Intensity affects the preconscious processing of emotionally toned words in college students

The detectability of high and low intensity emotionally toned words was investigated in a signal detection paradigm using college students as subjects. Individually set thresholds kept word identification to an average of 16 percent. The results indicate a complicated pattern of interactions among intensity, gender, positive or negative tone, and hemispheric presentation. Greater detectability was found for right hemisphere presentations and low intensity words. In addition, positive words showed greater detectability than negative words. The findings are discussed in terms of factors that affect automatic attitude activation. This article is based on a presentation at the American Psychological Society Annual in Washington, D.C., June 1998.     

A State-of-Affairs-Semantic Solution to the Problem of Extensionality in Free Logic

Journal of Philosophical Logic - If one takes seriously the idea that a scientific language must be extensional, and accepts Quine’s notion of truth-value-related extensionality, and also...     

Prevention of delinquency: Current status and issues

In the present review, we summarize the extant literature in the field of delinquency prevention. We do not provide a recounting of whether specific programs have or have not been effective but, rather, attempt to judge the overall utility of programs to prevent delinquency in its various forms and among various definable groups. Specifically, we organize our review of programs according to the characteristics of the targeted population, differentiating programs for universal, selected, or indicated populations. Within each population type, we further distinguish programs according to designated intervention context, relying on a biopsychosocial model that specifies four levels of influence on risk for delinquency: individual, close interpersonal relationships, proximal social settings, and societal macrosystems. At each level, we identify a number of effective intervention strategies and highlight those that are based on relevant risk factor research. As we note, the effectiveness of some approaches depends on the specific population, although, in general, multicomponent, multilevel programs appear to have the most substantial effects.     

Conceptual and perceptual memory: retrieval orientations reflected in event-related potentials

In memory retrieval, search can be guided by mental sets towards different subsets of the available evidence. Such retrieval orientations have been suggested to leave an imprint on event-related potentials (ERPs). The present study aimed at characterizing orientations towards perceptual and conceptual evidence in a recognition task, where pictures and words were studied. In the recognition test, items were presented in either the same format as at study or in the opposite format. A between-subjects manipulation modified the task, instructing an Exclusion group to endorse only items that preserved their format from study, and an Inclusion group to endorse both formats of a studied item. It was hypothesized that exclusion instructions would instill a perceptual and inclusion instructions a conceptual orientation. As a corollary, instructions were expected to dissociate the high end from the low end of the picture-word mirror effect. This expectation was confirmed in a behavioural experiment. In an ERP experiment, retrieval orientations were examined in their effects on correct rejections of new pictures and words. Confirming earlier findings [Hornberger, M., Morcom, A. M., & Rugg, M. D. (2004). Neural correlates of retrieval orientation: effects of study-test similarity. Journal of Cognitive Neuroscience, 16(7), 1196-1210], a perceptual orientation was accompanied by more positive-going amplitudes over widespread areas. The difference was larger for pictures than for words, supporting behavioural evidence that new pictures are more easily rejected on perceptual grounds than are new words. The Exclusion group showed no ERP evidence of cross-format old-new effects, despite reaction times indicative of involuntary conceptual recognition. The results indicate that perceptual and conceptual retrieval orientations imprint distinct signatures on ERPs. They further suggest that the examined old-new effects in ERPs are mainly linked to voluntary aspects of memory, even in a task where involuntary memory exerts effects on reaction times.     

The moral judgment test: comments on Villegas de Posada's critique

The Moral Judgment Test is an operationalization of Kohlberg's notion of moral judgment competence and Piaget's two-aspect model of behavior and thus differs from tests of preferred moral orientations and Kohlberg's own Stage measurement. As this best presents counter-arguments to be rated in regard to their moral quality, it is a difficult task for many, and the C score reflects the respondents' competence to cope with the task. Validation studies of 27 language versions and thirty years of use in research and evaluation studies have indicated the Moral Judgment Test is valid and useful for assessing affective and cognitive aspects of moral behavior for research and evaluation.