Bedding down new words: Sleep promotes the emergence of lexical competition in visual word recognition

Lexical competition processes are widely viewed as the hallmark of visual word recognition, but little is known about the factors that promote their emergence. This study examined for the first time whether sleep may play a role in inducing these effects. A group of 27 participants learned novel written words, such as banara, at 8 am and were tested on their learning at 8 pm the same day (AM group), while 29 participants learned the words at 8 pm and were tested at 8 am the following day (PM group). Both groups were retested after 24 hours. Using a semantic categorization task, we showed that lexical competition effects, as indexed by slowed responses to existing neighbor words such as banana, emerged 12 h later in the PM group who had slept after learning but not in the AM group. After 24 h the competition effects were evident in both groups. These findings have important implications for theories of orthographic learning and broader neurobiological models of memory consolidation.     

Social Constructionism as a Sociological Approach

This essay concerns itself with a detailed presentation of the contents of two works on the construction of reality in society. One is Berger and Luckmann’s well-known book (The social construction of reality. Penguin Book, Harmondsworth, 1966); the other is the somewhat less known book on the same subject by Holzner (Reality construction in society. Schenkman Publishing Company, Cambridge, 1972; orig. 1968). These works deal with the social construction of shared symbolic and cognitive universes of meaning, and partake of the same theoretical sources, namely, Symbolic Interactionism and Schutz’s phenomenological sociology. They differ in their theoretical pursuits, however. Berger and Luckmann deal with what is necessary for the construction of a shared symbolic world, as society is endowed with both an objective and a subjective reality. Holzner is more interested in the social distribution and control of reality construction, and in the different types of reality constructs.     

Motivational Antecedents and Consequences of the Mother–Adolescent Communication

Communication between parents and their children represents an important factor of family socialization. Nevertheless, little is known about why parents communicate in different ways and how these qualitative differences in parent–child communication may affect the child. Building on self-determination theory, the present study focuses on motivational antecedents of need-supportive communication as a function of parental child-related beliefs (i.e., long-term goals that parents have set for their children’s future, and parental child-related behavior expectations in terms of parental dissatisfaction or satisfaction with child behavior). Moreover, the effect of perceived need-supportive communication on children’s prosocial behavior and (externalizing and internalizing) behavioral difficulties will be addressed. Three waves of data from 1125 mothers and adolescents aged between 10 and 17 years were analyzed using growth-curve modeling. We found linearly increasing trajectories in extrinsic parental goals for children and dissatisfaction with child behavior, and decreasing trajectories of need-supportive communication. Individual differences do not vary significantly over time. In addition, holding extrinsic parental goals for children positively predicts parents’ dissatisfaction with their child’s behavior and negatively predicts need-supportive communication. Parents’ dissatisfaction with their child’s behavior also contributes to decreasing need-supportive communication. As expected, need-supportive communication predicts prosocial behavior and externalizing behavioral difficulties. When need-supportive communication decreases over time, both externalizing and internalizing behavioral difficulties increase. Furthermore, the effect of mothers beliefs on adolescents socioemotional development was mediated through perceived mother’s communication quality. These results suggest that parental child-related beliefs are important motivational antecedents of parent–child communication that may prevent behavioral difficulties.     

Parenting Behaviors and Child Externalizing: A Short-Term Investigation of Directionality

Children (N = 404) provided data during 3rd and 4th grades concerning their mothers’ use of punitive discipline and yielding to coercion. Teachers provided data regarding their perceptions of children’s externalizing behaviors at school. We tested a cross-lagged model examining parental disciplinary behaviors as predictors of child externalizing behavior, as well as child externalizing behaviors as a predictor of parental disciplinary behaviors. For boys and for girls, there was over-time stability in all three variables of interest. For boys only, more externalizing behaviors in Grade 3 predicted greater use of punitive discipline by parents and more parental yielding to coercion in Grade 4, over and above Grade 3 levels of these parenting variables. The reverse direction of effects was not observed.     

