Lessons Learned from the National Arts and Youth Demonstration Project: Longitudinal Study of a Canadian After-School Program

We discuss some of the lessons the investigators learned during the development, implementation, and dissemination phases of the National Arts and Youth Demonstration Project (NAYDP). The lessons learned are relevant to various groups involved in large-scale, multi-site, community-based intervention studies: parents, youth, researchers, project staff, policy makers, and funders. Specific lessons learned include: (1) how to engage the community; (2) methodological lessons, including cross-site training and monitoring adherence to research protocol; (3) recruiting and sustaining involvement of parents and youth; (4) program development; and (5) dissemination strategies.     

Attentional control and reflexive orienting to gaze and arrow cues

A wealth of data indicate that central spatially nonpredictive eyes and arrows trigger very similar reflexive spatial orienting, although the effects of eyes may be more strongly reflexive (e.g., Friesen, Ristic, & Kingstone, 2004). Pratt and Hommel (2003) recently reported that the orienting effect for arrows is sensitive to arbitrary cue-target color contingencies; for example, an attentional orienting effect for blue colored arrows is evident only for blue targets. We reasoned that if the orienting effect elicited by eye direction is more strongly reflexive than the orienting effect elicited by arrow direction, it follows that eyes, unlike arrows, may trigger orienting effects that generalize across congruent and incongruent cue-target color contingencies. Replicating Pratt and Hommel (2003), we found that the reflexive attention effect elicited by arrows is specific to color-congruent target stimuli. The attention effect triggered by eyes, however, generalizes across color-congruent and color-incongruent target stimuli. These data support the hypothesis that eye direction and arrow direction trigger similar reflexive shifts in spatial attention, but that the attention effect triggered by eye direction is more strongly reflexive.     

Clients with borderline personality disorder: Exploring their experiences of dialectical behaviour therapy

This study explores clients’ experiences of Dialectical Behavioural Therapy (DBT). Five participants, all with a diagnosis of borderline personality disorder, were interviewed following a semi‐structured format about their experiences of an NHS regional DBT programme. The interviews were transcribed and analysed using Interpretative Phenomenological Analysis (IPA). Three superordinate themes were identified consisting of a number of sub themes: joining a DBT Programme (external and internal factors); experience of DBT (specific and non specific factors); and evaluation of DBT (change, evaluation and role of the past and future). The study provides an insight into clients’ experiences of DBT. The results are discussed in relation to clinical practice and future research.     

Calculating nominal group statistics in collaboration studies

In many areas of psychology researchers compare the output of pairs of people with people working individually. This is done by calculating estimates for nominal groups, the output of two individuals if they had worked together. The way this is often done is by creating a single set of pairs either randomly or based on their location in a data file. This paper shows that this approach introduces unnecessary error. Two alternatives are developed and described. The first calculates statistics for all permissible sets of pairs. Unfortunately the number of sets is too large for modern computers for moderate sample sizes. The second alternative calculates statistics on all possible pairs. Several simulations are reported which show that both methods provide good estimates for the mean and trimmed mean. However, the all pairs procedure provides a biased estimate of the variance. Based on simulations, an adjustment is recommended for estimating the variance. Functions in S-Plus/R are provided in an appendix and are available from the author's Web page along with updates and alternatives (www.sussex.ac.uk/users/danw/s-plus/ngstats.htm).     

DEWEX: A system for designing and conducting Web-based experiments

DEWEX is a server-based environment for developing Web-based experiments. It provides many features for creating and running complex experimental designs on a local server. It is freeware and allows for both using default features, for which only text input is necessary, and easy configurations that can be set up by the experimenter. The tool also provides log files on the local server that can be interpreted and analyzed very easily. As an illustration of how DEWEX can be used, a recent study is presented that demonstrates the system’s most important features. This study investigated learning from multiple hypertext sources and shows the influences of task, source of information, and hypertext presentation format on the construction of mental representations of a hypertext about a historical event.     

Beyond unusual? Examining the role of attention in the weapon focus effect

The current study examined whether the weapon focus effect could be accounted for in terms of stimulus novelty. Participants viewed a slideshow of a simulated event while attending to a secondary task. In the critical slide, the target was shown holding a threatening object (weapon condition), a novel object (unusual condition) or a neutral object (control condition). Reaction times on the secondary task were impaired in the weapon and unusual conditions. Participants in the weapon condition had poorest recognition scores for the target's appearance when confidence was also taken into account. Results suggest that while both unusual and threatening objects command attention, the significance of a weapon can lead to impaired performance on less immediately informative aspects of a scene such as target appearance. Copyright © 2006 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Accurate second guesses in misinformation studies

The reason why misleading post-event information affects later recollections is the subject of a heated debate within cognitive psychology. One series of studies that is often cited is when subjects are allowed a second guess. Loftus (1979) found that the second guesses of errant misled subjects were not above chance levels. This, she argued, suggests that the memory for the original information cannot be accessed at testing. Four studies are reported in which subjects were allowed second guesses. In these studies errant misled subjects second guesses were better than chance. We discuss how these findings inform the debate about why misinformation affects memory.     

Writing therapy in brief workplace counselling: Collaborative writing as inquiry

The purpose of this collaborative research was to reflect on one client's experience of using writing therapy during brief workplace counselling. The client/co‐researcher used expressive and creative writing between counselling sessions, the benefits of which are reported. A brief review of the literature on writing therapy is provided. The focus of the study is on investigating the process of writing therapy from the client's point of view. The epistemological assumptions and research methods are influenced by narrative inquiry. Feminist values inform both the therapeutic practice and research.