Is Bradburn's measure of psychological well-being fair to introverts? A study among 16- to 18-yr.-old students

The relationship between dimensions of personality characteristics and the perceived rearing attitude of parents in the Japanese population were investigated. The scores on a measure of perceived parental attitude of 153 normal female students, measured on the Parker Parental Bonding Instrument, were correlated with personality features from the Japanese version of the Cloninger Temperament and Character Inventory. Self-directedness, especially the subclasses of Responsibility vs Blaming and Congruent Second Nature vs Incongruent Habits, was significantly related to high scores on Maternal Care and low scores on Maternal Overprotection. The subscale of Self-acceptance vs Self-striving correlated only with low scores on Maternal Overprotection. Paternal Care was only related to the total scale scores on Self-directedness. Results suggest that some personality traits may be related to the perceived attitudes of parents, especially of the mother, during childhood.     

Change of intensity fails to produce an irrelevant sound effect: implications for the representation of unattended sound.

Sequences of changing sounds that are irrelevant to the task at hand disrupt serial recall appreciably even though participants are instructed to ignore the sounds. Three experiments, which compared the effect of changing token identity with that of changing intensity in the 55- to 85-dB (A) range, were conducted. Although serial recall was impaired by changes in token identity, no disruptive effects of a change in intensity were found. This was replicated using speech and nonspeech. Overall, the absence of a changing intensity effect was based on an analysis of the performance of 115 participants in a design whose power was .98. This outcome suggests that the representation of intensity in preattentive processing of auditory stimuli is somewhat different from that of other acoustic features.     

Massage and music therapies attenuate frontal EEG asymmetry in depressed adolescents

EEG asymmetry, specifically greater relative right frontal activation, is associated with negative affect. Depressed adults show stable patterns of this asymmetry. The present study assessed the effects of massage therapy and music therapy on frontal EEG asymmetry in depressed adolescents. Thirty adolescents with greater relative right frontal EEG activation and symptoms of depression were given either massage therapy (n = 14) or music therapy (n = 16). EEG was recorded for three-minute periods before, during, and after therapy. Frontal EEG asymmetry was significantly attenuated during and after the massage and music sessions.     

A case study of behavioral assessment and treatment of insect phobia

We assessed the academic performance of a 14-year-old boy with insect phobia in the context of feared stimuli. The dependent measure was math calculation rate across three conditions that varied therapist statements about the presence of crickets and the actual presence of live crickets. Subsequent treatment consisted of graduated exposure and contingent rewards for math problem completion. Assessment results indicated that the boy's performance was consistently low in the presence of live crickets but not when he was spuriously informed that crickets were present (the primary referral concern). Treatment results indicated no effect from exposure alone and a dramatic effect when exposure was combined with contingent rewards.     

Defensive burying, nest relocation, and pup transport in lactating female rats

A wire-wrapped wooden dowel was inserted through the wall of the nest compartment of a two-compartment box. There were four conditions. Some lactating female rats were shocked by the dowel when they first touched it, and some were not, after which the dowel was either immediately withdrawn from the chamber or left in place for the duration of the ensuing 30-min test period. Three defensive behaviours were observed during the tests: the mothers buried the shock source with bedding from the floor of the chamber, they transported their pups to the adjoining “safe” chamber, and they built a new nest in the safe chamber from material salvaged from their original nest. The shocked mothers that were confronted with the shock source throughout the test period displayed significantly more of each of these three defensive behaviours than did the mothers in the other three conditions. The methods used in this study provide a simple, reliable, safe paradigm for studying maternal defensive behaviour; the results indicate that the defensive capacities of the rat extend far beyond stereotypical flight, freeze, and fight responses, which have been the focus of most research on rodent defense.     

Modulation of the Irrelevant Sound Effect by Organizational Factors: Further Evidence from Streaming by Location

An irrelevant sequence of discrete auditory tokens disrupts serial recall markedly if successive tokens differ, but the disruption is less marked if the sound is repeated. However, the relation of stimulus mismatch and degree of disruption with serial recall seems to be modulated by organizational principles such as streaming by pitch and streaming by location. The current empirical work replicates the finding that the impact of changing sequences can be reduced if tokens are assigned to different locations in such a way as to form separate streams, each containing sequences of repeated tokens. This study shows that this phenomenon is not a consequence of reducing the number of tokens per stream.     

Preventing the Application of Stereotypic Biases in the Courtroom: The Role of Detailed Testimony1

To determine whether detailed testimony has equivalent effects on judgments of stereotyped and nonstereotyped defendants, subjects read a synopsis of a criminal court case in which the defendant either was a stereotyped offender or was not. Additionally, the degree of detail in the prosecution testimony and defense testimony was varied. Results indicated that defendant stereotypicality had a greater impact under conditions in which witnesses provided equal amounts of detail in their testimony. When witnesses differed in the degree of detail in their testimony, the stereotypicality of the defendant was disregarded and judgments favored the witness who provided greater detail. These findings suggest that stereotype application is not inevitable; rather, stereotypes may bias jurors' decision-making processes when the quality and quantity of the evidence does not easily lead to a confident judgment.     

Priming the Identification of Environmental Sounds

Three experiments were conducted using a repetition priming paradigm: Auditory word or environmental sound stimuli were identified by subjects in a pre-test phase, which was followed by a perceptual identification task using either sounds or words in the test phase. Identification of an environmental sound was facilitated by prior presentation of the same sound, but not by prior presentation of a spoken label (Experiments 1 and 2). Similarly, spoken word identification was facilitated by previous presentation of the same word, but not when the word had been used to label an environmental sound (Experiment 1). A degree of abstraction was demonstrated in Experiment 3, which revealed a facilitation effect between similar sounds produced by the same type of source. These results are discussed in terms of the Transfer Appropriate Processing, activation, and systems approaches.     

Open-field behavior in domestic chicks tested individually or in pairs: Differential effects of painted lines delineating subdivisions of the floor

The open field is a common test of fear, but the apparatus varies widely. Lines painted on the floor facilitate measurement of locomotion (areas entered), but, though some animals balk at lines, this variable has received little attention. In Experiment 1, 10-day-old female chicks were tested individually in an open field with an unmarked floor or one delineated into areas by 1- or 3-mm-wide black lines. In Experiment 2, chicks were tested in pairs in the presence or absence of 3-mm-wide lines. Strong intraindividual correlations demonstrated that both paces and areas entered are effective measures of locomotion. Chicks tested individually were unaffected by the presence or width of lines. Conversely, pair-tested chicks paced and pecked more when the floor was delineated. Given the latter findings, some standardization is recommended.