The prevention of depressive symptoms in rural Australian women

Two interventions aimed at preventing depressive symptoms in women living in Western Australian rural communities were evaluated against a no‐intervention control condition. The standard intervention was based upon traditional cognitive‐behaviour treatments for depression; the experimental intervention was based upon prevention strategies derived from the learned helplessness model of depression (e.g. Peterson, Maier, & Seligman, 1993 ). Seventy‐six women were randomly assigned to either the standard or the experimental group, and a further 20 women formed a no‐intervention control group. The standard group showed a reduction in depressive symptoms at post‐test, but no effects at 6‐week or 6‐month follow‐ups. In contrast, a reduction in depressive symptoms did not appear for the experimental group until the 6‐week follow‐up at which time a less depressive attributional style was also evident; these effects were even more pronounced at the 6‐month follow‐up. The no‐intervention control group showed no changes across time. It is argued that these results support the applicability of prevention strategies based on the learned helplessness model to this population. Copyright © 2003 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Cognitive Offloading: Structuring the Environment to Improve Children's Working Memory Task Performance

Research has shown that adults can engage in cognitive offloading, whereby internal processes are offloaded onto the environment to help task performance. Here, we investigate an application of this approach with children, in particular children with poor working memory. Participants were required to remember and recall sequences of colors by placing colored blocks in the correct serial order. In one condition the blocks were arranged to facilitate cognitive offloading (i.e., grouped by color), whereas in the other condition they were arranged randomly. Across two experiments (total N = 166) the ordered condition improved task performance for children with low working memory ability. In addition, participants in Experiment 2 rated the difficulty of the two arrangements and performed a further condition in which they were given an opportunity to freely arrange the blocks before completing the task. Despite performing better in the ordered condition, children with low working memory ability did not rate the ordered arrangement as easier, nor did they choose an ordered arrangement when given the opportunity to do so. This research shows that cognitive offloading can also be a useful process in populations other than typical adults, and the implications of this work for supporting children with poor working memory are discussed.     

The Structure of Vocational Interests for Diverse Racial-Ethnic Groups

We investigated differences in the circular structure of Holland's interests types across racial-ethnic groups (African Americans, Mexican Americans, Asian Americans, Native Americans, and Caucasians; N = 11,610). The samples consisted of college-bound persons who completed the revised Unisex Edition of the ACT Interest Inventory (UNIACT; Swaney, 1995), as well as comparison group of 10th graders ( N = 4,133) in the 1992 UNIACT norms sample. Analyses using a randomization test of hypothesized order, targeted principal components, and three-way multidimensional scaling suggest that Holland's model adequately represents the interest structures of both sexes in all the diverse samples.     

Aftereffect of visual movement: Storage in the absence of a patterned surround

Storage of the visual movement aftereffect is shown to occur if, after movement, the stationary target remains clearly visible in a surround that is dark and featureless. This finding is considered in terms of the earlier observation that the movement aftereffect is reduced or eliminated when the target surround is featureless. It is noted that current hypotheses in terms of direction-specific units cannot easily explain the storage of the movement aftereffect.     

Systematic reinforcement: academic performance of underachieving students

The effect of contingent tangible and social reinforcement on academic performance was investigated in an experimental classroom of 25 selected underachieving students. Measures were taken of both teacher and child behavior during a baseline and two experimental treatment periods. During Treatment I, a point system with tangible backup reinforcers was combined with contingent social reinforcers dispensed by the teaching staff to assess the effects on three measures of academic performance (i.e., per cent of time at work, work output per minute, and accuracy). During Treatment II, the contingencies for the tangible reinforcers were terminated while social reinforcement was continued to see if the positive effects of Treatment I on academic performance would persist. The results show that with combined tangible and social reinforcers, students' work time, rate of output per hour, and accuracy in all activities substantially increased. After termination of the tangible reinforcers, the students maintained their high rates of output per hour and accuracy for the remaining period of the study while the total amount of time at work returned to the baseline level.     

The effect on a difficult co-ordination task of the frequency of signals

Subjects were required to direct, by moving hand and foot controls, a fugitive spot of light into one of four positions in accordance with changes in the source of signals, and simultaneously, to extinguish two lights using a left-hand response. Two groups of subjects have been tested on this complex co-ordination task. Increasing the frequency of the signals from four successively but irregularly functioning sources was found to increase significantly the “error” scores in controlling the fugitive spot. Variations in signal frequency did not affect the other part of the task requiring left hand responses to a different set of signals. The order of a sequence of 4-signal frequencies over four trials had no effect on the efficiency with which the task was performed.     

Adolescents in Residential Treatment: Caregiver and Peer Predictors of Risk Behavior and Academic Performance

The purpose of this research was to better understand the substance use and sexual risk taking behavior among high-risk adolescent populations placed in residential treatment facilities, including those in the foster care and juvenile justice systems. The primary predictors considered in this study included caregiver support, caregiver closeness, other adult support, adolescent self-disclosure/communication with caregiver, caregiver expectations about sexual behavior, and peer influence regards to drugs/alcohol and sexual behavior. Participants included 120 adolescent females in grades 7 to 12 (median grade?=?10; mean age 15.7 years), primarily African American (57.2 %) and White (29 %), in a residential treatment setting in a large urban area in the Midwest. Caregiver support and self-disclosure/communication with caregivers predicted condom use at most recent intercourse, but variables related to substance use were most consistently predictive of sexuality variables including onset and frequency of behavior. None of these support variables significantly predicted onset and frequency of substance use. Caregiver support was the contributing variable in predicting academic achievement.