terms of the pervasive nature of the antifemininity norm within the male role.An earlier version of this article was presented as a paper at the meeting of the Eastern Sociological Society, Boston, 1984.     

Artists, architects, and engineers--three contrasting modes of visual experience and their psychological correlates

Over a period of five years, 31 architects, 28 artists, and 26 engineers, a total of 85 outstanding individuals in their respective fields, were studied intensively with a psychological test battery consisting of the Holtzman Inkblot Technique, Time Estimation measures, the Stroop Color-Word Test, the Embedded Figures Test, the Autokinetic Effect, Byrne's Repression-Sensitization Inventory, the Taylor Manifest Anxiety Scale, and the Welsh Figure Preference Test. Each subject in the study was chosen by a panel of faculty members as the most outstanding advanced students in nonrepresentational abstract art, architecture, and engineering drawing Highly significant differences were found between the three groups for a number of variables that had been predicted on the basis of previous research and theoretical considerations. These results served to validate the meaning of the perception variables while also giving additional insight into the differences between these three contrasting modes of visual experience as exemplified by the three occupational groups     

Paranormal beliefs: their dimensionality and correlates

Lack of conceptual clarity and multivariate empirical studies has troubled research on superstitious, magical and paranormal beliefs. We defined paranormal beliefs as beliefs in physical, biological or psychological phenomena that feature core ontological properties of another ontological category. The aim was to bring together a range of beliefs and their potential correlates, to analyse whether the beliefs form independent subsets, and to test a structural model of the beliefs and their potential correlates. The results (N = 3261) showed that the beliefs could be best described by one higher‐order factor. There were also four lower‐order factors of paranormal beliefs but their explanatory power was low. Magico‐religious beliefs were best explained by high intuitive thinking, a humanistic world view and low analytical thinking. Copyright © 2006 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Sibling variable correlates of children's academic achievement: family-group differences

The study examined the proposition that relationships among sibling variables, intellectual ability, and academic achievement vary for children from different family-environment groups. Data were collected from 900 11-yr.-old Australian children and their parents. In the analysis, the children were classified into four family contexts that were defined conjointly by family social status and parents' academic socialization. Within each family group, regression surfaces were constructed from models that included terms to account for possible linear, interaction, and curvilinear associations among the variables. The results suggested the general proposition that within the family-environment groups, sibling variables were not related to academic achievement at different levels of children's ability. However, the findings indicated that there were variations to this general proposition. Indeed, there were a number of complex associations between the sibling variables and children's academic achievement in the different family-environment groups.     

Interpersonal deviance, organizational deviance, and their common correlates: a review and meta-analysis

Interpersonal deviance (ID) and organizational deviance (OD) are highly correlated (R. S. Dalal, 2005). This, together with other empirical and theoretical evidence, calls into question the separability of ID and OD. As a further investigation into their separability, relationships among ID, OD, and their common correlates were meta-analyzed. ID and OD were highly correlated (rho = .62) but had differential relationships with key Big Five variables and organizational citizenship behaviors, which lends support to the separability of ID and OD. Whether the R. J. Bennett and S. L. Robinson (2000) instrument was used moderated some relationships. ID and OD exhibited their strongest (negative) relationships with organizational citizenship, Agreeableness, Conscientiousness, and Emotional Stability. Correlations with organizational justice were small to moderate, and correlations with demographic variables were generally negligible.     

Neural correlates of conceptual implicit memory and their contamination of putative neural correlates of explicit memory

During episodic recognition tests, meaningful stimuli such as words can engender both conscious retrieval (explicit memory) and facilitated access to meaning that is distinct from the awareness of remembering (conceptual implicit memory). Neuroimaging investigations of one type of memory are frequently subject to the confounding influence of the other type of memory, thus posing a serious impediment to theoretical advances in this area. We used minimalist visual shapes (squiggles) to attempt to overcome this problem. Subjective ratings of squiggle meaningfulness varied idiosyncratically, and behavioral indications of conceptual implicit memory were evident only for stimuli given higher ratings. These effects did not result from perceptual-based fluency or from explicit remembering. Distinct event-related brain potentials were associated with conceptual implicit memory and with explicit memory by virtue of contrasts based on meaningfulness ratings and memory judgments, respectively. Frontal potentials from 300 to 500 msec after the onset of repeated squiggles varied systematically with perceived meaningfulness. Explicit memory was held constant in this contrast, so these potentials were taken as neural correlates of conceptual implicit memory. Such potentials can contaminate putative neural correlates of explicit memory, in that they are frequently attributed to the expression of explicit memory known as familiarity. These findings provide the first neural dissociation of these two memory phenomena during recognition testing and underscore the necessity of taking both types of memory into account in order to obtain valid neural correlates of specific memory functions.     

