Does Task Affordance Moderate Age-related Deficits in Strategy Production?

ABSTRACT

According to the task-affordance hypothesis, people will be more likely to use a specific strategy as tasks more readily afford its use. To evaluate this hypothesis, we examined the degree to which older and younger adults used a self-testing strategy to learn items, because previous studies suggest that age-related differences in the use of this powerful strategy vary across tasks. These tasks (words affixed to a board vs. pairs on flashcards) differentially afford the use of the self-testing strategy and may moderate the age-related effects on strategy use. Participants performed a recall-readiness task in which they continued to study items until they were ready for the criterion test. As predicted, self testing was used less often on tasks that least afforded its use. Namely, participants used self testing less when they studied single words affixed to a board than when they studied pairs on flashcards. Most important, age-related deficits in strategy use were greater for the former task and nonexistent for the latter one, suggesting that task affordance moderates age differences in strategy use.     

The role of affect in the decision to exercise: Does being happy lead to a more active lifestyle?

ObjectiveThis study investigated the influence of affect on individuals' intentions to engage in physical activities such as exercise. Behavior intentions were examined through the Theory of Planned Behavior (TPB).MethodAn experimental survey was conducted among 153 undergraduates randomly assigned to three conditions – positive affect, neutral, and negative affect. Key variables from the TPB were assessed across these conditions.ResultsAnalyses showed that participants in the positive affect and the negative affect conditions reported lower intentions to exercise than those in the neutral condition. Participants in the negative affect condition also reported more unfavorable attitudes toward exercise than their positive or neutral counterparts. Other TPB measures remained stable across the three conditions. In particular, perceived behavioral control and attitude were significant predictors of behavior intention in the pooled sample.ConclusionThese results underline the important role that affect, especially negative affect, plays in individuals' decision to exercise. Rational models for health behavior change, such as the TPB, should take into account the impact of affect.     

Age-related differences in selection by visual saliency

We examined the ability of older adults to select local and global stimuli varying in perceptual saliency—a task requiring nonspatial visual selection. Participants were asked to identify in separate blocks a target at either the global or the local level of a hierarchical stimulus, while the saliency of each level was varied (across different conditions, either the local or the global form was the more salient and relatively easier to identify). Older adults were less efficient than young adults in ignoring distractors that were higher in saliency than were targets, and this occurred across both the global and local levels of form. The increased effects of distractor saliency on older adults occurred even when the effects were scaled by overall differences in task performance. The data provide evidence for an age-related decline in nonspatial attentional selection of low-salient hierarchical stimuli, not determined by the (global or local) level at which selection was required. We discuss the implications of these results for understanding both the interaction between saliency and hierarchical processing and the effects of aging on nonspatial visual attention.     

PREGNANCY: AN UNTHINKABLE REALITY

A therapist's pregnancy is bound to provoke profound conflicts in all patients, particularly those relating to envy, exclusion and loss as infantile aspects of the patient and their relation to the maternal object are revived. This paper explores the impact of the therapist's pregnancy on two patients for whom the experience was felt to be catastrophic. I suggest that in their early efforts to adapt to an inaccessible, disturbed and disturbing object who could not face reality or cope with life, these patients were compromised in their own ability to accept the facts of life and moreover to bear the frustration of exclusion, representing for them as it did, total inaccessibility. The pregnancy was so hated and distorted that it seemed to take on the meaning for them of a cruel ‘mad’ idea.     

Reaction of a Ni-coated Al nanoparticle to form B2-NiAl: A molecular dynamics study

The kinetic reaction in a Ni-coated Al nanoparticle with equi-atomic fractions and diameter of approximately 4.5 nm is studied by means of molecular dynamics simulation, using a potential of the embedded atom type to model the interatomic interactions. First, the large driving force for the alloying of Ni and Al initiates solid state amorphization of the nanoparticle with the formation of Ni₅₀Al₅₀ amorphous alloy. Amorphization makes intermixing of the components much easier compared to the crystalline state. The average rate of penetration of Ni atoms can be estimated to be about two times higher than Al atoms, whilst the total rate of inter-penetration can be estimated to be of the order of 10^?2 m/s. The heat of the intermixing with the formation of Ni₅₀Al₅₀ amorphous alloy can be estimated at approximately ?0.34 eV/at. Next, the crystallization of the Ni₅₀Al₅₀ amorphous alloy into B2-NiAl ordered crystal structure is observed. The heat of the crystallization can be estimated as approximately ?0.08 eV/at. Then, the B2-NiAl ordered nanoparticle melts at a temperature of approximately 1500 K. It is shown that, for the alloying reaction in the initial Ni-coated Al nanoparticle, the ignition temperature can be as low as approximately 200 K, while the adiabatic temperature for the reaction is below the melting temperature of the nanoparticle with the B2-NiAl ordered structure.     

Nostalgia and lost identity

Nostalgia for the Soviet Union is a major social phenomenon in Russia today due to the irrevocable losses of the recent past in which Soviet citizens involuntarily became immigrants in their own country. With reference to discussions of nostalgia in philosophical and psychoanalytic literature, I suggest that nostalgia may represent either a defensive regression to the past or a progressive striving for wholeness through re‐connecting with what has been lost in the service of a greater integration. I compare this with the processes of adaptation seen in immigrants and provide a clinical illustration of a young man coming to terms with loss and change in the post‐Soviet era. When nostalgia is recognized as a legitimate emotional experience it may facilitate mourning and enable the integration of the past with the present and the development of a new identity.     

Continued Longitudinal Rorschach Study of a Child for Years Three to Five

The present study was designed to assess whether induced behavioral similarity is reinforcing and, if so, whether it leads to increased subsequent imitation, or whether the increased imitation is a function of the predictability of the observer's responses. Sixty Dutch school age boys and girls participated. The experiment consisted of a modeling-only condition and three (i.e., contingent, noncontingent, and consistent) imitation conditions. All conditions consisted of 15 or less induction trials and 18 modeling trials. Except for the consistent imitation condition, none of the conditions allowed perfect predictability of the observer's responses during induction trials. The results revealed that the contingent imitation of the children's target response did not cause them to demonstrate that response more often and that it did not lead to increased imitations on subsequent modeling trials. By contrast, increased imitation was observed for the one condition suggesting perfect predictability of the observer's imitations.     

Donor,Dad, or…? Young Adults with Lesbian Parents’ Experiences with Known Donors

In this exploratory qualitative study of 11 young adults, ages 19–29 years, we examine how young people who were raised by lesbian parents make meaning out of and construct their relationships with known donors. In‐depth interviews were conducted to examine how participants defined their family composition, how they perceived the role of their donors in their lives, and how they negotiated their relationships with their donors. Findings indicate that mothers typically chose known donors who were family friends, that the majority of participants always knew who their donors were, and that their contact with donors ranged from minimal to involved. Further, participants perceived their donors in one of three ways: as strictly donors and not members of their family; as extended family members but not as parents; and as fathers. The more limited role of donors in participants' construction of family relationships sheds light on how children raised in lesbian, gay, and bisexual families are contributing to the redefinition and reconstruction of complex kinship arrangements. Our findings hold implications for clinicians who work with lesbian‐mother families, and suggest that young adulthood is an important developmental phase during which interest in and contact with the donor may shift, warranting a transfer of responsibility from mother to offspring in terms of managing the donor‐child relationship.     

The Rorschach and Intelligence: A Note of Caution

Abstract

(Goldstein, K. Human Nature. Cambridge: Harvard Univ. Press, 1940. Pp. 258.): Reviewed By Peter Hampton