Collaboration in associative recognition memory: using recalled information to defend "new" judgments

S. E. Clark, A. Hori, A. Putnam, and T. J. Martin (2000) showed that collaboration on a recognition memory task produced facilitation in recognition of targets but had inconsistent and sometimes negative effects regarding distractors. They accounted for these results within the framework of a dual-process, recall-plus-familiarity model but showed only weak evidence to support it. The present results of 3 experiments present stronger evidence for Clark et al.'s dual-process view and also show why such evidence is difficult to obtain.     

Interpretive biases in chronic insomnia: an investigation using a priming paradigm

Disorder-congruent interpretations of ambiguous stimuli characterize several psychological disorders and have been implicated in their maintenance. Models of insomnia have highlighted the importance of cognitive processes, but the possibility that biased interpretations are important has been minimally investigated. Hence, a priming methodology was employed to investigate the presence of an interpretive bias in insomnia. A sample of 78 participants, differing in the presence of a diagnosis of insomnia, severity of sleep disturbance, and sleepiness, was required to read ambiguous sentences and make a lexical decision about target words that followed. Sleepiness at the time of the experiment was associated with the likelihood with which participants made insomnia and threat consistent interpretations of ambiguous sentences. The results suggest that there is a general bias towards threatening interpretations when individuals are sleepy and suggests that cognitive accounts of insomnia require revision to include a role for interpretative bias when people are sleepy. Future research is required to investigate whether this interpretive bias plays a causal role in the maintenance of insomnia.     

Assigning Grammatical Gender During Word Production

The present study was designed to examine the processes by which grammatical gender is assigned during word production. French words varied in strength of sublexical cues, based on whether the word ending was typical for one gender rather than neutral about gender, and lexical cues, derived from the associated definite article being uninformative about gender for words beginning with a vowel, but informative for words beginning with a consonant. In Experiment 1, when native French speakers classified the gender of mentally evoked names of pictures, no effects of these cues were obtained. Experiment 2 used an improved methodology, with participants classifying the gender of words translated from English. English-speaking learners of French were influenced strongly by lexical and sublexical cues, while French speakers showed a weaker influence. However, for both speaker groups, words whose gender was classified slowly during recognition were also classified slowly during production, and error rates were similarly correlated across tasks. The conclusion was that gender is not equally available for all words once the associated “lemma” is accessed. Current models of language production may have to incorporate mechanisms allowing differential speed of access to gender information depending on a word’s formal properties.     

Six-year follow-up of three treatment programs to personality disorder

Previous studies of long-term outcome for personality disorder (PD) were either retrospective in design or did not include a control condition. In this paper we report results for three PD cohorts (N = 111) treated in two different specialist psychosocial programs (step-down and long-term inpatient) and in general psychiatric treatment as usual (TAU), which were prospectively followed up for 72-months after intake. The three PD samples were compared on symptom severity, social adjustment, global functioning and other clinical indicators (self-mutilation, parasuicide and readmission rates) at intake, 6, 12, 24, and 72 months. Results indicated that a specialist step-down model showed significantly greater change than a purely inpatient model and TAU in most key dimensions of functioning, a difference maintained at 72-months follow-up. Improvement in the samples was not associated with amount of intercurrent treatment received in the year prior to the follow-up assessment. This study confirms that a step-down program retains significant improvement associated with a specialist psychosocial approach for PD. However, this conclusion should be qualified by design limitations. The samples were not randomly allocated to the three conditions and the naturalistic geographical allocation used in the study created a potential for a number of confounds. Whilst we used extensive statistical controls, the possibility that the differences found between the groups may be due to population differences cannot be discounted.     

Mortality Differentials and Religion in the U.S.: Religious Affiliation and Attendance

Using data from the Health and Retirement Study, I examine the relationship between adult mortality and religious affiliation. I test whether mortality differences associated with religious affiliation can be attributed to differences in socioeconomic status (years of education and household wealth), attendance at religious services, or health behaviors, particularly cigarette and alcohol consumption. A baseline report of attendance at religious services is used to avoid confounding effects of deteriorating health. Socioeconomic status explains some but not all of the mortality difference. While Catholics, Evangelical Protestants, and Black Protestants benefit from favorable attendance patterns, attendance (or lack of) at services explains much of the higher mortality of those with no religious preference. Health behaviors do not mediate the relationship between mortality and religion, except among Evangelical Protestants. Not only does religion matter, but studies examining the effect of "religiosity" need to consider differences by religious affiliation.     

