Levels of processing influences both recollection and familiarity: evidence from a modified remember-know paradigm

A modified Remember/Know (RK) paradigm was used to investigate reported subjective awareness during retrieval. Levels of processing (shallow vs. deep) was manipulated at study. Word pairs (old/new or new/new) were presented during test trials, and participants were instructed to respond "remember" if they recollected one of the two words, "know" if the word was familiar in the absence of recollection, or "new" if they judged both words to be new. Participants were then required to indicate which of the 2 words was old (2AFC recognition). With the standard RK proportions, deeper processing at study increased remember proportions and decreased know proportions, but this dissociation was not shown with the 2AFC proportion correct measure which instead demonstrated robust LOP effects for both remember and know trials, suggesting that the know proportion measure severely distorts the nature of LOP effects on familiarity.     

Sexual Socialization Messages on Entertainment Television: Comparing Content Trends 1997–2002

Previous content analyses of sex on television have relied on differing measures and sampling strategies, which makes it difficult to compare patterns of sexual portrayals over time. This large-scale study (N = 2,817 programs) examines the sexual messages presented on television across both broadcast and cable channels over a 5-year period, applying identical measures to three biennial samples of program content. Results demonstrate that sexual talk and behavior are highly frequent aspects of the television environment. Talk about sex is shown more often than sexual behavior, though both types of content increased significantly from 1997/1998 to 2001/2002. Over that time span, the percentage of shows portraying sexual intercourse doubled from 7 to 14%. Results also show that topics related to sexual risks or responsibilities (e.g., condom use, abstinence) are increasingly included on television, but nonetheless remain infrequent overall. Such safe sex messages occur most frequently in program environments where they are most relevant (i.e., when sexual intercourse is included in the story). The content analysis findings are discussed in terms of their implications for audience effects.     

Better Identity Politics

Suchet's paper is an inspiring demonstration of the power of openness and vulnerability. It offers a clinically daring and theoretically far-reaching account of the transformation that can sometimes occur in the psychoanalytic relationship. My commentary focuses on two of the paper's major threads: the interplay of subjective experience, intersubjective space, and collective forces, and the ethical dimension of the psychoanalytic project. From the outset, the meeting between Ara and Suchet is not only a meeting of bodies and minds, but also a meeting of collective histories and politics. Suchet finds, and in her account powerfully demonstrates, that addressing her patient's trouble requires an exploration of how collective traumas and political narratives infuse the possibilities of intersubjective exchange and subjective meaning. In my commentary I trace and elaborate on the trajectory of this analytic process, contemplating the ways in which identities and identifications involve both familial and social attachments. I attempt to highlight Suchet's contribution to our understanding of how what happens, and is made meaningful, in the register of collective identification and experience, forms the very substance of subjective and intersubjective life, and should be therefore formulated as an intrinsic aspect of the analytic endeavour. Turning to Suchet's engagement with the philosophy of Emmanuel Levinas, I consider her drive to reach beyond the traditional boundaries of psychoanalytic discourse. Following the same drive, I add some ideas developed by Theodor Adorno, as means of illustrating the trouble and the potential for reconciliation inherent in the experience and politics of identity.     

Spatial frequency filtering and the direct control of fixation durations during scene viewing

The present study employed a saccade-contingent change paradigm to investigate the effect of spatial frequency filtering on fixation durations during scene viewing. Subjects viewed grayscale scenes while encoding them for a later memory test. During randomly chosen saccades, the scene was replaced with an alternate version that remained throughout the critical fixation that followed. In Experiment 1, during the critical fixation, the scene could be changed to high-pass and low-pass spatial frequency filtered versions. Under both conditions, fixation durations increased, and the low-pass condition produced a greater effect than the high-pass condition. In subsequent experiments, we manipulated the familiarity of scene information during the critical fixation by flipping the filtered scenes upside down or horizontally. Under these conditions, we observed lengthening of fixation durations but no difference between the high-pass and low-pass conditions, suggesting that the filtering effect is related to the mismatch between information extracted within the critical fixation and the ongoing scene representation in memory. We also conducted control experiments that tested the effect of changes to scene orientation (Experiment 2a) and the addition of color to a grayscale scene (Experiment 2b). Fixation distribution analysis suggested two effects on the distribution fixation durations: a fast-acting effect that was sensitive to all transsaccadic changes tested and a later effect in the tail of the distribution that was likely tied to the processing of scene information. These findings are discussed in the context of theories of oculomotor control during scene viewing.     

