Emotional stimuli, divided attention, and memory

The emotion-memory literature has shown that negative emotional arousal enhances memory. S. A. Christianson (1992) proposed that preattentive processing could account for this emotion-memory relationship. Two experiments were conducted to test Christianson's theory. In Experiment 1, participants were exposed to neutral and negative arousing slides. In Experiment 2, participants were exposed to neutral, negative arousing, and positive arousing slides. In both experiments, the aforementioned variable was factorially combined with a divided-attention or non-divided-attention condition. The authors predicted that, in contrast to the nondivided condition, dividing attention would adversely impact neutral and positive stimuli more than negative stimuli. The hypothesis was supported; participants recalled more high negative-arousal slides than positive or neutral slides when their attention was divided rather than nondivided.     

Not well known, used little and needed: Canadian chaplains' experiences of published spiritual assessment tools

What are Canadian chaplains' experiences of published assessment tools? Utilizing a quantitative and qualitative methodology with multiple investigators and theoretical triangulation, this article reports the results of a survey of chaplains in the Canadian Association for Pastoral Practice and Education (CAPPE) and interview results of 15 chaplains in three focus groups. Findings indicated that published spiritual assessment tools are not well know, used little, criticized for being reductionistic and not fitting the clinical situation. Participants noted, however, that spiritual assessment is needed for spiritual care. Thirty percent reported the development of their own tools (not published) and three published tools were mentioned by 50% and more. Discussion, limitations of the research, and suggestions for education, practice, and future research are offered.     

Influence of visually induced expectation on perceived motor effort: A visual-proprioceptive interaction at the Santa Cruz Mystery Spot

It is known that dense objects seem heavier than larger, less dense objects of the same weight. We have investigated a related illusion, in which visual context biases the apparent weight of a single object. The apparatus is a cabin on a steep hillside near Santa Cruz, CA, tilted 17° from vertical. From its ceiling hangs a weight on a chain. The cabin’s tilt makes the weight appear suspended at an angle. Pushing the weight toward the visually based vertical is perceived as difficult, whereas pushing it away from the visual vertical is perceived as easy. Seven subjects pushed the weight in both directions, judging required effort on a double-anchored 1–10 scale. All experienced the effort illusion, with no significant subject effect. When subjects’ eyes were closed, the effect was smaller but still present. Apparently proprioceptive and skin inputs, equal for both directions, are ignored or underweighted as visually based expectations influence perceived effort.     

Children's understanding of the Ulysses conflict

Two studies explored children's understanding of how the presence of conflicting mental states in a single mind can lead people to act so as to subvert their own desires. Study 1 analyzed explanations by children (4--7 years) and adults of behaviors arising from this sort of 'Ulysses conflict' and compared them with their understanding of conflicting desires in different minds, as well as with changes of mind within an individual across time. The data revealed that only the adults were able to adequately explain the Ulysses conflict. Study 2 asked children (4--7 years) and adults to choose among three explicitly presented competing explanations for self-subverting behaviors. The results suggest that an understanding of the influence of conflicting mental states on behaviors does not occur until at least 7 years of age.     

Social–Cognitive Processes in Preschool Boys With and Without Oppositional Defiant Disorder

The social–cognitive characteristics of 88 preschool boys with Oppositional Defiant Disorder (ODD) and 80 nondisruptive boys were assessed 3 times over a 2-year period. Three questions were addressed: (1) Do social–cognitive processes (encoding, attribution, problem solving, and response evaluation) distinguish clinic-referred preschool boys from peers without behavior problems? (2) What is the relation between preschoolers' social–cognitive processes and observed problem behavior? (3) Are the social–cognitive processes of clinic boys with ODD influenced by comorbidity with Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder (ADHD)? Boys were presented hypothetical, peer-oriented social dilemmas to resolve. At all 3 assessments, clinic boys were twice as likely as were comparison group boys to generate aggressive solutions. Relative to comparison boys, clinic boys' encoding of social information was less accurate. The groups did not differ in their attributions or response evaluations. Verbal IQ and language skills were modestly correlated with problem solving and encoding. Within the clinic group, social–cognitive processes were not affected by ADHD comorbidity and they showed little relation to later diagnostic status or severity of behavior problems.     

