IBM PC,PS/2, and compatibles

The ideas discussed in a group meeting of users of IBM PC, PS/2, and compatibles are summarized.     

An evaluation of statistical software for research and instruction

A variety of microcomputer statistics packages were evaluated. The packages were compared on a number of dimensions, including error handling, documentation, statistical capability, and accuracy. Results indicated that there are some very good packages available both for instruction and for analyzing research data. In general, the microcomputer packages were easier to learn and to use than were mainframe packages. Furthermore, output of mainframe packages was found to be less accurate than output of some of the microcomputer packages.     

Parent or community: Where do 20-month-olds exposed to two accents acquire their representation of words?

The recognition of familiar words was evaluated in 20-month-old children raised in a rhotic accent environment to parents that had either rhotic or non-rhotic accents. Using an Intermodal Preferential Looking task children were presented with familiar objects (e.g. 'bird') named in their rhotic or non-rhotic form. Children were only able to identify familiar words pronounced in a rhotic accent, irrespective of their parents' accent. This suggests that it is the local community rather than parental input that determines accent preference in the early stages of acquisition. Consequences for the architecture of the early lexicon and for models of word learning are discussed.     

Mixed emotions: holistic and analytic perception of facial expressions

In the face literature, it is debated whether the identification of facial expressions requires holistic (i.e., whole face) or analytic (i.e., parts-based) information. In this study, happy and angry composite expressions were created in which the top and bottom face halves formed either an incongruent (e.g., angry top + happy bottom) or congruent composite expression (e.g., happy top + happy bottom). Participants reported the expression in the target top or bottom half of the face. In Experiment 1, the target half in the incongruent condition was identified less accurately and more slowly relative to the baseline isolated expression or neutral face conditions. In contrast, no differences were found between congruent and the baseline conditions. In Experiment 2, the effects of exposure duration were tested by presenting faces for 20, 60, 100 and 120 ms. Interference effects for the incongruent faces appeared at the earliest 20 ms interval and persisted for the 60, 100 and 120 ms intervals. In contrast, no differences were found between the congruent and baseline face conditions at any exposure interval. In Experiment 3, it was found that spatial alignment impaired the recognition of incongruent expressions, but had no effect on congruent expressions. These results are discussed in terms of holistic and analytic processing of facial expressions.     

Halpern Critical Thinking Assessment Predicts Real‐World Outcomes of Critical Thinking

Although educators and employers agree that it is important to assess the critical thinking skills of students and prospective employees, few assessments have been externally validated with real‐world outcomes of critical thinking. The Halpern Critical Thinking Assessment (HCTA) is a reliable measure of critical thinking skills and has been validated with multiple populations and measures of academic success. This study explored whether scores on the HCTA predicted real‐world outcomes in a wide range of domains, such as education, health, law, finance, and interpersonal relationships. Community adults (n = 50), state university students (n = 48), and community college students (n = 35) in the USA completed the HCTA and a behavioral inventory of life events. Overall, those with higher critical thinking scores reported fewer negative life events than those with lower critical thinking scores, r (131) = ?.38, p < .001. Implications for education are discussed. Copyright © 2012 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

The neural correlates of attempting to suppress negative versus neutral memories

We performed an event-related fMRI study comparing attempts at suppressing recall of negative versus neutral memories. The hippocampus is crucial for successful explicit recall. Hippocampal activation has been shown to decrease during the suppression of previously learned neutral words. However, different effects may occur in the case of emotional memories. Participants first learned 40 word pairs consisting of a cue and either a neutral or a negative target. During fMRI scanning, the participants were shown the cues and were instructed to recall the targets or to suppress the targets, using attentional distraction. Similar right-lateralized frontoparietal regions were activated more during suppression than during recall, regardless of emotion. However, we show for the first time that lowered hippocampal activation occurs during the suppression of neutral, but not negative, words. Coinciding with this sustained hippocampal activation, the amygdala, insula, anterior cingulate, and fusiform gyrus showed greater activation during the suppression of negative memories than during suppression of neutral memories. Thus, during attempts to suppress negative memories, regions involved in the emotional and sensory aspects of memory reactivate, along with regions indexing conscious recall. Revealing the neural correlates and mechanisms of the suppression of negative memories has relevance for disorders such as posttraumatic stress disorder, in which traumatic memories often intrude and are associated with avoidance. Supplemental materials for this article may be downloaded from http://cabn.psychonomic-journals.org/content/supplemental.     

The influence of sexual harassment frequency and perceptions of organizational justice on victim responses to sexual harassment

Organizational justice theory was used to understand the conditions that influence how women respond when sexually harassed. Specifically, this study examined whether sexual harassment frequency interacts with perceptions of four types of organizational justice (procedural, distributive, interpersonal, and informational) to predict two types of victim responses (confrontation and reporting). With data collected from 257 female employees, it was found that the interaction between sexual harassment frequency and perceptions of distributive justice and the interaction between sexual harassment frequency and perceptions of procedural justice predicted reporting, whereas the interaction between sexual frequency and perceptions of distributive justice predicted confrontation. The interaction between sexual harassment frequency and perceptions of informational justice predicted both confrontation and reporting. Implications for organizations are discussed.