Examining the long-term stability of overgeneral autobiographical memory

Overgeneral autobiographical memory (OGM) is a proposed trait-marker for vulnerability to depression, but relatively little work has examined its long-term stability. This study investigated the stability of OGM over several years in 271 late adolescents and young adults participating in a larger longitudinal study of risk for emotional disorders. The Autobiographical Memory Test (AMT) was administered twice, with test–retest intervals ranging from approximately 3 to 6 years. There was evidence of significant but modest stability in OGM over several years. Specifically, Spearman rank correlations (ρs) between the proportions of specific and categoric memories generated on the two AMTs were .31 and .32, respectively. We did not find evidence that the stability of OGM was moderated by the length of the test–retest interval. Furthermore, the stability coefficients for OGM for individuals with and without a lifetime history of major depressive disorder (MDD) were relatively similar in magnitude and not significantly different from one another (ρs=.34 and .42 for the proportions of specific and categoric memories for those with a history of MDD; ρs=.31 for both the proportions of specific and categoric memories for those without a history of MDD). Implications for the conceptualisation of OGM are discussed.     

Self-efficacy and affective responses to short bouts of exercise

Abstract

One of the most commonly cited barriers to exercise participation is lack of available time. Furthermore, the minimum exercise duration required to produce physiological changes has seen considerable attention, whereas the minimum duration required to produce psychological benefits has been largely ignored. Therefore, the purpose of the current study was to contrast the effects of 10, 15, and 20 minutes of treadmill running on self-efficacy and affective responses. Repeated measures analysis of variance revealed that self-efficacy increased in all participants (p < .001). Furthermore, multivariate analyses of variance showed that each condition generated increases in positive well-being and decreases in psychological distress (p's< .05). Correlational analyses of post-exercise assessments indicated that self-efficacy levels were positively related to positive well-being and inversely related to fatigue. These findings suggest that 10 minutes of aerobic exercise is sufficient to enhance exercise-related self-efficacy and affect.     

Shaping Medical Students' Attitudes Toward Ethically Important Aspects of Clinical Research: Results of a Randomized,Controlled Educational Intervention

The effects of research ethics training on medical students' attitudes about clinical research are examined. A preliminary randomized controlled trial evaluated 2 didactic approaches to ethics training compared to a no-intervention control. The participant-oriented intervention emphasized subjective experiences of research participants (empathy focused). The criteria-oriented intervention emphasized specific ethical criteria for analyzing protocols (analytic focused). Compared to controls, those in the participant-oriented intervention group exhibited greater attunement to research participants' attitudes related to altruism, trust, quality of relationships with researchers, desire for information, hopes about participation and possible therapeutic misconception, importance of consent forms, and deciding quickly about participation. The participant-oriented group also agreed more strongly that seriously ill people are capable of making their own research participation decisions. The criteria-oriented intervention did not affect learners' attitudes about clinical research, ethical duties of investigators, or research participants' decision making. An empathy-focused approach affected medical students' attunement to research volunteer perspectives, preferences, and attributes, but an analytically oriented approach had no influence. These findings underscore the need to further examine the differential effects of empathy-versus analytic-focused approaches to the teaching of ethics.     

Assumptive Worldviews and Religious Coping With Bereavement and Type 2 Diabetes

This study explored the effects of deferring and self-directed religious coping on the assumptive worldviews of women following the death of a child, the death of another friend or family member, or diagnosis with type 2 diabetes mellitus (n = 284). Participants completed the World Assumptions Scale (Janoff-Bulman, 1989 Janoff-Bulman, R. 1989. Assumptive worlds and the stress of traumatic events: Application of the schema construct. Social Cognition, 7: 113–136. [Crossref], [Web of Science ®] , [Google Scholar]), the Religious Problem-Solving Scales (Pargament et al., 1988 Pargament, K. I., Kennell, J., Hathaway, W., Grevengoed, N., Newman, J. and Jones, W. 1988. Religion and the problem-solving process: Three styles of coping. Journal for the Scientific Study of Religion, 27: 90–104. [Crossref], [Web of Science ®] , [Google Scholar]), and the Deistic and Supportive but Nonintervening God Scale (Phillips, Pargament, Quinten, & Crossley, 2004 Phillips, R. E., Pargament, K. I., Quinten, K. L. and Crossley, C. 2004. Self-directing religious coping: A deistic God, abandoning God, or no God at all?. Journal for the Scientific Study of Religion, 43: 409–418. [Crossref], [Web of Science ®] , [Google Scholar]). Women who had lost a child saw the world as least meaningful, followed by women otherwise bereaved, followed by women diagnosed with diabetes. Different religious coping styles offered different advantages in coping with these stressors. Across groups, deferring coping was associated with greater world meaning, whereas self-directed coping was associated with greater self-worth. The findings are discussed in the context of previous research finding inconsistent relationships between deferring and self-directed religious coping styles and adjustment.     

