Feature-specific perceptual processing dissociates action from recognition

Does visual processing differ for action and recognition? To address this question, the authors capitalized on research showing that color is preferred over binocular disparity in the ventral (recognition) stream, whereas disparity is preferred over color in the dorsal (action) stream. Participants searched for oblique targets among vertical distractors in displays defined only by color or disparity. Action-task participants stamped the target with a handheld block, whereas recognition-task participants lifted the block through a target-compatible gap. Analyses of reaction time and time-varying hand orientation showed that disparity and color displays were processed equally efficiently during action, but disparity was processed less efficiently than color during recognition. The results suggest that visual processing differs for action and recognition.     

The early oedipal situation: developmental, theoretical, and clinical implications

The Oedipus complex is typically thought to begin in the phallic phase, when the child's relationship to the parents as a couple achieves central prominence. In contrast, the author views the appearance of oedipal conflicts in the phallic phase as the end point of a line of development of triangular relatedness that began in infancy. An aspect of the Kleinian view of the oedipal situation--that awareness of the parents as a couple begins in the preoedipal period--deserves serious consideration. A patient is presented for whom the working through of early oedipal issues in the transference-counter-transference permitted recovery from withdrawal into a fantasy world.     

Relations of psychological distress with objective individual,family, and neighborhood characteristics of urban adolescents

This paper describes the relations of psychological distress with 11 ecological factors (5 community, 4 family, and 2 individual) among 423 older urban adolescents who are predominantly people of color. Data were obtained by means of self-report via group-administered questionnaires given between 1994 and 1996; most scales are multi-item. There is wide variation in distress. There are very few statistically significant relationships between the ecological factors and distress, and those are negligible. Girls whose parents have less education and live in extended families have higher distress; family and individual domains are correlated .04 and .03 with distress and the community domain .00, so this ecological model accounts for a mere 7%, of the common total variance in distress.     

The role of practice and automaticity in temporal and nontemporal dual-task performance

Research on time and attention shows that a nontemporal task may interfere with a concurrent timing task by making time judgments shorter, more variable, and/or more inaccurate compared to timing-only conditions. Brown (1998, Psychological Research, 61, 71-81) counteracted the interference effect by giving subjects automaticity training on a nontemporal task to reduce the amount of processing resources the task required. Such practice attenuated interference in timing. Two new experiments were designed to replicate and extend the previous findings. Subjects generated a series of 5-s temporal productions under single-task (timing only) and dual-task (timing plus nontemporal task) conditions. The nontemporal tasks were pursuit rotor tracking (Experiment 1), and mirror-reversed reading (Experiment 2). We employed a pretest-practice-posttest paradigm, with the practice sessions devoted to performance of the nontemporal task. Pretest-posttest comparisons showed that practice reduced interference in timing in both experiments. Dual-task probe trials were given during the practice sessions to trace the time course of the improvement in timing. The results showed that interference in timing was reduced with even small amounts of practice. The findings support the idea that timing is very sensitive to changes in the allocation of attentional resources.     

Why misinformation is more likely to be recognised over time: A source monitoring account

Although memory for actual events tends to be forgotten over time, memory for misinformation tends to be retrieved at a stable rate over long delays or at a rate greater than that found immediately after encoding. To examine whether source monitoring errors contribute to this phenomenon, two experiments investigated subjects' memory for the source of misinformation at different retention intervals. Subjects viewed a slide presentation, read a narrative containing misinformation, and, either 10 minutes or 1 week later, completed a recognition test about details seen in the slides and about the source of these details. After the longer retention interval in both experiments, participants were more likely to agree that they had seen misleading information and were also more likely to incorrectly associate the misinformation with the slide event. Theoretical implications of these findings are considered.     