A smart unconscious? Procedural origins of automatic partner attitudes in marriage

The paper examines potential origins of automatic (i.e., unconscious) attitudes toward one’s marital partner. It tests the hypothesis that early experiences in conflict-of-interest situations predict one’s later automatic inclination to approach (or avoid) the partner. A longitudinal study linked daily experiences in conflict-of-interest situations in the initial months of new marriages to automatic evaluations of the partner assessed four years later using the Implicit Associations Test. The results revealed that partners who were initially (1) treated less responsively and (2) evidenced more self-protective and less connectedness-promoting “if-then” contingencies in their thoughts and behavior later evidenced less positive automatic partner attitudes. However, these factors did not predict changes in love, satisfaction, or explicit beliefs about the partner. The findings hint at the existence of a “smart” relationship unconscious that captures behavioral realities conscious reflection can miss.     

Parental Influence on Children with Attention-Deficit/Hyperactivity Disorder: I. Relationships Between Parent Behaviors and Child Peer Status

We examined associations between children’s peer relationships and (a) their parents’ social competence as well as (b) their parents’ behaviors during the children’s peer interactions. Participants were families of 124 children ages 6–10 (68% male), 62 with ADHD and 62 age- and sex-matched comparison youth. Children’s peer relationships were assessed via parent and teacher report, and sociometric nominations in a lab-based playgroup. Parental characteristics were assessed via parent self-report and observations of behavior during their child’s playgroup. After statistical control of relevant covariates, parents of children with ADHD reported poorer social skills of their own, arranged fewer playdates for their children, and displayed more criticism during their child’s peer interaction than did parents of comparison youth. Parents’ socialization with other parents and facilitation of the child’s peer interactions predicted their children having good peer relationships as reported by teachers and peers, whereas parental corrective feedback to the child and praise predicted poor peer relationships. Parents’ ratings of their child’s social skills were positively associated with ratings of their own social skills, but negatively associated with criticism and facilitation of the child’s peer interactions. Relationships between parental behaviors and peer relationships were stronger for youth with ADHD than for comparison youth. The relevance of findings to interventions is discussed.     

The change-of-standard effect: Distorted standards and adjusted impressions

Previous accounts of the memory distortion known as the change-of-standard effect hypothesize that participants form a relative impression of a target at encoding and later use that impression with the average of all items to recall the target (Higgins & Lurie, 1983). In three experiments, we investigated the standard and the integration of the standard with the relative impression. Experiments 1 and 2 show that participants’ subjective average at recall is distorted toward recent stimuli: It is computed when required and is therefore affected by the items’ accessibility at that time. Furthermore, the impression’s influence on recall is relatively small when the context changes between encoding and decoding. Experiment 3 shows that this change in the impression’s influence occurs only when the participant integrates information across sessions, suggesting that such tasks make participants aware of the changed context and cause them to adjust the use of their impression in recalling the target.     

Governing therapy choices: Power/Knowledge in the treatment of progressive renal failure

This article outlines the struggle between the power of the health care professional and the rights of the individual to choose freely a modality of treatment. Nurses are instrumental in assisting patients in making the best decision for a therapy they will have to assume for the rest of their lives. In guiding patients' decision, nurses must take into account these unavoidable contingencies: changes in lifestyle, nutritional restrictions, level of acceptance, compliance issues, ease of training and availability of support/facilities. Ensuring that the patient makes an informed decision is therefore an ongoing challenge for nurses as they are taking part in a delicate balancing act between not directly influencing the patient's decision while making sure the patient is accurately informed.     

Reflecting on imagery: A clinical perspective and overview of the special issue of Memory on mental imagery and memory in psychopathology

The authors provide an overview of the papers in the special issue of Memory on mental imagery and memory in psychopathology. The papers address emotional, intrusive mental imagery across a range of psychological disorders including post‐traumatic stress disorder (PTSD), agoraphobia, body dysmorphic disorder, mood disorders, and psychosis. They include work on information processing issues including modelling cravings, conditioning, and aversions, as well as imagery qualities such as vividness and emotionality. The overview aims to place the articles in a broader context and draw out some exciting implications of this novel work. It provides a clinical context to the recent growth in this area from a cognitive behavioural therapy (CBT) perspective. We begin with PTSD, and consider links to imagery in other disorders. The clinical implications stemming from this empirical work and from autobiographical memory theory are discussed. These include consideration of a variety of techniques for eliminating troublesome imagery, and creating healthy, realistic alternatives.