When stepping outside the self is not enough: A self-distanced perspective reduces the experience of basic but not of self-conscious emotions

Despite recent increased interest in self-conscious emotions, few studies have investigated their regulation. The current research examines the effectiveness of self-perspective in regulating negative self-conscious (guilt, shame) versus basic (anger, sadness) emotions. We predict that adopting a distanced perspective on the self would attenuate the experience of anger and sadness, as previous research has shown (e.g., Kross et al., 2005). However, because the experience of self-conscious emotions involves self-evaluation as well as the evaluation of the self from the perspective of others, a self-distanced perspective may enable these emotions and fail to attenuate the experience of shame and guilt. As predicted, a self-distanced perspective attenuated feelings of sadness and anger, but not of shame and guilt. These findings suggest the appraisal of the experienced emotion (i.e., whether it involves self-evaluations and/or the perspective of others) may influence the effectiveness of emotion-regulation strategies.     

How the Consideration of Positive Emotions Influences Persuasion: The Differential Effect of Pride Versus Joy

Although pride and joy are both positive emotions, we expected their consideration to affect persuasion differently because of the different perspectives (near vs. distant) and level of abstractness they involve, with pride being more abstract than joy. Therefore, we predicted that when the attitude object is construed at a high level rather than a low level, the consideration of pride is likely to promote more persuasion than the consideration of joy. In three studies, we found that the consideration of pride, when featured in the persuasion message (Studies 1a and 1b) or incidentally (Study 2), increased persuasion more than did the consideration of joy, when the persuasion object was temporally distant compared with temporally near (Studies 1a and 1b) or construed as a high‐level category compared with a more concrete individual (Study 2). These findings advance our understanding of the ways in which specific emotions may affect persuasion, beyond valence. Copyright © 2014 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Increased skills usage statistically mediates symptom reduction in self-guided internet-delivered cognitive–behavioural therapy for depression and anxiety: a randomised controlled trial

Cognitive–behavioural therapy (CBT) is an effective treatment for clinical and subclinical symptoms of depression and general anxiety, and increases life satisfaction. Patients’ usage of CBT skills is a core aspect of treatment but there is insufficient empirical evidence suggesting that skills usage behaviours are a mechanism of clinical change. This study investigated if an internet-delivered CBT (iCBT) intervention increased the frequency of CBT skills usage behaviours and if this statistically mediated reductions in symptoms and increased life satisfaction. A two-group randomised controlled trial was conducted comparing internet-delivered CBT (n = 65) with a waitlist control group (n = 75). Participants were individuals experiencing clinically significant symptoms of depression or general anxiety. Mixed-linear models analyses revealed that the treatment group reported a significantly higher frequency of skills usage, lower symptoms, and higher life satisfaction by the end of treatment compared with the control group. Results from bootstrapping mediation analyses revealed that the increased skills usage behaviours statistically mediated symptom reductions and increased life satisfaction. Although skills usage and symptom outcomes were assessed concurrently, these findings support the notion that iCBT increases the frequency of skills usage behaviours and suggest that this may be an important mechanism of change.     

Disparities in the moral intuitions of criminal offenders: The role of psychopathy

The present study examined whether and in what ways psychopathy is associated with abnormal moral intuitions among criminal offenders. Using Haidt et al.’s Moral Foundations Questionnaire, 222 adult male offenders assessed for clinical psychopathy reported their degree of support for five moral domains: Harm Prevention, Fairness, Respect for Authority, Ingroup Loyalty, and Purity/Sanctity. As predicted, psychopathy total score explained a substantial proportion of the variance in reduced support for Harm Prevention and Fairness, but not the other domains. These results confirm that psychopathy entails a discrete set of moral abnormalities and suggest that these abnormalities could potentially help to explain the characteristic antisocial behavior of individuals with psychopathy.     

Psychological Time in Later Life: Implications for Counseling

Psychological time consists of cognitive constructs, images, and symbolic representations. It has different dimensions such as the experience of time, time perspective, attitudes and beliefs toward time, and the individual's behavior relating to time. Psychological time undergoes changes throughout the life span and is an integral part of the psychological developmental processes. In later life, it may be particularly dissonant with environmental rhythms and require re‐integration of the individual's past, present, and future. This article suggests several guidelines for counseling practice that address the many facets of psychological time in later life and their implications for the mental health and well‐being of older people.