Exploring the Construct Validity of the Social Cognition and Object Relations Scale in a Clinical Sample

The resistance of the Personal Orientation Dimensions (POD) to deliberate attempts at creating a favorable impression was investigated. Two groups of college students were used: (a) 21 students completed the POD under standard instructions, then received information about actualization, and completed the POD again under instructions to Create a very good impression; (b) 21 students completed the POD under standard instructions, then received information not related to actualization, and completed the POD again under instructions to create a very good impression. An analyses indicated that providing students with information about actualization did not facilitate their ability to create a favorable impression on the POD. The POD profiles produced by both groups changed significantly, and in a similar direction from pretest to posttest. Evidence is presented suggesting the existence of a "lie profile" which distinguishes deliberate attempts to create a favorable impression on the POD. These findings provide support for the resistance of the POD to deliberate attempts at creating a favorable impression.     

Early Adolescents' Values About Their Pets

The essays of adolescent boys and girls (N = 354) explaining their decisions to save a pet in the event of a fire were examined by content analysis for the adolescents' underlying value orientations. Hedonistic utility, a moral value characteristic of the second of Kohlberg's (1976) moral development stages, was the primary value underlying adolescents' choices.     

Object Perception,Attention, and Memory 2008 Conference Report 16th Annual Meeting,Chicago, IL,USA

We investigated how processing unfolds across time as adults view novel manual activity. Adults advanced through slideshows of an actor performing sleight-of-hand manoeuvres; dwell times were recorded to each slide. As in past work involving larger-scale intentional action scenarios, adults allocated more attention to slides depicting breakpoints—transitions from one event segment to the next—than slides displaying mid-stream action, indicating that dwell times are sensitive to adults' recovery of segmental structure in intricate manual activity. Adults also allocated increased attention towards slides indicative of causal structure, indicating that dwell times index processing of causally relevant information as well as segmental structure. We were additionally curious if adults' learning outcomes would differ as a function of whether they paced themselves or watched slideshows advance at a computer-controlled pace. Memory did not differ, but adults viewing computer-controlled slideshows displayed an advantage in performing the tricks. A single attentional focus may have helped adults learn to re-enact the actions, relative to a split attentional focus.     

Hangover sensitivity after controlled alcohol administration as predictor of post-college drinking

Predicting continued problematic levels of drinking after the early 20's could help with early identification of persons at risk. This study investigated whether hangover insensitivity could predict postcollege drinking and problems beyond the variance due to drinking patterns. In a preliminary study, 134 college seniors from a laboratory study of hangover (Time 1) were contacted and assessed 1-4 years (M = 2.3) later (Time 2). Hangover severity was studied after controlled alcohol administration to a specific dose while controlling sleep and environmental influences. Hangover severity at Time 1 was used to predict Time 2 drinking volume and problems while controlling for relevant demographics and Time 1 drinking volume. Hangover insensitivity at Time 1 tended to predict a clinical level of alcohol problems with a large statistical effect size. Hangover sensitivity also correlated positively with sensitivity to alcohol intoxication. Hangover severity did not predict future drinking volume. Hangover insensitivity correlates with insensitivity to intoxication and might predict more serious alcohol problems in the future, suggesting that a future larger study is warranted. Hangover insensitivity could result from physiological factors underlying low sensitivity to alcohol or risk for alcoholism.     

When do luminance changes capture attention?

In two experiments, we examined the ability of task-irrelevant changes in luminance to capture attention in an irrelevant singleton search. By using uniform increment and decrement arrays, we were able to create changes of the same absolute magnitude, but resulting in a singleton with either higher or lower contrast magnitude, relative to other elements in the search array. A condition where a singleton changed contrast polarity without a concomitant change in the overall contrast magnitude was also included. It was found that only luminance changes resulting in a singleton having increased contrast (or saliency) were effective in capturing attention. In addition, no attentional capture was observed when the irrelevant singleton was characterized by the equivalent amount of static luminance differences, suggesting a unique attentional prioritization of luminance changes that increase singleton saliency.