Reading and cognitive capacity usage: Adjunct question effects

Cognitive capacity usage during reading was measured in two experiments. During reading of a 27-page passage on marine biology, text-relevant inserted questions, irrelevant questions, or no questions were answered by undergraduates. Cognitive capacity usage increased when text-relevant questions began but not when irrelevant questions began or when no questions were given. The increase in cognitive capacity usage was largest on pages immediately following questions. Cognitive capacity is used in the elaborative stages of text processing.     

The line-in-object superiority effect in perception: It depends on where you fix your eyes and what is located at the point of fixation

Williams and Weisstein (1978) reported that briefly presented line elements could be more accurately discerned in three-dimensional, coherent contexts than when presented alone. A series of five studies investigated this effect. The first study demonstrated that the general assumption that three-dimensional and coherent contexts are necessary conditions for demonstrating a line-in-object superiority effect is in error, and a robust effect can be demonstrated with contexts lacking coherence and depth. The remaining studies focused on a potentially more important determinant of the line-in-object effect. Evidence is presented that whether a given context facilitates, impairs, or has no effect on line detection is determined by the location of the fixation point and the amount of line detail at the fixation point. Proposals outlining processes assumed to underlie this fixation-location effect are advanced.     

Remembering after a perception of discrepancy: out with the old, in with the two

A surprising validation of expectation experienced during a recognition test induces the perception of discrepancy and a feeling of familiarity. The authors investigated whether that perception also affects memory performance when it is experienced in the original encounter with a stimulus. Target words were presented in a study phase, half in a context thought to induce the perception of discrepancy. In a subsequent recognition test, that earlier experience increased the accuracy of subjects' discrimination. However, when the subsequent task required a once-versus-twice judgment, that experience caused an illusion of reoccurrence for words presented once. The authors concluded that a perception of discrepancy in an initial encounter may be a valuable aid to later recognition but can also cause systematic memory errors under some circumstances.     

The role of sensorimotor impairments in dyslexia: a multiple case study of dyslexic children

This study attempts to investigate the role of sensorimotor impairments in the reading disability that characterizes dyslexia. Twenty-three children with dyslexia were compared to 22 control children, matched for age and non-verbal intelligence, on tasks assessing literacy as well as phonological, visual, auditory and motor abilities. The dyslexic group as a whole were significantly impaired on phonological, but not sensorimotor, tasks. Analysis of individual data suggests that the most common impairments were on phonological and visual stress tasks and the vast majority of dyslexics had one of these two impairments. Furthermore, phonological skill was able to account for variation in literacy skill, to the exclusion of all sensorimotor factors, while neither auditory nor motor skill predicted any variance in phonological skill. Visual stress seems to account for a small proportion of dyslexics, independently of the commonly reported phonological deficit. However, there is little evidence for a causal role of auditory, motor or other visual impairments.     

Searching for the Trace: The Influence of Age, Lexical Activation and Working Memory on Sentence Processing

To investigate the stability of trace reactivation in healthy older adults, 22 older volunteers with no significant neurological history participated in a cross-modal priming task. Whilst both object relative center embedded (ORC) and object relative right branching (ORR) sentences were employed, working memory load was reduced by limiting the number of words separating the antecedent from the gap for both sentence types. Analysis of the results did not reveal any significant trace reactivation for the ORC or ORR sentences. The results did reveal, however, a positive correlation between age and semantic priming at the pre-gap position and a negative correlation between age and semantic priming at the gap position for ORC sentences. In contrast, there was no correlation between age and priming effects for the ORR sentences. These results indicated that trace reactivation may be sensitive to a variety of age related factors, including lexical activation and working memory. The implications of these results for sentence processing in the older population are discussed.     

Developing a Partnership Model for Cancer Screening with Community-Based Organizations: The ACCESS Breast Cancer Education and Outreach Project

There is growing enthusiasm for community-academic partnerships to promote health in underserved communities. Drawing upon resources available at a comprehensive cancer center, we developed the ACCESS program to guide community based organizations through a flexible program planning process. Over a three-year period, ACCESS partnered with 67 agencies serving various medically underserved populations. Organizations included hospitals, parishes, senior centers, harm reduction programs, and recreational facilities. Program outcomes at the organizational level were quantified in terms of introduction of new cancer information, referral or screening programs, as well as organizational capacity building. ACCESS represents a viable model for promoting partnership to transfer behavioral health programs and adapt interventions for new audiences. Plans to further evaluate and enhance this model to promote cancer screening efforts are discussed. We argue that, ultimately, formation and development of community partnerships need to be understood as a fundamental area of practice that must be systematically integrated into the mission of major academic medical institutions in every area of public health.     

Different differences: revelation and disclosure of social identity in the psychoanalytic situation

The authors propose a taxonomy of social identities, suggesting that three different classifications of identities can be distinguished. These comprise those that are innate and visible, such as race or gender; those that are innate, but invisible, such as sexual orientation; and those that are acquired or achieved, such as marital status or political affiliation. The authors argue that each of these categories has different implications for the revelation or disclosure of aspects of the therapist's identity, as well as for transference-countertransference dynamics. These points are illustrated with brief clinical examples.     

Incentives improve performance on both incremental and insight problem solving

An increasing number of studies are showing a connection between emotion and motivation and cognitive processes. Most of these studies, however, have been correlational in nature, limiting the conclusions that can be drawn. We directly manipulated motivation through the use of an incentive and investigated its effects on insight and incremental problem solving. In four experiments we found that an incentive (the opportunity to leave the experiment early) increased problem-solving performance for all problems presented, regardless of problem type. Additionally, we found evidence that the incentive increased recall memory, indicating more thorough processing for participants in the incentive condition. This study provides evidence that incentives influence problem solving and implies that motivation should not be ignored when investigating cognitive processes.