Positive Life Events as a Moderator of Stress‐Related Depressive Symptoms

This study examines the relationships among positive life events, negative life events, and depressive symptoms in a sample of college students. Consistent with predictions, the results of a hierarchical multiple regression indicated a significant main effect for negative life events in predicting depressive symptoms such that increases in negative life events were associated with increases in depressive symptoms. There was also significant interaction between positive and negative life events such that the depressive effects of higher levels of negative life events seem to be reduced for subjects who had also experienced higher levels of positive life events.     

Evaluation of the PEAK-DT and PEAK-G Pre-assessments: Comparing Directly Implemented and Indirect Assessments of Verbal Abilities

Journal of Behavioral Education - The purpose of the present study was to examine the relationship between the PEAK Direct Training Pre-assessment (PEAK-DT-PA) and the PEAK Generalization...     

Embodiment and abstraction: Actions create relational representations

Theories of embodied, modal representation propose that concepts are grounded in the sensorimotor system. According to these theories, action (or the potential for action) creates meaning. An apparent challenge for these theories is the fact that higher-order relations (i.e., relations among relations), such as monotonic increase or alternation, have no straightforward sensorimotor analog. A single action can increase or alternate only relative to another action. Therefore, if embodied theories are to handle concepts more generally, patterns of action must provide meaning to the system. Previous research suggested that as participants simulated the motion of gear problems they discovered a higher-order relation, alternation, based on the episodic traces of their own alternating actions. The present study showed that the number of alternating actions in episodic memory prior to discovery of the alternation relation predicted its generalization to new problem types. Actions can function as the representational substrate of higher-order relations.     

Relationships between metamemory, memory predictions, and memory task performance in adults

A cross-sectional sample of adults recalled categorized word lists and narrative texts. Subjects gave performance predictions before each of 3 recall trials for each task. Older subjects had poorer memory performance and also predicted lower performance levels than did younger subjects. The LISREL models suggested (a) direct effects of memory self-efficacy (MSE) on initial predictions; (b) upgrading of prediction-performance correlations across trials, determined by direct effects of performance on subsequent predictions; (c) significant effects of a higher order verbal memory factor on MSE; and (d) an independent relationship of text recall ability to initial text recall performance predictions. These results lend support to the theoretical treatment of predictions as task-specific MSE judgments.     

A chronometric analysis of strategy preparation in choice reactions

In this research, we investigated the process of preparing strategies for performing choice-reaction tasks. Before each choice-reaction trial, subjects were shown a cue that indicated features of the stimulus-response mapping to be used on the upcoming trial. Subjects used this cue to specify their strategy for responding to the stimulus. The time needed for specifying the strategy was measured by allowing subjects to control the cue presentation and surreptitiously recording how long they spent looking at the cue. The experiments demonstrated that the time to prepare a strategy was a function of the number and nature of the strategy features that had to be specified; simple uncertainty about the possible strategies had little direct effect. The results discon-firmed a serial model in which the time to prepare a strategy is the sum of the times to specify the individual strategy features. A mixed serial-parallel model was proposed as an alternative.     

Toilet training,cueing, praise,and self-cleaning in the treatment of classroom encopresis: A case study

This study was designed to ameliorate encopresis in a 6-year-old male child in the school setting. The procedure consisted of toilet training, cueing, praise, and self-cleaning. Prior to intervention, encopresis was a daily event at home and school. The intervention was successful in reducing the soiling to near zero at school, with no reported changes at home. Implications discussed for school psychologists were: (a) handling the intervention through a consultation model, (b) using the simplest approach before attempting more powerful procedures, and (c) attempting treatment in spite of the fact that other treatment attempts at home had been unsuccessful.     

The logic of interpreting evidence of developmental ordering: strong inference and categorical measures

Developmental ordering is a fundamental prediction of developmental theories and a central issue in developmental research. However, logically sound evidence of developmental ordering is difficult to obtain. This article analyzes the logical basis of testing developmental order hypotheses with categorical measures. Depending on whether saltatory (i.e., discrete) or continuous developmental changes are being assessed, the observed relationship between categorical measures yields very different types of information about developmental ordering. When change is continuous, the relationship between the measures does not confirm any one ordering hypothesis, but rather, disconfirms one or more hypotheses. Whether an underlying variable undergoes saltatory or continuous development has long been recognized as an important theoretical issue, but its impact on the interpretation of developmental ordering has not previously been explicated.     

The use of reaction time measures to evaluate nonword reading in primary progressive aphasia

We reported on a subject with nonfluent primary progressive aphasia (PPA), NL, who demonstrated an impaired ability to make rhyme judgments (Dowhaniuk, Dixon, Roy, Black, & Square, in press). Our hypothesis was that these deficits represent a precursor to phonological alexia. However, no definitive evidence supported the existence of a phonological reading impairment as NL made relatively few errors reading nonwords. To further evaluate NL's nonword reading, nonword and real word reaction times were compared. NL's reaction times were significantly longer for only nonwords compared to the slowest control subject. We then assessed the first two stages of processing involved in nonword reading (Coltheart, 1996). NL did not demonstrate deficits with graphemic parsing or phoneme assignment. His continuing problems with auditory rhyme judgments support the presence of a phonological processing deficit not specific to reading. We conclude that reaction time measures allow for the detection of subtle nonword reading deficits.     

The ties that keep us bound: Top-down influences on the persistence of shape-from-motion

The phenomenon of perceptual persistence after the motion stops in shape-from-motion displays (SFM) was used to study the influence of prior knowledge on the maintenance of a percept in awareness. In SFM displays an object composed of discontinuous line segments are embedded in a background of randomly oriented lines. The object only becomes perceptible when the line segments that compose the object and the lines that compose the background move in counterphase. Critically, once the movement of the line segments stops, the percept of the object persists for a short period of time. In the present study, perceptual persistence for digits exceeded that reported for nonsense shapes composed of the same line segments. This result is taken as evidence that the processes involved in the persistence of SFM, and therefore sustained perception, are sensitive to top-down influences.     

Attitudes in the fiber of everyday life: the discourse of racial evaluation and the lived experience of desegregation

This article critically reviews the social-psychological literature on race attitudes, which has assumed that the prejudicial status of any expression is determined by the underlying psychological attitude that motivated it. Variation and inconsistency in individuals' attitudinal expressions and disagreement over how to measure prejudice have bedeviled attitude research. Contemporary theories of racial attitudes (symbolic racism, self-presentation, aversive racism) have responded to this problem by explaining how, when, and why attitudes vary and by proposing research paradigms for isolating prejudiced from nonprejudiced expressions. The authors argue that research in this area may be enhanced by the use of qualitative methods that place fewer constraints on the expression of racial attitudes and variability than quantitative methods do. Using empirical materials from a South African case study, the authors show that a focus on attitudinal discourse and the lived experience of desegregation allow researchers to investigate attitudes as social practices.