Trait-anger enhances effects of caffeine on psychomotor vigilance performance

This study examined the combined effects of caffeine and the personality attribute of trait-anger on the speed of psychomotor vigilance performance during sleep deprivation. 23 young adult soldiers (19 male) were administered the State-Trait Anger Expression Inventory-2 when well-rested. Participants were then sleep deprived for three consecutive nights (77 hours total) during which they completed repeated psychomotor vigilance testing. Half of the participants received four doses of oral caffeine (200 mg every 2 hr.; 800 mg total) each night, while the other half were administered a placebo. For the first night, higher scores on trait-anger, outward anger expression, and intensity of anger expression predicted better sustained overnight vigilance performance, but only for those volunteers receiving caffeine. These correlations were not significant for the subsequent nights. Findings suggest a possible synergistic effect between personality traits associated with arousal of the central nervous system and vigilance-promoting effects of caffeine.     

Consultation-based Academic Interventions for Children with ADHD: Effects on Reading and Mathematics Achievement

The purpose of this investigation was to evaluate the relative efficacy of two consultation-based models for designing academic interventions to enhance the educational functioning of children with attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder (ADHD). Children (N=167) meeting DSM-IV criteria for ADHD were randomly assigned to one of two consultation groups: Individualized Academic Intervention (IAI; interventions designed using a data-based decision-making model that involved ongoing feedback to teachers) and Generic Academic Intervention (GAI; interventions designed based on consultant-teacher collaboration, representing "consultation as usual"). Teachers implemented academic interventions over 15 months. Academic outcomes (e.g., standardized achievement test, and teacher ratings of academic skills) were assessed on four occasions (baseline, 3 months, 12 months, 15 months). Hierarchical linear modeling analyses indicated significant positive growth for 8 of the 14 dependent variables; however, trajectories did not differ significantly across consultation groups. Interventions in the IAI group were delivered with significantly greater integrity; however, groups did not differ with respect to teacher ratings of treatment acceptability. The results of this study provide partial support for the effectiveness of consultation-based academic interventions in enhancing educational functioning in children with ADHD; however, the relative advantages of an individualized model over "consultation as usual" have yet to be established.     

Building a practically useful theory of goal setting and task motivation. A 35-year odyssey

The authors summarize 35 years of empirical research on goal-setting theory. They describe the core findings of the theory, the mechanisms by which goals operate, moderators of goal effects, the relation of goals and satisfaction, and the role of goals as mediators of incentives. The external validity and practical significance of goal-setting theory are explained, and new directions in goal-setting research are discussed. The relationships of goal setting to other theories are described as are the theory's limitations.     

The damaging effect of confirming feedback on the relation between eyewitness certainty and identification accuracy

The authors investigated eyewitnesses' retrospective certainty (see G. L. Wells & A. L. Bradfield, 1999). The authors hypothesized that extemal influence from the lineup administrator would damage the certainty-accuracy relation by inflating the retrospective certainty of inaccurate eyewitnesses more than that of accurate eyewitnesses (N = 245). Two variables were manipulated: eyewitness accuracy (through the presence or absence of the culprit in the lineup) and feedback (confirming vs. control). Confirming feedback inflated retrospective certainty more for inaccurate eyewitnesses than for accurate eyewitnesses, significantly reducing the certainty-accuracy relation (from r = .58 in the control condition to r = .37 in the confirming feedback condition). Double-blind testing is recommended for lineups to prevent these external influences on eyewitnesses.     

Ecological and evolutionary validity: comments on Johnson-Laird,Legrenzi, Girotto,Legrenzi, and Caverni's (1999) mental-model theory of extensional reasoning

The mental-model account of naive probabilistic reasoning by P. N. Johnson-Laird, P. Legrenzi, V. Girotto, M. S. Legrenzi, and J.-P. Caverni (1999) provides an opportunity to clarify several similarities and differences between it and ecological rationality (frequentist) accounts. First, ambiguities in the meaning of Bayesian reasoning can lead to disagreements and inappropriate arguments. Second, 2 conflated effects of using natural frequencies are noticed but not actually tested separately because of an artificial dissociation of frequency representations and natural sampling. Third, similarities are noted between the subset principle and the principle of natural sampling. Finally, some potentially misleading portrayals of the role of evolutionary factors in psychology are corrected. Mental-model theory, rather than better explaining probabilistic reasoning, may be able to use frequency representations as a key element in clarifying its own ambiguous constructs.     

