Examining the Utility of the New Raney Vocabulary Measure Alongside the WAIS-III

Psychometric tests related to vocabulary assessments are, for the most part, restricted in their use by trained professionals and/or are costly. These restrictions limit their use, especially for research purposes. To circumvent these limitations, the Raney Vocabulary Measure was created for assessing vocabulary proficiency, specifically for research purposes. The measure consists of 30 questions where participants were instructed to choose the best definition of each word. The purpose of the study was to examine the utility of the new measure using the highly standardized but protected Wechsler Adult Intelligence Scale. Results from the linear combination of the subscales revealed the significant prediction of the Raney Vocabulary Measure, with the Vocabulary subtest contributing most to the unique variance. These results support that the test examines vocabulary ability. The current results are promising as the test would allow for greater accessibility for researchers who do not have access to restricted psychometric tests.     

Repeating,Not Simply Recollecting, <Emphasis Type="Italic">Repetition</Emphasis>: On Kierkegaard’s Ethical Exercises

This essay argues for a formative, and not simply abstract, aspect to the philosophy of religion by attending to the practices of writing employed in Søren Kierkegaard’s pseudonymous work Repetition. By locating this text within an ethical tradition that focuses upon the practices that form subjects, rather than simply the formulation of a theory, its seemingly literary performances can be viewed as exercises. In particular, this text deploys and transforms the Stoic practices of self writing, in the form of keeping notebooks and letter writing, so as to cultivate capabilities. This indirect ethical instruction does not, however, lead to the formation of autonomous ethical subjects, but to the cultivation of capabilities that are only possible in the relational space of vulnerability, service and dependence.     

Do object refixations during scene viewing indicate rehearsal in visual working memory?

Do refixations serve a rehearsal function in visual working memory (VWM)? We analyzed refixations from observers freely viewing multiobject scenes. An eyetracker was used to limit the viewing of a scene to a specified number of objects fixated after the target (intervening objects), followed by a four-alternative forced choice recognition test. Results showed that the probability of target refixation increased with the number of fixated intervening objects, and these refixations produced a 16% accuracy benefit over the first five intervening-object conditions. Additionally, refixations most frequently occurred after fixations on only one to two other objects, regardless of the intervening-object condition. These behaviors could not be explained by random or minimally constrained computational models; a VWM component was required to completely describe these data. We explain these findings in terms of a monitor–refixate rehearsal system: The activations of object representations in VWM are monitored, with refixations occurring when these activations decrease suddenly.     

Structural and discriminant validity of the career factors inventory

Using a sample of 350 college students, this study examined the structural and discriminant validity of the Career Factors Inventory (CFI; Chartrand, Robbins, Morrill, & Boggs, 1990), a multidimensional measure of career indecision intended to be scored for two informational indecision components (Need for Career Information and Need for Self-Knowledge) and two personal-emotional components (Career Choice Anxiety and Generalized Indecisiveness). Results of confirmatory factor analyses and correlations revealed that: (a) the underlying structure of the CFI was similar for women and men, (b) the original four-factor model corresponding to the CFI’s scoring scheme demonstrated an excellent fit to the data, (c) a non-hierarchical two-factor model and a hierarchical model were both supported by the data, and (d) the CFI demonstrated evidence of discriminant validity. Implications for career counseling and suggestions for future research are discussed.     

Motivational control of blocking

Hungry and thirsty rats lever pressed for food pellets in 1 visual stimulus (V1) and for a saline solution in another stimulus (V2). In a 2nd phase, the rats were made either hungry or thirsty and pressed for a starch solution in 2 stimulus compounds, each containing 1 of the visual cues and an auditory cue, that is, V1A1 and V2A2. On test, rats responded less to A1 than to A2 when hungry but less to A2 than to A1 when thirsty. Two further experiments replicated this selective blocking effect when the rats were both hungry and thirsty during Phase 2 and demonstrated that the magnitude of blocking was comparable to that observed when the reinforcer identity was held constant across the 2 phases.     

Scrub jays (Aphelocoma coerulescens) form integrated memories of the multiple features of caching episodes

Four experiments examined whether food-storing scrub jays remember when and where they cached different foods. The scrub jays cached and recovered perishable and nonperishable foods in visuospatially distinct and trial-unique cache sites. They rapidly learned to avoid searching for foods that had perished by the time of recovery, while continuing to search for the same foods after shorter retention intervals when the foods were still fresh. The temporal control of searching at recovery was also observed when the familiarity of cache sites did not provide any information about the time of caching and when the same food was cached in distinct sites at different times. The authors argue that the jays formed an integrated memory for the location and time of caching of particular foods.