Conceptual information on objects' locations

According to traditional views, basic and subordinate concepts elicit perceptual information, superordinate concepts abstract information. Two experiments showed that also superordinate concepts activate perceptual and contextual information. In Experiment 1 participants evaluated the adequacy of Scene- and Object-like locations ascribed to basic and superordinate concepts. Superordinate concepts were judged faster when paired with Scene-like locations, where many exemplars can coexist, than with Object-like locations. The results were replicated and extended in the second experiment with a location production task. Theoretical accounts for the results are discussed.     

Electrophysiological indices of brain activity to "the" in discourse

In a first experiment, we recorded event-related-potentials (ERPs) to "the" followed by meaningful words (Story) versus "the" followed by nonsense syllables (Nonse). Left and right lateral anterior positivities (LAPs) were seen from the onset of "the" up to 200 ms in both conditions. Later than 200 ms following the onset of "the", the left and right LAPs continued for "the" in the Story, but were replaced by a negativity in the Nonse Condition. In a second experiment, ERPs were recorded to "the" in the Story and Nonse contexts mixed together under two different task instructions (attend to the auditory stimuli versus ignore the auditory stimuli). The same pattern of findings as Experiment 1 were observed for the Story and Nonse contexts when the participants attended to the auditory stimuli. Ignoring the auditory stimuli led to an attenuation of the right LAP, supporting the hypothesis that it is an index of discourse processing.     

Temporal control of conditioned responding in goldfish

The peak procedure was used to characterize response timing during acquisition and maintenance of conditioned responding in goldfish. Subjects received light-shock pairings with a 5- or 15-s interstimulus interval. On interspersed peak trials, the conditioned stimulus light was presented for 45 s and no shock was delivered. Peaks in the conditioned response, general activity, occurred at about the time of the expected unconditioned stimulus, and variability in the activity distribution was scalar. Modeling of the changes in the activity distributions over sessions revealed that the temporal features of the conditioned response changed very little during acquisition. The data suggest that times are learned early in training, and, contrary to I. P. Pavlov's (1927/1960) concept of "inhibition of delay," that timing is learning when to respond rather than learning when not to respond.     

The perception of distances and spatial relationships in natural outdoor environments

The ability of observers to perceive distances and spatial relationships in outdoor environments was investigated in two experiments. In experiment 1, the observers adjusted triangular configurations to appear equilateral, while in experiment 2, they adjusted the depth of triangles to match their base width. The results of both experiments revealed that there are large individual differences in how observers perceive distances in outdoor settings. The observers' judgments were greatly affected by the particular task they were asked to perform. The observers who had shown no evidence of perceptual distortions in experiment 1 (with binocular vision) demonstrated large perceptual distortions in experiment 2 when the task was changed to match distances in depth to frontal distances perpendicular to the observers' line of sight. Considered as a whole, the results indicate that there is no single relationship between physical and perceived space that is consistent with observers' judgments of distances in ordinary outdoor contexts.     

Relations Between Anxiety Sensitivity and Attachment Style Dimensions

This study replicated and extended the work of C. F. Weems, S. L. Berman, W. K. Silverman, and E. T. Rodriquez (2002) by investigating relations between anxiety sensitivity (AS) and attachment dimensions in a sample of young adults. Two hundred and twenty-six undergraduate students completed self-report measures including the Anxiety Sensitivity Index and the measure of adult romantic attachment used by C. F. Weems et al. (2002). In order to investigate the association between AS and a different domain of attachment, a measure of adult attachment referring to close relationships was included. As defined by both measures, insecurely attached individuals, specifically those classified as preoccupied and fearful (i.e., those with negative Models of Self), reported significantly higher levels of AS than those with secure and dismissing attachment styles (i.e., those with positive Models of Self). Results indicated that across both measures the Model of Self attachment dimension accounted for unique variance in AS levels beyond that contributed by trait anxiety. The Model of Others attachment dimension had a more limited association with AS.     

Generation of hypotheses in Wason's 2-4-6 task: an information theory approach.

