Use of the everyday memory questionnaire with children.

The Everyday Memory Questionnaire (EMQ; Sunderland, Harris, & Baddeley, 1983) was examined for its suitability to assess children's memory. The parents of 226 school children (6-12 years) completed the EMQ in relation to their own children. A subset of these children (N = 101), in 6, 8 and 10 years age groups, completed subtests of the Wide Range Assessment of Memory and Learning (WRAML; Sheslow & Adams, 1990). Comparison of EMQ and WRAML data found aspects of verbal memory correlated moderately with the EMQ in the 10 years age group. There were no meaningful correlations in the 8 years age group. In the 6 years age group aspects of visual memory correlated moderately with the EMQ. The diagnostic utility of the EMQ for children was assessed by comparing the school group to children diagnosed with ADHD and/or learning disorders. Diagnostic indicators revealed the EMQ to have high sensitivity (89%) but poor positive predictive power, identifying 40% of the school group as having memory deficits. Negative predictive power (confirming a negative diagnosis) was high. Validity data suggested that the EMQ could be useful with children at least as young as 10 years and further research needs to be conducted to establish the utility of the EMQ in clinical groups with primary memory deficits.     

Psychometric and behavioral measures of central auditory function: the relationship between dichotic listening and digit span tasks.

We hypothesized that the Digit Span (DS) subtest and component tasks (Wechsler, 1991) would show strong relationships with a dichotic listening test (Musiek, 1983). In two sets of archival clinical data (N = 74 and N = 51) we demonstrated that: (a) individuals with central auditory deficits had lower DS scores, F(1, 72) = 7.34, p = .008; eta2 = .09; and (b) left-ear dichotic deficits impacted forward span, F(2, 48) = 8.45, p = .001. Right-ear dichotic listening performance also accounted for significant variance in digit forward span (R2 = 0.17, p = .003). While limited in scope, the studies conclude that forward but not reverse span performance is strongly related to dichotic listening, and can serve as a marker for possible central auditory deficits.     

Coh-Metrix: Analysis of text on cohesion and language

Advances in computational linguistics and discourse processing have made it possible to automate many language- and text-processing mechanisms. We have developed a computer tool called Coh-Metrix, which analyzes texts on over 200 measures of cohesion, language, and readability. Its modules use lexicons, part-of-speech classifiers, syntactic parsers, templates, corpora, latent semantic analysis, and other components that are widely used in computational linguistics. After the user enters an English text, Coh-Metrix returns measures requested by the user. In addition, a facility allows the user to store the results of these analyses in data files (such as Text, Excel, and SPSS). Standard text readability formulas scale texts on difficulty by relying on word length and sentence length, whereas Coh-Metrix is sensitive to cohesion relations, world knowledge, and language and discourse characteristics.     

Berufsbezogene Werthaltungen

Job related work values were assessed in 68 participants of a psychotherapy training program and 30 students of two management courses. All three were academic based programs. Two inventories were used to identify potential differences, namely the Work Values Inventory (Seifert and Bergmann 1983) and the Questionnaire on Work and Job Related Behavior and Emotion Patterns (Schaarschmidt and Fischer 1996). There were significant group differences concerning job involvement, ambition, need for change and autonomy, willingness for overexertion, ability to keep distance and work values oriented toward income and career. No differences were found concerning the subjective importance of work, the tendency to resignation, the quality of life, the experience of social support and values related to work climate. These findings corroborate some of the stereotypes associated with these two areas of work.     

Spirituality and Cardiovascular Risk

This study extended current research linking spirituality to health by investigating the relationship between extrinsic and intrinsic spirituality and cardiovascular risk factors. Participants included 111 healthy males and females, ages 28 to 63. Measurements consisted of the Lifestyle Assessment Questionnaire (LAQ), a version of Kelly's Repertory Grid, hematological analysis, and blood pressure. A greater sense of spirituality was associated with lower cholesterol risk ratios (total cholesterol/HDL) and triglyceride levels. In addition, the structural or organizational characteristics of intrinsic spirituality were associated with several other hematological measures. Further research will help clarify the association between mechanisms underlying spirituality and health, including susceptibility to cardiovascular disorders.     

Multilevel Analysis of a Measure of Community Prevention Collaboration

This study assesses a measure of community-wide collaboration on prevention-specific activities (i.e., prevention collaboration) in context of the theory of community change used in the Communities That Care prevention system. Using data from a sample of 599 community leaders across 41 communities, we examined the measure with regard to its factor structure, associations with other concurrent community-level measures, and prediction by individual- and community-level characteristics. Results of multilevel confirmatory factor analysis provide evidence for the construct validity of the measure and indicate significant (p < .05) associations with concurrent validity criteria. Female community leaders reported significantly higher levels of prevention collaboration and community leaders sampled from religious organizations reported lower levels of prevention collaboration than did their respective counterparts. Although no community-level characteristics were associated significantly with prevention collaboration, community clustering accounted for 20-28% of the total variation in the measure. Findings support the use of this measure in assessing the importance of collaboration in community-based prevention initiatives.     

Narcissism and self-presentation: The moderating effects of accountability and contingencies of self-worth

Using email, we investigated intra- and inter-personal variables that may influence self-presentational behavior of those high in narcissism. Participants rated themselves in domains requiring either external validation (e.g., attractiveness) or internal validation (e.g., morality), when either accountable or non-accountable to an evaluative audience. When degree of external self-worth contingency [Crocker, J., Luhtanen, R. K., Cooper, M. L., & Bouvrette, S. (2003). Contingencies of self-worth in college students: Theory and measurement. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 85, 894–908.] was high, those high in narcissism presented themselves in a self-enhancing manner in external domains, even when accountable, whereas those low in narcissism were more modest when accountable. Those high in narcissism may be chronically vigilant for self-enhancement opportunities, especially in external domains where their self-worth is contingent, but may be insensitive to social constraints and norms in their efforts to construct grandiose identities.     

The initial capitalization superiority effect in German: evidence for a perceptual frequency variant of the orthographic cue hypothesis of visual word recognition

A perceptual frequency variant of the orthographic cue (OC) hypothesis (Peressotti, Cubelli, & Job, 2003) was tested in two perceptual identification experiments using the variable viewing position technique: German nouns and non-nouns that are most frequently perceived with or without initial letter capitalization, respectively, were tachistoscopically presented in upper-case, lower-case, or with initial capitalization. The results indicated that words were best recognized in the form they are most frequently perceived in, which suggests that during reading acquisition abstract as well as case- and item-specific OCs may be learned and used for recognition.