The Relation of Self-Reported Abilities to Aptitude Test Scores: A Replication and Extension

Scales from the Self-Directed Search (SDS) were correlated with those of the Ball Aptitude Battery (BAB) for a sample of 198 high school students. The present study found larger canonical correlations between the SDS and aptitude measures than those reported by Kelso, Holland, and Gottfredson (1977). However, the variance across the data sets associated with these canonical correlations was minimal, and much of the shared variance associated with the BAB canonical variates was due tog, with specific abilities contributing only minor portions of the observed shared variance.     

Processing empty categories: A parallel approach

In many current theories of human sentence processing, the mechanisms and principles proposed to account for data related to processing (1) long-distance dependencies and (2) structural ambiguities, such as garden-path sentences, are independent, despite the fact that deciding whether or not to posit a gap is just a special case of ambiguity resolution. In this paper we demonstrate how the parallel parsing theory proposed by Gibson (1991, in press)—which was developed to account for nongap ambiguity resolution data—also explains a number of gap-positing facts, without additional strategies. In particular, we show how this theory correctly explains filled-object-gap effects and the lack of filled-subject-gap effects in English, as well as certain gap-processing effects in Dutch.     

Family Therapy in India: A New Profession in an Ancient Land?

This paper examines the need for family therapy in India and its evolution as an integrated academic discipline and widespread form of clinical practice. Included is a discussion of the numerous factors placing Indian families at risk today, both common and more serious child, marital, and family difficulties, the current status of mental health services and minimal emphasis on family-based treatment, and the potential benefits of family therapy to such a radically diverse and rapidly changing society. Targets of and settings for family therapy training are highlighted, and a brief outline of a training-the-trainer approach is provided.     

Neuromuscular-skeletal origins of predominant patterns of coordination in rhythmic two-joint arm movement

The authors tested for predominant patterns of coordination in the combination of rhythmic flexion-extension (FE) and supination- (SP) at the elbow-joint complex. Participants (N=10) spontaneously established in-phase (supination synchronized with flexion) and antiphase (pronation synchronized with flexion) patterns. In addition, the authors used a motorized robot arm to generate involuntary SP movements with different phase relations with respect to voluntary FE. The involuntarily induced in-phase pattern was accentuated and was more consistent than other patterns. The result provides evidence that the predominance of the in-phase pattern originates in the influence of neuromuscular-skeletal constraints rather than in a preference dictated by perceptual-cognitive factors implicated in voluntary control. Neuromuscular-skeletal constraints involved in the predominance of the in-phase and the antiphase patterns are discussed.     

Implementing the Five-A Model of Technical Refinement: Key Roles of the Sport Psychologist

There is increasing evidence for the significant contribution provided by sport psychologists within applied coaching environments. However, this rarely considers their skills/knowledge being applied when refining athletes’ already learned and well-established motor skills. Therefore, this article focuses on how a sport psychologist might assist a coach and athlete to implement long-term permanent and pressure proof refinements. It highlights key contributions at each stage of the Five-A model—designed to deliver these important outcomes—providing both psychomotor and psychosocial input to the support delivery. By employing these recommendations, sport psychologists can make multiple positive contributions to completion of this challenging task.     

In and out of consciousness: Sustained electrophysiological activity reflects individual differences in perceptual awareness

Although significant advances in our understanding of the cognitive and neural processes involved in conscious awareness have occurred in recent years, the precise mechanisms that support consciousness remain elusive. Examining the neural correlates associated with the moment a stimulus enters or exits conscious awareness is one way to potentially identify the neural mechanisms that give rise to consciousness. In the present study, we recorded neural activity using electroencephalography (EEG) while participants observed a bilateral shape-from-motion (SFM) display. While the display is in motion, the observer perceives an object that is immediately segregated from a noisy background. After the motion stops, the observer's experience of the object remains momentarily in awareness, before it eventually fades out of consciousness back into the noisy background. Consistent with subjective reports of perceptual experience, we observed a prominent sustained posterior contralateral negativity known as the contralateral delay activity (CDA). This activity was sustained only in conditions associated with sustained awareness. Interestingly, the amplitude of the CDA was correlated with individual differences in visual awareness, suggesting that this activity plays a significant role in the maintenance of objects in consciousness. The CDA is typically associated with visual short-term memory (VSTM), suggesting that conscious visual awareness may be mediated by the same neural and cognitive mechanisms that support VSTM. Our results demonstrate that the CDA may reflect the contents of conscious awareness, and therefore can provide a measure to track when information moves in and out of consciousness.     

Intrafamilial Sexual Abuse: Family-of-Origin and Family-of-Procreation Characteristics of Female Adult Victims

We examined connections between incest victims' family-of-origin and family-of-procreation characteristics in a sample of 40 American women who were in treatment for childhood or adolescent experiences of victimization. Retrospective data on their families-of-origin were collected along with their perceptions of current relationships with family members in the three-generational system. Results showed a close association between family-of-origin and family-of-procreation characteristics, especially in the areas of intergenerational intimacy, intergenerational fusion/individuation, and personal authority. A number of significant correlations were also found between subjects' past and present relationships with family-of-origin members and the dimensions of moral and religious orientation, achievement, and intellectual and cultural orientation, conflict, and control in their family-of-procreation. Some aspects of individual adjustment, including alienation, emotional discomfort, and defensiveness, were strongly related to various family-of-origin and family-of-procreation characteristics.     

Image of God and Community Volunteering among Religious Adherents in the United States

Individual theological beliefs provide important motivations for religious people to volunteer in their communities. Compassion and loving one’s neighbor are both ideas that can motivate individuals to volunteer their time and talents. Religious believers who have conservative theological beliefs may see volunteering for their communities as a minor factor in their religious calling. Recent research on the role of social embeddedness within religious communities, however, has questioned the importance of theology as a motivation to volunteer (Putnam and Campbell, in American Grace. Simon and Schuster, New York, 2010; Lewis et al., in Soc Sci Res 42: 331–346, 2013). In this paper we test the effects of a religious adherent’s image of God’s disposition toward the world on their pattern of community volunteering. Using data from the 2005 Baylor Religion Survey and multinomial logit models, we find that having an image of God as judgmental lowers the odds that religious adherents report having volunteered for the community independent of their place of worship. Adherents who are most willing to engage the external community independent of a place of worship are those with less judgmental images of God. We also find that embeddedness is associated with volunteering for and with the place of worship in the community. Implications for theory, research and social capital formation are discussed.