Effects of preshot routine on free-throw shooting

The effect of prohibiting the use of a preshot routine on free-throw shooting in competitive situations was investigated. 25 male high school basketball players were instructed to attempt 50 free throws alternating in blocks of 10 between the use of their preshot routine and shooting without it. To make the situation competitive, subjects were run in groups of five and their performance was recorded on a large easel placed to the side of the free-throw line. A significantly larger number of baskets were made in the preshot routine condition than without the routine. A competitive situation led to a greater decrement in baskets than had been reported in 1986 by Lobmeyer and Wassermen during noncompetitive free-throw shooting.     

Creating new memories that are quickly accessed and confidently held

In two experiments involving a total of 542 subjects, a series of slides depicting a burglary was shown. After the initial event, subjects were exposed to one or more narratives about the event that contained some misinformation or neutral information about four critical details. Finally, subjects were tested on their memories of what they saw, and their reaction times and confidence levels were measured. When subjects took a standard test in which the misinformation item was a possible response option, they responded very quickly and confidently when making this incorrect choice. Misled subjects responded as quickly and confidently to these "unreal" memories as they did to their genuine memories. It does not seem, then, that the misinformation effect arises from a large proportion of subjects who must resolve a conflict between two memories when they are tested, a conflict that would be expected to take time. When subjects took a modified test in which the misinformation item was not a possible response, misled subjects were as accurate as were controls, but they responded more slowly, regardless of whether they ultimately chose the right or wrong option. These findings indicate that misinformation does introduce some form of interference not detected by a simple test of accuracy.     

Neurological soft signs and school achievement: The mediating effects of sustained attention

A group of 115 black male adolescents drawn from a clinically unselected birth cohort, half of whom were known to have had neurological soft signs at age 7, were examined at age 17 to determine the relation between soft signs and performance on standard tests of school achievement and sustained attention. Three signs measured at age 17-dysgraphesthesia, difficulties with rapid alternating movements (dysdiadochokinesis), and motor slowness—were related to lower concurrent and past IQ and to impaired performance on laboratory and paper-and-pencil measures of sustained attention. The relation between signs and the attentional measures remained significant after IQ was statistically controlled. The three age 17 soft signs as well as age 7 signs were related to impaired performance on standardized tests (age 17) of school achievement. Most of the relation between signs and school achievement could be accounted for by the variance signs shared with sustained attention. One sign, mirror movements, was unrelated to all other attentional and cognitive measures.The study was supported by center grant MH 306906 and research training grant 5 T32 MH 13043-13 from the National Institute of Mental Health, as well as by the City College and the City University Computing Centers. We thank Lillian Belmont and two reviewers for their critical comments on an earlier version of the paper. We dedicate this paper to the memory of Joseph Barmack.     

Common problems and coping strategies I: Findings with normal adolescents

This study investigated problems commonly experienced by adolescents and the strategies they use to cope with these events. Coping strategies were examined across the subjects' omotional state and their evaluation of the problem. In general, adolescents reported four common Stressors that were similar across age groups and gender. However, males differed from females in the frequency of these problems. Further, while the Stressors were similar, the frequency with which the coping strategies were employed and the efficacy ascribed to them differed across sex and across problem type. These findings are discussed in terms of the stress and coping literature with adults and the implications for clinical assessment and treatment of adolescents.     

Telescoping is not time compression: A model

A model of telescoping is proposed that assumes no systematic errors in dating. Rather, the overestimation of recent occurrences of events is based on the combination of three factors: (1) Retention is greater for recent events; (2) errors in dating, though unbiased, increase linearly with the time since the dated event; and (3) intrusions often occur from events outside the period being asked about, but such intrusions do not come from events that have not yet occurred. In Experiment 1, we found that recall for colloquia fell markedly over a 2-year interval, the magnitude of errors in psychologists' dating of the colloquia increased at a rate of .4 days per day of delay, and the direction of the dating error was toward the middle of the interval. In Experiment 2, the model used the retention function and dating errors from the first study to predict the distribution of the actual dates of colloquia recalled as being within a 5-month period. In Experiment 3, the findings of the first study were replicated with colloquia given by, instead of for, the subjects.     

