The role of color diagnosticity in object recognition and representation

The role of color diagnosticity in object recognition and representation was assessed in three Experiments. In Experiment 1a, participants named pictured objects that were strongly associated with a particular color (e.g., pumpkin and orange). Stimuli were presented in a congruent color, incongruent color, or grayscale. Results indicated that congruent color facilitated naming time, incongruent color impeded naming time, and naming times for grayscale items were situated between the congruent and incongruent conditions. Experiment 1b replicated Experiment 1a using a verification task. Experiment 2 employed a picture rebus paradigm in which participants read sentences one word at a time that included pictures of color diagnostic objects (i.e., pictures were substituted for critical nouns). Results indicated that the “reading” times of these pictures mirrored the pattern found in Experiment 1. In Experiment 3, an attempt was made to override color diagnosticity using linguistic context (e.g., a pumpkin was described as painted green). Linguistic context did not override color diagnosticity. Collectively, the results demonstrate that color information is regularly utilized in object recognition and representation for highly color diagnostic items.     

Medikamentierte Wut

Considering the attention deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHS), the most common disorder of male children and young boys, from the perspective of a psychoanalytic social psychology, one cannot explain its genesis solely in terms of neuroscience. It would be reductionism ignoring the fact, that it is not possible to define a neuronal deficit of self control without conceptualizing self control as a historically and culturally determined requirement profile of affect regulation. Thus, a social characterological analysis of the disorder is required. Every community and society expects their children to learn in the course of their socialization and education to transform external control into self control, in order to want to do, what is to be done. This process is conflict-ridden and aims at an adaptation by which conflicts are more or less defused. Modern societies propagate a sort of self control which is reduced to self-management with integrated spontaneity. Acquiring such self-management requires from children and adolescents to cope with contradictions. They should concentrate in a consum culture which is oriented on distraction. They should cope trouble-free with disappointments in a culture which is oriented on success. But first of all the boys have difficulties to achieve this. They have difficulties in acquiring the emotional competencies needed for the regulation of aggressive excitements due to disappointments appropriately and in socially acceptable form as well. Lacking this competencies they feel themselves at the mercy of fierce rage as if it was a force of nature. This is the self experience of the 60 boys who were questioned about their ADHS medication in the here presented research project. If the treatment is - against all consensus conferences - limited to medication – and this is much more often the case as so far known -, then the aggressive excitement is reduced indeed, but the patients do not obtain insight into the civilizing function of restraining aggression. And without understanding the sense of the own action they remain in the long run strangers to themselves.     

Potential dropouts in a longitudinal study: Prevalence,stability, and associated characteristics

This study quantifies the prevalence and associated characteristics of subjects in a longitudinal study who are difficult to schedule and thus may become potential study dropouts. Although subject attrition over three years remained extremely low, many families were difficult to schedule for their assessments and this remained rather constant over time. Intercorrelations between the measures of scheduling difficulty were high, indicating good internal validity of the constructs. Stability of these measures from year to year was low, making it difficult to predict which families required more staff effort or were at risk for dropping out of the study in any one year. Race appeared to be associated with several measures of scheduling difficulty, while psychiatric characteristics of the sample were less so.     

A double-response paradigm to study stimulus intensity effects upon the motor system in simple reaction time experiments

A double response paradigm is utilized to study stimulus intensity effects upon the motor system in simple visual and auditory reaction times (RT). Subjects had to respond with both hands simultaneously upon detection of a stimulus. The RT difference of both hands is thereby of special interest, because it is considered that this variable does not contain any sensory latency and therefore allows one to study those processes that follow stimulus detection. It was found that the RT-difference distribution varies with stimulus intensity, which questions the general view that stimulus intensity affects only very early sensory stages in the processing chain. In particular, it was found that the variance of RT difference diminished with increasing stimulus intensity. This finding supports the notion of speeding up the motor process by increasing stimulus intensity. A generalization of a stochastic model by Meijers and Eijkman (1974) and Meijers, Teulings, and Eijkman (1976) is advanced to account for the findings. The central assumption is that more units (e.g., motoneurons) are activated if stimulus intensity is increased. The model’s qualitative predictions are confirmed.     

The incidence,prevalence, and severity of behavior disorders among preschool-aged children in day care

This study examined the incidence, prevalence, and severity of 14 empirically derived externalizing (unsocialized aggressive) and internalizing (socially withdrawn) behaviors among 2- through 5-year-olds attending day care. Teacher ratings were obtained for 558 children in the incidence sample and 709 children in the expanded prevalence sample. Within each age, data were cross-tabulated by sex of child and severity of behavior, and chi-square analyses were computed. Results indicated that a substantial proportion of children in the normal preschool population exhibit relatively high severities of selected externalizing and internalizing behaviors; this proportion varied with the age of the child and the behavior rated. Preschool-aged boys were consistently rated as demonstrating greater frequencies of externalizing behaviors than preschool-aged girls. The diagnostic and clinical implications of these findings are discussed.     

Reactions following the sudden death of a classmate

Findings from a study of adolescents grief reactions following the sudden death of a friend and a classmate are presented. The group (26 classmates) was followed up after one and nine months. Interviews and a questionnaire including the Imapact of Event Scale and the Hogan Grief Inventory were used. The general grief scores on the Hogan Grief Inventory indicated that the grief level was similar to that of adolescents who had lost siblings. The scores on the Impact of Event Scale showed a descline in distress level from 1 to 9 months. However, after 9 months about 1/5 of the students still scored above a clinical cut-off point indicating post-traumatic stress levels. Recommendations for improving help following such events are presented.     

Boys Who Join Gangs: A Prospective Study of Predictors of First Gang Entry

In a representative sample of boys who were in the 7th grade of an urban public school system at the start of a 6-year longitudinal study, more African American boys (23.8%) than non-Hispanic White boys (3.9%) had entered an antisocial gang by age 19. There were too few White gang members to study, but among African American boys, first gang entry was predicted prospectively by both baseline conduct disorder (CD) behaviors and increasing levels of CD behaviors prior to gang entry. This suggests that gang entry may be a further developmental step for some boys who are already on a trajectory of worsening antisocial behavior. Having friends prior to gang entry who engaged in aggressive delinquency increased the risk of gang entry further, but only during early adolescence. Family income and parental supervision also independently predicted gang entry, but the direction of their influences depended on the youth's age.