VIZ: the visualization assessment and training web site.

The VIZ Website (http://viz.bd.psu.edu/viz/) was developed as a free and open portal for assessment and training of spatial skills. Using Macromedia Authorware, it allows the collection of response times and accuracies from four spatial tasks: mental rotation, paper folding, water level judgments, and spatial working memory. Additional tasks are under development. The site has been used for a variety of teaching and research purposes. For example, incoming engineering students have completed the tasks to assess their spatial skills before beginning their graphics courses. Those with poorer skills can then receive the appropriate remedial instruction. The VIZ site has also been used to teach about spatial cognition and to do research outside the laboratory setting. Finally, we are using the site to conduct basic research on spatial cognition, including an examination of the factors that may reduce gender differences in performance.     

Alternative Approaches for Measuring Values: Direct and Indirect Assessments in Performance Prediction

Two general approaches have been used to measure human values. In one approach, a direct approach, people are asked to endorse value statements. In the other approach, an indirect approach, people are asked to make choices indicative of their values. The intent of the current study was to compare these two general approaches to the measurement of values. Initially, 195 undergraduates were asked to complete both a direct measure and an indirect measure of their values before starting work on three performance tasks: an entrepreneurial task, a consulting task, and a marketing task. When scores on these performance tasks were regressed on the value measures, it was found that both types of measures yielded effective prediction. The indirect measures, however, appeared to yield better prediction and better discrimination of cross-task performance differences than the direct measures. The implications of these findings with respect to the identification and assessment of values are discussed.     

When You and I Share Perspectives: Pronouns Modulate Perspective Taking During Narrative Comprehension

ABSTRACT— Readers mentally simulate the objects and events described in narratives. One common assumption is that readers mentally embody an actor's perspective; alternatively, readers might mentally simulate events from an external "onlooker" perspective. Two experiments examined the role of pronouns in modulating a reader's adopted perspective when comprehending simple event sentences. Experiment 1 demonstrated that readers embody an actor's perspective when the pronoun you or I is used, but take an external perspective when he is used. Experiment 2 , however, found that a short discourse context preceding the event sentence led readers to adopt an external perspective with the pronoun I . These experiments demonstrate that pronoun variation and discourse context mediate the degree of embodiment experienced during narrative comprehension: In all cases, readers mentally simulate objects and events, but they embody an actor's perspective only when directly addressed as the subject of a sentence.     

Coping with Genetic Risk: Living with Huntington Disease (HD)

Rapid developments in genetics suggest that more and more people will be identified ‘at risk’ for common illnesses. Genetic discoveries have the potential to improve disease outcomes, but they also highlight gaps in our knowledge about patient-level factors such as how individuals respond to a genetic threat to their health and how they cope with that threat. There have been few empirical applications of psychological theories to understand genetic testing decisions and outcomes, although there have been calls for this approach. Drawing upon interviews with individuals at risk for (or with) Huntington disease (HD), this study adopts a stress and coping framework to explore how people cope with genetic illness in the family. Qualitative data analyses revealed that coping strategies were dynamic and varied but could be classified as 1) primary control coping, 2) secondary control coping and 3) social comparison strategies. Important distinctions were observed in coping strategies among those who had undergone genetic testing and received a test result, those who remained at risk, and those affected with HD, along with their caregivers. Implications for clinical practice and genetics health services are discussed.     

Decision-Making About Inherited Cancer Risk: Exploring Dimensions of Genetic Responsibility

Since genetic information has implications for family members, some choices about genetic risk may be influenced by perceptions of responsibility to relatives. Drawing upon 25 semi-structured interviews with test recipients in Canada, this study explored decisions about inherited breast-ovarian and colon cancer. Qualitative data analysis revealed the pervasive significance of genetic responsibility in test decisions. We highlight three dimensions of genetic responsibility: 1) to know about the self for self; 2) to know about the self for others; 3) to know about the self to oblige others to know. It is argued that these dimensions of genetic responsibility have implications for test decisions, family relationships and other family members’ desire to know (or not know) and to act (or not act) with respect to their own genetic risk. In particular, genetic responsibility may play out as a framing of a relative’s moral obligation to know their risk that could obviate any interest they might have in not knowing. We conclude that perceptions of responsibility to—and of−other family members be thoroughly explored in genetic counseling sessions.     

Toward a Stress Process Model of Children’s Exposure to Physical Family and Community Violence

Theoretically informed models are required to further the comprehensive understanding of children’s ETV. We draw on the stress process paradigm to forward an overall conceptual model of ETV (ETV) in childhood and adolescence. Around this conceptual model, we synthesize research in four dominant areas of the literature which are detailed but often disconnected including: (1) exposure to three forms of physical violence (e.g., child physical maltreatment, interparental violence, and community ETV); (2) the multilevel correlates and causes of ETV (e.g., neighborhood characteristics including concentrated disadvantage; family characteristics including socio-economic status and family stressors); (3) a range of consequences of ETV (e.g., internalizing and externalizing mental health problems, role transitions, and academic outcomes); and (4) multilevel and cross domain mediators and moderators of ETV influences (e.g., school and community factors, family social support, and individual coping resources). We highlight the range of interconnected processes through which violence exposures may influence children and suggest opportunities for prevention and intervention. We further identify needed future research on children’s ETV including coping resources as well as research on cumulative contributions of violence exposure, violence exposure modifications, curvilinearity, and timing of exposure.

When goals constrain: Eye movements and memory for goal‐Oriented map study

Perspective goals, such as studying a map to learn a route through an environment or the overall layout of an environment, produce memory congruent with the goal‐directed rather than the studied perspective. One explanation for this finding is that perspective goals guide attention towards actively gathering relevant information during learning. A second explanation is that information is automatically organized into a goal‐congruent spatial model that guides retrieval. Both explanations predict goal‐congruent memory, but only the former one predicts eye movement differences during study. The present experiment investigated the effect of perspective goals on eye movement during map study and the flexibility of resulting spatial memories. Results demonstrate eye movements towards goal‐congruent map elements during learning, and lasting memory effects at test. These findings carry implications for the design of adaptive hand‐held and in‐vehicle navigation interfaces that accommodate for varied user goals. Copyright © 2008 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

The Student Guided Functional Assessment Interview: An Analysis of Student and Teacher Agreement

Functional assessment strategies are used to guide the treatment of problem behavior with individuals who have severe disabilities. Also, researchers have extended functional assessment applications to individuals with emotional and behavioral disabilities. One such extension is the use of students as informants in the functional assessment process. The present study assessed an interview tool designed to elicit information directly from students regarding their problem behaviors. We examined agreement between students and their teachers. Results showed high agreement on the causes and functions of problem behavior with mixed agreement on support plan recommendations.     

Place Learning in Virtual Space I: Acquisition, Overshadowing, and Transfer

Three experiments showed that, in virtual space, humans learn to find an invisible target that remains in a fixed location relative to distal cues. Experiment 1 showed that people rapidly learned to locate an invisible target in a computer-generated virtual arena. Participants searched the appropriate place intensely when, on a probe trial, the target was removed. Experiment 2 showed that two groups of participants, one with a visible and one with an invisible target, learned to locate the target in the virtual arena. A probe trial, during which the target was removed, showed that participants from both groups searched the former location of the target in the virtual arena, suggesting the presence of proximal cues did not interfere with place learning. Experiment 3 showed that, following place learning, people directly approach the location of the invisible target from novel start positions. The data were discussed in terms of spatial learning and memory.