Regularities of source recognition: ROC analysis

Source memory has become the focus of a growing number of investigations in a variety of fields. An appropriate model for source memory is, therefore, of increasing importance. A simple 2-dimensional signal-detection model of source recognition is presented. The receiver operating characteristics (ROCs) obtained from 3 experiments are then used to test the model. The data demonstrate 3 regularities: convex ROCs, z-ROCs with linear slopes of 1.00, and slightly concave z-ROCs. Two of these regularities support the model. The 3rd requires a revision of the model. This revised model is fitted to the data. The implications of these regularities for other theories are also discussed.     

Variability of determinism in motor behavior

In investigations into perception-action systems, variability of observable behavior may be considered to (a) interfere with inquiry, (b) be neither detrimental nor particularly useful to inquiry, or (c) play a crucial role in inquiry. The authors underscore recent suggestions that alternative (c) is a preferred strategy for the study of many motor behaviors. In tutorial fashion, the authors review the concepts of variability and determinism with respect to postural and rhythmic movements. Study of the variability of those behaviors has revealed crucial features suggestive of underlying mechanisms and control, such as particular blends of noise and determinism (piecewise determinism). It has also revealed general lessons (for example, more variable does not mean more random and more controllable does not mean more deterministic) that may extend to other classes of perceptual behavior.     

Psychoanalysis in later life

After decades of heeding Freud's admonition against taking patients older than fifty years of age into psychoanalytic treatment, psychoanalysts began to treat them and to report encouraging experiences. This essay is another in a series of case reports that confirms and extends the nature of changes possible in the analytic treatment of elderly patients. In order to demonstrate both specific changes and the possibility of satisfactory terminations with patients of advanced age, the author describes his analytic work with a woman who first consulted him when she was sixty-eight years old.     

Background beliefs in Bayesian inference

We report five experiments in which the role of background beliefs in social judgments of posterior probability was investigated. From a Bayesian perspective, people should combine prior probabilities (or base rates) and diagnostic evidence with equal weighting, although previous research shows that base rates are often underweighted. These experiments were designed so that either piece of information was supplied either by personal beliefs or by presented statistics, and regression analyses were performed on individual participants to assess the relative influence of information. We found that both prior probabilities and diagnostic information significantly influenced judgments, whether supplied by beliefs or by statistical information, but that belief-based information tended to dominate the judgments made.     

The relationship between acculturation and problem behavior proneness in a Hispanic youth sample: a longitudinal mediation model

This study, using secondary data analysis, examined prospectively a mediation model of the relationship between acculturation and problem behavior proneness among 330 Hispanic children and adolescents from an urban school district in the southwest region of the United States. Acculturation was predicted to have an indirect, but positive, relationship to problem behavior proneness through parental involvement and self-esteem. The results partially supported the model and indicated that parental involvement, but not self-esteem, played a significant mediational role in children's problem behavior proneness. The individual indicators of problem behavior proneness among Hispanic youth were significantly interrelated, which is consistent with problem behavior theory as conceptualized by R. Jessor (1984) and R. Jessor and S. L. Jessor (1977). Findings from this study provide implications for future research and intervention designs.     

Content mazes and filled pauses in narrative language samples of children with specific language impairment

Linguistic nonfluencies known as mazes (filled pauses, repetitions, revisions, and abandoned utterances) have been used to draw inferences about processing difficulties associated with the production of language. In children with normal language development (NL), maze frequency in general increases with linguistic complexity, being greater in narrative than conversational contexts and in longer utterances. The same tendency has been found for children with specific language impairment (SLI). However, the frequency of mazes produced by children with NL and SLI has not been compared directly at equivalent utterance lengths in narration. This study compared the frequency of filled pauses and content mazes in narrative language samples of school-age children with SLI. The children with SLI used significantly more content mazes than the children with NL, but fewer filled pauses. Unlike content mazes, the frequency of filled pauses remained stable across samples of different utterance lengths among children with SLI. This indicates that filled pauses and content mazes have different origins and should not be analyzed or interpreted in the same way.     

Lapses of intention and performance variability reveal age-related increases in fluctuations of executive control

We examine the hypothesis that the efficiency of executive control processes is less stable over time in older than younger adults. An age-related decrease in the efficiency of executive control should result in an increase in performance variability in task conditions requiring the recruitment of executive control processes and not in task conditions requiring minimal involvement of executive control. Performance variability was similar for younger and older adults in task conditions requiring minimal executive control and greater for older than younger adults in task conditions requiring executive control. These and other data are consistent with the proposal that aging is associated with a decrease in the stability of executive control over time.     

Is the acquisition of basic-colour terms in young children constrained?

We investigated whether the learning of colour terms in childhood is constrained by a developmental order of acquisition as predicted by Berlin and Kay [1969 Basic Color Terms (Berkeley, CA: University of California Press)]. Forty-three children, aged between 2 and 5 years and grouped according to language ability, were given two tasks testing colour conceptualisation. Colour comprehension was assessed in a spoken-word-to-colour-matching task in which a target colour was presented in conjunction with two distractor colours. Colour naming was measured in an explicit naming task in which colours were presented individually for oral naming. Results showed that children's knowledge of basic-colour terms varied across tasks and language age, providing little support for a systematic developmental order. In addition, we found only limited support for an advantage for the conceptualisation of primary (red, green, blue, yellow, black, white) compared to non-primary colour terms across tasks and language age. Instead, our data suggest that children acquire reliable knowledge of nine basic colours within a 3-month period (35.6 to 39.5 months) after which there is a considerable lag of up to 9 months before accurate knowledge of the final two colours (brown and grey) is acquired. We propose that children acquire colour term knowledge in two distinct time frames that reflect the establishment of, first, the exterior (yellow, blue, black, green, white, pink, orange, red, and purple) and, second, the interior structure (brown and grey) of conceptual colour space. These results fail to provide significant support for the order predicted by Berlin and Kay, and suggest, instead, that the development of colour term knowledge is largely unconstrained.