Source-monitoring judgments about anagrams and their solutions: Evidence for the role of cognitive operations information in memory

Generating solutions to anagrams leads to a memory advantage for those solutions, with generated words remembered better than words simply read. However, an additional advantage is not typically found for solutions to difficult anagrams relative to solutions to easy ones, presenting a challenge for the cognitive effort explanation of the generation effect. In the present series of experiments, the effect of manipulating anagram difficulty is explored further by introducing two new source-monitoring judgments. These studies demonstrate that when attention is directed at test to the operations activated during encoding (by way of source-monitoring judgments focused on solving vs. constructing anagrams), a source advantage is observed for difficult anagrams. However, when attention is directed to the anagrams themselves, asking participants to remember the kinds of anagrams generated or solved (based on kind of rule rather than subjective impressions of difficulty), a similar source advantage is not observed. The present studies bring a new perspective to the investigation of difficulty manipulations on memory for problem solving by illustrating the impact of a shift in focus from the effort mediating cognitive operations to specifics about the cognitive operations themselves.     

Avoiding another mistake: Error and posterror neural activity associated with adaptive posterror behavior change

The magnitude of posterior medial frontal cortex (pMFC) activity during commission of an error has been shown to relate to adaptive posterror changes in response behavior on the trial immediately following. In the present article, we examined neural activity during and after error commission to identify its relationship to sustained posterror behavior changes that led to performance improvements several trials into the future. The standard task required participants to inhibit a prepotent motor response during infrequent lure trials, which were randomly interspersed among numerous go trials. Posterror behavior was manipulated by introducing a dynamic condition, in which an error on a lure trial ensured that the next lure would appear within two to seven go trials. Behavioral data indicated significantly higher levels of posterror slowing and accuracy during the dynamic condition, as well as fewer consecutive lure errors. Bilateral prefrontal cortex (PFC) and pMFC activity during the posterror period, but not during commission of the error itself, was associated with increased posterror slowing. Activity within two of these regions (right PFC and pMFC) also predicted success on the next lure trial. The findings support a relationship between pMFC/PFC activity and adaptive posterror behavior change, and the discrepancy between these findings and those of previous studies-in the present study, this relationship was detected during the posterror period rather than during commission of the error itself--may have resulted from the requirements of the present task. Implications of this discrepancy for the flexibility of cognitive control are discussed.     

Baring the soul: Paul Bindrim, Abraham Maslow and 'nude psychotherapy'

Nude psychotherapy is one of the most flamboyant therapeutic techniques ever developed in American psychology. Largely forgotten today, the therapy was an academic and popular sensation upon its introduction in 1967. Developed by psychologist Paul Bindrim, the therapy promised to guide clients to their authentic selves through the systematic removal of clothing. This paper explores the intellectual, cultural and ethical context of nude therapy and its significance as a form of unchurched spirituality. Although nude therapy has an indisputable tabloid character, it is also rooted in a long-standing academic search for authenticity and ultimate meaning through science. Bindrim's career demonstrates the historically long-standing interweaving of spirituality and science within American psychology while simultaneously highlighting the field's extraordinary capacity for adaptive reinvention.     

Can Perfectionism Affect Career Development? Exploring Career Thoughts and Self‐Efficacy

This study identified relationships among career‐specific barriers (i.e., perfectionism, negative career thoughts, career decision‐making self‐efficacy) in a sample of 300 college students. The authors found relationships among the constructs of interest, prediction of variance in career decision‐making self‐efficacy, and differences among groups of perfectionists on endorsements of negative career thoughts and career decision‐making self‐efficacy. The findings suggest that interventions addressing maladaptive perfectionism and dysfunctional career thinking may enhance clients’ confidence in decision making.     

Family finances: The missing link in mft training

Abstract

After reviewing 25 accredited Marriage and Family Therapy programs, only one was found to require a course in family finances. This article addresses the issues associated with the absence of family finance training in most MFT programs. The omission persists in spite of ample evidence as to the influential role family finances play with regard to marital stability and satisfaction. Suggestions are made regarding course outlines and content that could be helpful in correcting this deficiency.     

Emotion effects during reading: Influence of an emotion target word on eye movements and processing

Recently, Scott, O'Donnell and Sereno reported that words of high valence and arousal are processed with greater ease than neutral words during sentence reading. However, this study unsystematically intermixed emotion (label a state of mind, e.g., terrified or happy) and emotion-laden words (refer to a concept that is associated with an emotional state, e.g., debt or marriage). We compared the eye-movement record while participants read sentences that contained a neutral target word (e.g., chair) or an emotion word (no emotion-laden words were included). Readers were able to process both positive (e.g., happy) and negative emotion words (e.g., distressed) faster than neutral words. This was true across a wide range of early (e.g., first fixation durations) and late (e.g., total times on the post-target region) measures. Additional analyses revealed that State Trait Anxiety Inventory scores interacted with the emotion effect and that the emotion effect was not due to arousal alone.     

Seeking spirituality through physicality in schools: learning from ‘Eastern movement forms’

This paper argues that we might learn from the ways in which Eastern movement forms with a self-cultivation focus approach the development of spirituality through physicality. It also argues that these movement forms have potential to assist in the development of children’s spirituality in school and Physical Education (PE) settings. First, the paper highlights a distinctive orientation to self-cultivation at the heart of which lies a focus on uniting body and mind through regular movement-based practice. Next, differing relationships between these movement forms and spirituality are identified as: fragments of established religious spirituality; spiritual exercise; and secular religious spirituality. Finally, three common pedagogic principles of these movement forms are highlighted and applied to the school and PE context: identifying self-identity and emotions; prioritising direct experience and changing the body-self through practice. It is suggested that these understandings of self-cultivating Eastern movement forms may help sensitise educators to approaching the cultivation of spirituality through physicality in schools using, not only Eastern movement forms but also Western activities delivered in accordance with these principles.