Evaluation of multiple‐alternative prompts during tact training

This study compared 2 methods of fading prompts while teaching tacts to 3 individuals who had been diagnosed with autism spectrum disorder (ASD). The 1st method involved use of an echoic prompt and prompt fading. The 2nd method involved providing multiple‐alternative answers and fading by increasing the difficulty of the discrimination. An adapted alternating‐treatments design showed that both procedures were more effective than a no‐intervention control condition. Providing multiple alternatives did not increase error rates or teaching time, and better maintenance was shown for tacts taught with the multiple‐alternative prompt.     

Is It a Name or a Fact? Disambiguation of Reference Via Exclusivity and Pragmatic Reasoning

Adults reason by exclusivity to identify the meanings of novel words. However, it is debated whether, like children, they extend this strategy to disambiguate other referential expressions (e.g., facts about objects). To further inform this debate, this study tested 41 adults on four conditions of a disambiguation task: label/label, fact/fact, label/fact, and fact/label (Scofield & Behrend, 2007 ). Participants also provided a verbal explanation for their referent selections to tease apart the underlying processes. Results indicated that adults successfully discerned the target object in the label/label and label/fact condition, yet not the remaining two conditions. Verbal reports indicated that the strategy utilized to disambiguate differed depending upon communicative context. These findings confirm that the tendency to reason by exclusivity becomes restricted to word‐learning situations with growing linguistic and communicative experience.     

Examination of the Association Among Personality Traits,Anxiety Sensitivity,and Cannabis Use Motives in a Community Sample

Personality factors, such as neuroticism, are important for understanding motives for cannabis use; however, few studies have examined the role of neuroticism in the context of other personality factors, or possible mechanisms accounting for an association between neuroticism and motives for use. The present study examined concurrent associations between personality traits (i.e., conscientiousness, extraversion, agreeableness, and neuroticism) and cannabis use motives, and the role of anxiety sensitivity (AS) in the association between neuroticism and coping cannabis use motives. Seventy young adults endorsing past-month cannabis use (58.6 % female, M _age = 20.91) completed self-report measures. Linear regressions were conducted to examine the concurrent associations between personality factors and cannabis use motives. Higher levels of neuroticism, but no other personality traits, were significantly associated with greater coping (β = 45, p < .01) and expansion (β = 0.29, p = <.05) motives. Bootstrap analysis (10,000 re-samples) revealed that a significant portion of the relationship between neuroticism and coping motives was explained by AS (point estimate = 0.029, PB 95 % CI: 0.0089 to 0.0615). Greater neuroticism may result in heightened sensitivity to arousal, which may then increase motivation to use cannabis to alleviate such arousal.     

Learning By Tracing Worked Examples

Cognitive load theorists have only recently begun to test the role of the body in learning. Tracing the index finger over the surface of instructions while reading, an embodied pedagogy based on Montessori's sandpaper letters, may hold substantial promise for learning by reducing cognitive load. Two experiments tested whether students who traced their index fingers against paper‐based worked example instructions in triangle geometry (Experiment 1; N = 52) and order of operations (Experiment 2; N = 54) would perform better on a subsequent test than students who only studied the materials visually. Students in the tracing condition outperformed the non‐tracing condition on transfer problems in both Experiment 1 (d = .78) and Experiment 1 (d = .50), but hypotheses regarding self‐reports of cognitive load during testing were not supported. Implications for research and practice are discussed. Copyright © 2015 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Health-Related Decision-Making in HIV Disease

Individuals living with HIV show moderate decision-making deficits, though no prior studies have evaluated the ability to make optimal health-related decisions across the HIV healthcare continuum. Forty-three HIV+ individuals with HIV-associated neurocognitive disorders (HAND+), 50 HIV+ individuals without HAND (HAND?), and 42 HIV? participants were administered two measures of health-related decision-making as part of a comprehensive neuropsychological battery: (1) The Decisional Conflict Scale (DCS), and (2) The Modified UCSD Brief Assessment for Capacity to Consent (UBACC-T). Multiple regression analyses revealed that HAND was an independent predictor of both the DCS and the UBACC-T, such that the HAND+ sample evidenced significantly poorer scores relative to comparison groups. Within the HIV+ sample, poorer health-related decision-making was associated with worse performance on tests of episodic memory, risky decision-making, and health literacy. Findings indicate that individuals with HAND evidence moderate deficits in effectively comprehending and evaluating various health-related choices.     

