Goal neglect and Spearman's g: competing parts of a complex task

In goal neglect, a person ignores some task requirement though being able to describe it. Goal neglect is closely related to general intelligence or C. Spearman's (1904) g (J. Duncan, H. Emslie, P. Williams, R. Johnson, & C. Freer, 1996). The authors tested the role of task complexity in neglect and the hypothesis that different task components in some sense compete for attention. In contrast to many kinds of attentional limits, increasing the real-time demands of one task component does not promote neglect of another. Neither does neglect depend on preparation for different possible events in a block of trials. Instead, the key factor is complexity in the whole body of knowledge specified in task instructions. The authors suggest that as novel activity is constructed, relevant facts, rules, and requirements must be organized into a "task model." As this model increases in complexity, different task components compete for representation, and vulnerable components may be lost. Construction of effective task models is closely linked to g.     

Pathways from infant exposure to marital conflict to parent–toddler role reversal

We know that exposure to marital conflict places infants at risk, but we know less about processes. One process may be role reversal, when a distressed parent looks to the child to meet unmet needs for comfort, intimacy, or companionship. A parent in marital conflict may be particularly prone to role reversal, which in turn adversely affects child development. The current study examined pathways from infants' exposure to marital conflict at 12 months to role reversal at 24 months. We sampled low–middle socioeconomic status (SES) families with their first child (N = 128). Independent observers assessed marital conflict (in a problem‐solving task) and role reversal (in a story‐telling task). We found that each parent's conflict behavior predicted the other parent's role reversal. In a direct pathway, mother's conflict behavior towards father led directly to father's role reversal with the child. In an indirect pathway, father's conflict behavior towards mother led to his withdrawal from her, which in turn led to mother's role reversal with the child. Clinical implications are discussed within a developmental psychopathology framework in terms of preventive interventions to offset the deleterious effect of marital conflict and role reversal on child development.     

Active tuberculosis detection by pouched rats in 2014: More than 2,000 new patients found in two countries

Tuberculosis (TB) is a major problem in poor countries because sensitive diagnostic tools are unavailable. In 2014, our pouched rats evaluated sputum from 21,600 Tanzanians and 9,048 Mozambicans whose sputum had previously been evaluated by microscopy, the standard diagnostic for TB. Evaluation by the rats revealed 1,412 new patients with active TB in Tanzania and 645 new patients in Mozambique, increases of 39% and 53%, respectively, when compared to detections by microscopy alone. These results provide further support for the applied use of scent‐detecting rats.     

Triarchic Model Personality Traits and Their Impact on Mock Juror Perceptions of a White-Collar Criminal Defendant

The triarchic model of psychopathy proposes that this personality disorder is composed of 3 relatively distinct constructs: meanness, disinhibition, and boldness. Although the first 2 components are widely accepted, boldness has generated considerable theoretical debate concerning its relevance—largely due to its association with various ostensibly adaptive characteristics and socially desirable behaviors (e.g., self-reported heroism). But is being bold actually perceived by others as an intrinsically adaptive, socially desirable personality trait? We investigated this question using a novel approach—a jury simulation study that manipulated the level of triarchic traits exhibited by a white-collar criminal. More specifically, 330 community members read a vignette in which the defendant's degree of boldness and disinhibition was manipulated and then provided sentence recommendations and other evaluative ratings. As hypothesized, manipulating boldness and disinhibition resulted in more negative views of the defendant, with the boldness manipulation more consistently predicting higher global psychopathy, “meanness,” and “evil” ratings. Surprisingly, neither manipulation predicted sentence recommendations, although higher global psychopathy ratings did correlate with more punitive sentence recommendations. The presence of personality traits construed in some contexts as advantageous or socially desirable can be perceived as more dysfunctional and undesirable in other contexts—particularly when they cooccur with criminal behavior.     

Career‐Community Development: A Framework For Career Counseling and Capacity Building in Rural Communities

The authors propose a framework for career counseling in rural communities that addresses the psychosocial and economic challenges of natural disasters and other catastrophic transitions. The career‐community development framework expands the notion of “client” to include a community‐as‐client approach within a capacity building orientation to supporting workers in the wake of large‐scale disruptions. Drawing on a case study of 2 communities recovering from a devastating forest fire, the authors outline an intervention approach that integrates elements from psychological‐trauma theory, career‐community capacity building models, and libratory educational practices. Implications of this framework for counselor training and practice are discussed.     

