Cognitive and Emotion‐Regulatory Mediators of the Relationship Between Behavioral Approach System Sensitivity and Nonsuicidal Self‐Injury Frequency

Nonsuicidal self‐injury (NSSI) is highly prevalent among late adolescents and predicts the onset of suicidal ideation and behavior. Although research has established an association between the behavioral approach system (BAS) and NSSI, less research has explored mechanisms underlying this relationship. The authors examined negative and positive emotion regulation patterns, as well as the BAS‐relevant cognitive style of self‐criticism, as potential mechanisms through which a hypersensitive BAS might be related to NSSI frequency. Late adolescents (N = 177) with high and moderate BAS levels completed measures of self‐criticism, positive emotion regulation, brooding, and both lifetime and last‐year frequency of NSSI. Results indicated that self‐criticism and positive emotion dampening independently mediated the relationship between BAS and last‐year frequency of NSSI. Self‐criticism also mediated the relationship between BAS and lifetime frequency of NSSI. Results suggest that cognitive and emotion‐regulatory styles may help to explain why high BAS individuals are likely to engage in NSSI.     

QUESTIONNAIRE STUDIES OF PARAMENSTRUAL SYMPTOMS

A number of formal questionnaires have been devised to study paramenstrual symptomatology. It has been suggested that women's responses to these questionnaires are vulnerable to forgetting and contaminated by culturally induced expectations. Nevertheless, concurrent reports of experienced symptoms may correlate highly with retrospective judgments, even when the relevance of the menstrual cycle is disguised. They also differentiate between women with and without a self-reported history of premenstrual symptoms, although concurrent reports across several menstrual cycles are impractical to collect and may be inconsistent between successive cycles. A number of methodological criticisms have been directed toward the most commonly used device, the Menstrual Distress Questionnaire. In principle, however, retrospective questions offer a reliable and accurate indication of women's experience during the normal menstrual cycle.     

The effects of articulatory suppression on reading ideographic and alphabetic numbers

The present experiments investigated the effects of articulatory suppression on reading numbers written alphabetically (one, two, etc.) or as Arabic numerals (1, 2, etc.). For alphabetic numbers, but not for numerals, a phonological representation can be generated and used for lexical access. If such phonological encoding occurs, and if it is harmed by irrelevant articulatory activity, then articulatory suppression should have a greater effect on the reading of alphabetic than on numeral representations of numbers. In contrast to a finding reported by Baron (1977), involving alphabetic and Roman numerals, in two experiments suppression was found to have essentially equivalent effects on the reading of both types of numbers. A third experiment explored a possible explanation for these discrepant findings. It is concluded that although alphabetic and numeral representations of numbers may be processed differently there is no evidence to support the idea that reading alphabetic numbers involves phonological encoding prior to lexical access.     

Book reviews

Gordon, I. E. (1989). Theories of visual perception. Chichester: John Wiley & Sons. Pp. 273. ISBN 0-471-92196-3. £12.50.

Shepp, B. E. & Ballasteros, S. (Eds.) (1989). Object perception: Structure and process. Hillsdale, NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum Associates. Pp. 431. ISBN 0-8058-0060-3 (hardback) £44.95; ISBN 0-8058-0333-5 (paperback) £22.95.

Frith, U. (1989). Autism: Explaining the enigma. Oxford: Basil Blackwell. Pp. 204. ISBN 0-631-15833-2. £25.00 (hardback); £8.95 (paperback).

Rollins, M. (1989). Mental imagery: On the limits of cognitive science. New Haven, CT: Yale University Press. Pp. 170. ISBN 0-30-04491-7. £18.00.

Lloyd, D. (1989). Simple minds. Cambridge, MA: The MIT Press. Pp. 266. ISBN 0-262-12140-9. £22.50.

Howard, D. & Franklin, S. (1988). Missing the meaning? A cognitive neuropsychological study of the processing of words by an aphasic patient. Cambridge, MA & London: MIT Press. Pp. xix + 171. ISBN 0-262-08178-4. £22.50.

Evans, J. St. B. T. (1989). Bias in human reasoning. Hove and London: Lawrence Erlbaum Associates Ltd. ISBN 0-86377-106-8. £14.95 (hardback) ISBN 0-86377-156-4. £8.95 (paperback).

Clark, A. (1989). Micorcognition: Philosophy, cognitive science, and parallel distributed processing. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press/Bradford Books. Pp. 226. ISBN 0-262-03148-5. £14.95.