Cultural meanings of nature: an analysis of contemporary motion pictures

To evaluate current cultural meanings of nature, the authors asked 65 undergraduate students to "list 3 movies in which nature was an important aspect of the film." They also were asked to specify the natural element that stood out to them and describe "how it related to the overall theme of the movie." Two independent groups of raters skilled in interpretive analysis developed thematic meanings from these responses. Following this, in a 2nd study, a different group of participants rated the 18 most frequently mentioned natural elements on thematic scales derived from the initial interpretive analysis. Participants in the 1st study mentioned 33 different movies at least twice and 5 themes that captured the meaning of nature in these films. Correlational results derived from the 2nd study indicated that rating scales reflecting these 5 themes formed 2 distinct groups; the first group described settings in which nature is experienced as adversarial and plays a significant role in dramatic action, and the second group defined settings in which nature is viewed either as a place of refuge or simply as a locale in which ongoing narrative action occurs. The general conclusion reached in both studies concerns the often noted but not always appreciated fact that movies--similar to everyday events and actions--always take place in specific settings and that neither life events nor dramatic narratives can be understood apart from specific settings.     

Articulatory duration in single-word speech production

Three different speech production paradigms assessed C. T. Kello, D. C. Plaut, and B. MacWhinney's (2000) claim that the characteristics of speech production flexibly vary between staged and cascaded modes depending on task demand. All experiments measured response latencies and durations of single words without and with a response deadline. Experiment 1 used a picture-word interference task; Experiment 2 blocked pictures either by semantic category or by word-initial overlap; and Experiment 3 used a Stroop paradigm. In all cases, systematic effects of semantic and form relatedness were obtained on latencies but not on response durations. These results support the assumption that articulation, as assessed by response duration, is never influenced by central cognitive processes once a response has been initiated.     

Do expertise and the degree of perception-action coupling affect natural anticipatory performance?

Two experiments using a temporal occlusion paradigm (the first with expert and novice participants and the second with participants of intermediate skill) were conducted to examine the capability of tennis players to predict the direction of an opponent's service in situ. In both experiments two different response conditions, reflecting differing degrees of perception-action coupling, were employed. In a coupled condition players were required to make a movement-based response identical to that which they would use to hit a return of service in a game situation, whereas in an uncoupled condition a verbal prediction of service direction was required. Experiment 1 provided clear evidence of superior prediction accuracy under the coupled response condition when ball flight was available, plus some limited evidence to suggest that superior prediction accuracy under uncoupled response conditions might hold true if only advance (pre-contact) information was available. Experiment 2 showed the former finding to be a robust one, but was unable to reveal any support for the latter. Experiment 1 also revealed that expert superiority is more apparent for predictions made under natural (coupled) than uncoupled response-mode conditions. Collectively, these findings suggest that different perceptual processes may be in operation in anticipatory tasks which depend on skill level, the type of information presented, and degree of perception-action coupling inherent in the task requirements.     

Incremental validity and the assessment of psychopathology in adults

Results from studies on incremental validity are described for (a) interviews, (b) personality inventories, (c) projective techniques, and (d) brief self-rated and clinician-rated measures. In some of the studies (clinical judgment studies), psychologists were given increasing amounts of information. In other studies (statistical prediction studies), increasing amounts of assessment information were entered into a statistical prediction rule. Although relatively little research has been conducted on incremental validity, results that have been obtained tend to favor the use of interviews, personality inventories (e.g., the Minnesota Multiphasic Personality Inventory--2; J. N. Butcher, W. G. Dahlstrom, J. R., Graham, A. Tellegen, & B. Kaemmer, 1989), and brief self-rated measures (e.g., the Anxiety Sensitivity Index, S. Reiss, R. A. Peterson, D. M. Gursky, & R. M. McNally, 1986). Results are generally less encouraging for projective techniques.     

The clinician-investigator: unavoidable but manageable tension

The "difference position" holds that clinical research and therapeutic medical practice are sufficiently distinct activities to require different ethical rules and principles. The "similarity position" holds instead that clinical investigators ought to be bound by the same fundamental principles that govern therapeutic medicine--specifically, a duty to provide the optimal therapeutic benefit to each patient or subject. Some defenders of the similarity position defend it because of the overlap between the role of attending physician and the role of investigator in a research trial. This overlap is maximal when the same physician occupies both roles with respect to a particular patient-subject. We address the ethical tensions inherent in that role conflict and argue that the tensions are real but manageable. The difference position provides a sound ethical framework within which to manage those tensions, while the similarity position is unsatisfactory because it seeks to deny the existence of the tensions.     

Inhibition of return in a selective reaching task: an investigation of reference frames.

Most previous studies of inhibition of return (IOR) have examined reaction time (RT) and accuracy. These effects have been observed via saccades to targets or with key-press responses. In this study the authors examined, for the first time, IOR in components of a selective reaching task in which participants directly reached for and depressed target keys. When the interval between cue and target was 600 ms, robust IOR effects were observed in RT to begin the reach, but no effects were observed in the movement components (movement time to complete the reach and the path of the reach). However, when the cue-target interval was short (200 ms), hand paths deviated toward the cue. The results suggest that although RT measures of IOR appear to reveal perceptual rather than action-based processes, action-based representations may be briefly activated by irrelevant cues, which can be observed via analysis of three-dimensional reach path.