Prenatal Testing for Adult-Onset Conditions: the Position of the National Society of Genetic Counselors

Advances in genetic testing and the availability of such testing in pregnancy allows prospective parents to test their future child for adult-onset conditions. This ability raises several complex ethical issues. Prospective parents have reproductive rights to obtain information about their fetus. This information may or may not alter pregnancy management. These rights can be in conflict with the rights of the future individual, who will be denied the right to elect or decline testing. This paper highlights the complexity of these issues, details discussions that went into the National Society of Genetic Counselors (NSGC) Public Policy Task Force’s development of the Prenatal testing for Adult-Onset Conditions position statement adopted in November 2014, and cites relevant literature on this topic through December 2015. Issues addressed include parental rights and autonomy, rights of the future child, the right not to know, possible adverse effects on childhood and the need for genetic counseling. This paper will serve as a reference to genetic counselors and healthcare professionals when faced with this situation in clinical practice.     

Sibling Teenage Pregnancy and Clinic-Referred Girls’ Condom Use: The Protective Role of Maternal Monitoring

Younger sisters of teenage parents have elevated rates of engaging in unprotected sex. This may result from changes in parenting behavior after a sibling becomes pregnant or impregnates a partner, and be particularly pronounced for girls seeking mental health treatment. The current study examines condom use over time in 211 African-American girls recruited from outpatient psychiatric clinics. Findings indicate that having a sibling with a teenage pregnancy history predicts less consistent condom use 2 years later. After accounting for earlier condom use and mental health problems, maternal monitoring moderates condom use such that for girls with a sibling with a pregnancy history, more vigilant maternal monitoring is associated with increased condom use, while for girls with no sibling pregnancy history, maternal monitoring is unrelated to adolescents’ condom use 2 years later. Findings suggest that targeted interventions to increase maternal monitoring of high-risk teens may be beneficial for girls with a sibling history of teenage pregnancy.     

The Boundaries of Manners: Ritual and Etiquette in Early Confucianism and Stohr’s <Emphasis Type="Italic">On Manners</Emphasis>

Early Confucian philosophy affirms and lends support to Karen Stohr’s argument that manners are a primary means by which we express moral attitudes and commitments and carry out important moral goals. Indeed, Confucian views on ritual can extend her insights even further, both by highlighting the role that manners play in cultivating good character and by helping us to probe the conceptual boundaries of manners. The various things that we call etiquette, social customs, and rituals (all of which the Confucians saw as expressions of li 禮 “ritual”) do much of the same work for us, ethically, and this work not only expresses moral attitudes and commitments, but cultivates them as well. Accordingly, Confucian thinkers can help us to recognize how Stohr’s argument can be applied more broadly than etiquette, and how good manners both express and cultivate good character.     

MATLAB and graphical user interfaces: Tools for experimental management

MATLAB is a convenient platform for the development and management of psychological experiments because of its easy-to-use programming language, sophisticated graphics features, and statistics and optimization tools. Through implementation of the Brainard-Pelli Psychophysics Toolbox, the MATLAB user gains close temporal and spatial control over the CRT, while retaining the simplicity of an interpreted language conducive to rapid program development. MATLAB’s abilities can be further utilized through easily programmable graphical user interfaces (GUIs). We illustrate how a GUI can serve as a powerful and intuitive tool for organizing and controlling all aspects of a psychological experiment, including design, data collection, data analysis, and theory fitting.