Tooth color: effects on judgments of attractiveness and age

Tooth whitening has become a very popular procedure. Advertisements for whitening products imply that whiter teeth are more attractive than yellower teeth. We tested this idea empirically by manipulating the tooth color of pictures of male and female targets. Participants' ratings of attractiveness were not influenced by tooth color. Exp. 2 yielded a negative correlation between attractiveness and age ratings: targets judged to be older were rated as less attractive. Unless whiter teeth help in some other way, e.g., improved self-esteem or confidence, it seems that tooth whitening procedures or products are not associated with increased attractiveness to others.     

Subgroup analysis of sex difference on the Vandenberg-Kuse mental rotation test

A large sex difference has been elicited on the Vandenberg-Kuse mental rotation test. Prior research emphasizes the biological root of this sex difference. In recent experiments we confirmed this viewpoint. A large sample was administered the test, and the distributions of scores for men and women (N = 138; 68 men and 70 women: ages 19 to 23 years). The mean scores were used as cut-off points to group the men and the women in different subgroups (Low/Women, High/Women, Low/Men, High/Men). There were large differences among all subgroups, reinforcing Kimura's testosterone hypothesis for sex differences in spatial ability.     

Auditory imagery from musical notation in expert musicians

Anecdotal evidence has suggested that musical notation can trigger auditory images. Expert musicians silently read scores containing well-known themes embedded into the notation of an embellished phrase and judged if a tune heard aloud thereafter was the original theme (i.e., melodic target) or not (i.e., melodic lure). Three experiments were conducted employing four score-reading conditions: normal nondistracted reading, concurrent rhythmic distraction, phonatory interference, and obstruction by auditory stimuli. The findings demonstrate that phonatory interference impaired recognition of original themes more than did the other conditions. We propose that notational audiation is the silent reading of musical notation resulting in auditory imagery. The research suggests that it also elicits kinesthetic-like phonatory processes.     

Sex differences in self-efficacy beliefs of elementary science teachers

The Science Teaching Efficacy Belief Inventory developed by Riggs and Enoch was administered to 88 men and 112 women, elementary science teachers in the Eastern Cape, South Africa. Significant mean sex differences (t=4.55, p<.01) were observed on the Personal subscale but not on the General subscale. This result has major implications for education planners and administrators employing female teachers whose cultural and educational experiences may not have prepared them as well as their male peers for teaching science. It is concluded that female teachers need support to change their beliefs about self-efficacy regarding teaching science. The discussion also suggests possible directions for research.     

A modest proposal: (re)defining unconscious fantasy

The author argues that unconscious fantasy, properly defined, necessarily represents the three-dimensional intersection of wishful thinking (fantasy), veridical perception of the environment (reality), and the naive cognition of childhood. It is proposed that, although attachment theory developed out of the intent to capture the unalloyed reality of dyadic experience, that experience is inextricably entangled with the other two components, wishes and naive cognition, and furthermore, that the behavior of children in the attachment paradigm can only be accounted for by positing the existence of underlying unconscious fantasies. In making these arguments, the author also addresses the development of unconscious fantasies and their relationship to compromise formations and trauma.     

The role of locomotion in the acquisition and transfer of spatial knowledge in children

The role of locomotion in the acquisition and transfer of spatial knowledge was investigated in 144 five-, seven- and eleven-year-old children. Two experiments were conducted in the Kiel locomotor maze. In the first experiment, one group of children explored the spatial layout by walking through the maze, while another learned the maze by surveying the layout. In the second experiment, children were exposed to one of two orientation tests in the maze, one of which could be solved using "landmark orientation", the other only using a "relational place orientation". Children sitting by the side of the experimental chamber surveying the maze needed fewer trials to learn the spatial layout than children exploring the environment in the locomotion condition, but in the orientation test demanding the "relational place orientation" children who had explored the maze in the locomotion condition outperformed the children in the non-locomotion condition. Results are discussed in the context of cognitive mapping models.     

The Göteborg discothèque fire, 1998

Findings from a study of 563 adolescents’ reactions following a discotheque fire that killed 63 young people in Göteborg in October 1998 are presented. The group answered a questionnaire seven months following the disaster. The questionnaire included the Impact of Event Scale (IES) and the Birleson Depression Self‐Rating Scale (DSRS). The level of trauma was found to be very high, while depression scores were less elevated. A little under a third of the students scored above a clinical cut‐off point (> 35) on the IES, indicating high posttraumatic stress levels. Girls evidenced more depression and traumatic stress reactions than boys. Levels of reactions increased with more closeness (knowing victims personally) and if the adolescents were of non‐Swedish origin.     

Is there a “strength effect” in automatic semantic priming?

According to spreading activation models of automatic priming, highly related associates should yield stronger priming effects than weakly related associates. The strength of relations is usually based on word association norms. However, this strength effect has been found in some studies but not in others. The present study suggests that one factor that might be responsible for this inconsistency is whether the weak associate is the primary or nonprimary response in the word association norms This possibility was explored by comparing priming effects of weak nonprimary and primary associates with those of strong primary associates. Comparable priming effects were found for the strong and weak primary associates whereas the weak nonprimary associates did not yield any priming effects. These results were obtained both in paired (Experiment 1) and single (Experiment 2) presentation priming procedures. Thus, the rank of the associate is an important factor in predicting the magnitude of the priming effect.     

The use of category and similarity information in limiting hypotheses

Memory &; Cognition - Previous studies have shown that adults usually select diverse evidence for generalizing hypotheses. We investigated what kind of evidence people select in another type of...