Affective valence and memory in depression: dissociation of recall and fragment completion.

Depressed (n = 16) and nondepressed (n = 16) subjects' memory for affectively valenced words was assessed by an explicit test (free recall) and an implicit test (word fragment completion). Under free-recall instructions, depressed subjects recalled significantly more negatively valenced than positively valenced words, whereas the opposite pattern was observed in nondepressed control subjects. These results replicate those previously reported in the literature. The differential effect of word valence was absent, however, when memory was tested implicitly: Depressed and nondepressed subjects exhibited equivalent priming of positive and negative words. These data are discussed in terms of Williams, Watts, MacLeod, and Mathews's (1988) model of depression.     

Psychological aspects of scuba diving injuries: Suggestions for short-term treatment from a psychodynamic perspective

Dive medicine is described as an area of practice in which psychologists may choose to expand their clinical service and research activities. The author argues that most research studying risk behavior and sports take into account biological, behavioral or cognitive approaches, while ignoring unconscious conflict in risk-taking and injury management. The present paper uses a psychodynamically-oriented, interview-based approach to studying psychological reactions to decompression sickness in three experienced scuba divers. Brief interventions and their outcomes are described.     

The status of the concept of intelligence

Psychometric studies have shown that “general intelligence” should be broken down into the ability to apply learned solutions to new problems (crystallized intelligence) and the ability to deal with novel intellectual problems (fluid intelligence). This distinction has been amplified upon by studies of individual differences in information processing. Crystallized intelligence depends on the problem-solving schema that people have acquired and upon their efficiency in accessing information in long-term memory. Fluid intelligence is associated with the ability to access and manage relatively large amounts of information in working memory. Measures of fluid and crystallized intelligence are important predictors of objectively measured workplace performance. Studies of actual and simulated workplaces have shown that this is largely due to differences in people's ability to manage information and the speed with which the details of a job can be grasped.     

Laws: Projectability and uniformity

It is argued that the problem of the necessity and projectability of laws may be solved by distinguishing between the fact of necessity and explanations of its nature. This reduces the problem of necessity to that of induction, which in consequences must be solved without reference to necessity using ‘self‐supporting’ arguments. The consequences for the analysis of ‘counterfactual conditionals and the problem of language dependence is discussed.     

Semantic memory verification of binary statements by children at three academic levels

Ninety-six binary statements were administered to 120 children randomly selected from three academic levels. The children were to respond TRUE or FALSE to each statement. Error count and latency for correct responses were used as measures of performance. The Constituent Comparison Model (Carpenter, P., & Just, M. A., Psychological Review, 1975, 82, 45–73), which postulates that verification latency will increase linearly with a linear increase in the number of hypothesized constituent comparisons, accounts quite well for the results obtained in this study. Furthermore, the results suggest an increasing efficiency in semantic memory verification across the three academic levels as reflected by a decrease in variability of performance, a decrease in the time required to read and encode sentences, and a decrease in the time required per constituent comparison.