Longitudinal hierarchical linear models of the memory functioning questionnaire

Three hypotheses about the nature of self-rated memory as measured by the Memory Functioning Questionnaire (MFQ; M. J. Gilewski, E. M. Zelinski, & K. W. Schaie, 1990) were tested: that ratings reflect memory performance, that personality traits underlie ratings, and that ratings reflect implicit theories of memory change. Baseline scores and 19 year change slopes for the 4 MFQ factor ratings of a sample of 97 participants aged 30-81 were investigated. There were significant mean declines for all MFQ ratings except Frequency of Forgetting and significant individual differences in slopes for Frequency, Retrospective Functioning, and Mnemonics. Personality predicted baseline Frequency and Seriousness ratings and list and text recall slopes predicted Mnemonics slopes. Different mechanisms may underlie baseline ratings and changes in ratings for different factors.     

Common fears: a comparison of adolescents' self-generated and fear survey schedule generated fears.

Investigations into normative fear in adolescence have indicated that the most common fears are consistently death-related and danger-related. Assessments have most commonly been made from self-reports on fear survey schedules. The aim of the present study, therefore, was to determine whether adolescents would provide responses comparable to those generated through the use of a fear survey schedule when asked to list their 3 greatest fears. A total of 439 adolescents aged 11 to 18 years (237 girls, 201 boys, 1 sex not reported) listed their greatest fears; then they completed the 78-item Fear Survey Schedule for Children-II (E. Gullone & N. J. King, 1992). Consistent with past research, the 10 most common fears generated via the fear schedule related to death and danger. However, on the whole, the self-generated fears deviated from the death and danger theme, also including fear of failure, fear of animals, and fear of the unknown. A tendency toward global responses in self-generated fears appeared to encompass the majority of specific death-related fears included in the fear schedule, thus allowing for other predominant fears to be listed among the 3 most common.     

Classification of vowels and consonants by individuals with moderate mental retardation: development of arbitrary relations via match-to-sample training with compound stimuli.

This study explored whether an identity-matching-based stimulus equivalence procedure could be used to teach vowel and consonant stimulus classes to 2 adolescent females with moderate mental retardation. Delayed match-to-sample trials presented a compound sample stimulus consisting of printed letters and a spoken word (“vowel” or “consonant”). The correct comparison stimulus matched only one of the letters in the compound sample. Subsequently, test trials assessed whether arbitrary relations had formed among the individual stimuli from each compound sample and whether stimuli from different compound samples had merged into larger stimulus classes. Both participants acquired five-member classes of vowel and consonant stimuli, which subsequently generalized to vocal classification and to identification in the context of four-letter words. Follow-up tests showed that the generalized performances remained intact after 6 weeks. These procedures suggest an economical approach to stimulus class development.     

Clinical Assessment of Adult Abuse and Trauma

This article examines several measures used in the assessment of adult abuse and trauma. These measures include structured clinical interviews, self report measures, screening inventories, symptom checklists, and some measures that include decision-making properties. Specific conditions in the assessment of adult victims of psychological trauma and implications for clinical practice are explored.     

Generalization of cross-modal stimulus equivalence classes: operant processes as components in human category formation.

This study employed a stimulus-class rating procedure to explore whether stimulus equivalence and stimulus generalization can combine to promote the formation of open-ended categories incorporating cross-modal stimuli. A pretest of simple auditory discrimination indicated that subjects (college students) could discriminate among a range of tones used in the main study. Before beginning the main study, 10 subjects learned to use a rating procedure for categorizing sets of stimuli as class consistent or class inconsistent. After completing conditional discrimination training with new stimuli (shapes and tones), the subjects demonstrated the formation of cross-modal equivalence classes. Subsequently, the class-inclusion rating procedure was reinstituted, this time with cross-modal sets of stimuli drawn from the equivalence classes. On some occasions, the tones of the equivalence classes were replaced by novel tones. The probability that these novel sets would be rated as class consistent was generally a function of the auditory distance between the novel tone and the tone that was explicitly included in the equivalence class. These data extend prior work on generalization of equivalence classes, and support the role of operant processes in human category formation.     

Developmental changes in attention-deployment skills

The ability to efficiently allocate attention between two tasks differing in payoff was investigated developmentally. Ten subjects from each of three grade levels (second, fourth, and college) performed an auditory and a visual memory task simultaneously. Modality of the primary task, difficulty of the primary task, and difficulty of the secondary task were varied factorially within subjects. The difference between primary and secondary performances increased with age: All college students, about half of the fourth graders, and none of the second graders showed a meaningful degree of differentiation between primary and secondary tasks.