S-R compatibilities depend on eccentricity of responding hand

Bauer and Miller (1982) demonstrated that when responding on the body midline with the right hand, subjects react faster when the pairing between horizontally oriented stimuli (an X to the left or right of fixation) and vertically oriented responses (an up or down finger movement) is left-down, right-up (“anti-clockwise”) but when responding with the left hand, the converse pairing was faster. The present experiments tested whether those preferences held for responses other than on the body midline. Unimanual reaction times for clockwise and anti-clockwise S-R pairings were determined for both hands at the midline and 30 and 60 cm to the left or right. Hand position determined both the direction and extent of the compatibility preference; at eccentric positions the right hand preferred clockwise pairings and the left anticlockwise, the converse of that found by Bauer and Miller. The results extend Bauer and Miller's finding, raise problems for theories of S-R compatibility, and further reveal that the state of the action system “sets up” perception.     

Evaluating Competence: Effects of Sex, Marital Status, and Parental Status

Three hundred sixty eight female and male college students read a completed job application and an article written by the applicant. Both the job and the article were in non-sex-typed fields. The applicant was described as either female or male, single or married, and having one or no children. Subjects answered eight evaluative questions concerning the competence of the applicant and the merits of the article. Females were devalued by both male and female subjects, but particularly by males. Applicants of both sexes who were married and childless were evaluated more favorably than applicants who were single and had a child.     

Treating the Capability for Suicide: A Vital and Understudied Frontier in Suicide Prevention

Current efforts at suicide prevention center largely on reducing suicidal desire among individuals hospitalized for suicidality or being treated for related psychopathology. Such efforts have yielded evidence‐based treatments, and yet the national suicide rate has continued to climb. We propose that this disconnect is heavily influenced by an unmet need to consider population‐level interventions aimed at reducing the capability for suicide. Drawing on lessons learned from other public health phenomena that have seen drastic declines in frequency in recent decades (HIV, lung cancer, motor vehicle accidents), we propose that current suicidality treatment efforts trail current suicidality theories in their lack of focus on the extent to which individuals thinking about suicide are capable of transitioning from ideation to attempt. We summarize extant evidence for specific capability‐centered approaches (e.g., means safety) and propose other options for improving our ability to address this largely overlooked variable. We also note that population‐level approaches in this regard would represent an important opportunity to decrease risk in individuals who either lack access to evidence‐based care or underreport suicidal ideation, as a reduced capability for suicide would theoretically diminish the potency of suicidal desire and, in this sense, lower the odds of a transition from ideation to attempt.     

Expressive drawing ability in children with autism

The autistic impairments in emotional and social competence, imagination and generating ideas predict qualitative differences in expressive drawings by children with autism beyond that accounted by any general learning difficulties. In a sample of 60 5–19‐year‐olds, happy and sad drawings were requested from 15 participants with non‐savant autism and compared with those drawn by three control groups matched on either degree of learning difficulty (MLD), mental age (MA) or chronological age (CA). All drawings were rated by two artists on a 7‐point quality of expression scale. Contrary to our predictions, the drawings from the autistic group were rated similar to those of the MA and MLD groups. Analysis of the people and social content of the drawings revealed that although children with autism did not draw fewer people, they did draw more immature forms than mental age controls. Furthermore, there was tentative evidence that fewer social scenes were produced by the autism sample. We conclude that the overall merit of expressive drawing in autism is commensurate with their general learning difficulties, but the social/emotional impairment in autism affects their drawings of people and social scenes.     

Posttraumatic Stress Disorder Symptom Clusters and the Interpersonal Theory of Suicide in a Large Military Sample

Prior studies examining posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD) symptom clusters and the components of the interpersonal theory of suicide (ITS) have yielded mixed results, likely stemming in part from the use of divergent samples and measurement techniques. This study aimed to expand on these findings by utilizing a large military sample, gold standard ITS measures, and multiple PTSD factor structures. Utilizing a sample of 935 military personnel, hierarchical multiple regression analyses were used to test the association between PTSD symptom clusters and the ITS variables. Additionally, we tested for indirect effects of PTSD symptom clusters on suicidal ideation through thwarted belongingness, conditional on levels of perceived burdensomeness. Results indicated that numbing symptoms are positively associated with both perceived burdensomeness and thwarted belongingness and hyperarousal symptoms (dysphoric arousal in the 5‐factor model) are positively associated with thwarted belongingness. Results also indicated that hyperarousal symptoms (anxious arousal in the 5‐factor model) were positively associated with fearlessness about death. The positive association between PTSD symptom clusters and suicidal ideation was inconsistent and modest, with mixed support for the ITS model. Overall, these results provide further clarity regarding the association between specific PTSD symptom clusters and suicide risk factors.