Causal Attributions,Perceived Consequences of Unemployment,and Perceptions of Employment Prospects Among Adolescents in New Zealand

The present study investigated the causal attributions and perceived consequences of unemployment, as well as perceptions of employment prospects, among high school students in New Zealand. A sample of Form 4 (Grade 9) boys (M age 14.3 years) and girls (14.4 years) and a sample of Form 6 and 7 (Grades 11 and 12) boys (16.9 years) and girls (16.6 years) were tested. No sex or age differences were found in students' causal attributions about unemployment. Societal factors were judged as the most important cause for unemployment. Luck was considered the least important reason. Form 4 students placed a greater emphasis on economic consequences, whereas Form 6 and 7 students regarded social consequences as more important. The consistency in the present findings and those from studies in other countries suggests that cross-cultural similarities do exist in adolescents' perceptions of unemployment.     

Drugs as instruments: a new framework for non-addictive psychoactive drug use

Most people who are regular consumers of psychoactive drugs are not drug addicts, nor will they ever become addicts. In neurobiological theories, non-addictive drug consumption is acknowledged only as a "necessary" prerequisite for addiction, but not as a stable and widespread behavior in its own right. This target article proposes a new neurobiological framework theory for non-addictive psychoactive drug consumption, introducing the concept of "drug instrumentalization." Psychoactive drugs are consumed for their effects on mental states. Humans are able to learn that mental states can be changed on purpose by drugs, in order to facilitate other, non-drug-related behaviors. We discuss specific "instrumentalization goals" and outline neurobiological mechanisms of how major classes of psychoactive drugs change mental states and serve non-drug-related behaviors. We argue that drug instrumentalization behavior may provide a functional adaptation to modern environments based on a historical selection for learning mechanisms that allow the dynamic modification of consummatory behavior. It is assumed that in order to effectively instrumentalize psychoactive drugs, the establishment of and retrieval from a drug memory is required. Here, we propose a new classification of different drug memory subtypes and discuss how they interact during drug instrumentalization learning and retrieval. Understanding the everyday utility and the learning mechanisms of non-addictive psychotropic drug use may help to prevent abuse and the transition to drug addiction in the future.     

To use or not to use: Expanding the view on non-addictive psychoactive drug consumption and its implications

Proposing a change to the view on psychoactive drug use in non-addicts touches a sensitive issue because of its potential implications to addiction prevention, therapeutic practice, and drug policy. Commentators raised nine questions that ranged from clarifications, suggested extensions of the model to supporting data previously not regarded, to assumptions on the implications of the model. Here, we take up the suggestions of the commentators to expand the model to behavioral addictions, discuss additional instrumentalization goals, and review the evidence from laboratory animal studies on drug instrumentalization. We consider further the role of sociocultural factors and individual development in the establishment in drug instrumentalization and addiction. Finally, we clarify which implications we think this model may have. We conclude that drug instrumentalization theory can be further applied to other behaviors but will require a sensitive debate when used for drug and addiction policy that directly affects prevention and treatment.     

Multicultural Environments of Academic Versus Internship Training Programs: Lessons to Be Learned

Psychology training programs have a responsibility to train multiculturally competent psychologists. Predoctoral interns were surveyed to compare the multicultural environment of academic and internship programs. Internship programs were perceived as more multicultural than were academic programs. Factors contributing to differences are examined, and suggestions are made for improving multicultural environments in training. Los programas de formación en psicología tienen la responsabilidad de formar psicólogos competentes multiculturalmente. Se entrevistó a interinos predoctorales para comparar el ambiente multicultural de sus programas académicos y de interinidad. Se percibió que los programas de interinidad eran más multiculturales que los programas académicos. Se examinan los factores que contribuyen a estas diferencias, y se ofrecen sugerencias para mejorar los ambientes multiculturales en la formación.     

A MCMC-method for models with continuous latent responses

This paper introduces a new technique for estimating the parameters of models with continuous latent data. Using the Rasch model as an example, it is shown that existing Bayesian techniques for parameter estimation, such as the Gibbs sampler, are not always easy to implement. Then, a new sampling-based Bayesian technique, called the DA-T-Gibbs sampler, is introduced. The DA-T-Gibbs sampler relies on the particular latent data structure of latent response models to simplify the computations involved in parameter estimation. This research was supported by the Dutch National Research Council (NWO) (grant number 575-30-001).     

