Implicit and explicit alcohol-related cognitions in heavy and light drinkers

Implicit and explicit alcohol-related cognitions were measured in 2 dimensions: positive-negative (valence) and arousal-sedation, with 2 versions of the Implicit Association Test (IAT; A. G. Greenwald, D. E. McGhee, & J. L. Schwartz) and related explicit measures. Heavy drinkers (n = 24) strongly associated alcohol with arousal on the arousal IAT (especially men) and scored higher on explicit arousal expectancies than light drinkers (n = 24). On the valence IAT, both light and heavy drinkers showed strong negative implicit associations with alcohol that contrasted with their positive explicit judgments (heavy drinkers were more positive). Implicit and explicit cognitions uniquely contributed to the prediction of 1-month prospective drinking. Heavy drinkers' implicit arousal associations could reflect the sensitized psychomotor-activating response to drug cues, a motivational mechanism hypothesized to underlie the etiology of addictive behaviors.     

Mechanisms of predictive and diagnostic causal induction

In predictive causal inference, people reason from causes to effects, whereas in diagnostic inference, they reason from effects to causes. Independently of the causal structure of the events, the temporal structure of the information provided to a reasoner may vary (e.g., multiple events followed by a single event vs. a single event followed by multiple events). The authors report 5 experiments in which causal structure and temporal information were varied independently. Inferences were influenced by temporal structure but not by causal structure. The results are relevant to the evaluation of 2 current accounts of causal induction, the Rescorla-Wagner (R. A. Rescorla & A. R. Wagner, 1972) and causal model theories (M. R. Waldmann & K. J. Holyoak, 1992).     

Interaction between transient change in local muscle structure and segmented leg motor responses

We investigated the interaction between transient change in the local structure of gastrocnemius muscle fibers and the segmented leg motor responses elicited by toes-up rotation of the support surface. The gastrocnemius muscle in healthy young subjects underwent a sustained 2-min, isometric stretch (Prestretch group), followed immediately by the rotations. Analysis showed that the prestretch affected the amplitude of the monosynaptic but not the automatic components of the medial gastrocnemius muscle responses (monosynaptic response: 93 +/- 20% of the mean of the last three rotations in the Prestretch group compared to 174 +/- 42% in the Control group; automatic response: 128 +/- 18% in the Prestretch group versus 123 +/- 31% in the Control group). The shortened tibialis anterior muscle response and the onset latencies of responses were not affected by prestretching the gastrocnemius muscle. The prestretch effect on the amplitude of the monosynaptic (mediated by group Ia afferents) but not the automatic gastrocnemius muscle response (mediated by group II afferents) suggests that the automatic component of the muscle response to platform rotations has a stronger supraspinal influence than the monosynaptic response and is thus less affected by local events such as prolonged stretching.     

No evidence for overshadowing or facilitation of spatial pattern learning by visual cues

Two experiments were conducted to examine the effects of redundant and relevant visual cues on spatial pattern learning. Rats searched for hidden food items on the tops of poles that formed a square (Experiment 1) or a checkerboard (Experiment 2) pattern. The experimental groups were trained with visual cues that specified the locations of the baited poles. All groups were tested without visual cues so that any overshadowing or facilitation of spatial pattern learning by visual cues could be detected. Spatial choices were controlled by the spatial pattern and by the visual cues in both experiments. However, there was no evidence of overshadowing or facilitation of spatial pattern learning by visual cues in either experiment. The results are consistent with the idea that the representation of the spatial pattern that guides choices is not controlled by the same learning processes as those that produce associations between visual cues and food locations.     

Effects of speech accents on interpersonal evaluations: implications for counseling practice and research

This article reviews literature from the fields of psycholinguistics, communications, and social psychology that has examined the effects of speech accents (i.e., regional, national, and international variations in same-language use) on interpersonal attitudes, casual attributions, and subsequent behaviors. The authors link selected findings from this literature to the field of counseling to show that these findings can inform service delivery, particularly counseling conducted with ethnic minority and immigrant populations in the United States. Implications for practice and ideas for future research in this area are also discussed.     

