Personal Strategies for HIV Prevention: The Development and Validation of a Strategy-Coding Instrument1

This paper describes the development of a coding instrument to classify college students' strategies for preventing HIV infection, and examines the association of distinct strategies with social cognitive and behavioral measures related to safer sexual behavior. This instrument classifies each strategy into both a content domain (e.g., using condoms, remaining abstinent, limiting sexual partners), and 3 distinct dimensions: commitment, specificity, and effectiveness. We examine the reliability and validity of this instrument by showing the discriminative associations of each dimension with social cognitive and behavioral measures, and demonstrate the differential importance of distinct dimensions in predicting behavior in different content domains. Discussion focuses on the importance of tailoring HIV prevention messages to change strategy dimensions in order to maximize behavior change.     

Examination of the PC-PTSD in previously deployed Air Force Medical Service personnel

This study assessed the performance of the PC-PTSD in diagnosing postdeployment posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD) in a cohort of Air Force Medical Services personnel (N = 18,530). The prevalence of PTSD in the cohort was 5.18% based on medical record data. The area under the receiver operating characteristic curve was 0.69, indicating poor classification accuracy. Sensitivity was 47.55%, specificity was 90.68%, positive predictive value was 21.79%, and negative predictive value was 96.94%. The positive and negative likelihood ratios were 5.10 and 0.58, respectively. Several risk factors were found to be associated with a diagnosis of postdeployment PTSD: being a nurse, being enlisted in the medical service career field, being enlisted in the mental health service career field, those over age 30, being a member of the Active Duty service component, and having one’s first deployment be to Iraq. Being an officer was found to be a protective characteristic. These factors could potentially improve screening for PTSD among Air Force healthcare personnel.     

The influence of semantic relationships on older adult map memory

Research has shown that nonspatial features, including semantic categories, can bias younger adults' spatial location memory. For example, semantically related information is remembered as being closer in space than semantically unrelated information (Hirtle & Mascolo, 1986). These findings suggest that verbal information is concurrently encoded with spatial information and influences younger adults' spatial information retrieval. The present study explored whether older adults have a similar dependency between verbal and spatial information. In Experiment 1, older and younger adults learned maps depicting semantically categorizable landmarks. After learning, participants completed landmark free recall and distance estimation tasks. Younger adults recalled more landmarks from semantically organized maps compared with older adults. In addition, younger adults were more likely to underestimate the distance between semantically related landmarks than were older adults. Experiment 2 examined whether supportive instructions would influence older adults' use of verbal information when learning maps. When given instructions that encouraged semantic feature use, older adults remembered more landmarks, were more likely to cluster landmarks semantically, and demonstrated biases in distance estimation based on semantic relationships. These findings suggest that verbal influences on spatial/map learning in older adults depends on explicit instructions or environmental support at encoding. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2012 APA, all rights reserved).     

An Investigation of Student-Selected and Parent-Delivered Reading Interventions

In this study, we examined whether individualized, student-selected, parent-delivered reading interventions would produce generalized oral reading fluency improvements. Three 3rd-grade students received reading fluency interventions (repeated readings, modeling, error correction, and flashcard instruction) 1 at a time and were shown the results that each intervention produced. The students then selected the intervention strategies they wanted their parents to use. We trained parents in the student-selected reading intervention package who delivered the interventions for 4–5?weeks, and students were given the opportunity to earn rewards for generalized performance improvements at the end of each week in school. Using an alternating treatments design, results of parent tutoring were compared to a control condition that included a reinforcement contingency for generalized performance improvements to control for reinforcement effects across conditions. Generalized improvements in oral reading fluency (to high-word-overlap passages) were found for all participants. Results are discussed in terms of how educators can improve parent-tutoring outcomes by influencing students’ motivation to engage in tutoring procedures.     

Top-down versus bottom-up attentional control: a failed theoretical dichotomy

Prominent models of attentional control assert a dichotomy between top-down and bottom-up control, with the former determined by current selection goals and the latter determined by physical salience. This theoretical dichotomy, however, fails to explain a growing number of cases in which neither current goals nor physical salience can account for strong selection biases. For example, equally salient stimuli associated with reward can capture attention, even when this contradicts current selection goals. Thus, although 'top-down' sources of bias are sometimes defined as those that are not due to physical salience, this conception conflates distinct--and sometimes contradictory--sources of selection bias. We describe an alternative framework, in which past selection history is integrated with current goals and physical salience to shape an integrated priority map.     

Unpacking Cultural Variations in Peak-Experiences: Cross-Cultural Comparisons of Early Childhood Recollection Between Hong Kong and Brazil

In this cross-cultural study, 115 Hong Kong Chinese and 117 Brazilian college students described a childhood peak-experience (occurring before the age of 14) and provided a self-rating on its enduring impact. Among various categories of peak-experiences, both Hong Kong Chinese and Brazilians reported interpersonal joy most frequently; the second most frequently reported category was external achievement for the Hong Kong sample and developmental landmark for the Brazilian sample. Compared with Brazilians’ narratives, those of Hong Kong Chinese were more social-focused, involving greater number of other people, but less specific. These characteristics of autobiographical memory, i.e., memory focus (self vs. social), memory specificity (specific vs. general), and the number of other people involved, significantly mediated the relation between culture and interpersonal joy. The present findings have extended research on peak-experiences to cross-cultural contexts and incorporated measures of autobiographical memory to unpack cultural variations in these two collectivist societies.     

Elevated responding to safe conditions as a specific risk factor for anxiety versus depressive disorders: evidence from a longitudinal investigation

The current study evaluated the degree to which startle reflexes (SRs) in safe conditions versus danger conditions were predictive of the onset of anxiety disorders. Specificity of these effects to anxiety disorders was evaluated in comparison to unipolar depressive disorders and with consideration of level of neuroticism. A startle paradigm was administered at baseline to 132 nondisordered adolescents as part of a longitudinal study examining risk factors for emotional disorders. Participants underwent a repetition of eight safe-danger sequences and were told that delivery of an aversive stimulus leading to a muscle contraction of the arm would occur only in the late part of danger conditions. One aversive stimulus occurred midway in the safe-danger sequences. Participants were assessed for the onset of anxiety and unipolar depressive disorders annually over the next 3 to 4 years. Larger SR magnitude during safe conditions following delivery of the aversive stimulus predicted the subsequent first onset of anxiety disorders. Moreover, prediction of the onset of anxiety disorders remained significant above and beyond the effects of comorbid unipolar depression, neuroticism, and subjective ratings of intensity of the aversive stimulus. In sum, elevated responding to safe conditions following an aversive stimulus appears to be a specific, prospective risk factor for the first onset of anxiety disorders.