Children and television advertising: when do they understand persuasive intent?

Children's response to television advertising is investigated in this paper. Children aged between six and ten years were tested for their recall, recognition and understanding of novel television advertisements. Children were able to recognise scenes from the advertisements after one exposure but recall of the brand names was poor for the younger children, even after three exposures. Recall for the advertising content increased by age and number of exposures. None of the six‐year‐olds and only a quarter of the eight‐year‐olds and a third of the ten‐year‐olds discussed advertising in terms of persuasion. Therefore, although children remember television advertisements, their purpose is not fully understood, even by many ten‐year‐olds. Copyright © 2002 Henry Stewart Publications.     

Action-effect coupling in pianists

Recent theories have stressed the role of effect anticipation in action control. Such a mechanism requires the prior acquisition of integrated action-effect associations. The strength of such associations should directly depend on the amount of learning, and therefore be most pronounced in motor experts. Using an interference paradigm, we investigated whether evidence of such representations can be demonstrated in expert pianists. Participants were required to play chords on a keyboard in response to imperative visual stimuli. Concurrently, task-irrelevant auditory stimuli (potential action effects) were presented that were congruent or incongruent with the chords to be played. In Experiment 1 we found evidence that expert pianists, compared with non-musicians, have acquired such action-effects representations. Response times were slower when the auditory stimulus was incongruent with the required response. In order to ascertain the locus of interference, we varied imperative stimuli and responses in Experiments 2 and 3. The results indicate that, for the most part, interference occurs on the response level rather than on an abstract level. However, the perception of action effects also evokes processing of abstract features, like the concept of major–minor mode.     

Can test list context manipulations improve recognition accuracy in the DRM paradigm?

Only test-based manipulations can be used to help people distinguish accurate from false memories once events have been encoded. In two experiments we examined how the type of studied words (weak vs strong associates, or less vs more memorable associates) and nonstudied lure words (related vs unrelated lures) on the test list affect recognition accuracy in the Deese-Roediger-McDermott paradigm. False recognition of critical lures decreased substantially in the related-lure context, but so did correct recognition of studied words. False recognition was little affected by the studied-word manipulations. In general, participants claimed to recognise critical lures as often as weak associates or less memorable studied words but less often than either strong associates or more memorable studied words. The test-list context affected how participants classified their recognition experiences but it did not systematically change their overall memory accuracy.     

Determining inhibition: Individual differences in the 'lexicon context' trade-off during lexical ambiguity resolution in working memory

The current experiment assessed the relation between inhibitory mechanisms underlying language processing in working memory (WM) and the influence of a postulated internal cognitive trade-off between lexicon and context factors driving inhibition in sentence processing. Participants with high and low WM span (Daneman & Carpenter, 1980) were presented with sentences that began with an ambiguous noun (being both homographic and homophonic). A cue towards the relevant meaning of the ambiguous word was presented three words later by another noun. Immediately after the cue, a verb was presented that finally disambiguated the ambiguous noun. In half of the cases, the final disambiguation was congruent with the disambiguation cue. In the other half, subjects had to realize that it was not the cued but the other meaning, which turned out to be relevant in the actual sentence. This experimental paradigm was identical to the one used in Gunter et al. (2003). In contrast to the original experiment, the filler items in the present study were unambiguous. Both groups showed a smaller N400 component for the cue related to the dominant as compared to the subordinate meaning, suggesting that the dominant meaning was more active in WM than the subordinate one. In the original experiment, only the high-span subjects manifested this effect. Thus, a change in the global experimental setting changed the use of WM-related inhibitory processes. Data also suggest that, as a default strategy, the lexicon-context trade-off of high-span subjects relies more on lexicon information than does that of low-span subjects.     

Prosody-assisted head-driven access to spoken German compounds

Auditory processing of German 2-noun compound words was investigated with 328 participants in 4 experiments by monitoring semantic priming effects of the left constituents of the compound words. The authors demonstrated that there is no primacy of the left constituents in accessing auditorily presented German compound words in the mental lexicon. A clear priming effect of left constituents occurred only for compound words with a transparent right constituent that is the head of compound words in Germanic languages. The data suggest that the access to German compounds in the auditory domain involves 2 temporally overlapping routes: direct and decompositional. The prosodic structure (i.e., the duration) of the first morphemes of compound words appears to be a determining factor for activation of the decompositional route.