Structural equation models of latent interactions: evaluation of alternative estimation strategies and indicator construction

Interactions between (multiple indicator) latent variables are rarely used because of implementation complexity and competing strategies. Based on 4 simulation studies, the traditional constrained approach performed more poorly than did 3 new approaches--unconstrained, generalized appended product indicator, and quasi-maximum-likelihood (QML). The authors' new unconstrained approach was easiest to apply. All 4 approaches were relatively unbiased for normally distributed indicators, but the constrained and QML approaches were more biased for nonnormal data; the size and direction of the bias varied with the distribution but not with the sample size. QML had more power, but this advantage was qualified by consistently higher Type I error rates. The authors also compared general strategies for defining product indicators to represent the latent interaction factor.     

Biased retellings of events yield biased memories

When people retell events, they take different perspectives for different audiences and purposes. In four experiments, we examined the effects of this postevent reorganization of events on memory for the original events. In each experiment, participants read a story, wrote a biased letter about one of the story characters, and later remembered the original story. Participants' letters contained more story details and more elaborations relevant to the purpose of their retellings. More importantly, the letter perspective affected the amount of information recalled (Experiments 1, 3, and 4) and the direction of the errors in recall (Experiments 1 and 3) and recognition (Experiment 2). Selective rehearsal plays an important role in these bias effects: retelling involves selectively retrieving and using story information, with consequent differences in memory. However, biased memory occurred even when the biased letters contained little, if any, specific information (Experiment 4) or contained the same amount and kinds of story information as a neutral control condition (Experiment 3). Biased memory is a consequence of the reorganizing schema guiding the retelling perspective, in addition to the effects of rehearsing specific information in retelling.     

Interference to ongoing activities covaries with the characteristics of an event-based intention

Previous studies of event-based prospective memory have demonstrated that the character of an ongoing task can affect cue detection. By contrast, this study demonstrated that there is a reciprocal relationship insofar as cue-verification and response-retrieval processes interfered with making a response in the ongoing task. The amount of interference was determined by the type of intention, which was manipulated to affect the complexity of verification and retrospective response retrieval. These relationships were true even when the interference caused by cue detection was separated from a more general effect to ongoing-task performance caused by shifts in attentional allocation policies. The results have theoretical implications for models that attempt to specify the cognitive microstructure of event-based prospective memory.     

Familial transmission of Continuous Performance Test behavior: attentional and impulsive response characteristics

Continuous Performance Tests (CPTs) provide information on attentional processing and impulsive behavior. The results of previous research that used self-report measures have provided evidence for familial transmission (through genetic and/or environmental influences) of impulsive characteristics. The authors of the present study examined whether the impulsive behavioral parameters that are measured by the CPT also share familial relationships. The researchers asked 26 healthy parent-adolescent pairs to complete the Immediate and Delayed Memory Tasks (IMT/DMT; D. M. Dougherty, 1999; D. M. Dougherty, D. M. Marsh, & C. W. Mathias, 2002), a modified CPT (B. A. Cornblatt, N. J. Risch, G. Faris, D. Friedman, & L. Erlenmeyer-Kimling, 1988; H. E. Rosvold, A. Mirsky, I. Sarason, E. D. Breansome, Jr., & L. H. Beck, 1956), and the Barratt Impulsiveness Scale (BIS; J. H. Patton, M. S. Stanford, & E. S. Barratt, 1995), a self-report measure. The main findings can be summarized as follows: (a) commission errors (but not correct detections) on the IMT and DMT were correlated between parents and their adolescent children, (b) adolescents emitted a higher proportion of commission errors than did their parents, and (c) self-reported impulsivity (i.e., BIS) was correlated with commission errors for parents, but not for adolescents. The findings of this study support the use of an objective behavioral measure of impulsivity to assess familial relationships of impulsivity.     

Nonverbal "accents": cultural differences in facial expressions of emotion

We report evidence for nonverbal "accents," subtle differences in the appearance of facial expressions of emotion across cultures. Participants viewed photographs of Japanese nationals and Japanese Americans in which posers' muscle movements were standardized to eliminate differences in expressions, cultural or otherwise. Participants guessed the nationality of posers displaying emotional expressions at above-chance levels, and with greater accuracy than they judged the nationality of the same posers displaying neutral expressions. These findings indicate that facial expressions of emotion can contain nonverbal accents that identify the expresser's nationality or culture. Cultural differences are intensified during the act of expressing emotion, rather than residing only in facial features or other static elements of appearance. This evidence suggests that extreme positions regarding the universality of emotional expressions are incomplete.     

