Context cue focality influences strategic prospective memory monitoring

Monitoring the environment for the occurrence of prospective memory (PM) targets is a resource-demanding process that produces cost (e.g., slower responding) to ongoing activities. However, research suggests that individuals are able to monitor strategically by using contextual cues to reduce monitoring in contexts in which PM targets are not expected to occur. In the current study, we investigated the processes supporting context identification (i.e., determining whether or not the context is appropriate for monitoring) by testing the context cue focality hypothesis. This hypothesis predicts that the ability to monitor strategically depends on whether the ongoing task orients attention to the contextual cues that are available to guide monitoring. In Experiment 1, participants performed an ongoing lexical decision task and were told that PM targets (TOR syllable) would only occur in word trials (focal context cue condition) or in items starting with consonants (nonfocal context cue condition). In Experiment 2, participants performed an ongoing first letter judgment (consonant/vowel) task and were told that PM targets would only occur in items starting with consonants (focal context cue condition) or in word trials (nonfocal context cue condition). Consistent with the context cue focality hypothesis, strategic monitoring was only observed during focal context cue conditions in which the type of ongoing task processing automatically oriented attention to the relevant features of the contextual cue. These findings suggest that strategic monitoring is dependent on limited-capacity processing resources and may be relatively limited when the attentional demands of context identification are sufficiently high.     

Using another's gaze as an explicit aid to insight problem solving

Research has shown that implicitly guiding attention via visual cues or unrelated tasks can increase the likelihood of solving insight problems. We examined whether following another person making specific skin-crossing saccades could induce similar attentional shifts and increase solution rates for Duncker's ((1945)) radiation problem. We presented 150 participants with one of three 30-s eye movement patterns from another problem solver: (a) focusing solely on the central tumour; (b) naturally making skin-crossing saccades between the outside area and the tumour from multiple angles; or (c) making deliberate skin-crossing saccades between the outside area and the tumour from multiple angles. Following another person making skin-crossing saccades increased the likelihood of solving the radiation problem. Our results demonstrate that another person's eye movements can promote attentional shifts that trigger insight problem solving.     

Explaining away the negative effects of evaluation on analogical transfer: the perils of premature evaluation

Four experiments explored effects on analogical transfer of evaluating solutions to base problems. In contrast to reports of positive effects of explanation, evaluation consistently reduced transfer rates and impaired mental representations of base material. This effect was not ameliorated by encoding for a later memory test, summarizing, or engaging in similar processes at encoding and recall. However, providing a prior explanation task removed the inhibitory effect of evaluation. It appears that evaluation leads to encoding of extraneous material that interferes with access to solution-critical analogous information. Prior explanation inoculates against negative effects on transfer by ensuring that new information introduced via evaluation is organized around existing representations of relevant information of the base problem. The results suggest that the source of difficulty in analogical transfer may reside not only in retrieval and mapping but also in the initial encoding of problems.     

Contingency experiences of 3-month-old children and their relation to later developmental achievements

In this study, the authors investigated the relation between early social contingency experiences and infants' competencies to detect nonsocial contingencies. In this study of 87 three-month-old infants, the authors operationalized early social contingencies as prompt, contingent maternal responses and coded microanalytically on the basis of video-recorded mother-infant interactions. The authors assessed competence to detect nonsocial contingencies by 2 methods: (a) the mobile conjugate reinforcement paradigm, which focuses on detecting contingencies between the infants' actions (kicking) and nonsocial consequences (mobile moving) and (b) the visual expectation paradigm, which focuses on detecting contingencies between 1 event (a smiley face projected on a screen) that was followed by a 2nd event (a complex picture projected on the other side of the screen). The results showed that early social contingencies are related to the competency to detect nonsocial action-consequence contingencies in the mobile conjugate reinforcement paradigm.     

Mean Beck Depression Inventory-II scores of outpatients with dysthymic or recurrent-episode major depressive disorders

The Beck Depression Inventory-II, published in 1996, was administered to 100 adult outpatients (Age M=43.1 yr., SD=15.6) who were diagnosed with a recurrent-episode Major Depressive Disorder and 100 outpatients (Age M=42.8 yr., SD=15.7) who were diagnosed with a Dysthymic Disorder. Each diagnostic group was composed of 50 men and 50 women who did not have a comorbid depressive disorder. The mean Beck Depression Inventory-II total score and the mean number of symptoms endorsed by the outpatients with a Major Depressive Disorder were significantly (ps<.001) higher than those for outpatients with a Dysthymic Disorder. The usefulness of the Beck Depression Inventory-II was discussed in helping clinicians discriminate between these two unipolar disorders.     

Rates of personality disorders in substance abusers: a comparison between DSM-III-R and DSM-IV

The publication of the DSM-IV represents the first revision in 7 years to the DSM-III-R diagnostic criteria. The purpose of the current study is to evaluate the impact of changes to the Axis II criteria on diagnostic rates in a substance abusing population. We interviewed 370 patients entering treatment using a modified version of the SCID-II, which allowed for the diagnosis of both DSM-III-R and DSM-IV Axis II diagnoses. Prevalence rates for each Axis II disorder are given, as well as kappa statistics showing diagnostic agreement between the two systems. The results of this study indicate good rates of diagnostic agreement between the two systems with a few notable exceptions. Poor rates of diagnostic agreement were obtained for the histrionic and dependent diagnostic categories. No single diagnostic change appears to be responsible for the prevalence rate differences between the two systems.     

Masking of motion by broadband and filtered directional noise

Observers detected unidirectional motion of isotropic dotpatterns following exposure to (1) broadband noise containing all directions of motion, or (2) noise from which certain sets of direction had been filtered. The amount of maskingvaried withtheset of directions filtered from the noise, yielding broad directional tuning functions. The breadth of an observers’s tuning function corresponded to the precision with which the observer could recognize small differences in direction of motion.     

The Gesell developmental schedules: Arnold Gesell (1880–1961)

Conclusion It is quite possible that the suggested changing nature of mental ability may have an explanation in the selection of items in the four original schedules set up by Gesell and in their scoring usage. Most studies of these tests give them small credit for later predictive value, stating their value lies in neurologic and intellectual evaluation of the infant at the time of testing, rather than any agreement with later tests as the infant matures.Later and more extended evaluation of the test items indicates that if they were treated with modern methods of scoring and standardization they might yield results that would give predictive information about infant development. More precise directions for giving the items is essential. Surely the contributions of these elaborate studies of infants deserve to be absorbed as they have been in our modern analysis of infant behavior.     

Rorschach Depression indices with children and adolescents: concurrent validity findings.

Exner (1983, 1986) developed and recently revised (1990b) a Rorschach Depression Index based on scores from variables in the Comprehensive System. This study evaluated both the original and the revised DEPIs for child and adolescent outpatient (n = 67) and inpatient (n = 99) samples in order to assess the diagnostic utility of these indices. There were no significant relationships between the original form and the revised form of the DEPI and clinical elevations on the Depression scale of the Personality Inventory for Children in the outpatient sample or treatment team diagnostic judgments in the inpatient sample. These findings sound a strong cautionary note for using only Rorschach Depression indices to diagnose depression in children and adolescents.