Models of visuospatial and verbal memory across the adult life span

The authors investigated the distinctiveness and interrelationships among visuospatial and verbal memory processes in short-term, working, and long-term memories in 345 adults. Beginning in the 20s, a continuous, regular decline occurs for processing-intensive tasks (e.g., speed of processing, working memory, and long-term memory), whereas verbal knowledge increases across the life span. There is little differentiation in the cognitive architecture of memory across the life span. Visuospatial and verbal working memory are distinct but highly interrelated systems with domain-specific short-term memory subsystems. In contrast to recent neuroimaging data, there is little evidence for dedifferentiation of function at the behavioral level in old compared with young adults. The authors conclude that efforts to connect behavioral and brain data yield a more complete understanding of the aging mind.     

Identifying victims of peer aggression from early to middle childhood: analysis of cross-informant data for concordance, estimation of relational adjustment, prevalence of victimization, and characteristics of identified victims

Two studies were conducted to investigate cross-informant measures of children's peer victimization. In Study 1, self- and peer reports of victimization were compared for 197 children from Kindergarten (M age = 5.73) to Grade 4. Before Grade 2, peer reports were less reliable than self-reports and were poor estimators of relational adjustment. In Study 2, single- versus multiple-informant (self, peer, teacher, parent) victimization measures were compared for 392 children across grades 2 (M age = 8.73) to 4. Results indicated that (a) data from the four informants were reliable and increasingly concordant over time, (b) no single-informant measure proved to be the best predictor of relational adjustment, and (c) a multi-informant composite measure yielded better estimates of relational adjustment than any single-informant measure.     

Eyewitness identification: information gain from incriminating and exonerating behaviors

An information-gain approach to the analysis and interpretation of eyewitness identification data is described. The information-gain analysis is grounded in Bayesian statistics, permitting the important role of prior probabilities to be explored. This approach also forces a more complete treatment of the data and reveals important patterns that have escaped previous attention in the eyewitness identification literature. Particularly important is the ability of information-gain analyses to make salient the exonerating value of eyewitness behaviors rather than just their incriminating value. Analyses of sample data sets show how the exonerating value of filler identifications and "not there" responses can actually exceed the incriminating value of identifications of the suspect at certain points in the distribution of prior probabilities.     

Testing two cognitive theories of insight

Insight in problem solving occurs when the problem solver fails to see how to solve a problem and then--"aha!"--there is a sudden realization how to solve it. Two contemporary theories have been proposed to explain insight. The representational change theory (e.g., G. Knoblich, S. Ohlsson, & G. E. Rainey, 2001) proposes that insight occurs through relaxing self-imposed constraints on a problem and by decomposing chunked items in the problem. The progress monitoring theory (e.g., J. N. MacGregor, T. C. Ormerod, & E. P. Chronicle, 2001) proposes that insight is only sought once it becomes apparent that the distance to the goal is unachievable in the moves remaining. These 2 theories are tested in an unlimited move problem, to which neither theory has previously been applied. The results lend support to both, but experimental manipulations to the problem suggest that the representational change theory is the better indicator of performance. The findings suggest that testable opposing predictions can be made to examine theories of insight and that the use of eye movement data is a fruitful method of both examining insight and testing theories of insight.     

Representation and constraints: the inverse problem and the structure of visual space

Visual space can be distinguished from physical space. The first is found in visual experience, while the second is defined independently of perception. Theorists have wondered about the relation between the two. Some investigators have concluded that visual space is non-Euclidean, and that it does not have a single metric structure. Here it is argued (1) that visual space exhibits contraction in all three dimensions with increasing distance from the observer, (2) that experienced features of this contraction (including the apparent convergence of lines in visual experience that are produced from physically parallel stimuli in ordinary viewing conditions) are not the same as would be the experience of a perspective projection onto a frontoparallel plane, and (3) that such contraction is consistent with size constancy. These properties of visual space are different from those that would be predicted if spatial perception resulted from the successful solution of the inverse problem. They are consistent with the notion that optical constraints have been internalized. More generally, they are also consistent with the notion that visual spatial structures bear a resemblance relation to physical spatial structures. This notion supports a type of representational relation that is distinct from mere causal correspondence. The reticence of some philosophers and psychologists to discuss the structure of phenomenal space is diagnosed in terms of the simple materialism and the functionalism of the 1970s and 1980s.