Interest in Participating in Smoking Cessation Treatment Among Latino Primary Care Patients

Smoking is the leading preventable cause of disease and death for U.S. Latinos. This study identified correlates of interest in participating in a smoking cessation program among urban Latinos seen in community clinics. Interviews were completed with 141 current smokers. Participants were predominantly Spanish-speaking (93%) males (66%), who were on average 37.6 years old and smoked 8.7 cigarettes per day. Over two-thirds (63%) of participants were “definitely interested” in participating in a smoking cessation program. Participants who smoked more cigarettes per day and reported greater nicotine dependence, depression, and readiness to quit were more likely to be interested, while those employed fulltime were less likely to report high interest. Treatment preferences were consistent with Clinical Practice Guidelines recommending counseling, social support, and pharmacotherapy. Results support recommendations that healthcare providers intervene with all Latino smokers, including light smokers and those who do not report initial interest in smoking cessation.     

Modeling multiple risks during infancy to predict quality of the caregiving environment: contributions of a person-centered approach

The primary goal of this study was to compare several variable-centered and person-centered methods for modeling multiple risk factors during infancy to predict the quality of caregiving environments at six months of age. Nine risk factors related to family demographics and maternal psychosocial risk, assessed when children were two months old, were explored in the understudied population of children born in low-income, non-urban communities in Pennsylvania and North Carolina (N = 1047). These risk factors were (1) single (unpartnered) parent status, (2) marital status, (3) mother's age at first child birth, (4) maternal education, (5) maternal reading ability, (6) poverty status, (7) residential crowding, (8) prenatal smoking exposure, and (9) maternal depression. We compared conclusions drawn using a bivariate approach, multiple regression analysis, the cumulative risk index, and latent class analysis (LCA). The risk classes derived using LCA provided a more intuitive summary of how multiple risks were organized within individuals as compared to the other methods. The five risk classes were: married low-risk; married low-income; cohabiting multiproblem; single low-income; and single low-income/education. The LCA findings illustrated how the association between particular family configurations and the infants' caregiving environment quality varied across race and site. Discussion focuses on the value of person-centered models of analysis to understand complexities of prediction of multiple risk factors.     

Mean Level Differences in the Vividness,Meaning, and Coherence of Life Story High and Low Points: How Valenced Life Stories Do and Do Not Differ

The current paper examines systematic differences in life story high and low points. Narratives from a young adult sample (n = 145) and a late midlife adult sample (n = 154) were coded for vividness, meaning, and coherence. An automated linguistic coding technique was also used. Mean level comparisons found high and low points had similar levels of vividness and coherence. Among the young adults, but not the late midlife adults, there was greater total meaning making (positive and negative combined) in low points than in high points. Across high and low points, levels of positive meaning were greater than negative meaning, in both samples, suggesting a positivity bias in meaning making in valenced life stories. Moreover, the bias was large in both samples (68% in young adults, 450% in late midlife adults). Preliminary analyses suggested midlife adults, when compared to young adults, had a greater bias towards producing more positive than negative meaning. In both samples, automated linguistic analyses indicated that low points displayed greater word counts and usage of cognitive mechanism words, suggesting greater cognitive processing in low points at the level of word usage. Findings are framed within autobiographical memory and narrative research and socioemotional selectivity theory.     

Baseline training sequence affects speed of emergent conditional discriminations

We examined the effects of baseline training sequence on the emergence of conditional discriminations in an intraverbal naming task. Thirty‐two college students were randomly assigned to two groups. The tact‐intraverbal (TI) group first learned to vocally tact eight visual stimuli using a unique verbal label for each stimulus, and then to intraverbally relate four pairs of verbal labels. The intraverbal‐tact (IT) group received the same training but in the opposite sequence. Both groups then received a match‐to‐sample test involving the visual stimuli alone. On average, the TI group had significantly shorter reaction times than the IT group throughout all four test blocks, even when controlling for intraverbal retention, which was lower in the IT group. Accuracy on the MTS test did not differ significantly between groups when controlling for intraverbal retention. However, MTS accuracy and intraverbal retention were strongly correlated in the IT group but uncorrelated in the TI group. We suggest the effect of training sequence reflects different sources of stimulus control available to subjects in different groups when confronted with the novel MTS trials.