The locus of semantic priming effects in person recognition

Semantic priming in person recognition has been studied extensively. In a typical experiment, participants are asked to make a familiarity decision to target items that have been immediately preceded by related or unrelated primes. Facilitation is usually observed from related primes, and this priming is equivalent across stimulus domains (i.e., faces and names prime one another equally). Structural models of face recognition (e.g., IAC: Burton, Bruce, & Johnston, 1990) accommodate these effects by proposing a level of person identity nodes (PINs) at which recognition routes converge, and which allow access to a common pool of semantics. We present three experiments that examine semantic priming for different decisions. Priming for a semantic decision (e.g., British/American?) shows exactly the same pattern that is normally observed for a familiarity decision. The pattern is equivalent for name and face recognition. However, no semantic priming is observed when participants are asked to make a sex decision. These results constrain future models of face processing and are discussed with reference to current theories of semantic priming.     

USING PERCENTILE SCHEDULES TO INCREASE EYE CONTACT IN CHILDREN WITH FRAGILE X SYNDROME

Aversion to eye contact is a common behavior of individuals diagnosed with Fragile X syndrome (FXS); however, no studies to date have attempted to increase eye‐contact duration in these individuals. In this study, we employed a percentile reinforcement schedule with and without overcorrection to shape eye‐contact duration of 6 boys with FXS. Results showed that although aversion to eye contact is often thought to be unamenable to change in FXS, it can be shaped in some individuals using percentile schedules either alone or in combination with overcorrection.     

Just How Effective are Antidepressant Medications? Results of a Major New Study

The STAR*D (Sequenced Treatment Alternatives to Relieve Depression) project was the largest and most extensive trial of antidepressants ever conducted. The study used state of- the-art methods to treat real patients coming to a hospital or psychiatric clinic for relief from depression. Because the first antidepressant is often ineffective for most patients, a sequence of drug treatments targeting various brain neurochemicals was carefully planned. This article will review the complex treatments and the various outcomes, including the frequency of relapse during twelve months of follow-up care.     

Male Melancholia, Identity-Loss, and Religion

This essay posits a relationship between male melancholia, defined as a complicated form of grief that resists compensatory consolation, and experiences of identity-loss. I draw especially from pastoral psychologist Donald Capps’s views on male melancholia. Concurring with Capps’s claim that melancholic men seek relief from melancholia in religion, I also draw from the psychology of Erik H. Erikson to add this emphasis: that both the roots of melancholia and subsequent experiences of melancholic loss link with experiences of perceived threats to or loss of one’s identity. I also suggest how religious rituals may ameliorate melancholia.     

Galton and the birth of differential psychology and eugenics: Social,political, and economic forces

The social, political, and economic forces operative in nineteenth century Britain are briefly described. This permits tracing the birth of both the scientific study of individual differences and the field of eugenics to the infrastructure of society at that time. The distinction is made between the normative doctrine of individualism and the factual study of individual differences. It is argued that democratic—liberal—capitalistic—individualism, in part, conditioned the beginning of differential psychology and eugenics. In this process, Galton's liberal views concerning individual freedom and opportunity for full development became transformed into their dialectic—totalitarian—collectivism—a vision of an ideal state which did not come into being. It is paradoxically concluded that those same social forces which helped bring about the birth of differential psychology and the entailing eugenics ideology prevented the latter from being accepted and implemented.     

Autoshaping the pigeon's gape response: acquisition and topography as a function of reinforcer type and magnitude.

The pigeon's key-pecking response is experimentally dissociable into transport (head movement) and gape (jaw movement) components. During conditioning of the key-pecking response, both components come under the control of the conditioned stimulus. To study the acquisition of gape conditioned responses and to clarify the contribution of unconditioned stimulus (reinforcer) variables to the form of the response, gape and key-contact responses were recorded during an autoshaping procedure and reinforcer properties were systematically varied. One group of 8 pigeons was food deprived and subgroups of 2 birds each were exposed to four different pellet sizes as reinforcers, each reinforcer signaled by a keylight conditioned stimulus. A second group was water deprived and received water reinforcers paired with the conditioned stimulus. Water- or food-deprived control groups received appropriate water or food reinforcers that were randomly delivered with respect to the keylight stimulus. Acquisition of the conditioned gape response frequently preceded key-contact responses, and gape conditioned responses were generally elicited at higher rates than were key contacts. The form of the conditioned gape was similar to, but not identical with, the form of the unconditioned gape. The gape component is a critical topographical feature of the conditioned key peck, a sensitive measure of conditioning during autoshaping, and an important source of the observed similarities in the form of conditioned and consummatory responses.     

Contingent color aftereffects: Reassessing old conclusions

Although there is considerable evidence supporting an associative interpretation of contingent color aftereffects, there are data that appear inconsistent with this interpretation. New findings from seven experiments are presented indicating that, contrary to earlier claims, contingent color aftereffects are observed after induction with (1) single orthogonal black bars on colored backgrounds, (2) geometric forms, and (3) two orthogonal grids of the same color. The results of these experiments are relevant to an associative interpretation of contingent color aftereffects, as well as to assessing alternative interpretations of the phenomenon.     

Small Acts of Living: Everyday Resistance to Violence and Other Forms of Oppression

The author describes an approach to therapy which is based on the observation that whenever persons are badly treated, they resist. Case illustrations are given in which individuals seeking therapy had been subjected to violence and oppression.     

Organizational reward systems: Implications for climate

This study investigated the role of systematically different organizational reward structures upon individual perceptions of the reward climate. Nurses in a naval hospital worked for the same supervisors but were subject to either tenure-contingent (N=73) or behavior-contingent (N=50) reward systems. No differences in perceived reward climate were found between the two groups. In the tenure-contingent group, job attitudes reflected individual characteristics rather than perceived climate. The opposite relationship was found for the behavior-contingent group.Support for this research was provided under Office of Naval Research Contract RR942-08-01 NR 170-915. Opinions expressed are those of the author. No endorsement by the Department of the Navy has been given, nor should it be inferred. Portions of the study were conducted while the author was at the Naval Health Research Center in San Diego. The author would like to thank R. J. Bullock, Mark C. Butler, L. R. James, and R. D. Pritchard for their helpful comments and assistance.