Advantage for emotional words in immediate and delayed memory tasks: could it be explained in terms of processing capacity?

Emotional stimuli are better remembered and recognized than neutral ones. This advantage for emotional stimuli has been repeatedly obtained when testing long-term retention. However, there are contradictory results concerning retention of emotional information when short retention intervals are used. The aim of the present study was, on the one hand, to test the effect of retention interval on memory for emotional stimuli (Experiment 1). The results showed that emotional information is better remembered than neutral information in both immediate and delayed memory tests, suggesting that the advantage for emotional information is not limited to long retention intervals. On the other hand, I tried to test the proposals made by Christianson and Nilsson (1984) and Bower (1992). These authors suggested that the advantage for emotional stimuli could be explained as emotional stimuli spending more processing capacity during acquisition, thus rendering less capacity available to encode simultaneously presented information (Experiments 2 and 3). Results showed that concurrent presentation of emotional stimuli did not inhibit the recall of neutral stimuli. These findings do not seem to support the proposals of Christianson and Nilsson (1984) and Bower (1992). According to these results, some mechanisms other than a greater spending of processing capacity have to be involved in the advantage for emotional information in memory.     

Patients with generalized social phobia direct their attention away from faces

The experiment tested whether patients with social phobia direct their attention to or away from faces with a range of emotional expressions. A modified dot probe paradigm (J. Abnorm. Psychol. 95 (1986) 15) measured whether participants attended more to faces or to household objects. Twenty patients with social phobia were faster in identifying the probe when it occurred in the location of the household objects, regardless of whether the facial expressions were positive, neutral, or negative. In contrast, controls did not exhibit an attentional preference. The results are in line with recent theories of social phobia that emphasize the role of reduced processing of external social cues in maintaining social anxiety.     

Does Legalized Gambling Elevate the Risk of Suicide? An Analysis of U.S. Counties and Metropolitan Areas

This study addresses a possible link between suicide and casino gambling. Resident suicide rates are analyzed for (a) a 1990 cross-section of 148 U.S. metropolitan areas and (b) before and after the advent of legalized casinos in five U.S. counties. Data are drawn from government and gaming industry sources. In cross-section, metro area suicide is strongly correlated with region, accidental death and homicide rates, age and race composition, and economic vitality, followed by a modest net positive correlation with casino presence. By contrast, the time series analysis yields no evidence of a gambling effect.     

Effects of the testing situation on item responding: cause for concern

The effects of faking on personality test scores have been studied previously by comparing (a) experimental groups instructed to fake or answer honestly, (b) subgroups created from a single sample of applicants or nonapplicants by using impression management scores, and (c) job applicants and nonapplicants. In this investigation, the latter 2 methods were used to study the effects of faking on the functioning of the items and scales of the Sixteen Personality Factor Questionnaire. A variety of item response theory methods were used to detect differential item/test functioning, interpreted as evidence of faking. The presence of differential item/test functioning across testing situations suggests that faking adversely affects the construct validity of personality scales and that it is problematic to study faking by comparing groups defined by impression management scores.     

Use of a structured investigative protocol enhances young children's responses to free-recall prompts in the course of forensic interviews

One hundred alleged victims of child sexual abuse (ages 4-12 years; M = 8.1 years) were interviewed by police investigators about their alleged experiences. Half of the children were interviewed using the National Institute of Child Health and Human Development's structured interview protocol, whereas the other children--matched with respect to their age, relationship with the alleged perpetrator, and seriousness of the alleged offenses--were interviewed using standard interview practices. Protocol-guided interviews elicited more information using open-ended prompts and less information using option-posing and suggestive questions than did standard interviews; there were no age differences in the amount of information provided in response to open-ended invitations. In 89% of the protocol interviews, children made their preliminary allegations in response to open-ended prompts, compared with 36% in the standard interviews.