Cross-sex Friendships: Who has More?

This is the first study to examine the independent, simultaneous, and relative roles of several factors—sex, relationship commitment, perceptions of the benefits vs. costs of cross-sex (vs. same-sex) friendships, gender role orientation, and sexism—in the number of cross-sex (vs. same-sex) friendships people have. The latter four constructs were independently found to predict participants’ proportions of cross-sex friendships. Furthermore, a model comprised of all five factors provided a very good fit to the data, explaining 35% of the variability in the degree to which the participants possessed cross-sex friendships. Perceptions regarding the general benefits of both same- and cross-sex friendships and cross-gender role orientation continued to explain proportion of cross-sex friendship when the other factors were controlled.     

Fetal alcohol syndrome and the developing socio-emotional brain

Fetal alcohol syndrome (FAS) is currently recognized as the most common known cause of mental retardation, affecting from 1 to 7 per 1000 live-born infants. Individuals with FAS suffer from changes in brain structure, cognitive impairments, and behavior problems. Researchers investigating neuropsychological functioning have identified deficits in learning, memory, executive functioning, hyperactivity, impulsivity, and poor communication and social skills in individuals with FAS and fetal alcohol effects (FAE). Investigators using autopsy and brain imaging methods have identified microcephaly and structural abnormalities in various regions of the brain (including the basal ganglia, corpus callosum, cerebellum, and hippocampus) that may account for the neuropsychological deficits. Results of studies using newer brain imaging and analytic techniques have indicated specific alterations (i.e., displacements in the corpus callosum, increased gray matter density in the perisylvian regions, altered gray matter asymmetry, and disproportionate reductions in the frontal lobes) in the brains of individuals prenatally exposed to alcohol, and their relations with brain function. Future research, including using animal models, could help inform our knowledge of brain-behavior relations in the context of prenatal alcohol exposure, and assist with early identification and intervention.     

Self-monitored motives for smoking among college students.

College student smokers (N = 50) were asked to carry electronic diaries for 14 days and record smoking events (n = 1,139). They indicated why they were smoking each cigarette on a checklist of potential motives. Results suggest that a desire to reduce craving (62.8% of occasions) and habit/automatic processes (42.8%) were the most frequent motives. More dependent and daily smokers were especially likely to endorse smoking to reduce craving and for habit/automatic reasons and were less likely to cite coping with negative emotion as a reason for smoking. Dependent and daily smokers were more likely to endorse at least 1 dependence-like motive and were less likely to exclusively attribute smoking to nondependence motives. Self-monitored motives appeared valid, according with conceptually related states, activities, and events in the diary records. Diary-recorded motives were compared with smokers' responses to a retrospective motives questionnaire administered at baseline. The 2 assessment modes produced discrepant estimates of the most influential motivational processes. Questionnaire responses incompletely forecast conceptually similar diary-reported motives. Dependence and daily smoking showed a different pattern of associations with diary-based versus retrospective motives measures.     

Testing beyond words: Using tests to enhance visuospatial map learning

Psychological research shows that learning can be powerfully enhanced through testing, but this finding has so far been confined to memory tasks requiring verbal responses. We explored whether testing can enhance learning of visuospatial information in maps. Fifty subjects each studied two maps, one through conventional study, and the other through computer-prompted tests. For the tests, the subjects were repeatedly presented with the same map with one feature deleted (e.g., a road or a river), and they tried to covertly recall the missing feature and its location. Subjects’ map drawings after 30 min were significantly better for maps learned through tests in comparison with maps learned through the same amount of time devoted to conventional study. These results suggest that the testing effect is not limited to the types of memory that require discrete, verbal responses, and that utilizing covert retrievals may allow the effect to be extended to a variety of complex, nonverbal learning tasks.     

