A Broader Perspective: Counseling Psychology’s Emphasis on Evidence

The process of identifying empirically supported treatments developed by the Division 12 of the American Psychological Association has been criticized from various perspectives. However, there are a number of alternative evidence-based models for using research findings to increase the efficacy of mental health services. In this article, the principles of empirically supported interventions developed and adopted by Division 17 (Society of Counseling Psychology) are presented. These principles (a) utilize a broad perspective of evidence, (b) consider a range of psychological interventions, (c) emphasize the quantitative aggregate of research evidence, (d) consider various levels of specificity, and (e) recognize philosophy of science issues that impinge on the types of conclusions that can be made.     

Using food redistribution to reduce packing in children with severe food refusal

Positive- and negative-reinforcement-based procedures typically have targeted acceptance for children with severe food refusal; however, these procedures do not always result in successful swallowing. Once acceptance is achieved, some children expel the food repeatedly or pack (hold or pocket) it in their mouths for extended periods of time. This study evaluated the effects of using food redistribution with a bristled massaging toothbrush to reduce packing and increase consumption in 4 children with severe feeding disorders. Packing was reduced for all children. In addition, latency to clean mouth (the duration of time from acceptance to food no longer being present in the child's mouth in the absence of expulsion) for 2 children decreased when the food-redistribution procedure was used. Results are discussed in terms of the potential operant functions of the food-redistribution procedure.     

Further evidence that mice learn a win-shift but not a win-stay contingency under water-escape motivation

Previous research (C. Locurto, C. Emidy, & S. Hannan, 2002) indicated that mice quickly learned a water-escape task under a win-shift contingency but did not exceed chance-level performance under a win-stay contingency. We examined the robustness of this conclusion in two experiments by varying procedural and temporal aspects of that earlier experiment. Results of both experiments indicated that the preference for win-shift learning in mice under water-escape motivation could not be attributed to procedural or design features of that earlier study and were independent of the influence of intertrial interval, normally a variable that produces strong effects on learning. In neither experiment did subjects exposed to a win-stay contingency perform at above-chance levels.     

Spatial constraints on visual-tactile cross-modal distractor congruency effects

Across three experiments, participants made speeded elevation discrimination responses to vibrotactile targets presented to the thumb (held in a lower position) or the index finger (upper position) of either hand, while simultaneously trying to ignore visual distractors presented independently from either the same or a different elevation. Performance on the vibrotactile elevation discrimination task was slower and less accurate when the visual distractor was incongruent with the elevation of the vibrotactile target (e.g., a lower light during the presentation of an upper vibrotactile target to the index finger) than when they were congruent, showing that people cannot completely ignore vision when selectively attending to vibrotactile information. We investigated the attentional, temporal, and spatial modulation of these cross-modal congruency effects by manipulating the direction of endogenous tactile spatial attention, the stimulus onset asynchrony between target and distractor, and the spatial separation between the vibrotactile target, any visual distractors, and the participant’s two hands within and across hemifields. Our results provide new insights into the spatiotemporal modulation of crossmodal congruency effects and highlight the utility of this paradigm for investigating the contributions of visual, tactile, and proprioceptive inputs to the multisensory representation of peripersonal space.     

When does visual perceptual grouping affect multisensory integration?

Several studies have shown that the direction in which a visual apparent motion stream moves can influence the perceived direction of an auditory apparent motion stream (an effect known as crossmodal dynamic capture). However, little is known about the role that intramodal perceptual grouping processes play in the multisensory integration of motion information. The present study was designed to investigate the time course of any modulation of the cross-modal dynamic capture effect by the nature of the perceptual grouping taking place within vision. Participants were required to judge the direction of an auditory apparent motion stream while trying to ignore visual apparent motion streams presented in a variety of different configurations. Our results demonstrate that the cross-modal dynamic capture effect was influenced more by visual perceptual grouping when the conditions for intramodal perceptual grouping were set up prior to the presentation of the audiovisual apparent motion stimuli. However, no such modulation occurred when the visual perceptual grouping manipulation was established at the same time as or after the presentation of the audiovisual stimuli. These results highlight the importance of the unimodal perceptual organization of sensory information to the manifestation of multisensory integration.     

