Investigation of the Effect of Consistent and Inconsistent Behavioral Example Upon Children's Donation Behaviors

In Experiment 1, the effects of consistent and inconsistent behavioral example on children's donation behaviors were examined by exposing 80 kindergarten and first-grade children to one of five treatment conditions (i.e., no model, one model donating, two models donating, two models with the first donating and the second not donating, and two models with the first not donating and the second donating). On initial measures, one and two donating models produced significantly more donations than did other conditions, and the initial condition means ordered themselves in the predicted direction. No differences between conditions were evident at follow-up. Experiment 2 evaluated whether follow-up outcomes in Experiment 1 represented a failure to generalize or a failure to retain the initial effects of the modeling experience. The methodology in Experiment 1 was replicated except that, at follow-up, children were given an opportunity to donate in the same experimental situation used for initial measures. Results of Experiment 2 were consistent with those of Experiment 1, and no significant difference was found between the initial and follow-up measures, indicating that initial effects were generally retained across time.     

Child Maltreatment,Emotion Regulation,and Posttraumatic Stress: The Impact of Emotional Abuse

This study examined the relationship of emotion regulation to multiple forms of child abuse and subsequent posttraumatic stress. Particular consideration was given to emotional abuse, which has received less attention in the literature. Results from a survey of 912 female college students revealed that women who reported a history of sexual, physical, or emotional abuse endorsed greater emotion regulation difficulties compared to women without abuse histories. Notably, emotional abuse was the strongest predictor of emotion deregulation. Mediation analyses indicated that emotion dysregulation partially explained the relationship between physical and emotional abuse and symptoms of posttraumatic stress, suggesting that intervention efforts aimed at improving emotion regulation strategies might be beneficial in decreasing posttraumatic stress among women with child maltreatment histories.     

Attachment Style and Early Maladaptive Schemas as Mediators of the Relationship between Childhood Emotional Abuse and Intimate Partner Violence

Theoretical and empirical research suggests possible pathways between women's experiences of childhood emotional abuse (CEA) and later intimate partner violence victimization (IPV-V) and perpetration (IPV-P), including attachment style and early maladaptive schemas. This study tested a model examining the unique mediating effects of insecure attachment and early maladaptive schemas on the relationship between CEA and IPV-V (n?=?396) or IPV-P (n?=?409) in college women. Contrary to hypotheses that both attachment style and maladaptive schema endorsement would mediate the relationship between CEA and IPV-V and IPV-P, regression analyses indicated the disconnection/rejection schema domain was the only significant mediator between CEA and IPV-V (p = .01). This same relation held for childhood emotional abuse and IPV-P (p < .001). These findings provide preliminary clinical utility for examining schema endorsement, the use of schema therapy (Young, Klosko, &; Weishar, 2003 Young, J. E., Klosko, J. S. and Weishar, M. E. 2003. Schema therapy: A practitioner's guide, New York: NY: Guilford.  [Google Scholar]), or both with women who have emotional abuse and IPV histories.     

Age-Related Changes in the use of Study Context to Increase Recollection

ABSTRACT

We examined how context presented at study affects recollection of words in younger and older adults. In Experiment 1, participants studied words presented with a picture of a face (context-rich condition) or a rectangle (context-weak condition), and subsequently made ‘Remember’, ‘Know’, or ‘New’ judgments to words presented alone. Younger, but not older, adults showed higher Remember accuracy following rich- than weak-context trials. In Experiment 2, we manipulated the type of processing engaged during the encoding of context–word pairs. Younger and older adults studied words presented with a picture of a face under a surface feature (gender) or binding feature (match) instruction condition. Both age groups showed higher Remember accuracy in the binding than surface instruction condition. Results suggest that providing rich contextual detail at encoding boosts later item recollection in younger adults. Older adults, however, do not spontaneously engage in the processes required to boost recollection, though instructional manipulation during encoding lessens this deficit.     

Higher-order semantic structures in an African Grey parrot’s vocalizations: evidence from the hyperspace analog to language (HAL) model

Previous research has described the significant role that social interaction plays in both the acquisition and use of speech by parrots. The current study analyzed the speech of one home-raised African Grey parrot (Psittacus erithacus erithacus) across three different social contexts: owner interacting with parrot in the same room, owner and parrot interacting out of view in adjacent rooms, and parrot home alone. The purpose was to determine the extent to which the subject’s speech reflected an understanding of the contextual substitutability (e.g., the word street can be substituted in context for the word road) of the vocalizations that comprised the units in her repertoire (i.e., global co-occurrence of repertoire units; Burgess in Behav Res Methods Instrum Comput 30:188–198, 1998; Lund and Burgess in Behav Res Methods Instrum Comput 28:203–208, 1996). This was accomplished via the human language model hyperspace analog to language (HAL). HAL is contextually driven and bootstraps language “rules” from input without human intervention. Because HAL does not require human tutelage, it provided an objective measure to empirically examine the parrot’s vocalizations. Results indicated that the subject’s vocalization patterns did contain global co-occurrence. The presence of this quality in this nonhuman’s speech may be strongly indicative of higher-order cognitive skills.     

