Factor structure of the Spielberger Anger Expression scales when used with Australian prisoners

The State-Trait Anger Expression Inventory administered to prison inmates has supported the factor structure of the three anger expression scales although this structure has not been verified with Australian participants. Data collected from 397 Western Australian male prisoners produced a factor structure consistent with the scale structure outlined in the 1991 manual. Scale means and standard deviations were similar to those reported for U.S. and Canadian prisoners. It is therefore appropriate to use the standard scoring procedures with Australian male prisoners.     

Meet The Simpsons: top-down effects in face learning

We examined whether prior knowledge of a person affects the visual processes involved in learning a face. In two experiments, subjects were taught to associate human faces with characters they knew (from the TV show The Simpsons) or characters they did not (novel names). In each experiment, knowledge of the character predicted performance in a recognition memory test, relying only on old/new confidence ratings. In experiment 1, we established the technique and showed that there is a face-learning advantage for known people, even when face items are counterbalanced for familiarity across the experiment. In experiment 2 we replicated the effect in a setting which discouraged subjects from attending more to known than unknown people, and eliminated any visual association between face stimuli and a character from The Simpsons. We conclude that prior knowledge about a person can enhance learning of a new face.     

Ontogeny of social behavior in the megapode Australian brush-turkey (Alectura lathami)

Megapodes meet conspecifics at an unpredictable age, and it is unknown how their social behavior develops under such conditions. The authors induced encounters between 2-day-old socially naive hatchlings and up to 49-day-old chicks of the Australian brush-turkey (Alectura lathami) in a large outdoor aviary. All social behavior patterns found in older chicks were present in hatchlings and did not change in form or the frequency in which they occurred thereafer; the frequency of calling was the only feature that changed significantly with age. Chicks stayed only 0.3-2.0 m (medians) apart and synchronized their feeding activity from the age of 20 days. These results indicate that megapode chicks show social behavior without social experience and that this requires no postnatal leaning.     

Aging and repetition effects: separate specific and nonspecific influences

The research reported in this article focuses on processes that contribute to the repetition effect in 2-alternative forced-choice tasks and on how these processes change with age. An analytical approach is presented that allows researchers to discriminate between 2 components of performance. The results of Experiment 1 show that differences in the relative contributions of these 2 processes can produce differences in repetition effects between younger and older adults. Furthermore, as in the negative priming domain, increasing the contribution of 1 of these 2 components can eliminate this age difference. Together, the results argue against the practice of attributing age differences in repetition effects to deficits in any single cognitive process.     

Predicting unit performance by assessing transformational and transactional leadership

How do leadership ratings collected from units operating under stable conditions predict subsequent performance of those units operating under high stress and uncertainty? To examine this question, the authors calculated the predictive relationships for the transformational and transactional leadership of 72 light infantry rifle platoon leaders for ratings of unit potency, cohesion, and performance for U.S. Army platoons participating in combat simulation exercises. Both transformational and transactional contingent reward leadership ratings of platoon leaders and sergeants positively predicted unit performance. The relationship of platoon leadership to performance was partially mediated through the unit's level of potency and cohesion. Implications, limitations, and future directions for leadership research are discussed.     

Converted patients and clinic patients as control cases: a comparison with implications for psychoanalytic training

All twenty-eight respondents to a recent poll of the thirty institutes affiliated with the American Psychoanalytic Association reported that they now accept cases converted from psychotherapy to psychoanalysis as control cases. This study was designed to compare converted cases to clinic cases systematically with respect to patient characteristics, treatment, and the educational experience of the treating candidate. The study followed twenty-four candidates entering analytic training between 1992 and 1995, who treated thirty-four clinic cases and forty-three converted cases between February 1993 and July 2000. Clinic and converted patients were comparable with regard to demographics, prior treatment histories, structural diagnoses, and Axis I diagnoses. In addition, the two groups of cases were indistinguishable with respect to the rate at which candidates received credit toward graduation requirements. Candidates treating converted cases earned approximately dollars 7,600 per patient per year, compared to candidates treating clinic cases, who earned nothing. Eighty-four percent of converted patients diagnosed with a mood disorder by the treating candidate were on medication, in contrast to only 20% of clinic patients with the same diagnosis. Similar differences were seen in the case of anxiety disorders. Given the prevalence of affective and anxiety disorders in control cases and the availability of a variety of medications and psychotherapies with documented efficacy in treating these disorders, candidates should be trained to discuss treatment options with patients who present with Axis I disorders.     

