Overvaluation of shape and weight in binge eating disorder and overweight controls: refinement of a diagnostic construct

Debate continues regarding the nosological status of binge eating disorder (BED) as a diagnosis as opposed to simply reflecting a useful marker for psychopathology. Contention also exists regarding the specific criteria for the BED diagnosis, including whether, like anorexia nervosa and bulimia nervosa, it should be characterized by overvaluation of shape/weight. The authors compared features of eating disorders, psychological distress, and weight among overweight BED participants who overvalue their shape/weight (n=92), BED participants with subclinical levels of overvaluation (n=73), and participants in an overweight comparison group without BED (n=45). BED participants categorized with clinical overvaluation reported greater eating-related psychopathology and depression levels than those with subclinical overvaluation. Both BED groups reported greater overall eating pathology and depression levels than the overweight comparison group. Group differences existed despite similar levels of overweight across the 3 groups, as well as when controlling for group differences in depression levels. These findings provide further support for the research diagnostic construct and make a case for the importance of shape/weight overvaluation as a diagnostic specifier.     

Person Recall in Field Settings1

Men and women were stopped in public places by a target, who approached them either in an open and friendly demeanor or with a closed and hesitant demeanor. Witnesses interacted with the target for either 5 s or 30 s, and were tested for cued recall 2 min after the encounter. Demeanor did not influence overall recall, but did affect recall of specific characteristics. Men were superior to women in recall of physical characteristics, but gender differences were not found in recall of clothing characteristics. Witnesses were superior with longer observation periods, especially for recall of clothing. Significant but low confidence‐accuracy correlations were found for recall of 8 of 14 person characteristics. Men were superior to women in their accuracy of duration estimations, but men and women both consistently overestimated durations.     

Risk Taking in Decision Making for Others Versus the Self1

In two studies, we examined people's level of risk taking when making monetary decisions for other people rather than for themselves. Experiment 1 examined the role of regret in these situations; results show that regret concerns led to increased risk avoidance both when participants made decisions for other people as well as when making decisions for themselves. Experiment 2 tested whether skill tasks would lead to greater risk avoidance when the decision was for another person versus for oneself. This hypothesis was not supported, although men were more risk seeking than were women in both situations. Taken together, these studies suggest that many of the findings from risk research on individual decision making regarding financial situations generalize to decision making for others.     

The development of an attentional bias for angry faces following Pavlovian fear conditioning

Although it is well documented that fear responses develop following aversive Pavlovian conditioning, it is unclear whether fear learning also manifests in the form of attentional biases for fear-related stimuli. Boschen, Parker, and Neumann (Boschen, M. J., Parker, I., & Neumann, D. L. (2007). Changes in implicit associations do not occur simultaneously to Pavlovian conditioning of physiological anxiety responses. Journal of Anxiety Disorders, 21, 788-803.) showed that despite the acquisition of differential skin conductance conditioned responses to angry faces paired (CS+) and unpaired (CS−) with an aversive shock, development of implicit associations was not subsequently observed on the Implicit Association Test. In the present study, participants (N = 76) were assigned either to a Shock or NoShock group and completed a similar aversive Pavlovian conditioning procedure with angry face CS+ and CS− stimuli. Participants next completed a visual probe task in which the angry face CS+ and CS− stimuli were paired with angry face control stimuli and neutral faces. Results confirmed that differential fear conditioning was observed in the Shock group but not in the NoShock group, and that the Shock group subsequently showed a selective attentional bias for the angry face CS+ compared with the CS− and control stimuli during the visual probe task. The findings confirm the interplay between learning-based mechanisms and cognitive processes, such as attentional biases, in models of fear acquisition and have implications for treatment of the anxiety disorders.     

Sound to meaning correspondences facilitate word learning

A fundamental assumption regarding spoken language is that the relationship between sound and meaning is essentially arbitrary. The present investigation questioned this arbitrariness assumption by examining the influence of potential non-arbitrary mappings between sound and meaning on word learning in adults. Native English-speaking monolinguals learned meanings for Japanese words in a vocabulary-learning task. Spoken Japanese words were paired with English meanings that: (1) matched the actual meaning of the Japanese word (e.g., “hayai” paired with fast); (2) were antonyms for the actual meaning (e.g., “hayai” paired with slow); or (3) were randomly selected from the set of antonyms (e.g., “hayai” paired with blunt). The results showed that participants learned the actual English equivalents and antonyms for Japanese words more accurately and responded faster than when learning randomly paired meanings. These findings suggest that natural languages contain non-arbitrary links between sound structure and meaning and further, that learners are sensitive to these non-arbitrary relationships within spoken language.     

The effects of levels-of-processing and organization on conceptual implicit memory in the category exemplar production test

The distinction between item-specific and relational information (Hunt & Einstein, 1981) may be relevant to accounts of conceptual priming in the category exemplar production task. In three experiments, the implications of this hypothesis were tested by examining the effects of organization and levels-of-processing (LOP) on this implicit test. Consistent with the hypothesis, the effects of LOP were greater when study lists were organized by category than when they were presented randomly. Furthermore, when subjects claiming test awareness or intentional retrieval were excluded from the analysis, the LOP effect was reduced (and, in fact, eliminated) in the random list condition but remained robust in the categorized condition. Finally, the experimental design of the LOP manipulation (i.e., mixed-list within, blocked-list within, or between subjects) did not moderate the effects of LOP on this priming task.     

Response deprivation and instrumental performance in the controlled-amount paradigm

The response deprivation analysis, previously applied to a paradigm frequently used in free operant experiments, was applied successfully to another paradigm frequently used in discrete trials experiments. Each trial ended when the rat performed 1 lick at an empty tube (E), and either 10 or 100 licks at a second tube containing either saccharin (S) or water (W). Baseline trials were begun by exposing both tubes. Contigency trials required 1 instrumental E-lick for access to the second tube. Rate of instrumental responding, relative to baseline, was directly proportional to the value required if the subject were to perform the contingent licks at their baseline rates. The results also confirmed the predicted functional relations between the absolute rate of instrumental responding and the number of contingent S-licks, the number of contingent W-licks, and hours of water deprivation. Critical implications for the concept of instrumental reinforcement were discussed.     

Planned missing data designs in psychological research

The authors describe 2 efficiency (planned missing data) designs for measurement: the 3-form design and the 2-method measurement design. The 3-form design, a kind of matrix sampling, allows researchers to leverage limited resources to collect data for 33% more survey questions than can be answered by any 1 respondent. Power tables for estimating correlation effects illustrate the benefit of this design. The 2-method measurement design involves a relatively cheap, less valid measure of a construct and an expensive, more valid measure of the same construct. The cost effectiveness of this design stems from the fact that few cases have both measures, and many cases have just the cheap measure. With 3 brief simulations involving structural equation models, the authors show that compared with the same-cost complete cases design, a 2-method measurement design yields lower standard errors and a higher effective sample size for testing important study parameters. With a large cost differential between cheap and expensive measures and small effect sizes, the benefits of the design can be enormous. Strategies for using these 2 designs are suggested.