Paying attention to attention: evidence for an attentional contribution to the size congruity effect

Understanding the mechanisms supporting our comprehension of magnitude information represents a key goal in cognitive psychology. A major phenomenon employed in the pursuit of this goal has been the physical size congruity effect—namely, the observation that comparing the relative numerical sizes of two numbers is influenced by their relative physical sizes. The standard account of the physical size congruity effect attributes it to the automatic influence of the comparison of irrelevant physical magnitudes on numerical judgments. Here we develop an alternative account of this effect on the basis of the operation of attention in the typical size congruity display and the temporal dynamics of number comparison. We also provide a test of a number of predictions derived from this alternative account by combining a physical size congruity manipulation with a manipulation designed to alter the operation of attention within the typical size congruity display (i.e., a manipulation of the relative onsets of the digits). This test provides evidence consistent with an attentional contribution to the size congruity effect. Implications for our understanding of magnitude and the interactions between attention and magnitude are discussed.     

Pictorial superiority effects in oldest-old people

We examined memory for pictures and words in middle-age (45–59 years), young-old (60–74 years), old-old (75–89 years), and the oldest-old adults (90–97 years) in the Louisiana Healthy Aging Study. Stimulus items were presented and retention was tested in a blocked order where half of the participants studied 16 simple line drawings and the other half studied matching words during acquisition. Free recall and recognition followed. In the next acquisition/test block a new set of items was used where the stimulus format was changed relative to the first block. Results yielded pictorial superiority effects in both retention measures for all age groups. Follow-up analyses of clustering in free recall revealed that a greater number of categories were accessed (which reflects participants’ retrieval plan) and more items were recalled per category (which reflects participants’ encoding strategy) when pictures served as stimuli compared to words. Cognitive status and working memory span were correlated with picture and word recall. Regression analyses confirmed that these individual difference variables accounted for significant age-related variance in recall. These data strongly suggest that the oldest-old can utilise nonverbal memory codes to support long-term retention as effectively as do younger adults.     

Psychological closure as a memory phenomenon

A theory is proposed that life events are remembered with a satisfying sense of closure when there is decreased emotional detail in the constructed autobiographical memory representation. The first three studies show that, although properties of the experienced event (such as valence and recency) accounted for some variance in participants' sense of closure, the amount of emotional detail in the memory was also a significant predictor. The third study shows that emotion-focused biased retelling of the experience increased emotional detail and decreased the sense of closure participants reported. Related approaches and implications for psychological adjustment are discussed.     

The Relationship between Imagery Ability and Imagery Use among Athletes

The present study aimed to provide a better understanding of the relationship between imagery ability and imagery use. Athletes completed the Movement Imagery Questionnaire—Revised Second Version, the Motivational Imagery Ability Measure for Sport, and the Sport Imagery Questionnaire. Hierarchical regression analyses revealed that imagery ability explained 20 to 41% of the variance in the use of the functions of imagery. Visual and kinesthetic imagery ability predicted cognitive specific imagery use; motivational general-mastery and motivational general-arousal imagery ability predicted the use of the motivational general functions of imagery. To assess imagery ability multiple methods of assessment must be used.     

Understanding smoking after acute illness: An application of the sentinel event method

The sentinel event theory provides a stepwise approach for building models to understand how negative events can spark health behaviour change. This study tested a preliminary model using the sentinel events method in a sample (N = 300) of smokers who sought care for acute cardiac symptoms. Patients completed measures on: smoking-related causal attribution, perceived severity of the acute illness event, illness-related fear and intentions to quit smoking. Patients were followed up one week after the health event and a seven-day timeline follow back was completed to determine abstinence from tobacco. Structural equation models were performed using average predictor scale scores at baseline, as well as three different time anchors for ratings of illness severity and illness-related fear. Quit intentions, actual illness severity and age were the consistent, positive and independent predictors of seven-day point prevalence abstinence. Additional research on the influences of perceptions and emotional reactions is warranted.