A Comparison of Noncontingent Plus Contingent Reinforcement to Contingent Reinforcement Alone on Students’ Academic Performance

Noncontingent reinforcement (NCR) can be described as time-based or response-independent delivery of stimuli with known reinforcing properties. Previous research has shown NCR to reduce problem behavior in individuals with developmental disabilities and to interfere with the acquisition of more desired alternative behavior. To date, however, little research has examined the effects of NCR on children’s academic performance. The present study examined the effects of NCR on the completion of math computation worksheets by 3 students in an elementary school setting. An ABCB reversal design was used to compare an NCR schedule in combination with contingent reinforcement to contingent reinforcement alone. Results showed that digits correct per session decreased to baseline levels for all 3 students during implementation of the NCR plus contingent reinforcement condition. Implications of these results for the reductive effects of NCR are discussed.     

Fluency Training in Phoneme Blending: A Preliminary Study of Generalized Effects

We examined the generalized effects of training children to fluently blend phonemes of words containing target vowel teams on their reading of trained and untrained words in lists and passages. Three second-grade students participated. A subset of words containing each of 3 target vowel teams (aw, oi, and au) was trained in lists, and generalization was assessed to untrained words in lists, trained and untrained words in target passages, and novel words in generalization passages. A multiple probe design across vowel teams revealed generalized increases in oral reading accuracy for target words presented in both lists and passages for all 3 students on 2 vowel teams and for 1 student on all 3 vowel teams. Generalized increases in oral reading fluency in both lists and passages were found for all 3 students on the vowel team that was trained to a fluency criterion, with two students showing increases prior to training on the other two vowel teams. Implications of these results for building fluency in prerequisite phonemic awareness skills as an intervention for promoting generalized oral reading fluency are discussed.     

Dreaming

The aim is to discover a principle governing the formation of the dream. Now dreaming has an analogy with consciousness in that it is a seeming-consciousness. Meanwhile consciousness exhibits a tripartite structure consisting of (A) understanding oneself to be situated in a world endowed with given properties, (B) the mental processes responsible for the state, and (C) the concrete perceptual encounter of awareness with the world. The dream analogues of these three elements are investigated in the hope of discovering the source of the kinship between dream and consciousness. The dream world (A) proves to be a logically impossible world, limited by nothing more than sheer narratability. The internal world (B) of the dreamer is notable for the limitlessness of the scope allotted to the imagination (exactly taking over the offices of rational function), together with the presence of two important phenomena encountered in waking consciousness: a measure of interiority, and the positing of a world. Finally (C), the dream further replicates consciousness in so far as we seem in dreaming concretely to experience our physical surrounds in the form of perceptual imagining. These properties play their part in enabling the dream to be a seeming-consciousness. At the same time they are such as to necessitate its not being consciousness. It is proposed that in the light of these properties, and those composing the state of consciousness, the dream simply is the imagining of consciousness.     

The Effect of Attentional Control and Heart-Period Variability on Negative Affect and Trait Anxiety

In this study, the author examines the effect of attentional control and heart-period variability on measures of negative affect and trait anxiety in undergraduate students. Baseline heart rate was recorded from 119 participants within a laboratory setting. Spectral analysis was used on the heart-rate data to isolate the parasympathetic contribution to the cardiac pattern. Participants completed measures of negative affect, attentional control, and trait anxiety following the recording of heart rate. Regression analysis indicated that high negative affect, low attentional control, and reduced parasympathetic tone were significant predictors of high trait anxiety. Subsequent regression analysis pointed toward the interaction of attentional control and parasympathetic tone in influencing self-rated measures of negative affect. Results highlight the importance of attentional control and parasympathetic tone as regulatory mechanisms related to self-rated estimates of negative affect and trait anxiety.     

Knowledge About Hand Shaping and Knowledge About Objects

Our two experiments investigated associations between cognitive representations of objects and hand-shape categories. Hand configurations were partitioned according to prehensility and the size of the contacting surface, resulting in the classes: pinch, poke, palm, and clench. Experiment 1 elicited object names in response to configuration-name cues, provided ratings of the relevance of each configuration to a set of objects, and probed for the functions determining such relevance. Cueing with a configuration class elicited an associated object category with substantial intersubject agreement, and vice versa. Both the object categories and the functions associated with the four hand-configuration classes differed substantially, although the same object could be associated to some extent with multiple configurations, given variations in function. Experiment 2 elicited the names of hand-configuration classes in response to unfamiliar forms, which varied systematically in depth and the size of the projecting picture-plane surface. The modal response, response time, and degree of intersubject agreement were directly related to these variables. These structural variables, however, did not adequately predict shaping responses to real objects, as ascertained from Experiment 1. The results have implications for cognitive representation of motor categories and hand shaping in response to objects.