The effect of different soothing interventions on infant crying and on parent–infant interaction

Conducted in the home environment, this study examines the effects of three complementary soothing techniques on the duration of infant crying and on caregiver–infant interaction. In one group, the caregivers apply massage; in another, they provide supplemental carrying to their infants, and in the last, the caregivers both massage and provide supplemental carrying. Measurements, for the one control and three treatment groups took place prenatally (third trimester) and in the first 16 weeks postpartum for parental perception of infant temperament, parental sense of competence, parent–infant interaction, and the duration of infant crying. Whereas analyses indicate no statistically significant differences between groups in reducing infant crying, results approached significance (p ≤ .06) in favor of the combined supplemental carrying/massage group. These results challenge accepted beliefs that tactile stimulation and/or supplemental carrying enhance parental sense of competence, positive parental perceptions, and interactions with infants. Practitioners can apply these conclusions when counselling parents on the advisability of selecting any one complementary soothing technique. ©2002 Michigan Association for Infant Mental Health.     

Marital Adjustment and Irrational Beliefs

The present study was designed to determine which aspects of Ellis' irrational beliefs as well as emotional traits (anxiety, curiosity, anger) differentiate couples attending marriage counseling from couples couple not attending marriage counseling as well as levels of marital satisfaction in couples as measured by the Locke-Wallace Marital Adjustment Test. Participants were 61 married couples, 18 of whom were attending marriage counseling and 43 who were not attending marriage counseling. Each partner completed a number of self-report questionnaires containing items measuring irrational /rational beliefs, anger, anxiety and curiosity, and communication skills. Correlational and multiple regression analyses indicate support for Albert Ellis' proposition concerning the importance of individual partner's emotional traits and accompanying irrational beliefs in marital adjustment and dissatisfaction. Self-downing and need for comfort were the dimensions of irrational thinking most strongly related to marital dysfunction. Anger, anxiety but neither curiosity nor communication skills distinguished individuals experiencing or not experiencing marital problems. Implications for relationship counseling are briefly discussed.     

Electrophysiological response during source memory decisions in older and younger adults

We recorded event-related potentials (ERPs) as individuals made source monitoring decisions in a paradigm in which the influence of item familiarity and goal relevance could be separately evaluated. Younger and older adults read a list of words and subsequently distinguished these words from foils in a running recognition test in which some foils were repeated after a lag of 6 items, creating familiar lures. Behaviorally, older and younger adults performed equally well in the recognition of study words and the rejection of singly presented foils. However, older adults were more likely to respond to the familiar lures as though they had come from the study list, thus producing the expected group difference in source-monitoring error. For younger adults the ERPs elicited by the targeted study words were maximal at posterior sites and significantly greater than those elicited by either familiar lures or foils. Older adults generated far less differentiated ERP waveforms but with a markedly greater amplitude at frontal sites. We interpret this frontal maximum in the context of poorer source monitoring as suggesting that older adults are more dependent on controlled processes to make discriminations that seem to occur much earlier and more automatically for younger adults.     

Canadian coaches' perceptions of the 1980 Olympic boycott

A significant effect of fatigue induced byphysical exercise leading to exhaustion was observed for 6 male triathletes using some specific analysis of the critical flicker fusion test.     

The effects of frequency and predictability on eye fixations in reading: implications for the E-Z Reader model

Readers read sentences containing target words varying in frequency and predictability. The observed pattern of data for fixation durations only mildly departed from additivity, with predictability effects that were slightly larger for low-frequency than for high-frequency words. The pattern of data for skipping was different as predictability affected only the probability of skipping for high-frequency target words. Simulations of these data using the E-Z Reader model indicated that a single-process model was unlikely to provide a good fit for both measures. A version of the model that assumes that (a) word-encoding time is additively affected by frequency and predictability and (b) difficulty with postlexical processing of the target word causes a double take accounted for the data while indicating that the relationship between the duration of hypothesized word-encoding stages and observed fixation durations is not likely to be transparent.     

Motion versus position in the perception of head-centred movement

Abstract. Observers can recover motion with respect to the head during an eye movement by comparing signals encoding retinal motion and the velocity of pursuit. Evidently there is a mismatch between these signals because perceived head-centred motion is not always veridical. One example is the Filehne illusion, in which a stationary object appears to move in the opposite direction to pursuit. Like the motion aftereffect, the phenomenal experience of the Filehne illusion is one in which the stimulus moves but does not seem to go anywhere. This raises problems when measuring the illusion by motion nulling because the more traditional technique confounds perceived motion with changes in perceived position. We devised a new nulling technique using global-motion stimuli that degraded familiar position cues but preserved cues to motion. Stimuli consisted of random-dot patterns comprising signal and noise dots that moved at the same retinal 'base' speed. Noise moved in random directions. In an eye-stationary speed-matching experiment we found noise slowed perceived retinal speed as 'coherence strength' (ie percentage of signal) was reduced. The effect occurred over the two-octave range of base speeds studied and well above direction threshold. When the same stimuli were combined with pursuit, observers were able to null the Filehne illusion by adjusting coherence. A power law relating coherence to retinal base speed fit the data well with a negative exponent. Eye-movement recordings showed that pursuit was quite accurate. We then tested the hypothesis that the stimuli found at the null-points appeared to move at the same retinal speed. Two observers supported the hypothesis, a third partially, and a fourth showed a small linear trend. In addition, the retinal speed found by the traditional Filehne technique was similar to the matches obtained with the global-motion stimuli. The results provide support for the idea that speed is the critical cue in head-centred motion perception.     

Fundamentally misunderstanding visual perception. Adults' belief in visual emissions

The authors reviewed research about a profound misconception that is present among college students, namely, the belief that the process of vision includes emanations from the eyes, an idea that is consistent with the extramission theory of perception, which was originally professed by early Greek philosophers and which persisted in scholarly circles for centuries. The authors document the strength and breadth of this phenomenon and the object failure of traditional educational techniques to overcome this belief, and they reveal that students are leaving psychology courses with a flawed understanding of one of the most studied processes in the history of psychology--visual perception. Some suggestions are offered for overcoming this misconception in traditional college classroom settings.     

Neuromotor speech deficits in children and adults with spina bifida and hydrocephalus

Acquired cerebellar lesions are associated with motor speech deficits. Spina bifida with hydrocephalus (SBH) is a neurodevelopmental disorder that involves significant dysmorphology of the cerebellum. Videotaped narratives produced by 40 children and adults with SBH and their 40 age-matched controls were coded for three motor speech deficits: dysfluency, ataxic dysarthria (articulatory inaccuracy, prosodic excess, and phonatory-prosodic insufficiency) (Brown, Darley, & Aronson, 1970; Darley, Aronson, & Brown, 1969a), and speech rate. Individuals with SBH had more motor speech deficits than controls. Dysfluency was related to an interaction between chronological age and SBH. Speech rate was related independently to chronological age and SBH. Ataxic dysarthria was related to the biology of SBH, and was associated with both physical phenotype (level of spinal cord lesion) and medical history (number of shunt revisions). The data show that developmental as well as acquired lesions of the cerebellum disrupt motor speech, and add to the developmental role of the cerebellum in the automatization of motor skills, including speech.