An outcome management program for extending advances in choice research into choice opportunities for supported workers with severe multiple disabilities

We evaluated an outcome management program for increasing choice opportunities provided by 2 job coaches for 5 supported workers with severe multiple disabilities in a community job. The program involved specifying and monitoring behavioral outcomes among workers and staff, training staff, and supportive and corrective feedback. Increased choice provision occurred for both job coaches across a 1-year period. Results indicate how outcome management can help translate advances in choice research into routine practice.     

Differential memory-preserving effects of reminders at 6 months

Although reactivation and reinstatement reminders differ procedurally, differences in their memory-preserving effects have been described as artifactual. In three experiments, we examined this conclusion. One hundred and twelve 6-month-olds learned an operant task, forgot it, received a reactivation or reinstatement reminder to recover the inactive memory, and were tested after increasing delays until they forgot it again. In Experiments 1a and 1b, a single reactivation reminder extended infants' memory of an operant mobile task for 2 weeks after reminding, but a single reinstatement extended it for 4 weeks, when testing was discontinued. In Experiment 2, a single reinstatement extended 6-month-olds' memory of an operant train task for 19 weeks after reminding, when infants were almost 1 year old. After reactivation, infants remember this task for only 2 weeks. The finding that the memory-preserving effect of reinstatement is greater by an order of magnitude suggests that procedural differences between the two reminders have functional significance.     

Variation in black anti-white bias and target distancing cues: factors that influence perceptions of "ambiguously racist" behavior

Experiment 1 indicated that when the White supervisor's negative treatment of a Black subordinate was unconstrained, participant race had no impact on attributions. Conversely, when the treatment was constrained, Black participants reported greater racist attributions than did White participants. Experiment 2 indicated that when the supervisor reported no response or a minimal negative response (i.e., indicating that he did not support his actions) after his negative treatment of the Black subordinate, Black participants reported greater racist attributions than did White participants. Conversely, when the supervisor's negative treatment was followed by a more extreme negative response, participant race had no impact on attributions. Experiment 3 indicated that Black participants were less likely than White participants to perceive a minimal negative response as reflecting a White supervisor's lack of support for his negative actions. Conversely, participant race had no impact on attributions of a Black supervisor's negative actions.     

Hemispheric processing characteristics for lexical decisions in adults with reading disorders

The present study measured unilateral tachistoscopic vocal reaction times and error responses of reading-disordered and normally reading adults to single words and nonwords in a series of lexical decision tasks at two linguistic levels (concrete and abstract words). Analysis of variance on reaction times indicated that main effects of stimulus type, visual field, and the interaction of these variables were not significant for the reading-disordered group, but visual field and an interaction of visual field and stimulus type were for the normally reading adults. Error rate showed a significant interaction of stimulus x visual field for the reading-disordered group but not for the normal reading group. Post hoc tests showed significant differences in error rates between visual fields for concrete lexicon but not for abstract or nonsense lexicon for the reading-disordered group. These findings suggest a deficit in interhemispheric lexical transfer occurs for reading-disordered samples and suggest use of a callosal relay model wherein the left hemisphere is allocated responsibility for performing central operations underlying lexical decisions by adults with reading disorders.     

Does the body image exist in three dimensions? The study of visual mental representation of a body and a nonbody object

Do the mental images of 3-dimensional objects recreate the depth characteristics of the original objects? This investigation of the characteristics of mental images utilized a novel boundary-detection task that required participants to relate a pair of crosses to the boundary of an image mentally projected onto a computer screen. 48 female participants with body attitudes within expected normal range were asked to image their own body and a familiar object from the front and the side. When the visual mental image was derived purely from long-term memory, accuracy was better than chance for the front (64%) and side (63%) of the body and also for the front (55%) and side (68%) of the familiar nonbody object. This suggests that mental images containing depth and spatial information may be generated from information held in long-term memory. Pictorial exposure to views of the front or side of the objects was used to investigate the representations from which this 3-dimensional shape and size information is derived. The results are discussed in terms of three possible representational formats and argue that a front-view 2 1/2-dimensional representation mediates the transfer of information from long-term memory when depth information about the body is required.     

Self-Regulating Interest: The Moderating Role of Hardiness and Conscientiousness

Sansone, Weir, Harpster, and Morgan (1992) found that individuals intentionally regulated their interest in an activity when they had both the need (the task was boring) and a reason to exert the effort (an ostensible health benefit). The present study examined Hardiness and Conscientiousness as moderators of this self-regulatory process when individuals had the option of quitting in addition to the options of persisting and of engaging in interest-enhancing strategies. Undergraduates performed a boring copying activity under instructions to stop when they felt they could evaluate the task. Half were told that their evaluations would help researchers develop good jobs for others (Benefit). Results indicated high hardy individuals copied more letters when they were provided the additional Benefit information, and this effect was mediated through their attempt to make the task more interesting. High conscientious individuals persisted longer than individuals lower in conscientiousness independently of the benefit manipulation or strategy use. Implications of individual differences in self-regulation of motivation are discussed.     

Incongruent counterparts and modal relationism

Kant's argument from incongruent counterparts for substantival space is examined; it is concluded that the argument has no force against a relationist. The argument does suggest that a relationist cannot give an account of enantiomorphism, incongruent counterparts and orientability. The prospects for a relationist account of these notions are assessed, and it is found that they are good provided the relationist is some kind of modal relationist. An illustration and interpretation of these modal commitments is given.     

Personal Debt,Cognitive Delinquency and Techniques of Governmentality: Neoliberal Constructions of Financial Inadequacy in the UK

In the UK in recent years, there has been a considerable and sustained increase in both levels of personal debt and over‐indebtedness. This commentary argues that recent UK policy formulation on personal debt management has sidelined problematic macroscopic political and economic changes by locating personal debt as a problem of individual financial incompetence. Through specific institutions, tools, techniques and practices, certain configurations of people in debt have been rendered knowable and changeable. In doing so, public policies that have brought about a greater need for a greater number of people to rely on personal debt remain largely beyond public view and have instead been reconstituted as problems of access to financial capability training. Copyright © 2011 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.