Enhancing learning and retarding forgetting: Choices and consequences

Our research on learning enhancement has been focusing on the consequences for learning and forgetting of some of the more obvious and concrete choices that arise in instruction, including questions such as these: How does spacing of practice affect retention of information over significant retention intervals (up to 1 year)? Do spacing effects generalize beyond recall of verbal materials? Is feedback needed to promote learning, and must it be immediate? Although retrieval practice has been found to enhance learning in comparison with additional study, does it actually reduce the rate of forgetting? Can retrieval practice effects be extended to nonverbal materials? We suggest that as we begin to find answers to these questions, it should become possible for cognitive psychology to offer nonobvious advice that can be applied in a variety of instructional contexts to facilitate learning and reduce forgetting.     

Use of traditional medicine by HIV-infected individuals in South Africa in the era of antiretroviral therapy

As antiretroviral therapy (ART) becomes more available in African countries, the potential for interaction with traditional medicines becomes more important. We carried out a cross-sectional survey among individuals with moderate or advanced HIV disease attending a workplace clinic providing ART in South Africa to determine prevalence of traditional medicine use, source, recommended products and costs. Among 44 clinic attendees (100% male, median age 42 years, 30 taking ART), 37 (84%) reported ever using traditional medicines, 25 obtained from a healer or herbalist, eight from their own fields and four from a pharmacy. Fourteen of the 44 (32%) were currently using traditional medicines, most frequently African potato (9/14) and Aloe vera (3/14). Seven out of 30 persons taking ART (23%) reported currently using traditional medicines. Participants spent 4 - 27 pounds per month on traditional medicines. Traditional medicine use is common among individuals with moderate and advanced HIV disease. Concomitant use with ART has the potential for drug interactions and should be discussed routinely in ART counselling. Further work is warranted to investigate whether commonly used traditional medicines interact with ART in vivo.     

Enculturated chimpanzees imitate rationally

Human infants imitate others' actions 'rationally': they copy a demonstrator's action when that action is freely chosen, but less when it is forced by some constraint (Gergely, Bekkering & Király, 2002). We investigated whether enculturated chimpanzees (Pan troglodytes) also imitate rationally. Using Gergely and colleagues' (2002) basic procedure, a human demonstrator operated each of six apparatuses using an unusual body part (he pressed it with his forehead or foot, or sat on it). In the Hands Free condition he used this unusual means even though his hands were free, suggesting a free choice. In the Hands Occupied condition he used the unusual means only because his hands were occupied, suggesting a constrained or forced choice. Like human infants, chimpanzees imitated the modeled action more often in the Hands Free than in the Hands Occupied condition. Enculturated chimpanzees thus have some understanding of the rationality of others' intentional actions, and use this understanding when imitating others.     

Age-related deficits in face recognition are related to underlying changes in scanning behavior

Previous studies demonstrating age-related impairments in recognition memory for faces are suggestive of underlying differences in face processing. To study these differences, we monitored eye movements while younger and older adults viewed younger and older faces. Compared to the younger group, older adults showed increased sampling of facial features, and more transitions. However, their scanning behavior was most similar to the younger group when looking at older faces. Moreover, while older adults exhibited worse recognition memory than younger adults overall, their memory was more accurate for older faces. These findings suggest that age-related differences in recognition memory for faces may be related to changes in scanning behavior, and that older adults may use social group status as a compensatory processing strategy.     

Police officers' views of effective interview tactics with suspects: The effects of weight of case evidence and discomfort with ambiguity

This study examined the effects of case‐specific facts and individual discomfort with ambiguity (DA) on investigators' beliefs concerning effective interviewing tactics for suspects. Violent crime investigators (n = 30) responded to a questionnaire including the Need for Closure Scale (NFCS) and ratings of the importance of 39 interrogation tactics in two hypothetical interrogations with a homicide suspect, where the evidence consisted of either technical evidence or soft information. Twenty tactics were analysed with a multidimensional scaling procedure which confirmed two discrete interviewing themes: humane and dominant. More tactics, both dominant and humane, were rated as important if the evidence was soft compared with technical. In the soft evidence condition, investigators who were high on DA rated both types of tactics as more important than did low‐DA investigators. In the technical evidence condition, no such difference emerged. Copyright © 2008 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.