School-age children's perceptions of a person who stutters

The present study examined the perceptions school-age children have of stutterers. Four groups of fourth and fifth grade students viewed a videotape with either the speaker stuttering or not stuttering while reading a poem. A semantic differential scale of bi-polar adjective pairs was used to rate the speaker on intelligence and personality traits. The current study found that there is a significant difference between school-age children's perceptions of stutterers and nonstutterers with the ratings for the disfluent speaker more negative than the ratings for the fluent speaker. It was found that children did not rate personality and intelligence related traits differently. This information can be used to validate the need for education regarding stuttering for children and those who work with children. EDUCATIONAL OBJECTIVES: The reader will learn about and be able to (1). identify perceptions of stutterers by a variety of groups; (2). discuss the implications of research on perceptions of stutterers; and (3). compare/contrast children and adults and their perceptions.     

Transfer of value from fit

People experience regulatory fit when they pursue a goal in a manner that sustains their regulatory orientation (E. T. Higgins, 2000). Five studies tested whether the value experienced from regulatory fit can transfer to a subsequent evaluation of an object. In Studies 1 and 2, participants gave the same coffee mug a higher price if they had chosen it with a strategy that fit their orientation (eager strategy/promotion; vigilant strategy/prevention) than a strategy that did not fit. Studies 3-5 investigated possible mechanisms underlying this effect. Value transfer was independent of positive mood, perceived effectiveness (instrumentality), and perceived efficiency (ease), and occurred for an object that w as independent of the fit process itself. The findings supported a value confusion account of transfer.     

Cortical localisation of the visual and auditory word form areas: a reconsideration of the evidence

In this paper we examine the evidence for human brain areas dedicated to visual or auditory word form processing by comparing cortical activation for auditory word repetition, reading, picture naming, and environmental sound naming. Both reading and auditory word repetition activated left lateralised regions in the frontal operculum (Broca's area), posterior superior temporal gyrus (Wernicke's area), posterior inferior temporal cortex, and a region in the mid superior temporal sulcus relative to baseline conditions that controlled for sensory input and motor output processing. In addition, auditory word repetition increased activation in a lateral region of the left mid superior temporal gyrus but critically, this area is not specific to auditory word processing, it is also activated in response to environmental sounds. There were no reading specific activations, even in the areas previously claimed as visual word form areas: activations were either common to reading and auditory word repetition or common to reading and picture naming. We conclude that there is no current evidence for cortical sites dedicated to visual or auditory word form processing.     

Examining the construct validity of the Eating Disorder Inventory

The construct validity of the Eating Disorder Inventory (EDI) was examined in 3 samples. An archival clinic sample (n = 318) of women completed the EDI, a structured interview, and the Millon Clinical Multiaxial Inventory-II (MCMI-II). Confirmatory factor analyses (CFAs) indicated that neither null nor 1-factor models of the EDI fit item-level or item-parcel data. The proposed 8-factor model did not fit at the item level but did fit item-parcel data. Reliability estimates of the 8 scales ranged from .82 to .93, and low-to-moderate interscale correlations among the eating and weight-related scales provided partial support for convergent validity. EDI personality scales showed moderate interscale correlations and were associated with MCMI-II scales. A final CFA of the EDI scales supported a 2-factor model (Eating and Weight, Personality) of the 8 EDI scales. Strong associations between depression and several EDI scale scores were found in a treatment study sample (n = 50). The archival clinic sample scored significantly higher on the 8 EDI scales than the nonpatient college comparison sample (n = 487).     

Long-term, non-specific spinal pain: reliable and valid subgroups of patients

The aim of this study was to identify reliable and valid subgroups of spinal pain patients, using data from the Swedish version of the Multidimensional Pain Inventory (MPI-S). A second aim was to test the generalisability of the three patient profiles described in earlier studies on the MPI ("adaptive coper", "dysfunctional" and "interpersonally distressed" patients). The study base consisted of two samples of individuals suffering from long-term, non-specific spinal pain and the results were validated across these samples. Cluster analysis was used to detect distinct groups of patients and the validity of these subgroups was evaluated on variables not used to generate the cluster solution. One subgroup was characterised by lower pain severity, lower interference with everyday activities, lower affective distress and higher life control than the other two subgroups. This patient profile was similar to the MPI adaptive coper patients. A second subgroup resembled the dysfunctional patient profile, thus displaying a worse adjustment to chronic pain than the AC patients. The third patient group reported significantly lower levels of social support from "significant others" than the other subgroups. This patient profile was similar to that of the interpersonally distressed patient group. Taken together, the results support the reliability, validity and generalisability of three subgroups of chronic pain patients derived from the MPI-S.     

PET evidence for multiple strategies of categorization

It is widely held that people use multiple strategies to categorize their experiences in the world. We conducted a pair of neuroimaging experiments to identify the neural correlates of two of these strategies— rule application and exemplar similarity. Participants were instructed to perform either a ruleor an exemplar-based categorization task while changes in cerebral blood flow were measured using positron emission tomography. Patterns of neural activity were consistent with the predictions of cognitive models of rule- versus exemplar-based categorization and with existing neuroscience data. The identification of strategy-specific neural patterns offers future researchers a diagnostic tool for assessing strategy use in other situations.     

Category variability, exemplar similarity, and perceptual classification

Experiments were conducted in which observers learned to classify simple perceptual stimuli into low-variability and high-variability categories. Similarities between objects were measured in independent psychological-scaling tasks. The results showed that observers classified transfer stimuli into the high-variability categories with greater probability than was predicted by a baseline version of an exemplar-similarity model. Qualitative evidence for the role of category variability on perceptual classification, which could not be explained in terms of the baseline exemplar-similarity model, was obtained as well. Possible accounts of the effects of category variability are considered in the General Discussion section.     

Abstract and concrete self-evaluative goals

Assuming that people often hold the abstract goal of acquiring accurate feedback but recognize that acquiring favorable feedback can make the self-evaluative process more comfortable, the authors posited that low-level construals (of how action is performed) would elicit greater self-enhancement motivation than would high-level construals (of why action is performed). Individuals chronically using low-level construals had greater interest in downward social comparison (DSC) and less interest in negative feedback (NF; Studies 1 and 3). Decreases in temporal distance (which foster low-level construals) also elicited greater interest in DSC and less interest in NF (Studies 2 and 4). The latter effect was explained by participants' aversion to inconvenience (Study 5) and not by approach-avoidance conflict (Study 6). These results suggest that the level of abstraction at which people construe self-evaluative situations can influence their feedback preferences.