A factor analysis of verbal ability

The Psychological Record -     

Disagreement about logic from a pluralist perspective

Philosophical Studies - Logical pluralism is commonly described as the view that there is more than one correct logic. It has been claimed that, in order for that view to be interesting, there has...     

Efficacy of caffeine versus expectancy in altering caffeine-related symptoms

The study investigated the independent and interactive effects of caffeine and expectancy on caffeine-related symptoms. High- and low-caffeine consumers were randomly assigned to either an expectancy or nonexpectancy instructional set and one of four caffeine doses. Subjects were administered the State-Trait Anxiety Inventory, (Spielberger & Gorsuch, 1970) and a Symptom Questionnaire (Christensen, White, Krietsch, & Steele, 1990) prior to and 45 min following consumption of one of the four caffeine doses. An analysis of covariance identified a significant main effect for the State-Trait Anxiety Inventory scores and significant main and interaction effects for four Symptom Questionnaire items. However, when the alpha levels were corrected for the increased probability of Type I error, using the Bonferroni procedure, these effects failed to achieve significance. These results suggest that previous reports of subjective caffeine effects are also suspect because of their failure to control for the increased probability of Type I error.     

Word norms for blind and sighted subjects: Familiarity,concreteness, meaningfulness,imageability, imagery modality,and word associations

Normative values for word characteristics were obtained from a sample of 12 college-educated, totally congenitally blind subjects on the basis of their ratings of 161 nouns on scales of familiarity, concreteness, meaningfulness, and imageability. The dominant modality of imagery for each image-evoking word and the strongest word associate for each item also were recorded. The same data were collected for a group of sighted subjects, both to provide a comparison group for the blind subjects and to test the comparability of sighted subjects’ ratings with existing norms. Ratings for sighted subjects correlated strongly with those norms, although the coefficients were slightly higher for ratings of concreteness and imageability than for ratings of familiarity and meaningfulness. Ratings of blind subjects correlated only slightly lower with existing norms for imagery and concreteness, but considerably lower for familiarity and meaningfulness.     

The Parents Matter! Program: Building a Successful Investigator-Community Partnership

We examine the issues involved in creating and maintaining a successful collaboration between university-based researchers and community members when designing and implementing the Parents Matter! Program (PMP). The roles of focus groups, community advisory boards, and community liaisons are highlighted. PMP provides an illustration of the ongoing process of collaboration between investigators and community members and the benefits and challenges of such a partnership.     

DISCRIMINATION LEARNING IN ADULTS WITH NEUROCOGNITIVE DISORDERS

Alzheimer's disease is the most commonly known neurocognitive disorder characterized by deterioration in areas such as memory, attention, and activities of daily living. From a behavioral perspective, memory and attentional deficits may be described as deterioration of stimulus control. This paper provides a case study of discrimination behavior in a patient with neurocognitive disorder. The purpose of the current study was twofold: (i) to study the effect of using presumed familiar pictures in arbitrary matching‐to‐sample tasks and (ii) to study variables that affect stimulus control in a patient diagnosed with vascular dementia. There were 12 conditional discrimination experimental conditions with various types of stimuli, from familiar pictures to identity matching. The results showed that the participant's responses were not in accord with experimenter‐defined stimulus classes when using familiar pictures. However, intact stimulus control by sample stimulus was established following systematic procedural changes in the conditional discrimination tasks. Copyright © 2014 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Group‐level effects of forgiveness: Group cohesiveness and collective action in social dilemmas

Forgiveness research has predominately focused on individual/relational outcomes such as well‐being and closeness. Less research has examined group outcomes such as cohesiveness or collective action. Forgiveness studies have also emphasized the victim's or transgressor's perspective, neglecting the effects of forgiveness on ingroup members who have neither given nor received forgiveness. We theorize that forgiveness promotes collective action among ingroup members through group cohesiveness and that transgressors' apologetic reactions impact this process. In a laboratory experiment, 229 students (175 females) were led to believe they were in a social dilemma with three others. Some participants witnessed group members forgive an apologetic, obstinate, or neutral defector, whereas others witnessed an unforgiving response. Forgiveness of apologetic and neutral defectors increased later cooperation among ingroup members. This effect was generally mediated by group cohesiveness. Our findings suggest that forgiveness can impact cooperation on a group level, providing a path to successful resolutions to collective action problems. Copyright © 2014 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Situational,Interpersonal, and Intrapersonal Characteristic Associations With Adolescent Conflict Forgiveness

Given the voluntary nature of adolescent friendships, forgiveness of interpersonal transgressions has been identified as a critical aspect of maintaining these relationships. However, transgression forgiveness is related to a range of situational (e.g., transgression severity), interpersonal (e.g., friendship commitment), and intrapersonal (e.g., victim's empathy) factors. Data from 161 adolescents were used to examine the nature of the relationships between these factors and forgiveness and to examine the differential association patterns for adolescent boys and girls. Results for the overall adolescent sample indicated both situational and interpersonal factor associations with forgiveness (R ² = .52, p < .001). Examination of separate female and male forgiveness reports indicated similar interpersonal factor associations and differential situational factor associations with female (R ² = .46, p < .001), and male (R ² = .60, p < .001) forgiveness. Findings suggest the likelihood of forgiving may be contextually dependent, and that researchers should consider transgression, relationship, and intrapersonal characteristics when examining forgiveness. Further, the present study suggests the contextual factors associated with forgiveness may be further differentiated by gender.