Eating attitudes and their psychological correlates among Turkish adolescents

This study examined the eating attitudes and psychological characteristics of Turkish late adolescents. Seven hundred eighty-three university students were administered the Eating Attitudes Test, Rosenberg Self-Esteem Scale, State-Trait Anxiety Inventory, and Social Physique Anxiety Scale. More than one in ten (9.2% of the males and 13.1% of the females) had abnormal eating attitude scores. Chi-square analysis revealed that there were no significant differences in the prevalance of abnormal eating behaviors based on gender. Analysis of covariance indicated that participants who had disturbed eating attitudes had lower self-esteem, higher social physique anxiety, and higher trait anxiety than those who had normal eating attitudes. It was concluded that the prevalence of disturbed eating attitudes was high among these Turkish late adolescents, and that disturbed eating attitudes were related to several psychological characteristics.     

Gamma-range oscillations in backward-masking functions and their putative neural correlates

Backward-masking functions have been hitherto categorized into two types, commonly named Type A and Type B. The analysis of a model of Retino-Cortical Dynamics produces the prediction that spatially localized stimuli should reveal an oscillatory metacontrast function. The predicted new type of metacontrast masking function was investigated in a psychophysical experiment. The results show oscillatory metacontrast functions with significant power in the gamma range (30-70 Hz). A marked decrease in the oscillations is observed when the spatial extent of the stimuli is increased. The theoretical basis of the study relates the oscillations found in the metacontrast function to gamma-range oscillations observed in scalp and intracerebral recordings. The qualitative agreement between the model and data provides support for this putative relationship.     

Facial-expression affective attributes and their configural correlates: components and categories

The present study investigates the perception of facial expressions of emotion, and explores the relation between the configural properties of expressions and their subjective attribution. Stimuli were a male and a female series of morphed facial expressions, interpolated between prototypes of seven emotions (happiness, sadness, fear, anger, surprise and disgust, and neutral) from Ekman and Friesen (1976). Topographical properties of the stimuli were quantified using the Facial Expression Measurement (FACEM) scheme. Perceived dissimilarities between the emotional expressions were elicited using a sorting procedure and processed with multidimensional scaling. Four dimensions were retained in the reconstructed facial-expression space, with positive and negative expressions opposed along D1, while the other three dimensions were interpreted as affective attributes distinguishing clusters of expressions categorized as "Surprise-Fear," "Anger," and "Disgust." Significant relationships were found between these affective attributes and objective facial measures of the stimuli. The findings support a componential explanatory scheme for expression processing, wherein each component of a facial stimulus conveys an affective value separable from its context, rather than a categorical-gestalt scheme. The findings further suggest that configural information is closely involved in the decoding of affective attributes of facial expressions. Configural measures are also suggested as a common ground for dimensional as well as categorical perception of emotional faces.     

Experimental measures of cognitive privilege/deprivation and some of their correlates

An operational definition of intellectual privilege and deprivation was used to develop measures of that construct in each sex from information furnished by 10th-grade students in Project Talent about their family and health background. Information such as reports of high school grades that directly reflected the ability of the students was excluded. The correlation between the experimental measure and the Talent intelligence composite is about .65 in contrast to the usual value of about .40 for a traditional measure of socioeconomic status. Sex differences in the items keyed are minimal. Using a similar definition, measures were also developed for Vernon's mechanical-spatial major group factor (1960), but the level of validity achieved is lower. The measures of privilege/deprivation developed for the two criteria show some degree of differential validity, but there is more generality in the two kinds of privilege than in tested abilities. The measures of intellectual privilege are almost congeneric measures of general intelligence, but there are significant departures from parallel profiles of relationships with other cognitive tests in Talent. The measures of intellectual privilege for both sexes add to the accuracy of prediction obtained from the intelligence criterion of scores on verbal academic and aesthetic information, but add nothing in predicting scores on measures of spatial visualization and rote memory. The possibility of constructing a test of general intelligence using item types that would minimize the correlation with privilige/deprivation is discussed.