Objects and attributes in divided attention: Surface and boundary systems

A series of experiments investigated concurrent discriminations of surface and nonsurface attributes, including color, brightness, texture, length, location, and motion. In all cases but one, results matched those previously reported: Interference occurred when two discriminations concerned different objects, but not when they concerned the same one. In the two-object case, interference was the same whether discriminations were similar (e.g., two surface discriminations) or different (e.g., one surface, one boundary). Such results support a model of visual attention in which separate visual subsystems are coordinated, converging to work on surface and boundary properties of the same selected object. A partial exception is color: For reasons that are unclear, color escapes twoobject interference except from other, concurrent surface discriminations     

Engaging “Resistant” Families in Treatment

Many families, when presented with the option of family therapy, are less than eager to participate. This paper comprises the second and third parts of a series on engaging “resistant” families. ¹ 1 The first paper in this series, authored by J. M. Van Deusen, M. D. Stanton, S. M. Scott, and T. C. Todd, is entitled “Engaging “Resistant” Families in Treatment: I. Getting the Drug Addict to Recruit His Family Members” and appeared in the International Journal of the Addictions 15 (7): 1069–1089, 1980. A revised and expanded version of Part II is presented in M.D. Stanton, T. C. Todd, and Associates, The Family Therapy of Drug Abuse and Addictions New York, Guilford, in press.
Part II presents 21 principles and a number of techniques and strategies that have been developed for successfuly recruiting such families. These techniques should be applicable for engaging resistant families with all types of presenting problems. Part III provides an analysis of the important variables involved, along with data on cost efficiency and administrative costs. It was found that when therapists had administrative control of their cases, serving in dual roles as both therapists and drug counselors, the recruitment effort was (a) more effective (i.e., complete families, including both parents or parent surrogates, were recruited in 77 per cent of the cases), and (b) twice as cost efficient. Two-thirds of the non-engaged families were not recruited because the index patient would not allow family members to be contacted. Black families were more difficult to recruit than whites. Data on cost efficiency and on the actual administrative costs of recruiting families are also provided. We conclude that the engagement process requires a revision in therapeutic philosophy, since such families are often desperately in need of help but are unavailable unless therapists make a special effort to reach them.     

Self-Efficacy,Perceptions of Success,and Intrinsic Motivation for Exercise1

A number of investigators have attempted to identify the determinants of continued participation in exercise regimens. Within a social cognitive framework, the present study examined the relationships among self-efficacy cognitions, perceptions of success, and multidimensional intrinsic motivation in the exercise domain. Multivariate analyses of variance indicated that highly efficacious individuals were more intrinsically motivated toward aerobic dance than were their less efficacious counterparts. However, multiple regression analyses revealed both perceptions of success and self-efficacy to account for significant variance in intrinsic motivation at both the composite and dimensional levels. Moreover, perceptions of success were considerably stronger predictors than were efficacy cognitions. The results are discussed in terms of the need for multiple measures of perceived success, the employment of longitudinal designs to determine the direction of causality among these variables, and possible implications for adherence issues.     

Within-modality and cross-modality attentional blinks in a simple discrimination task

Following up on studies of the "attentional blink," we studied interference between successive target stimuli in visual and auditory modalities. In each experiment, stimuli were two tones and four dots, simultaneously presented for 1,800 msec. Targets were brief intensity changes in either a tone or a dot. Subjects gave unspeeded responses. In four experiments, our results showed interference between targets in the same modality, but not across modalities. We conclude that, under our experimental conditions, restrictions in concurrent target identification are largely modality specific.     

A thought on the nature of psychoanalytic theory

In this paper I suggest that much of recent experiment in analytic theory, even widely diverse approaches, has a common denominator the problem of the conceptual vacuum created by the shift away from a central creative position of the idea of psychic mechanisms. I try to illustrate, by comparing theories of Bion and George Klein, that this movement seems to point in the direction of considering now what is uniquely psychoanalytic about our theories. I content that what is unique about psychoanalytic theories is that they are involved in the experiential core-function of the applied science by becoming internalized and used symbolically to aid the analyst inwardly to endure persecutory anxiety and loss of the sense of objective reality, and so maintain the analytic position.     

The use of reliable digits to detect malingering in a criminal forensic pretrial population

The present research is a cross-validation of previous investigation by Greiffenstein, Baker; and Gola; Greiffenstein, Gola, and Baker; and Meyers and Volbrecht on the reliable digits (RELD) method of detecting suspected malingering on the Wechsler Adult Intelligence Scale-Revised (WAIS-R). The results support the use of the RELD method on a criminalforensic pretrial population (N = 187). Sensitivities, specificities, and incremental hit ratesfor two cut levels of the RELD method, Minnesota Multiphasic Personality Inventory-2 (MMPI-2) Infrequency and the Personality Assessment Inventory Negative Impression Scales, as well as multiple combined cut scores, were comparable to those observed in previous studies that used neuropsychologically evaluated participants. The selection of which cut score or combination of cut scores is appropriate on the RELD method is also discussed.