The development of reading impairment: a cognitive neuroscience model

This review discusses recent cognitive neuroscience investigations into the biological bases of developmental dyslexia, a common disorder impacting approximately 5 to 17 percent of the population. Our aim is to summarize central findings from several lines of evidence that converge on pivotal aspects of the brain bases of developmental dyslexia. We highlight ways in which the approaches and methodologies of developmental cognitive neuroscience that are addressed in this special issue-including neuroimaging, human genetics, refinement of cognitive and biological phenotypes, neural plasticity and computational model-can be employed in uncovering the biological bases of this disorder. Taking a developmental perspective on the biological bases of dyslexia, we propose a simple cascading model for the developmental progression of this disorder, in which individual differences in brain areas associated with phonological processing might influence the specialization of visual areas involved in the rapid processing of written words. We also discuss recent efforts to understand the impact of successful reading interventions in terms of changes within cortical circuits associated with reading ability.     

Early life influences on life-long patterns of behavior and health

The stability of a child's early life has profound effects on physical and mental health, and unstable parent-child relationships, as well as abuse, can lead to behavioral disorders and increased mortality and morbidity from a wide variety of common diseases later in life. One common consequence, namely, depressive illness, is associated with chemical imbalances in the brain and hormonal dysregulation, constituting a form of allostatic load that alters interpretations of stimuli and influences, behavioral, and hormonal responses to potentially stressful situations. The brain not only encodes information and controls the behavioral responses but it is also changed structurally by those experiences. Structural changes in the hippocampus and amygdala, which are important brain structures for cognition and emotion, are representative of what may be occurring throughout the brain as a result of allostatic load resulting from the chronic stress of a disorder such as depression. Such structural changes include dendritic debranching and hypertrophy, cell proliferation, and synaptic remodeling; they are produced by the combined overactivity of stress hormones and endogenous neurotransmitters. These mediators are normally involved in adaptation, but can also promote damage when they are dysregulated and over-active. They are very likely to be strongly biased by early life experiences. The findings from animal models thus provide a basis for understanding potential mechanisms of environmental and developmental determinants of individual differences in human stress reactivity, as well as anxiety, depression, and a host of related systemic disorders. There is an increasing amount of translational research that is beginning to tie the basic research to clinical outcomes of individuals exposed to abusive or inconsistent care-giving in early life. A major goal of studies on this important topic is to define times in development and strategies for intervening to prevent or reverse the effects of adverse early life experiences. Although prevention is clearly the preferable route, some degree of reversal of psychopathology and pathophysiology caused by early life adversity appears to be an achievable goal.     

Looking and search measures of object knowledge in preschool children

The same preschoolers were tested on an observation task and a search task involving the invisible displacement of an object. In the observation task, children watched an object roll behind a screen from which protruded the top of a solid wall. Analyses revealed significantly longer looking to impossible than to possible outcomes in all children. In search, the child was allowed to retrieve the rolled object. Most 3-year-olds but significantly fewer 2.5-year-olds completed the search successfully. An unexpected sex difference was found, with boys outperforming girls. Search performance was not associated with observation measures. The findings indicate that children visually discriminate violations of solidity but that this sensitivity is not associated with successful search performance.     

Long-term semantic transfer: An overlapping-operations account

Semantic priming is usually a short-lived effect. However, it is also usually investigated using undemanding tasks, such as naming or lexical decision. We instead required subjects to perform category verification. We observed semantically mediated transfer occurring at an average lag of 90 intervening trials. We also observed that this priming was specific to the stimulus properties made salient in prime and probe displays and the particular task demanded in those displays. We interpret the results within an overlapping-operations framework, based on the work of Kolers (e.g., 1976).