Reaction Time Inconsistency in a Spatial Stroop Task: Age-Related Differences Through Childhood and Adulthood

ABSTRACT

Age-related differences in inconsistency of reaction time (RT) across the life span were examined on a task with differing levels of demand on executive control. A total of 546 participants, aged 5 to 76 years, completed a spatial Stroop task that permitted observations under three conditions (congruent, incongruent, and neutral) according to the correspondence between the required response (based on stimulus direction) and stimulus location. An interference effect was observed across all ages. Analyses of neutral condition data replicated previous research demonstrating RT inconsistency follows a U-shaped developmental curve across the life span. The relationship between age and inconsistency, however, depended on condition: inconsistency in the congruent condition was higher than inconsistency in both the neutral and incongruent conditions across middle-aged groups. Reaction time inconsistency may reflect processing efficiency that is maximal in young adulthood and may also be sensitive to fluctuations in performance that reflect momentarily highly efficient responding.     

Values of Children among Sub-Saharan African Women: The Case of Ghanaian Women

This paper examines whether previously suggested reasons for having children: economic, social and psychological values of child can be identified among a group of sub-Sahara women, and the extent to which a spiritual value of child can be identified on the basis of African's belief in ancestors and its influence on their daily lives. Two groups of Ghanaian mothers—270 women (mean age = 42.14 years) with adolescent-aged child and 264 mothers (mean age =31.41 years) with a young child—participated in the study. Exploratory factor analyses found mixed support for the existence of social and psychological values of child. Economic values of child could not be identified. However, spiritual values of child came out as a clear factor, and accounted for about 10% of the explained variance, albeit the explained valiance was less than that from social and psychological values of child. The implications of these for family planning in sub-Sahara Africa and for fighting HIV/AIDS are discussed.     

Effects of temporal asynchrony and stimulus magnitude on competitive audio–visual binding

When making decisions as to whether or not to bind auditory and visual information, temporal and stimulus factors both contribute to the presumption of multimodal unity. In order to study the interaction between these factors, we conducted an experiment in which auditory and visual stimuli were placed in competitive binding scenarios, whereby an auditory stimulus was assigned to either a primary or a secondary anchor in a visual context (VAV) or a visual stimulus was assigned to either a primary or secondary anchor in an auditory context (AVA). Temporal factors were manipulated by varying the onset of the to-be-bound stimulus in relation to the two anchors. Stimulus factors were manipulated by varying the magnitudes of the visual (size) and auditory (intensity) signals. The results supported the dominance of temporal factors in auditory contexts, in that effects of time were stronger in AVA than in VAV contexts, and stimulus factors in visual contexts, in that effects of magnitude were stronger in VAV than in AVA contexts. These findings indicate the precedence for temporal factors, with particular reliance on stimulus factors when the to-be-assigned stimulus was temporally ambiguous. Stimulus factors seem to be driven by high-magnitude presentation rather than cross-modal congruency. The interactions between temporal and stimulus factors, modality weighting, discriminability, and object representation highlight some of the factors that contribute to audio–visual binding.     

Is God's call more than audible? A preliminary exploration using a two‐dimensional model of theistic/spiritual beliefs and experiences

Among spiritual individuals, auditory hallucinations (AHs) are often accompanied by positive affectivity (PA) suggesting that such coincidental affective valence might gainfully demark spiritual from comparable non‐spiritual aberrant perceptions. Yet nearly all of the relevant past religiosity/spirituality research has been limited to AHs and/or known groups (Evangelicals, epilepsy patients, etc.). Using a community sample (N = 485), this article explores whether unusual perceptual experiences (UEs) more generally (not simply AHs) together with PA predict participants' self‐reported spirituality. Specifically, a dual marker hypothesis developed from affect attribution theory—in which UE, PA, and their interaction predict spirituality in a non‐additive positive fashion—is proposed and confirmed (even after controlling for socio‐demographics). The estimators reveal that spirituality is disproportionately elevated for high scorers on both predictors. These results are consistent with previous known‐group studies and support recent speculation that the affective–cognitive interpretation of perceptual aberrations might be a key feature of spirituality and one that potentially demarks it from psychosis. Moreover, the correlation between spirituality and PA varies depending upon one's UE level; a result not anticipated by the incumbent positive psychological theory of spirituality.     

Screening for Psychotherapy by an Open-Ended Group

A developmental model of conducting a time-limited, short-term inpatient psychotherapy group is described. The therapist's primary goal in this model is to promote members' awareness of their dysfunctional interpersonal behaviors and the conflicts underlying these behaviors. The therapist pursues this goal by facilitating the group in resolving the conflicts of the four phases through which the group passes. In Phase I, the group addresses conflicts related to the establishment of trust. In Phase II, issues related to dependency wishes focused upon authority figures occupy the group's attention. In Phase III, conflicts within peer relation-ships become focal. In Phase IV as the group approaches termination, group members explore feelings related to the acceptance of loss. For each phase, optimal therapist interventions are described.     

What lies beneath: How the distance between truth and lie drives dishonesty

Based on the assumption that dishonesty poses a threat to one's self view, recent research has put forward the notion that people avoid major lies. However, existing empirical work has not tested this notion conclusively, given that studies have associated larger degrees of dishonesty with larger payoffs. It thus remains unclear whether people actually do avoid major lies or rather shy away from large (unjustified) payoffs, e.g. since the latter are generally more likely to trigger suspicion. Thus, we critically tested the hypothesis that the probability of dishonesty is a decreasing function of the distance between the actual truth and the lie that is necessary to increase ones gains. In a modified dice-game paradigm, a highly specific behavioral pattern was predicted by this hypothesis and results from a large (N = 765), incentivized and fully anonymous study confirmed the latter, thus corroborating that people indeed avoid major lies.     

Calibration and Alignment are Separable: Evidence From Prism Adaptation

In 2 prism adaptation experiments, the authors investigated the effects of limb starting position visibility (visible or not visible) and visual feedback availability (early or late in target pointing movements). Thirty-two students participated in Experiment 1 and 24 students participated in Experiment 2. Independent of visual feedback availability, constant error was larger and variable error was smaller for target pointing when limb starting position was visible during prism exposure. Independent of limb starting position visibility, aftereffects of prism exposure were determined by visual feedback availability. Those results support the hypothesis that calibration is determined by limb starting position visibility, whereas alignment is determined separately by visual feedback availability.