“You're all a bunch of feminists:” Categorization and the politics of terror in the Montreal Massacre

Following Sacks's model membership categorization analysis (MCA) of a suicidal person's conclusion 'I have no one to turn to,' the paper examines in MCA terms a political actor's twin conclusions that murder-suicide is a rational course of action. The case in question is the killer's reasoning in the Montreal Massacre as revealed in his reported announcement at the scene (notably 'You're all a bunch of feminists. I hate feminists') and recovered suicide letter (for example, 'For why persevere to exist if it is only to please the government').     

An administrative model for close monitoring and managing high risk individuals.

The public expects central government to have immediate knowledge of the condition and circumstances of certain vulnerable or dangerous individuals such as insanity acquittees, and to take action in individual cases to protect the individual and the public. Therefore, such persons conditionally released to community settings require an unusual degree of close monitoring and management. Being immediately aware of the condition and circumstances of its assignees, together with other duties of a board or commission responsible for that monitoring and management, is largely an information management function. The Psychiatric Security Review Board in Oregon is used to illustrate this unique mission, operations, and information management. In this paper, the Psychiatric Security Review Board is described in terms of its core and secondary businesses, together with a model information system that is based on information and information management processes actually employed by the Board.     

Memory for meaning in skilled and unskilled readers

Skilled and unskilled readers from grades 3, 5, and 7 (9, 11, and 13 years of age, respectively) performed one of three memory tasks on a randomized list of primary word associates. One group rated each word as “good” or “bad” (incidental semantic task), another group produced a rhyming word for each list word (incidental rhyming task), and a third group attempted to memorize the list (intentional learning task). The recall results indicated equivalent recall for skilled and unskilled readers at all grades on the rhyming and intentional tasks; whereas, skilled readers were superior to unskilled readers on the semantic task. A clustering analysis produced a similar effect as skilled readers, who performed the semantic task, tended to cluster semantically-associated words together during recall more readily than unskilled readers. The results were construed as evidence for reading-skill differences in the semantic encoding of individual words.     

Item selection procedures for item variables with a known factor structure

This paper discusses the item selection problem when the item responses follow a linear multiple factor model. Because of this restrictive assumption, not too unrealistic in situations such as mental testing, it is possible to select optimal sets of items without going through all possible combinations. A method proposed by Elfving to accomplish this is analyzed and then demonstrated through the use of two illustrations. The common and often used procedure of observing the magnitude of the correlation coefficient as an index in item selection is shown to have some merit in the single-factor case.Work performed under contract AF 41(657)-244 with the School of Aviation Medicine, Randolph AFB, Texas.     

The contribution of loneliness and posttraumatic stress disorder to marital adjustment following war captivity: a longitudinal study

This prospective study examined the relative contribution of loneliness and posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD) to marital adjustment among Israeli veterans of the 1973 Yom Kippur war. Specifically, we examined the mediating role of loneliness as measured in 1991 in the association between PTSD as measured in 1991 and marital adjustment as measured in 2003. Our sample consisted of 225 participants divided into 2 groups: ex-prisoners of war (ex-POWs) (N = 122) and a comparison group comprised of veterans who fought in the same war but who had not experienced captivity (N = 103). The findings demonstrate that ex-POWs display lower levels of marital adjustment and higher levels of PTSD than controls. Loneliness was found to mediate the relationship between PTSD as measured in 1991 and marital adjustment as measured in 2003 for both ex-POWs and controls. Further, for ex-POWs, loneliness contributes to marital adjustment above and beyond the contribution of PTSD as measured in 2003. The theoretical implications of loneliness for the marital relationships of traumatized ex-POWs are discussed.     

The effects of prenatal stress on motivation in the rat pup

Exposure to prenatal stress (PNS) has been shown to induce a set of psychological and behavioral changes in developing offspring. We used the rodent model to investigate whether PNS produces changes in the ability of the pup to express social motivation. We used a set of behavioral tasks including monitoring ultrasonic vocalizations after isolation, a conditioned place preference, and a novel and familiar odor approach test. Pregnant Long-Evans rats were exposed to an unpredictable, variable stressor twice daily during the third week of gestation. Isolation vocalizations were assessed on postnatal day (PND) 10. Pup affinity for the dam was evaluated on PND 15. Typically, pups display a selective preference for an odor-paired environment only after the odor has been associated with the dam. This previous association produces a positive conditioned stimulus (CS). Normally, pups exposed to a neutral CS (odor paired with cotton balls) do not form this place preference. Results indicate that PNS exposed pups had significantly increased distress vocalizations and an equal preference for the positive and neutral conditioned stimuli. This type of alteration in forming early preferences could be detrimental because of decreases in the specificity of social learning and an impaired responsiveness in social relationships.     

The relationship between search efficiency and crowding

The role of target salience in crowding has remained controversial largely because salience usually escapes objective measurement. Here we address this problem using search efficiency as a measure of target salience. In separate experiments observers determined whether parafoveal arrays of vertical Gabor patterns contained targets having a unique colour, a unique direction of motion, and a unique temporal frequency. We analysed search efficiency in the conventional manner using reaction-time gradients (in seconds per item). We also considered accuracy gradients (in percent-correct per item). Crowding is typically quantified by comparing the acuity for a target within an array to the acuity for a target presented alone. We measured orientation acuity for determining whether a slightly tilted target was clockwise or anticlockwise of vertical. Targets with a unique colour or direction of motion were found to pop out, ie (with one exception) reaction-time and accuracy gradients were insignificantly different from zero. Acuity for these targets was significantly greater than acuity for targets whose neighbours had the same colour and direction of motion. Manipulation of temporal frequency produced a wide range of search efficiencies. For three of four observers we found a linear relationship between acuity and the accuracy gradient, shallow gradients being associated with high acuity. In general, we find that crowding is weakened when observers can find a parafoveally presented target quickly and accurately.     

Motivated prediction of future feelings: effects of negative mood and mood orientation on affective forecasts

This article examines the role of motivational factors in affective forecasting. The primary hypothesis was that people predict positive emotional reactions to future events when they are motivated to enhance their current feelings. Three experiments manipulated participants' moods (negative vs. neutral) and orientation toward their moods (reflective vs. ruminative) and then assessed the positivity of their affective predictions for future events. As hypothesized, when participants adopted a reflective orientation, and thus should have been motivated to engage in mood-regulation processes, they predicted more positive feelings in the negative than in the neutral mood condition. This pattern of mood-incongruent affective prediction was not exhibited when participants adopted a ruminative orientation. Additionally, within the negative mood condition, generating affective forecasts had a more positive emotional impact on reflectors than on ruminators. The findings suggest that affective predictions are sometimes driven by mood-regulatory motives.