The relationship between personality,anger expression,and perceived family control among incarcerated male juveniles

The literature suggests that a multitude of psychological and social factors can interact to place adolescents at risk for aggression and violence. This study examined three of these factors: personality, affect, and family. Using a heterogeneous sample of male adolescents at risk for violence, a hierarchical, agglomerative cluster analysis was conducted to categorize these adolescents in terms of personality characteristics. Results of the analysis suggested three clusters of at-risk adolescents. Examination of the three cluster types found distinctions between groups on anger expression, trait anger, and trait anxiety, but not family control. It was concluded that, among male delinquents, elevated psychopathology is associated with higher anger and anxiety, but not higher family control.     

Attention capacity and task difficulty in visual search

When a visual search task is very difficult (as when a small feature difference defines the target), even detection of a unique element may be substantially slowed by increases in display set size. This has been attributed to the influence of attentional capacity limits. We examined the influence of attentional capacity limits on three kinds of search task: difficult feature search (with a subtle featural difference), difficult conjunction search, and spatial-configuration search. In all 3 tasks, each trial contained sixteen items, divided into two eight-item sets. The two sets were presented either successively or simultaneously. Comparison of accuracy in successive versus simultaneous presentations revealed that attentional capacity limitations are present only in the case of spatial-configuration search. While the other two types of task were inefficient (as reflected in steep search slopes), no capacity limitations were evident. We conclude that the difficulty of a visual search task affects search efficiency but does not necessarily introduce attentional capacity limits.     

Expectation and repetition effects in searching for featural singletons in very brief displays

We studied the effects of expectation and repetition on searching for singletons in very brief displays. In Experiment 1, we found that when a given feature defined the singleton for a whole block--so that in every trial the subject could expect a particular target feature--search accuracy was significantly higher than when the feature setting was randomly redetermined from trial to trial. However, an unexpected repetition triggered almost no advantage. In Experiment 2, we found no advantage for expected alternation. Experiments 3 and 4 demonstrated that there is little or no advantage for perception in conditions allowing only for target-feature facilitation or distractor-feature inhibition. We propose that in singleton search a division of feature space facilitates detection, and that this division works best under conditions of expected repetition. Experiment 5 replicated Experiment 1, but in Experiment 5 we examined response times and long display exposures. Results suggested that previous findings of singleton priming reflect mainly postperceptual factors.