False recognition occurs more frequently during source identification than during old-new recognition

A number of recent reports have investigated false memories using variants of the Deese-Roediger-McDermott (DRM) paradigm. Because these false memories have been difficult to eliminate, this study investigated whether false recognition could be reduced by incorporating source-monitoring criteria into decision processes. Making claims about the manner in which items were learned should require more careful scrutiny of memories, and therefore false recognition should be minimized with source instructions as compared with old-new recognition instructions. In 3 experiments that varied the combination of sources, false recognition was increased rather than reduced by applying source-monitoring processes. The theoretical implications of these counterintuitive results are discussed in terms of the old-new detection component of source judgments.     

Psychiatric Issues Among Adjudicated Youth: Challenges,Failures, and Successes

ABSTRACT

Children and adolescents afflicted with psychiatric illness are at particularly high risk for becoming part of the juvenile justice system. More than two thirds of justice-involved youth have psychiatric disorders (Abram et al., 2003; Shufelt & Cocozza, 2006; Teplin et al., 2002). Given the involvement of the legal system, youth being separated from families, and a host of other factors, mental health service delivery in a juvenile detention facility poses unique challenges. This article focuses on an overview of the problems commonly encountered in this setting. A clinical vignette will be used to highlight key points. The role and significance of trauma, common psychiatric disorders, and relevant medication rationale will be explored.     

Set-shifting as a component process of goal-directed problem-solving

In two experiments, we compared secondary task interference on Tower of London performance resulting from three different secondary tasks. The secondary tasks were designed to tap three different executive functions, namely set-shifting, memory monitoring and updating, and response inhibition. Previous work using individual differences methodology suggests that, all other things being equal, the response inhibition or memory tasks should result in the greatest interference. However, this was not found to be the case. Rather, in both experiments the set-shifting task resulted in significantly more interference on Tower of London performance than either of the other secondary tasks. Subsequent analyses suggest that the degree of interference could not be attributed to differences in secondary task difficulty. Results are interpreted in the light of related work which suggests that solving problems with non-transparent goal/subgoal structure requires flexible shifting between subgoals—a process that is held to be impaired by concurrent performance of a set-shifting task.     

Understanding Workaholism: Data Synthesis, Theoretical Critique, and Future Design Strategies

Workaholism involves a personal reluctance to disengage from work, which is evidenced by the tendency to work irrespective of external demands. While the term workaholism has been widely used by the public for over 30 years, scientists are only beginning to explore the behavior in depth. To date, most research has occurred on an ad hoc basis, emerging from a wide variety of paradigms without being explicitly linked to theory. The current article presents three methods for defining workaholism and a précis of relevant measures, then provides an integrated overview of research relating workaholism to individual well-being. Three models implicit in existing workaholism research (addiction, learning, and trait theory) are expounded and critiqued, and four new procedures for researching workaholism are suggested. Finally, an integrated, multidisciplinary approach is proposed as an essential element in encouraging rigorous debate and continued development of workaholism theory.     

Judging and actualizing intrapersonal and interpersonal affordances

The current study investigated the perception of intrapersonal, interpersonal, and tool-based grasping possibilities. In Experiment 1, participants judged whether they would grasp planks of wood-presented in ascending, descending, and random orders of length-using one hand (1H), two hands (2H), or with a tool that extended their reach (TH). In Experiment 2, participants physically grasped the planks using 1H, 2H, or TH. In Experiments 3 and 4, the choice of TH was replaced with a choice of grasping the planks with another person (2P). The results showed that presentation order influenced the participants' behavior differently in the judgment and action experiments. The same behavioral patterns, however, were observed when participants switched between 1H and 2H, 2H and TH, and 2H and 2P grasping. The point at which participants judged they would switch between the different modes of grasping, as well as the point at which participants physically switched between the grasping modes, occurred at similar action-scaled ratios. The equivalence of perceiving intrapersonal and interpersonal affordances is discussed.