Semantic priming: on the role of awareness in visual word recognition in the absence of an expectancy

By hypothesis, awareness is involved in the modulation of feedback from semantics to the lexical level in the visual word recognition system. When subjects are aware of the fact that there are many related prime-target pairs in a semantic priming experiment, this knowledge is used to configure the system to feed activation back from semantics to the lexical level so as to facilitate processing. When subjects are unaware of this fact, the default set is maintained in which activation is not fed back from semantics to the lexical level so as to conserve limited resources. Qualitative differences in the pattern of data from two lexical decision experiments that employ masked priming are consistent with this hypothesis. Semantic context and stimulus quality interact when the prime is processed with awareness whereas these same two factors produce additive effects on RT when the prime is unlikely to have been processed with awareness. These experiments thus illustrate one way in which awareness (or lack thereof) affects the dynamics of visual word recognition.     

A basis for bias in geographical judgments

To determine why North Americans tend to locate European cities south of North American cities at similar latitudes (Tversky, 1981), we had observers provide bearing estimates between cities in the U.S. and Europe. Earlier research using latitude estimates of these cities has indicated that each continent has several subjective regions (Friedman & Brown, 2000a). Participants judged cities from two subjectively northern regions (Milwaukee-Munich), two subjectively southern regions (Memphis-Lisbon), and the two "crossed" regions (Albuquerque-Geneva; Minneapolis-Rome). Estimates were biased only when cities from the subjectively northern regions of North America were paired with cities from the subjectively southern region of Europe. In contrast to the view that biases are derived from distorted or aligned map-like representations, the data provide evidence that the subjective representation of global geography is principally categorical. Biases in numerical location estimates of individual cities and in bearing estimates between city pairs are derived from plausible reasoning processes operating on the same categorical representations.     

Primary care physicians attitude toward diagnosis and treatment of late-life depression

Underdiagnosis and undertreatment of late-life depression is common, especially in primary care settings. To help assess whether physicians attitude and confidence in diagnosing and managing depression serve as barriers to care, a total of 176 physicians employed in 18 primary care groups were administered surveys to assess attitudes towards diagnosis, treatment, and management of depression in elderly patients, (individuals over 65 years of age). Logistic regression was performed to assess the association of physician characteristics on attitudes. Nearly all of the physicians surveyed felt that depression in the elderly was a primary care problem, and 41% reported late-life depression as the most common problem seen in older patients. Physicians were confident in their ability to diagnose and manage depression, yet 45% had no medical education on depression in the previous three years. Physicians confidence in their ability to diagnose, treat, and manage depression, and their reported adequacy of training, do not appear to correspond to the amount of continuing medical education in depression, suggesting that physician overconfidence may potentially be serving as a barrier to care.     

Attitudes about antidepressants: influence of information about weight-related side effects

Antidepressant drugs are frequently prescribed for women and have various side effects, including potential effects on body weight. This experiment examined the effects of information about the weight-related side effects of antidepressants on women's attitudes toward the drugs. 60 college women were randomly assigned to read about one of two drugs, fluoxetine (Prozac) or imipramine (Tofranil). Participants were either told or not told about veridical weight-related side effects, namely, weight loss for Prozac and weight gain for Tofranil. As hypothesized, weight-gain information lowered the personal acceptability of Tofranil, and weight-loss information enhanced the acceptability of Prozac. Although research with clinical populations is required, undergraduate women's decisions about the use of antidepressant medications may be influenced by societal body-image ideals.     

Oscillator-based memory for serial order

A computational model of human memory for serial order is described (OSCillator-based Associative Recall [OSCAR]). In the model, successive list items become associated to successive states of a dynamic learning-context signal. Retrieval involves reinstatement of the learning context, successive states of which cue successive recalls. The model provides an integrated account of both item memory and order memory and allows the hierarchical representation of temporal order information. The model accounts for a wide range of serial order memory data, including differential item and order memory, transposition gradients, item similarity effects, the effects of item lag and separation in judgments of relative and absolute recency, probed serial recall data, distinctiveness effects, grouping effects at various temporal resolutions, longer term memory for serial order, list length effects, and the effects of vocabulary size on serial recall.