Bilingualism and Lexical Representation

Forty-eight Hindi-English bilinguals completed two blocks of trials where each trial involved presentation of a letter string requiring a lexical decision. In the first block subjects were exposed to 22 words and 11 non-words in either English or Hindi. In the second block the original words were repeated in either the same language or in the alternative language. In this block the old (repeated) words were mixed with 22 new words, and 22 non-words. Twelve subjects were included in each of the four groups given by the factorial combination of blocks and languages. Reaction time in the lexical decision task was facilitated when words were repeated in the same language (109 and 125 ms in the English-English and Hindi-Hindi groups respectively), but little or no facilitation was observed in the inter-lingual conditions (-22 and 23 ms in the Hindi-English and English-Hindi conditions respectively). The results support the view that lexical representation in bilinguals is language-specific.     

Suicide Attempt Self-Injury Interview (SASII): development, reliability, and validity of a scale to assess suicide attempts and intentional self-injury

The authors describe the development of the Suicide Attempt Self-Injury Interview (SASII), an instrument designed to assess the factors involved in nonfatal suicide attempts and intentional self-injury. Using 4 cohorts of participants, authors generated SASII items and evaluated them with factor and content analyses and internal consistency statistics. The final measure was assessed for reliability and validity with collateral measures. The SASII assesses variables related to method, lethality and impulsivity of the act, likelihood of rescue, suicide intent or ambivalence and other motivations, consequences, and habitual self-injury. The SASII was found to have very good interrater reliability and adequate validity.     

A critical test of the failure-to-engage theory of task switching

When people switch between two tasks, their performance on each is worse than when they perform that task in isolation. One theory of this “switch cost” is the failure-to-engage (FTE) theory, which posits that observed responses are a simple mixture of prepared and unprepared response strategies. The probability that participants use prepared processes can be manipulated experimentally (e.g., by changing preparation time). The FTE theory is a binary mixture model and therefore makes a strong prediction about the existence of fixed points in response time distributions. We found evidence contradicting this prediction, using data from 20 participants in a standard task-switching paradigm. In this article, we examine reasons for the failure of the FTE theory, and we demonstrate that a generalized version of FTE theory accommodates our data.     

Effects on WAIS-III performance IQ (PIQ) and full scale IQ (FSIQ) when object assembly is substituted for each standard performance scale subtest

According to the WAIS-III Administration and Scoring Manual, Object Assembly (OA) may be substituted for any spoiled Performance subtest. This assertion has not been evaluated in a clinical sample. The present investigation reports differences that resulted in Performance IQ (PIQ) and Full Scale IQ (FSIQ) when OA replaced each of the Performance subtests. Participants were 47 referrals for neuropsychological assessment (age M = 45.98 years, SD = 9.82; education M = 13.82 years, SD = 2.78). Results indicated that OA may replace any Performance subtest without seriously altering the summary scores. Differences between the standard IQs and OA-based composites were < 2 points for PIQ and < 1 point for FSIQ. More than 90% of the OA-based composites fell within the 90% confidence limits of the corresponding IQ.     

Teachers' conceptions of assessment: validation of an abridged version

Psychometric characteristics of the abridged Teachers' Conceptions of Assessment-III are reported. Data are from a study of 525 New Zealand primary school teachers and from a second study of 692 Queensland primary school teachers. The abridged version of 27 statements using a positively packed response scale had good fit characteristics for primary teachers in both New Zealand (chi(311)2 = 841.02; RMSEA = .057; TLI = .87) and Queensland (chi(311)2 = 1492.61; RMSEA = .074; TLI = .80). While providing information of similar quality to that of the original the abridged version is more efficient than the full scale.     

When does the daily hazard rate for committing suicide stabilize in psychiatric outpatients?

To ascertain whether the daily hazard risk rate for committing suicide by psychiatric outpatients stabilizes over time, a parametric survival analysis was calculated for the 6891 outpatients who were followed by Brown, Beck, Steer, and Grisham. Approximately 3 1/4 years after a patient's initial evaluation, the daily hazard rate leveled off and dropped below the hazard rate that would occur if a constant (exponential) daily hazard rate were assumed. The cost-effectiveness of conducting follow-up studies to identify suicidal risk factors in psychiatric outpatients beyond three years was questioned.     

Extracurricular involvement among affluent youth: a scapegoat for "ubiquitous achievement pressures"?

It has been suggested that over-scheduling of upper-class youth might underlie the high distress and substance use documented among them. This assumption was tested by considering suburban 8th graders' involvement in different activities along with their perceptions of parental attitudes toward achievement. Results indicated negligible evidence for deleterious effects of high extracurricular involvement per se. Far more strongly implicated was perceived parent criticism for both girls and boys as well as the absence of after-school supervision. Low parent expectations connoted significant vulnerability especially for boys. The findings indicate that at least among early adolescents, converging scientific and media reports may have scapegoated extracurricular involvements, to some degree, as an index of ubiquitous achievement pressures in affluent communities.     

The path of visual attention

Visual cuing is one paradigm often used to study object- and space-based visual selective attention. A primary finding is that shifts of attention within an object can be accomplished faster than equidistant shifts between objects. The present study used a visual cuing paradigm to examine how an object's size (i.e., internal distance) and shape, influences object- and space-based visual selective attention. The first two experiments manipulated object size and compared attentional shift performance with objects where the within-object distance between cued and uncued target locations was either equal to the between-object distance (1:1 ratio condition) or three times the between-object distance (3:1 ratio condition). Within-object shifts took longer for the larger objects, but an advantage over between-object shifts was still evident. Influences associated with the shapes of the larger objects suggested by the results of the first two experiments were tested and rejected in Experiment 3. Overall, the results indicate that within-object shifts of attention become slower as the within-object distance increases, but nevertheless are still accomplished faster than between-object shifts.     

Proactive personality and the successful job search: a field investigation with college graduates

The current article tests a model of proactive personality and job search success with a sample of 180 graduating college students. Using structural equation modeling, the authors tested a theoretical model that specified the relations among proactive personality, job search self-efficacy, job search behaviors, job search effort, and job search outcomes. Job seekers were surveyed at 2 separate points in time, once 3-4 months prior to graduation and once 2-3 months following graduation. The results suggest that proactive personality (a) significantly influenced the success of college graduates' job search, (b) was partially mediated through job search self-efficacy and job search behavior, and (c) was independent of self-esteem and conscientiousness. The findings are discussed in terms of their general implications for understanding the nature of the process through which distal personality factors, such as proactive personality, affect the nature and success of an individual's job search.