Opposite developmental trends for false recognition of basic and superordinate names

This study investigated the development of false memories for basic and superordinate names using the DRM procedure. Two experiments were conducted with younger (3–5 years old) and older (10–12 years old) children. In the first experiment the DRM procedure was used with categorised lists and in the second experiment both types of lists—categorised and associative—were applied. False recognition for basic and superordinate names showed opposite developmental trends, regardless of list type. False recognition increased for critical-basic items and decreased for critical-superordinate items with age. These opposing results are mainly explained by age differences in conceptual knowledge and editing processes.     

Retrieval dynamics in false recall: revelations from identifiability manipulations

The present study analyzed the retrieval dynamics of false recall, using an externalized free-recall task after participants studied Deese/Roediger–McDermott lists with high- and low-identifiable critical words. In Experiment 1, the memory test required participants to write down the words they remembered as having been presented in each list (recall output) plus any related words that came to mind (inclusion output). The results of the inclusion output showed that highly identifiable critical items were more frequently generated than less identifiable critical items, suggesting that highly identifiable critical words were more accessible in a first phase of retrieval. At the same time, the results of the recall output showed that highly identifiable critical items were less often falsely recalled than low-identifiable critical items, a replication of previous findings. In Experiment 2, self-reports corroborated that participants were using an editing strategy based on the identification and exclusion of critical words—that is, the identify-to-reject strategy. These results help us to more fully understand the identifiability effect and, beyond that, emphasize the importance of considering the intervening of dual processes of accessibility and error correction as a crucial feature in theoretical explanations of false memories.     

The First Twenty Years of the Will and the Ways: An Examination of Score Reliability Distribution on Snyder’s Dispositional Hope Scale

C. R. Snyder has established hope theory as an important contributor to positive psychology. As the empirical evidence continues to grow, hope researchers need to have confidence that their measures will produce reliable scores. This study presents a reliability generalization on both the internal consistency and test–retest reliability estimates from Snyder’s dispositional hope scale. While over 300 published works were found to have cited the target article 74 present internal consistency scores and 17 reported scores for test–retest reliability. The results of the reliability generalization suggest support for the score reliabilities produced by the dispositional hope scale. However, internal consistency was higher for studies using the eight-item response format (α = 0.82) compared to those using the four-item response format (α = 0.77). Additionally, the test–retest score reliability was high 0.80 with no statistically significant differences by response format. Findings also demonstrated that score reliability estimates were not significantly influenced by the coded sample characteristics.     

Subjective Difficulty of Movements With Ongoing Visual Control

Objective difficulty of a single-component visually controlled movement may be defined by Fitts's (1954) Index of Difficulty, which is a measure of difficulty in the sense that movement time is linearly related to the objective measure. For movements that have multiple components, it becomes difficult to determine an objective measure of task difficulty due to unknown interactions between components of the movement and interactions with other factors. Thus, it may be necessary to use indirect methods for allocating a measure of task difficulty. The purpose of the study was to determine whether participants could validly construct a subjective measure of the movement difficulty and whether this measure was related to the known objective measure of difficulty. Experiments showed that for single-component movements, there was a close relationship between measures of subjective and objective difficulty. With two-component visually controlled movements it was found that subjective difficulty could be related to objective difficulty, but not as simply as for single-component tasks.     

Maturational Changes in Canadian Adolescents' Cognitive Attitudinal Structure Concerning Marijuana

Thirty-four items concerning marijuana use were administered three times to a cohort of Canadian high school students between Grades 11 and 13, in 1977 (n = 439), 1978 (n = 419), and 1979 (n = 167). These items were designed to measure four distinct constructs: attitude, perceived peer approval or disapproval, concern about risks, and symbolic protest against conventional society. A cross-sectional factor analysis of the Grade 13 data supported the hypothesized factor structure, as had earlier work with college students. However, analogous analyses on the Grade 11 and Grade 12 data contradicted the hypothesized factor structure. Most notably, separate factors for positive and negative attitude appeared in the Grade 11 and 12 analyses. The data were interpreted primarily in terms of maturational changes, largely through elimination of alternative interpretations by internal analyses and previous findings. Implications were discussed for adolescent cognitive-attitudinal development, attitude theory, and analysis of panel data.     