Configural features in the context of upright and inverted faces

When faces are turned upside down, recognition is known to be severely disrupted. This effect is thought to be due to disruption of configural processing. Recently, Leder and Bruce (2000, Quarterly Journal of Experimental Psychology A 53 513-536) argued that configural information in face processing consists at least partly of locally processed relations between facial elements. In three experiments we investigated whether a local relational feature (the interocular distance) is processed differently in upside-down versus upright faces. In experiment 1 participants decided in which of two sequentially presented photographic faces the interocular distance was larger. The decision was more difficult in upside-down presentation. Three different conditions were used in experiment 2 to investigate whether this deficit depends upon parts of the face beyond the eyes themselves; displays showed the eye region alone, the eyes and nose, or the eyes and nose and mouth. The availability of additional features did not interact with the inversion effect which was observed strongly even when the eyes were shown in isolation. In experiment 3 all eyes were turned upside down in the inverted face condition as in the Thatcher illusion (Thompson, 1980 Perception 9 483-484). In this case no inversion effect was found. These results are in accordance with an explanation of the face-inversion effect in which the disruption of configural facial information plays the critical role in memory for faces, and in which configural information corresponds to spatial information that is processed in a way which is sensitive to local properties of the facial features involved.     

A Comparison of Two Lateral Inhibitory Models of Metacontrast

Metacontrast, an apparent reduction in brightness of a target that is followed by a non-overlapping mask, has been modeled with simulated neural nets incorporating either recurrent lateral inhibition or forward and backward inhibition with lateral components. A one-layer lateral inhibitory model (B. Bridgeman, 1971, Psychological Review 78, 528-539) and a six-layer model (G. Francis, 1997, Psychological Review 104, 572-594) both simulate the basic metacontrast effect, showing that stimulus-dependent activity that reverberates for some time in the model after stimulus offset is essential to simulate metacontrast. The six-layer model does not simulate monotonic masking with low response criterion, an essential property of metacontrast; the lateral inhibitory model uses duration of reverberation to simulate the criterion. Each model simulates several variations of masking, such as changing the relative energy of target and mask, but neither can handle effects of practice or attention that apparently engage higher processing levels. Copyright 2001 Academic Press.     

A Psychophysiological Examination of Cognitive Processing of and Affective Responses to Social Expectancy Violations

Several models of person perception predict that expectancy violations have both affective and cognitive consequences for the perceiver. Although extant evidence generally supports these claims, the temporal resolution of traditional self-report measures has limited researchers' ability to convincingly link underlying physiological processes with observed outcomes. In this study, we examined these issues by measuring brain (event-related brain potentials) and peripheral (facial electromyogram) electrophysiological activity while participants read positive and negative expectancy-consistent, expectancy-violating, expectancy-irrelevant, and semantically incongruent behavioral sentences about fictitious characters. The electromyogram results indicated that negative (but not positive) expectancy-violating behaviors elicited enhanced negative affect as early as 100 to 300 ms poststimulus. The event-related potentials showed enhanced positivities with latency exceeding 300 ms in response to expectancy violations and negative behaviors. Semantically incongruent sentence endings influenced a separate negative component (N400), suggesting fundamental differences between semantic- and behavior-consistency processing. This difference also was evident in participants' recall. Implications for theoretical models of expectancy violation are discussed.     

Removing the Gag that Binds: An Examination of Therapeutic Implications of Political Correctness

This paper examines both positive and negative influences of political correctness on family therapy. The authors contend the political correctness movement has limited assessment and joining in the therapy room. Impact on self-of-the therapist is considered. Strategies for combating the political correctness movement are discussed.     

阶层、健康和正义

1　导言如果生命是用金钱可以买到的东西 ,富人应该活着 ,穷人应该死。ＢｌａｃｋＳｐｉｒｔｕａｌ,ＵＳ也许富人不能买健康。但证实健康的阶层不平等的研究表明 ,富人较穷人更长寿 ;而穷人更早于富人死亡 ,包括在所有的年龄段中。另外 ,穷人也比富人更易患病 (Ｋａｐｌａｎ及Ｌｙｎｃｈ 1997,Ｗｉｌｋｉｎｓｏｎ1996) ,健康的社会经济不平等甚至在最富裕的国家中也存在 ;这种不平等适用于可治及不可治的疾病 ,也包括损伤 ;他们甚至存在于对不同的危险行为进行考虑之中。这些健康的不平等作为更严重的不正义冲击着我们中的大多数人。医疗卫…