We explored the "context of discovery" in Wason's 2-4-6 task, focusing on how the first hypothesis is generated. According to Oaksford and Chater (1994a) people generate hypotheses extracting "common features", or regularities, from the available triples, but their model does not explain why some regularities contribute to the hypothesis more than do other regularities. Our conjecture is that some regularities contribute to the hypothesis more than do other regularities because people estimate the amount of information in the perceived regularities and try to preserve as much information as possible in their initial hypotheses. Experiment 1, which used two initial triples, showed that the presence of high-information relational regularities in the initial triples affected the information in the initial hypotheses more than did the presence of low-information object regularities. Experiment 2 extended the results to the classic situation in which only one initial triple is given. It also suggested that amount of information is the only aspect of the structure of the triple that affects hypotheses generation. Experiment 3 confirmed the latter finding: Although relations are commonly distinguished between first-order and higher order relations, the latter being most important for generating hypotheses (Gentner, 1983), higher order relations do have an effect on Wason's 2-4-6 task only if their presence incre ases information. In the conclusion we discuss the statistical soundness of human hypotheses generation processes, and we ask an unanswered question: Amount of information explains why some regularities are preferred to others, but only within a set of "nonarbitrary" regularities; there are object regularities that are rich in information content, but are considered "arbitrary", and are not used in generating hypotheses. Which formal property can distinguish between these two sets of regularities?     

The ethical night of libertinism: Beauvoir’s reading of Sade

Continental Philosophy Review - This paper examines Simone de Beauvoir’s reading of the eighteenth century writer and libertine Marquis de Sade, in her essay “Must we Burn Sade?”;...     

Motivational interviewing for employment: An exploration of practitioner skill and client change talk

Motivational interviewing (MI) is an evidenced-based approach for building and strengthening motivation for change. The effect of MI training on practitioner conversations with unemployed clients within a government work and income service was evaluated using a mixed-method approach, comprising a multiple-baseline across practitioner (n = 5) design and a pre/post quasi-experimental design. After workshop MI training, practitioners demonstrated greater MI skills in conversations with clients, and MI skills were maintained during the period of post-workshop feedback and coaching. There was also more change talk spoken by clients in conversations that occurred post-MI workshop training compared to pre-training, suggesting increased motivation for change.     

National glorification and attachment differentially predict support for intergroup conflict resolution: Scrutinizing cross-country generalizability

Research on national identity distinguishes between national glorification and attachment. We tested whether glorification and attachment differentially predicted support for military and diplomatic conflict resolution strategies (CRS) in response to international conflicts. Using data collected in seven countries (Australia, United States, United Kingdom, France, Germany, Israel, China; total N = 1784), we investigated whether glorification and attachment can be equivalently measured (using tests of measurement invariance) and whether their relationships with CRS were generalizable across countries. The results revealed metric, but not scalar, measurement invariance of the two-factor structure of national identification across six countries, excluding China. Among these six countries, glorification predicted more support for military CRS, whereas attachment predicted more support for diplomatic CRS. Our study is novel in scrutinizing the cross-cultural generalizability of the bi-dimensional model of national identification. Implications for studying national identification and intergroup conflict cross-culturally are discussed.     

Parenting stress and competence among mothers of young children with substance use disorders: The roles of trauma and reflective functioning

Posttraumatic stress symptoms are prominent in the lives of parents of young children with substance use disorders (SUD). Parenting experiences, particularly stress and competence, impact parenting behaviors and concomitant child growth and development. Factors that promote positive experiences of parenting, such as parental reflective functioning (PRF), and protect the mother and child from negative outcomes are crucial to understand to develop effective therapeutic interventions. The current US study analyzed baseline data from a parenting intervention evaluation to examine how length of substance misuse, PRF, and trauma symptoms were associated with parenting stress and parenting sense of competence among mothers in treatment for SUDs. Measures included the Addiction Severity Index, PTSD Symptom Scale-Self Report, Parental Reflective Functioning Questionnaire, Parenting Stress Index/Short Form, and Parenting Sense of Competence Scale. The sample included 54 predominantly White mothers with SUDs who had young children. Two multivariate regression analyses found that (1) lower parental reflective functioning and higher posttraumatic stress symptoms were associated with higher parenting stress, and (2) only higher posttraumatic stress symptoms were associated with lower levels of parenting sense of competence. Findings underscore the importance of addressing trauma symptoms and PRF when aiming to improve parenting experiences for women with an SUD.