Community psychology in Hong Kong: Past,present, and future

The expansion of mental health services during the 1960s from a single remote mental hospital to centers and clinics in mainstream communities fostered the development of community psychology in Hong Kong. Few psychologists were initially involved in the local community mental health movement, but its momentum resulted in increasing numbers of practitioner psychologists working in community-based service settings. Community psychology in Hong Kong today consists primarily of service delivery, but also includes applied research, community organization/consultation, and community education. Despite having many parallels with the American situation, key concepts underpinning the practice of community psychology in the Territory possess their own character as a reflection of nuances in the local scene. Prospects for the continued development of community psychology in Hong Kong appear favorable. Of special relevance is the field's potential contribution to a better understanding of the psychological phenomena associated with the Territory's sociopolitical transformation in 1997.     

The Children's Firesetting Interview with psychiatrically referred and nonreferred children

This study evaluated the Children's Firesetting Interview (CFI). The measure was developed to operationalize multiple domains of functioning derived from a riskfactor model of firesetting. The model poses that child, parent, and family characteristics promote firesetting and continuation of a pattern of firesetting. Major factors include curiosity about fire, involvement in and exposure to firerelated activities, and knowledge about first safety The CFI, consisting of 46 questions reflecting six a prioridimensions, was administered to 519 children (ages 6–13) recruited from nonpatient, outpatient, and inpatient samples. Internal consistency and testretest reliability of the measure were satisfactory. Criterion validity was supported by the findings that firesetters showed greater curiosity about fire, involvement in firerelated activities, exposure to models/materials, and knowledge about things that burn than did nonfiresetters. These findings did not vary as a function of the child's patient status or level of antisocial behavior. Implications for the evaluation of firesetting risk are discussed.This study was supported by grant MH-39976 from the Antisocial and Violent Behavior Branch of the National Institute of Mental Health and by a Research Scientist Development Award (MH00353) from the National Institute of Mental Health. The authors acknowledge the constructive suggestions of two anonymous reviewers.     

Can dyslexia be treated? Treatment-specific and generalized treatment effects in dyslexic children's response to remediation

A total of 178 reading disabled children were randomly assigned to one of three treatment conditions providing training in word recognition and decoding skills (DS), oral and written language (OWLS), or classroom survival skills (CSS. an alternative treatment control). Pre- and post-treatment comparisons on an array of standardized and experimental measures indicated that the two experimental treatments (DS, OWLS) resulted in improvement on selected tests significantly greater than that resulting from a third treatment intervention which controlled for treatment time and individual attention (CSS). Effects specific to each experimental treatment were identified, as well as some generalized treatment advantages shared by both experimental groups at post-test. These results indicate that some of the deficits associated with developmental dyslexia are amenable to treatment. Greater generalization of treatment effects was observed following the DS than the OWLS treatment. While DS-instructed children exhibited better word recognition skills, however, their knowledge of grapheme-phoneme correspondence rules was not improved. Several OWLS-specific effects observed on experimental reading and language measures were not replicated on standardized tests which purport to measure the same skills. These results are discussed with respect to (i) possible mechanisms by which disabled readers may acquire word recognition skills, (ii) their failure to acquire and use grapheme-phoneme correspondence rules, and (iii) a possible reduced tendency in the present population to generalize newly acquired specific knowledge to related knowledge domains.     

Chronic stress, leukocyte subpopulations, and humoral response to latent viruses

Psychological stress has been shown to affect immune system status and function, but most studies of this relationship have focused on acute stress and/or laboratory situations. The present study compared total numbers of leukocytes and lymphocyte subpopulations (determined by flow cytometry) and antibody titers to latent and nonlatent viruses among a group of chronically stressed individuals living near the damaged Three Mile Island (TMI) nuclear power plant with those of a demographically comparable control group. Urinary catecholamine and cortisol levels were also examined. Residents of the TMI area exhibited greater numbers of neutrophils, which were positively correlated with epinephrine levels. The TMI group also exhibited fewer B lymphocytes, T-suppressor/cytotoxic lymphocytes, and natural killer cells. Antibody titers to herpes simplex were significantly different across groups as well, whereas titers to nonlatent rubella virus as well as IgG and IgM levels were comparable.