Where am I? Distal cues use requires sensitivity to start location change in the rat

Place learning is impaired when a single plus maze is moved between adjacent locations 33-120 cm apart. This maze translation creates distinct start locations but maintains a single goal location with respect to distal cues. Hippocampal cell recording data suggest the majority of place fields are tied to apparatus boundaries, not to distal cues, when an apparatus is moved these distances to the left or right. Thus, rats may fail to appreciate the existence of multiple start locations with respect to distal cues when the maze is moved in this way and their start location on the surface is constant. Performance on the single plus maze problem was improved when texture cues were correlated with different start locations. Place learning was supported when multiple start locations were provided on a single large surface (double plus maze), even though rats did not explore the entire surface. Place learning was also supported when random extensions were added to a double plus maze such that start locations, relative to surface boundaries, were not informative as to goal location. This outcome suggests sensitivity to multiple start locations is required for distal cue use in translational place problems.     

Perceptual completion of a sound with a short silent gap

Listeners reported the perceptual completion of a sound in stimuli consisting of two crossing frequency glides of unequal duration that shared a short silent gap (40 ms or less) at their crossing point. Even though both glides shared the gap, it was consistently perceived only in the shorter glide, whereas the longer glide could be perceptually completed. Studies on perceptual completion in the auditory domain reported so far have shown that completion of a sound with a gap occurs only if the gap is filled with energy from another sound. In the stimuli used here, however, no such substitute energy was present in the gap, showing evidence for perceptual completion of a sound without local stimulation ('modal' completion). Perceptual completion of the long glide occurred under both monaural and dichotic presentation of the gap-sharing glides; it therefore involves central stages of auditory processing. The inclusion of the gap in the short glide, rather than in both the long and the short glide, is explained in terms of auditory event and stream formation.     

Patients suffering from nonspecific work-related upper extremity disorders exhibit insufficient movement strategies

The purpose of this research was to investigate whether patients experiencing nonspecific complaints of the forearm caused by sustained use of the personal computer exhibit deviant movement strategies as compared to healthy participants. Patients (N=10) and controls (N=24) performed a graphical aiming task combined with an auditory memory task. Force production (pen pressure), kinematic- and performance variables were recorded. During a trial, the control group gradually increased pen pressure from the stationary phases to the dynamic phase. The patients increased their pen pressure much more abruptly and to such a degree that the final pressure during real-time movement far exceeded that of the controls. Memory load led to a greater increase of pen pressure from the stationary phase to the dynamic phase in the patient group. Patients further displayed longer reaction times. The results are discussed within the framework of our recent theory on the role of neuromotor noise in the regulation of task performance under conditions of stress.     

The contribution to immediate serial recall of rehearsal,search speed,access to lexical memory,and phonological coding: An investigation at the construct level

Rehearsal speed has traditionally been seen to be the prime determinant of individual differences in memory span. Recent studies, in the main using young children as the participant population, have suggested other contributors to span performance. In the present research, we used structural equation modeling to explore, at the construct level, individual differences in immediate serial recall with respect to rehearsal, search, phonological coding, and speed of access to lexical memory. We replicated standard short-term phenomena; we showed that the variables that influence children's span performance influence adult performance in the same way; and we showed that speed of access to lexical memory and facility with phonological codes appear to be more potent sources of individual differences in immediate memory than is either rehearsal speed or search factors.     

Alignable and nonalignable differences in causal explanations

Prior research indicates that people may base their causal explanations on distinctive features between an event and a contrasting background instance in which the event did not occur. Research on similarity judgments suggests that there are two types of distinctive features: alignable differences, which are corresponding characteristics of a pair, and nonalignable differences, which are characteristics of one item for which there are no corresponding characteristics in the other. In three experiments, the hypothesis that people's evaluations of causal explanations vary as a function of feature alignment was examined. The results suggest that people will rate explanations differently on the basis of alignable or nonalignable differences, depending on the type of the event, and that alignability depends on the relational structure among the features of the event.     

Syntactic priming and the lexical boost effect during sentence production and sentence comprehension: An fMRI study

Behavioral syntactic priming effects during sentence comprehension are typically observed only if both the syntactic structure and lexical head are repeated. In contrast, during production syntactic priming occurs with structure repetition alone, but the effect is boosted by repetition of the lexical head. We used fMRI to investigate the neuronal correlates of syntactic priming and lexical boost effects during sentence production and comprehension. The critical measure was the magnitude of fMRI adaptation to repetition of sentences in active or passive voice, with or without verb repetition. In conditions with repeated verbs, we observed adaptation to structure repetition in the left IFG and MTG, for active and passive voice. However, in the absence of repeated verbs, adaptation occurred only for passive sentences. None of the fMRI adaptation effects yielded differential effects for production versus comprehension, suggesting that sentence comprehension and production are subserved by the same neuronal infrastructure for syntactic processing.     

Belief in luck and luckiness: Conceptual clarification and new measure validation

Research on the dimensionality and measurement of luck beliefs has yet to produce a clear conceptual and metrical consensus. This research theorizes a bidimensional model of luck beliefs that is tested through a series of studies (total n = 1205) validating the new Belief in Luck and Luckiness Scale. Unlike existing conceptualizations and measures, this new model is applicable to both believers and non-believers in luck, and reveals belief in luck and personal luckiness to be discrete, uncorrelated, and respectively unidimensional constructs.     

Test-retest reliability of the state-trait personality inventory and the anger expression scale

Abstract

The State-Trait Personality Inventory and the Anger Expression Scale have been attracting increasing attention in research involving personality assessment, but no data regarding the test-retest reliability of these instruments have been published. The 14-day test-retest correlation coefficients for the subscales of these instruments reflect appropriately low stability for the state scales of the STPI and moderate stability for the STPI trait scales as well as the AX subscales.     

Varying Cautionary Instructions,Monetary Incentives,and Comorbid Diagnostic Training in Malingered Psychopathology Research

In this article, we combine two analogue experiments in which we empirically examined three malingering methodological issues in individuals trained and instructed to simulate posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD) on the Trauma Symptom Inventory (TSI; Briere, 1995 Briere, J. 1995. Trauma Symptom Inventory professional manual, Odessa, FL: Psychological Assessment Resources.  [Google Scholar]). In Experiment 1, we examined TSI scale effects of the following manipulations using a 2 × 2 design with 330 college students: (a) inclusion or exclusion of cautionary instructions regarding believability of participants' simulation and (b) different financial incentive levels. In Experiment 2, we examined comorbid psychiatric diagnostic training with 180 college students who were either trained to simulate PTSD and comorbid major depressive disorder or trained to simulate only PTSD. Caution main effects were significant for all but two TSI Clinical Scales, incentive main effects and interactions were only significant for one Clinical scale each, and the comorbidity manipulation did not yield any scale differences. We discuss malingering research design implications regarding the use of cautionary instructions, financial incentive levels, and comorbid training.     

Eleventh Annual Meeting of the Society for Projective Techniques

This study assesses the concurrent validity of two Rorschach defense scales designed to identify borderline defensive structure. A Rorschach scale designed by Cooper and his colleagues was systematically compared to a defense scale constructed by Lerner and Lerner. Despite considerable overlap on a conceptual and operational level, the scales are based on divergent theoretical models (developmental arrest and fixation) and Rorschach units of analysis (all responses and human responses). Our results are based on the capacity of each scale to discriminate between independently diagnosed samples (neurotic, outpatient borderline, inpatient borderline, schizophrenic) and the relative discriminatory power of particular defenses within each scale to differentiate between groups.