Processing Demands During Movement

Subjects made a speeded stylus movement along a track to a stop and simultaneously performed a simple reaction-time task designed to assess the processing demands of the movement task. Movement task variables were: (a) number of alternative ending positions — either one or two — with the choice executed during movement, and (b) presentation time for the endpoint signals in the two-choice conditions, either prior to movement initiation (immediate) or during movement execution (delay). Processing demands were higher during all movement conditions than in a control condition that did not require movement. Processing demands during execution of the one-and two-choice movement with immediate signals did not differ. However, processing demands during the two-choice movements with delayed signals were higher than demands during the two-choice movement with immediate signals.     

Early morphological processing is morphosemantic and not simply morpho-orthographic: A violation of form-then-meaning accounts of word recognition

Many studies have suggested that a word’s orthographic form must be processed before its meaning becomes available. Some interpret the (null) finding of equal facilitation after semantically transparent and opaque morphologically related primes in early stages of morphological processing as consistent with this view. Recent literature suggests that morphological facilitation tends to be greater after transparent than after opaque primes, however. To determine whether the degree of semantic transparency influences parsing into a stem and a suffix (morphological decomposition) in the forward masked priming variant of the lexical decision paradigm, we compared patterns of facilitation between semantically transparent (e.g., coolant—cool) and opaque (e.g., rampant—ramp) prime—target pairs. Form properties of the stem (frequency, neighborhood size, and prime—target letter overlap), as well as related—unrelated and transparent—opaque affixes, were matched. Morphological facilitation was significantly greater for semantically transparent pairs than for opaque pairs. Ratings of prime—target relatedness predicted the magnitude of facilitation. The results limit the scope of form-then-meaning models of word recognition and demonstrate that semantic similarity can influence even early stages of morphological processing. The research reported here was supported by National Institute of Child Health and Development Grant HD-01994 to Haskins Laboratories.     

Internet use and social support in women with breast cancer.

Many Web sites offer information to breast cancer patients, who are increasingly using these sites. The authors investigated the potential psychological benefits of Internet use for medical information by breast cancer patients. Of the 251 women approached, 188 were successfully interviewed (74.9%). Forty-two percent used the Internet for medical information related to breast health issues and did so for an average of 0.80 hr per week. The Interpersonal Support Evaluation List and the UCLA Loneliness Scale, with results controlled for covariates, showed that Internet use for breast health issues was associated with greater social support and less loneliness than Internet use for other purposes or nonuse. Breast cancer patients may obtain these psychological benefits with only a minimal weekly time commitment.     

Mother-Child Interactions and Preschoolers’ Emotion Regulation Outcomes: Nurturing Autonomous Emotion Regulation

Emotion regulation is a complex process that begins in infancy and continues through childhood with parents’ support. Early parent-child interactions shape the way children learn emotion management. We took a sociocultural and social learning approach to exploring the specific components of mother-child interactions that are related to mothers’ perceptions of her child’s regulatory ability and the child’s observed emotion regulation. Thirty mothers and their preschool children were recruited from two New England urban areas: one community sample and one head start sample. Dyads engaged in a free play session, children completed an observed compliance task, and mothers completed a set of questionnaires assessing their perceptions of their child’s regulation. Regression analyses revealed that maternal behaviors during free play predicted child’s observed hostility (F _(2,29)?=?3.137, p?<?.05) and mothers’ perceptions of her child’s regulatory ability predicted observed child compliance (F _{(2, 17)}?=?4.990, p?<?.05). Child behaviors during play significantly predicted child’s compliance (F _(3,20)?=?4.722, p?<?.05) and child’s hostility (F _{(1, 26)}?=?9.220, p?<?.001). Maternal modeling and intentional scaffolding as well as perceptions of her child’s regulatory capacity have a powerful impact on her child’s observed regulation. Results indicate that it is particularly important for mothers of preschoolers to support autonomy while guiding socially appropriate behavior. Interventions that target improving mothers’ negative perceptions of their children, educating on appropriate preschool expectations, and facilitating preschoolers’ mature play may help mothers interact with their children in the ways that foster children’s autonomous emotion regulation.     

Transforming mental health care for children and their families

In April 2002, the President's New Freedom Commission on Mental Health was created by executive order to study the mental health care delivery system in our nation and to make recommendations for improvements so that individuals with serious mental disorders can live, work, learn, and fully participate in their homes and communities. In its report, "Achieving the Promise: Transforming Mental Health Care in America," the commission provided strategies to address critical infrastructure, practice, and research issues. This article focuses on the work of the commission's Subcommittee on Children and Families, describing its vision for mental health service delivery for children and providing suggestions for strengthening community-based care for youths with or at risk of behavioral health disorders. Training, research, practice, and policy implications for psychologists are discussed.     

The Mediating Effects of Parenting Behaviors on Maternal Affect and Reports of Children’s Behavior

Parenting behaviors have received ample support as a mediator of the relationship between maternal affect and child behavior problems. The majority of these research efforts were based on a uni-dimensional conceptualization of maternal mood, even though decades of theory and research suggest that mood is multidimensional. We examined the mediating role of parenting behaviors on positive affect (PA) and negative affect (NA) and reports of child behavior problems. Evidence for mediation was demonstrated for both PA and NA for children in early to middle childhood. Consistent with the positive psychology movement, our results suggest that maternal PA plays an important role in parents’ utilization of effective parenting behaviors. Implications for clinical intervention and future research are discussed.     

Analysis of the elements of attention: A neuropsychological approach

A model for conceptualizing the components or elements of attention is presented. The model substitutes for the diffuse and global concept of attention a group of four processes and links them to a putative system of cerebral structures. Data in support of the model are presented; they are derived from neuropsychological test scores obtained from two samples, the first consisting of 203 adult neuropsychiatric patients and normal control subjects, and the second, an epidemiologically-based sample of 435 elementary school children. Principal components analyses of test scores from these two populations yielded similar results: a set of independent elements of attention that are assayed by different tests. This work presents a heuristic for clinical research in which the measurement of attention is essential.     

The dynamics of personality states, goals, and well-being

The authors examine the within-individual dynamics of Big-5 personality states over time in people's daily lives. They focus on the magnitude of this within-individual variability, and the associations between personality states, short-term goals, and subjective well-being states. A total of 101 undergraduate students participated in a 10-day interval-contingent diary study. The authors' findings, based on multilevel procedures, establish a considerable amount of within-individual variability that is both (a) equal or larger than that observed between individuals and (b) larger or similar to other constructs assessed with a state approach (e.g., self-esteem and mood). In addition, both neuroticism and extraversion states are systematically related to the short-term pursuit of approach-avoidance goals. Finally, support was obtained for the mediating role of both neuroticism and extraversion states of the association between goals and subjective well-being. In sum, the authors' findings testify to the importance and utility of studying within-individual variability in personality states over time.     

The effect of affine transformation on redundancy analysis

Canonical redundancy analysis provides an estimate of the amount of shared variance between two sets of variables and provides an alternative to canonical correlation. The proof that the total redundancy is equal to the average squared multiple correlation coefficient obtained by regressing each variable in the criterion set on all variables in the predictor set is generalized to the case in which there are a larger number of criterion than predictor variables. It is then shown that the redundancy for the criterion set of variables is invariant under affine transformation of the predictor variables, but not invariant under transformation of the criterion variables.