Developmental changes in units of processing in reading

A visual search task was used to investigate the development of word processing skills used in reading meaningful prose. Children from the second and fourth grades and college students were asked to locate a prespecified letter, syllable, word, or category exemplar as they read through sentences. Target detection time, sentence reading time, and sentence comprehension were measured. The results provide converging evidence that whole words were the preferred units of processing during reading for all three grade levels. Reading rates for sentences in the word search condition were comparable to normal reading rates. The search for smaller units required additional processing time, but word and category search times differed only for the youngest subjects.     

A counterexample to two-dimensional varimax-rotation

Usually, an iterative procedure based on two-dimensional rotations is employed to find the varimax solution in factor analysis. A matrix is given where this procedure does not yield the maximum value of the varimax criterion. However, random orthogonal transformations of some matrices and subsequent varimax-rotation using the iterative procedure seem to indicate that usually no local maxima exist.     

Addressing complex hospital discharge by cultivating the virtues of acknowledged dependence

Theoretical Medicine and Bioethics - Every day around the country, patients are discharged from hospitals without difficulty, as the interests of the hospital and the patient tend to align: both...     

Does scientific thinking lead to success and sanity? An integration of attribution and attributional models

A motivational model is introduced that integrates conceptions of attributional antecedents with those of attributional consequences, and suggests that it is functional to make realistic attributions. This model is applied to the analysis of achievement behaviour and depression. The use of a new experimental paradigm designed to test the model's assumptions demonstrates that realistic attributions maximise performance. The model was also used to investigate whether depressives are more realistic than non-depressives. This research revealed that depressives draw more "pessimistic" conclusions from covariation information than non-depressives. In addition, depressives expect their partners to make more negative attributions about the depressives' outcomes than their partners in fact do. However, these negative views could not be traced back to faulty inferences from covariation information. Finally, research is described showing that, in addition to depressogenic attributions, certain evaluative cognitions need to be present in order to trigger depressive mood reactions.     

Contemporary psychoanalytical identity and its roots in the history of science

Abstract

The problem of psychoanalytical identity is discussed under the aspects of psychoanalysis:

—as the history of a charismatic movement shaping the organizational and career patterns in a specific direction;

—as a science with the difficulties of defining the correlations of interpretative, clinical-empirical and “scientistic” dimensions inherent in its basic assumptions.     

Elterntrainings zur Pr?vention dissozialen Verhaltens

This paper presents the concept of Development Promotion in Families: Parent and Child Training (EntwicklungsF?rderung in Familien: Eltern- und Kindertraining, EFFEKT^?). The parent training was developed and evaluated as part of the Erlangen-Nuremberg Development and Prevention Study (L?sel et al. M?glichkeiten der Gewaltpr?vention, S?201?C249, 2005; L?sel et al., Z Klin Psychol Psychother 35:127?C139, 2006). EFFEKT was constructed as a universal program for the prevention of antisocial behavior in children. In the meantime it has now been extended by several program units: adapted parent training for migrants, adapted training for depressive mothers, training for internationally mobile parents, training for parents of children under the age of 3 years, school children and adolescents. Therefore, it can also be used as a selective prevention program. In addition, the training is used throughout Europe with the help of an internet version of EFFEKT, providing a low threshold for users. This article presents mainly the contents of the training and selected evaluation results. All results prove the successful implementation of all EFFEKT programs. Moreover, the output evaluation of the training suggests substantial effects with regard to the behavior of children. In comparison to the control group, the results of the training groups were superior in almost all evaluation areas. The results suggest that EFFEKT can be used as a universal as well as a selective prevention program.