THE BRUNO KLOPFER,WALTER G. KLOPFER,AND MARTIN MAYMAN AWARDS

The Bene-Anthony Family Relations Test was administered to 190 eleven-year-old, sixth grade children (86 boys, 104 girls) by students under the supervision of the author. Means and standard deviations for the outgoing and incoming, positive and negative, categories were calculated for ‘Father’, ‘Mother’, ‘Nobody’, ‘Next Oldest Sibling’ and ‘Next Youngest Sibling’, boys and girls being treated separately. The ‘norms’ for boys are compared with “clinic”, “delinquent” and “non-reading” groups. Some important and statistically significant differences are noted between these groups.     

Intelligence is associated with criminal justice processing: Arrest through incarceration

Findings flowing from empirical research consistently indicate that IQ is associated with criminal involvement, with persons of relatively lower IQ being more likely to engage in various types of crime when compared with persons of relatively higher IQ. As with all research, however, there are a number of limitations with the existing literature that may bias the IQ–crime connection in unknown ways. Specifically, previous research has generally analyzed sub-samples drawn from non-nationally representative samples, has relied on a narrow range of criminal justice measures, has not fully examined whether the IQ–crime link is observed across demographic subgroups, and has not always ruled out the effects of potential confounds. The current study is designed to overcome the most serious of these limitations and offer new evidence of the link between IQ and criminal involvement. Analysis of data drawn from the National Longitudinal Study of Adolescent Health (Add Health) provides strong evidence indicating that IQ and crime are linked even after addressing various shortcomings of previous research. Limitations of the study are discussed and directions for future research are offered.     

Displays that facilitate performance of multifrequency ratios during motor-respiratory coordination

A large number of ratios between movement and breathing are possible, but only a small number have been performed during exercise. The purpose of this study was twofold: (1) to investigate displays that might facilitate the performance of other ratios; and (2) to test predictions from the sine circle map and continued fractions in a model motor-respiratory task in which participants coordinated arm movement and breathing. Displays consisted of either real-time feedback or a template (non-feedback). The accuracy of ratio performance was significantly greater with the template in which the number and relative positioning of movements and breaths was depicted, compared to with real-time feedback. Across displays, the stability of ratio performance conformed to principles of the sine circle map and was significantly greater for ratios with longer continued fractions. Therefore, the motor-respiratory repertoire can be expanded by increasing participants’ understanding of the pattern to be performed, but performance is constrained by general dynamical principles.     

Where the division lies: Common ingroup identity moderates the cross-race facial-recognition effect

This research investigated the hypothesis that better recognition for own-race than other-race faces is a result of social categorization rather than perceptual expertise. More specifically, we explored how the salience of race or university group boundaries would affect recall of faces. Using a modified facial recognition paradigm, on each trial eight Black and White faces were spatially organized either by race or university affiliation to induce categorization primarily based on one of these dimensions. When grouped by race, participants had superior recall for own-race faces and university affiliation had no effect. When grouped by university, participants had superior recall for own-university faces and race had no effect. Using identical stimuli across conditions, recall was superior for ingroup targets on the experimentally induced dimension of categorization, supportive of a social categorization based explanation of the cross-race effect.     

Feature integration and spatial attention: common processes for endogenous and exogenous orienting

Briand (J Exp Psychol Hum Percept Perform 24:1243–1256, 1998) and Briand and Klein (J Exp Psychol Hum Percept Perform 13:228–241, 1987) demonstrated that spatial cueing effects are larger for detecting conjunction of features than for detecting simple features when spatial attention is oriented exogenously, and not when attention is oriented endogenously. Their results were interpreted as if only exogenous attention affects the posterior spatial attention system that performs the feature binding function attributed to spatial attention by Treisman’s feature integration theory (FIT; 1980). In a series of 6 experiments, we attempted to replicate Briand’s findings. Manipulations of distractor string size and symmetry of stimulus presentation left and right from fixation were implemented in Posner’s cueing paradigm. The data indicate that both exogenous and endogenous cueing address the same attentional mechanism needed for feature binding. The results also limit the generalisability of Briand’s proposal concerning the role of exogenous attention in feature integration. Furthermore, the importance to control the effect of unintended attentional capture in a cueing task is demonstrated.     

Route and survey processing of topographical memory during navigation

We investigated the characteristics of route and survey processing of a unique complex virtual environment both at the behavioral and brain levels. Prior to fMRI scanning, participants were trained to follow a route and to learn the spatial relationships between several places, acquiring both route and survey knowledge from a ground-level perspective. During scanning, snapshots of the environment were presented, and participants were required to either indicate the direction to take to follow the route (route task), or to locate unseen targets (survey task). Data suggest that route and survey processing are mainly supported by a common occipito-fronto-parieto-temporal neural network. Our results are consistent with those gathered in studies concerning the neural bases of route versus survey knowledge acquired either from different perspectives or in different environments. However, rather than arguing for a clear distinction between route and survey processing, “mixed” strategies are likely to be involved when both types of encoding take place in the same environment.     

The Phenomenology of Hairpulling in College Students

This study examined the phenomenology of hairpulling in a large nonclinical college student sample. Given that hairpulling is conceptualized as occurring on a continuum of severity, we expected to inform the assessment and treatment of Trichotillomania (TTM) by examining hairpulling behavior across its range of presentation. Hairpulling occurred at a rate of 9.7%, while average age of onset was 13.57 years. Self-reported hairpulling styles were identified with 31.3% endorsing focused hairpulling, while 68.7% endorsed an automatic hairpulling style. The most commonly endorsed ritual was “examine the root (37.3%) while the scalp was the most frequently endorsed hairpulling site (49%). Eyelashes were more frequently endorsed as a pulling site by focused (43.8) compared to automatic (5.7%) hairpullers. The hairpulling environments most often endorsed were “while reading” and “while studying” (75%). Affective states were found to change across the pulling cycle in support of hairpulling serving in an emotion regulation capacity. Focused hairpullers endorsed significantly higher trait anxiety than automatic hairpullers. Depression scores (BDI) were elevated for hairpullers compared to non-hairpullers. Implications for assessment and treatment were discussed and directions for future research were provided.