The next generation: the value of reminding

In two experiments, we investigated the influence of repeated processing in the context of the generation effect. In both experiments, participants studied words once or twice. Once-studied words either were read or were generated from a definition. Twice-studied words were read both times, generated both times, or read once and generated once. Free recall was best (in order of decreasing performance) after generating twice, after generating plus reading, and finally after generating once; any generation was better than purely reading. Recognition showed a similar pattern, except that the benefit of generating twice was not as striking as in recall and that reading plus generating was just as effective as generating twice. The overall pattern of results is accounted for by a simple model in which a second encoding results in a reminding of the first encoding, and this additional encoding supports subsequent recollection. This reminding is, consequently, more effective in recall than in recognition, and it operates in accordance with the principles of transfer-appropriate processing.     

Using the Interactive Systems Framework in Understanding the Relation Between General Program Capacity and Implementation in Afterschool Settings

The present study uses the Interactive Systems Framework (ISF) to understand how general capacity influences the implementation of prevention programs in afterschool settings. Eight afterschool sites received the Good Behavior Game (GBG) intervention, a program designed to foster supportive behavioral management and positive youth behavior. In line with the Prevention Support System component of ISF, the intervention afterschool staff were trained and received weekly on-site support from coaches in implementing the GBG. It was found that GBG implementation scores were greatest in afterschool programs that rated high on both organizational- and community-levels of general capacity; high scores on only one level of general capacity resulted in lower implementation scores. Thus, afterschool sites that were more organized, maintained adequate facilities, and developed strong linkages to individuals or organizations in the community scored highest in implementation fidelity and quality. This study highlights the importance of considering interactions among multiple levels of general capacity in efforts to promote evidence-based practices in afterschool settings. Caution should be taken in generalizing findings due to the small sample in this study.     

Randomized controlled trial on the effectiveness of metacognitive therapy and intolerance-of-uncertainty therapy for generalized anxiety disorder

This randomized controlled trial compared the effectiveness of metacognitive therapy (MCT) and intolerance-of-uncertainty therapy (IUT) for generalized anxiety disorder (GAD) in an outpatient context. Patients with GAD (N = 126) consecutively referred to an outpatient treatment center for anxiety disorder were randomly allocated to MCT, IUT, or a delayed treatment (DT) condition. Patients were treated individually for up to 14 sessions. Assessments were conducted before treatment (pretreatment), after the last treatment session (posttreatment), and six months after treatment had ended (follow-up). At posttreatment and follow-up assessments, substantial improvements were observed in both treatment conditions across all outcome variables. Both MCT and IUT, but not DT, produced significant reductions in GAD-specific symptoms with large effect sizes (ranging between 0.94 and 2.39) and high proportions of clinically significant change (ranging between 77% and 95%) on various outcome measures, and the vast majority of the patients (i.e., 91% in the MCT group, and 80% in the IUT group) no longer fulfilled the diagnostic criteria for GAD. Results further indicate that MCT produced better results than IUT. This was evident on most outcome measures, and also reflected in effect sizes and degree of clinical response and recovery.     

Did the Chinese Have a Change of Heart?

In their "The Prevalence of Mind-Body Dualism in Early China," Slingerland and Chudek use a statistical analysis of the early Chinese corpus to argue for Weak Folk Dualism (WFD). We raise three methodological objections to their analysis. First, the change over time that they find is largely driven by genre. Second, the operationalization of WFD is potentially misleading. And, third, dating the texts they use is extremely controversial. We conclude with some positive remarks.     