Exploring unique roles for psychologists

Presents a comment on "Psychological Treatments" by D. H. Barlow. Barlow highlighted unique roles that psychologists can play in mental health service delivery by providing psychological treatments--treatments that psychologists would be uniquely qualified to design and deliver. In support of Barlow's position, the authors draw from their own clinical practice with special psychiatric populations, such as adults with severe and persistent mental illness and behaviorally disordered youths, to illustrate some potential unique roles for psychologists. The authors believe psychologists are uniquely trained to design such individualized functional behavioral analysis protocols because of their training in research design, behavior analysis, learning theory, and behavior change. Psychologists may also be uniquely qualified to design, implement, and evaluate many specialized therapy techniques, as Barlow has outlined and suggested.     

Should given information come before new? Yes and no

It has been noted for some time that given information tends to be placed before new information (e.g., Clark & Clark, 1977). To determine whether this holds generally, double-object and NP-PP sentences like the following were tested in two speeded acceptability judgment experiments. (1A) The senator mailed the woman a report. (1B) The senator mailed a woman the report. (1C) The senator mailed the report to a woman. (1D) The senator mailed a report to the woman. Given-before-new (or definite before indefinite) ordering facilitated processing for double-object structures, with (1A) processed faster and accepted more often than (1B), but did not facilitate processing of (1C) relative to (1D) in NP-PP structures. A third self-paced reading experiment showed that the advantage of the definite-before-indefinite new ordering holds for constructions with a shifted NP (The senator mailed to the woman a report) but also showed that facilitation from having a definite NP immediately after the verb was limited to cases where the two arguments of a verb contrast in definiteness. The results suggest that the presumed given-before-new preference is not general, but is instead limited to certain constructions and is based on the language comprehension system being sensitive to the requirements of language production.     

Face recognition is affected by similarity in spatial frequency range to a greater degree than within-category object recognition

Previous studies have suggested that face identification is more sensitive to variations in spatial frequency content than object recognition, but none have compared how sensitive the 2 processes are to variations in spatial frequency overlap (SFO). The authors tested face and object matching accuracy under varying SFO conditions. Their results showed that object recognition was more robust to SFO variations than face recognition and that the vulnerability of faces was not due to reliance on configural processing. They suggest that variations in sensitivity to SFO help explain the vulnerability of face recognition to changes in image format and the lack of a middle-frequency advantage in object recognition.     

Arousal, valence, and memory for detail

A common finding in the emotion-memory literature is that memory is enhanced for positively arousing stimuli and negatively arousing stimuli relative to neutral stimuli. We tested the notion that post-stimulus elaboration is responsible for these effects. Post-stimulus elaboration refers to the process of thinking about an event (after its offset) more frequently or more in-depth. We tested the hypothesis by presenting participants with 36 slides depicting events that varied in arousal (low and high) and valence (positive and negative). The opportunity for elaboration was manipulated by requiring participants, during the interslide interval, to complete addition problems, simply view the addition problems, or view a blank slide. Cued recall memory was tested for central and background details. Based on the post-stimulus elaboration hypothesis it was expected that the greatest memory decline would occur for the central details of negatively and positively arousing slides when participants were required to complete addition problems (i.e., a distractor task x arousal x detail interaction). Contrary to the hypothesis, we found that filling the inter-slide interval with a distractor task decreased memory for negative stimuli compared to positive stimuli. This effect was independent of arousal. We also found that arousal increased central detail memory for positive and negative stimuli and background detail memory for positive stimuli but not for negative stimuli. This interaction was explained on the basis of pre-attentive encoding and cue utilisation. It was concluded that in order to understand the complex relationship between emotion and memory, future studies should include, as a minimum, the variables of valence, arousal, and detail.