Testing a Theoretical Model Based on Social Cognitive Theory for Media Influences on Suicidal Ideation: Results from a Panel Study

The influence of media representations of suicides on the subsequent increase of suicide rate has been researched for decades. Yet the underlying psychological mechanism of such media influences on individual's suicidality remains uncertain. Based on the conceptual framework of social cognitive theory, this article discusses the operationalization of media influences on suicidal ideation by using a psychometric approach. It then develops and tests a theoretical model to explain the mechanism of media influences on suicidal ideation. A two-wave panel study with a randomized population sample was carried out in the Hong Kong SAR, China with the results indicating that the proposed operationalization closely fit the data collected and empirically supported the theoretical model. Reciprocal associations between prior suicidal ideation and processes of media influences were also confirmed. The results also tested the factorial invariance across age groups and different pre-existing levels of suicidal ideation. This study reports the first individual-level finding on the theoretical relationship between media influences and suicidal ideation, as well as the first psychometrically validated operationalization of media influences on suicidal ideation.     

汉语阅读障碍儿童的阅读流畅性研究

采用篇章朗读任务,探讨了词汇的获得年龄与句子长度对10名阅读障碍儿童与10名普通儿童阅读流畅性的影响。结果发现,阅读障碍儿童的阅读流畅性比普通儿童差,表现为朗读时间更长,准确性差,出现更多的省略错误、替代错误、添加错误。词汇获得年龄和句子长度对阅读障碍儿童的阅读流畅性都有显著的影响,随着单字词加工难度增加,句长效应被放大。词汇获得年龄影响替代错误的发生,句子长度影响省略错误的发生。     

Happy Family Kitchen: Behavioral Outcomes of a Brief Community-Based Family Intervention in Hong Kong

Positive psychology interventions commonly involve behavioral exercises to improve psychosocial well-being. Intervention effect on behavior is unclear. The Happy Family Kitchen project, one of the community-based brief intervention projects under The FAMILY: A Jockey Club Initiative for a Harmonious Society, was conducted in Hong Kong to develop and evaluate the effectiveness of a positive psychology family intervention. We have previously reported positive intervention effects on family communication, family well-being, and subjective happiness. This paper aims to explore the effectiveness of the intervention on behavioral outcomes and their associations with psychosocial well-being. A total of 23 social service units organized and conducted intervention programs for 1419 individuals from 612 families in Hong Kong. Each intervention was developed with emphasis on one of five positive psychology themes: gratitude, flow, happiness, health, and savoring. Intervention outcomes were assessed at pre-intervention, immediate post-intervention, and 6 weeks and 12 weeks post-intervention. Results showed that family communication time and frequency of meal preparation with family members increased with sustainable small effects up to 12 weeks. Theme-specific behavior change was observed in the gratitude, flow, and happiness interventions, respectively. Family communication time, frequency of eating with family members, and theme-specific behaviors, including gratitude, flow, happiness behavior, health attitude, and health behavior, were positively associated with psychosocial well-being. Qualitative data provided additional evidence of effectiveness with in-depth insights into behavior change. The positive associations between target behaviors and well-being suggest that improvements in well-being as a function of the intervention may be associated with behavior change.     

Cross‐Linguistic Differences in Digit Memory Span

This study investigated whether the better performance of the Chinese in digit memory span tasks was due only to the shorter pronunciation duration of Chinese digit names, or to enhanced visuospatial sketchpad abilities, or to both. Results of the experiment showed that the Chinese outperformed their Malay counterparts in digit memory span tasks because Chinese digit names had shorter pronunciation durations than Malay digit names and not because the Chinese had better visuospatial sketchpad abilities than the Malays. The results thus support Baddeley's phonological loop hypothesis as an account for cross‐linguistic differences in digit memory spans. Because memory traces are subject to decay and the phonological store is temporally limited, the shorter the pronunciation duration of digit names in a language, the more digits one can rehearse within a limited time period, and therefore the larger is one's short‐term digit span in that language.     

Bootstrap standard error and confidence intervals for the correlations corrected for indirect range restriction

The standard Pearson correlation coefficient, r, is a biased estimator of the population correlation coefficient, ρ(XY) , when predictor X and criterion Y are indirectly range-restricted by a third variable Z (or S). Two correction algorithms, Thorndike's (1949) Case III, and Schmidt, Oh, and Le's (2006) Case IV, have been proposed to correct for the bias. However, to our knowledge, the two algorithms did not provide a procedure to estimate the associated standard error and confidence intervals. This paper suggests using the bootstrap procedure as an alternative. Two Monte Carlo simulations were conducted to systematically evaluate the empirical performance of the proposed bootstrap procedure. The results indicated that the bootstrap standard error and confidence intervals were generally accurate across simulation conditions (e.g., selection ratio, sample size). The proposed bootstrap procedure can provide a useful alternative for the estimation of the standard error and confidence intervals for the correlation corrected for indirect range restriction.