Predicting support for racial transformation policies: Intergroup threat,racial prejudice,sense of group entitlement and strength of identification

Policies and programs designed to challenge the effects of racial discrimination (such as affirmative action) are hotly contested. Factors which have been proposed to explain opposition to these policies include racial prejudice, group threat and self‐interest, and perceptions of intergroup justice. We report the results of two random national telephone surveys which tested a theoretically based model of the predictors of policy support in post‐apartheid South Africa. The results provided limited support for Blumer's group position model. Compensatory and preferential treatment policies had different underlying predictors: Violated entitlement featured in the models of compensatory policy attitudes, but not preferential treatment policy attitudes, where threat was the strongest predictor. In addition to threat and violated entitlement, policy attitudes among the black sample were related to ingroup identification but those of the white sample were related to prejudice. The effects of these variables were in the opposite directions for the two samples: Policy support was associated with strong ingroup identification and high levels of threat among the black sample (i.e. prospective beneficiaries of the transformation policies), but with low levels of prejudice and threat among the white sample. We conclude by considering the implications that these findings have for social change programs. Copyright © 2009 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Sources of Cognitive Exploration: Genetic Variation in the Prefrontal Dopamine System Predicts Openness/Intellect

The personality trait Openness/Intellect reflects the tendency to be imaginative, curious, perceptive, artistic, and intellectual - all characteristics that involve cognitive exploration. Little is known about the biological basis of Openness/Intellect, but the trait has been linked to cognitive functions of prefrontal cortex, and the neurotransmitter dopamine plays a key role in motivation to explore. The hypothesis that dopamine is involved in Openness/Intellect was supported by examining its association with two genes that are central components of the prefrontal dopaminergic system. In two demographically different samples (children: N = 608; adults: N = 214), variation in the dopamine D4 receptor gene (DRD4) and the catechol-O-methyltransferase gene (COMT) predicted Openness/Intellect, as main effects in the child sample and as a gene-gene interaction in adults.     

Dilution, not load, affects distractor processing

Lavie and Tsal (1994) proposed that spare attentional capacity is allocated involuntarily to the processing of irrelevant stimuli, thereby enabling interference. Under this view, when task demands increase, spare capacity should decrease and distractor interference should decrease. In support, Lavie and Cox (1997) found that increasing perceptual load by increasing search set size decreased interference from an irrelevant distractor. In three experiments, we manipulated the cue set size (number of cued locations) independently of the display set size (number of letters presented). Increasing the display set size reduced distractor interference regardless of whether the additional letters were relevant to the task. In contrast, increasing the cue set size increased distractor interference. Both findings are inconsistent with the load explanation, but are consistent with a proposed two-stage dilution account.     

Perceptual adaptation to sinewave-vocoded speech across languages

Listeners rapidly adapt to many forms of degraded speech. What level of information drives this adaptation, however, remains unresolved. The current study exposed listeners to sinewave-vocoded speech in one of three languages, which manipulated the type of information shared between the training languages (German, Mandarin, or English) and the testing language (English) in an audio-visual (AV) or an audio plus still frames modality (A + Stills). Three control groups were included to assess procedural learning effects. After training, listeners' perception of novel sinewave-vocoded English sentences was tested. Listeners exposed to German-AV materials performed equivalently to listeners exposed to English AV or A + Stills materials and significantly better than two control groups. The Mandarin groups and German-A + Stills group showed an intermediate level of performance. These results suggest that full lexical access is not absolutely necessary for adaptation to degraded speech, but providing AV-training in a language that is similar phonetically to the testing language can facilitate adaptation.     

Representational momentum in aviation

The purpose of this study was to examine the effects of expertise on motion anticipation. We conducted 2 experiments in which novices and expert pilots viewed simulated aircraft landing scenes. The scenes were interrupted by the display of a black screen and then started again after a forward or backward shift. The participant's task was to determine whether the moving scene had been shifted forward or backward. A forward misjudgment of the final position of the moving scene was interpreted as a representational momentum (RM) effect. Experiment 1 showed that an RM effect was detected only for experts. The lack of motion anticipation on the part of novices is a surprising result for the RM literature. It could be related to scene unfamiliarity, encoding time, or shift size. Experiment 2 was run with novices only. It was aimed at testing the potential impact of 2 factors on the RM effect: scene encoding time and shift size. As a whole, the results showed that encoding time and shift size are important factors in anticipation processes in realistic dynamic situations.