Highlighting the Way Forward: A Review of Community Mental Health Research and Practice Published in AJCP and JCP

Articles published in the two most prominent journals of community psychology in North America, the American Journal of Community Psychology (AJCP) and Journal of Community Psychology (JCP), provide a clear indicator of trends in community research and practice. An examination of community psychology's history and scholarship suggests that the field has reduced its emphasis on promoting mental health, well‐being, and liberation of individuals with serious mental illnesses over the past several decades. To further investigate this claim, the current review presents an analysis of articles relevant to community mental health (N = 307) published in the American Journal of Community Psychology (AJCP) and Journal of Community Psychology (JCP) from 1973 to 2015. The review focuses on article characteristics (e.g., type of article and methods employed), author characteristics, topic areas, and theoretical frameworks. Results document a downward trend in published articles from the mid‐1980s to mid‐2000s, with a substantial increase in published work between 2006 and 2015. A majority of articles were empirical and employed quantitative methods. The most frequent topic area was community mental health centers and services (n = 49), but the past three decades demonstrate a clear shift away from mental health service provision to address pressing social issues that impact community mental health, particularly homelessness (n = 42) and community integration of adults with serious mental illnesses (n = 40). Findings reflect both the past and present state of community psychology and suggest promising directions for re‐engaging with community mental health and fostering well‐being, inclusion, and liberation of adults experiencing serious mental health challenges.     

Community Psychology and Community Mental Health: A Call for Reengagement

Community psychology is rooted in community mental health research and practice and has made important contributions to this field. Yet, in the decades since its inception, community psychology has reduced its focus on promoting mental health, well‐being, and liberation of individuals with serious mental illnesses. This special issue endeavors to highlight current efforts in community mental health from our field and related disciplines and point to future directions for reengagement in this area. The issue includes 12 articles authored by diverse stakeholder groups. Following a review of the state of community mental health scholarship in the field's two primary journals since 1973, the remaining articles center on four thematic areas: (a) the community experience of individuals with serious mental illness; (b) the utility of a participatory and cross‐cultural lens in our engagement with community mental health; (c) Housing First implementation, evaluation, and dissemination; and (d) emerging or under‐examined topics. In reflection, we conclude with a series of challenges for community psychologists involved in future, transformative, movements in community mental health.     

Using logistic regression to estimate delay-discounting functions

The monetary choice questionnaire (MCQ) and similar computer tasks ask preference questions in order to ascertain indifference, the perceived equivalence of immediate versus larger delayed rewards. Indifference data are then fitted with a hyperbolic function, summarizing the decline in perceived value with delay time. We present a fitting method that estimates the hyperbolic parameterk directly from survey responses. Binary preferences are modeled as a function of time (X₂) and a transformed reward ratio (X ₁), yielding logistic regression coefficients β₂ and β₁. The hyperbolic parameter emerges ask = β₂/β₁, where the logistic predictedp = .5 (the definition of indifference). The MCQ was administered to 1,073 adolescents and was scored using both standard and logistic methods. The means for ln(k) were similar (standard, −4.53; logistic, −4.51), and the results were highly correlated (ρ = .973). Simulated MCQ data showed thatk was unbiased, except where β₁ ≥ −1, indicating a vague survey response. Jackknife standard errors provided excellent coverage.     

Human foraging behavior in a virtual environment

We have developed an experimental platform that allows a large number of human participants to interact in real time within a common virtual world. Within this environment, human participants foraged for resources distributed in two spatially separated pools. In addition to varying the relative replenishment rate for the two pools (50-50, 65-35, or 80-20), we manipulated whether the participants could see each other and the entire resource distribution or had their vision restricted to resources at their own location. Two empirical deviations from an optimal distribution of the participants were found. First, the participants were more scattered within a resource pool than the resources were themselves. Second, there was systematic underutilization of the richer pool. For example, the participants distributed themselves 73% and 27% to resource pools that had replenishment rates of 80% and 20%, respectively. In addition, there were oscillations in the harvesting rate of the pools across time, revealed by a Fourier analysis with prominent power near 50 sec per cycle. The suboptimalities and oscillations were more apparent when the locations of the participants and the food were not visible. Individual participant knowledge thus affects the efficiency with which a population of participants harvests resources.