When reduction leads to construction: Design considerations in scientific methodology

Philosophers have paid little attention to the kind of reduction involved in transforming an analytically intractable equation into solvable form. I argue that this practice is important because it involves the design of a basic level theory for use in a specific domain. The design process can lead to the construction of a new theory. As a result of my analysis, theory design emerges as an important category of analysis for scientific methodology. Similarities between design in technology and science are explored to illuminate the heuristic function of such reductions.     

Coming to Terms, Depression, and Relationship Satisfaction for Native Americans in Intimate Relationships

This study examined the relationships between childhood family of origin (FOO) adversities, coming to terms with them, and adult intimate relationship satisfaction for Native American individuals. The sample consisted of 186 self-identified Native American individuals in committed relationships. The data for this study was collected from the RELATE assessment (see www.relate-institute.org). Results from structural equation modeling indicated that coming to terms buffered the negative effects of childhood family of origin adversities on depression and relationship quality. Results also suggest that coming to terms may help Native American individuals deal with FOO adversity and improve intimate relationship quality. Coming to terms with childhood FOO adversity should be considered in the treatment of Native American individuals in intimate relationships. Clinical implications and directions for future research are discussed.     

Couple Communication as a Mediator Between Work–Family Conflict and Marital Satisfaction

Using a sample of married individuals employed full-time (N = 1,117), this study examined the mediating effects of constructive and destructive communication between partners on the relationship between work–family conflict and marital satisfaction. Results from structural equation modeling revealed that work–family conflict was significantly and negatively related to marital satisfaction. This relationship became insignificant when constructive and destructive communication were added to the model, evidence for full mediation. This was confirmed with Sobel’s test for mediation. Results suggest that teaching communcation skills may be a potent point of intervention for couples who experience high levels of work–family conflict.     

Tobacco Smoking as an Index of Military Personnel Quality

Previous studies indicate that smokers attrite from military service at significantly higher rates than nonsmokers. The purpose of the current effort is twofold: (a) to examine the implications of treating smoking status as a third military accession quality indicator along with educational credential and mental ability, and (b) to explore preservice psychosocial and health differences between smokers and nonsmokers in support of hypothesis development about reasons for elevated attrition rates in smokers. The results indicate that individuals who smoke tobacco prior to entering military service are almost twice as likely to attrite as nonsmokers, even after statistically controlling for education and mental ability. Moreover, smokers report higher rates of psychosocial and health problems prior to military service. These results support using smoking status as a personnel quality indicator for recruiting and assignment purposes and indicate that smokers, as a group, enter the military with identifiable psychosocial and physical vulnerabilities.     

Functions of parahippocampal place area and retrosplenial cortex in real-world scene analysis: An fMRI study

We used functional MRI to investigate several hypotheses concerning the functions of posterior parahippocampal cortex and retrosplenial cortex, two regions that preferentially activate to images of real-world scenes compared to images of other meaningful visual stimuli such as objects and faces. We compared activation resulting from photographs of rooms, city streets, cityscapes, and landscapes against activation to a control condition of objects. Activation in posterior parahippocampal cortex, including parahippocampal place area, was greater for all scene types than objects, and greater for scenes that clearly convey information about local three-dimensional (3-D) structure (city streets and rooms) than scenes that do not (cityscapes and landscapes). Similar differences were observed in retrosplenial cortex, though activation was also greater for city streets than rooms. These results suggest that activation in both cortical areas is primarily related to analysis or representation of local 3-D space. The results are not consistent with hypotheses that these areas reflect panoramic spatial volume, an artificial versus natural category distinction, an indoor versus outdoor distinction, or the number of explicit objects depicted in a scene image.     

What makes an angry face look so … angry? Examining visual attention to the shape of threat in children and adults

Threatening facial expressions like anger can signal potential danger. Past research has established that both adults and children have an attentional bias for angry faces, visually detecting their presence more quickly than happy or neutral faces. More recent research has suggested that specific features of angry faces (such as the downward-pointing “V” shaped brow) are the effective stimulus in their rapid detection. However, research examining this issue has only been done with adults. In the current research, we examine the detection of the features of the downward-pointing “V” in both adults and preschool children using a touchscreen visual search procedure. In two experiments, both adults and children detected the downward-pointing “V” more quickly than an upward-pointing “V”. As the first evidence that young children exhibit the same superior detection of the features of threatening facial expressions that adults do, this research provides important support for the existence of an evolved attentional bias for threatening stimuli.     

Full scenes produce more activation than close-up scenes and scene-diagnostic objects in parahippocampal and retrosplenial cortex: an fMRI study

We used fMRI to directly compare activation in two cortical regions previously identified as relevant to real-world scene processing: retrosplenial cortex and a region of posterior parahippocampal cortex functionally defined as the parahippocampal place area (PPA). We compared activation in these regions to full views of scenes from a global perspective, close-up views of sub-regions from the same scene category, and single objects highly diagnostic of that scene category. Faces were included as a control condition. Activation in parahippocampal place area was greatest for full scene views that explicitly included the 3D spatial structure of the environment, with progressively less activation for close-up views of local scene regions containing diagnostic objects but less explicitly depicting 3D scene geometry, followed by single scene-diagnostic objects. Faces did not activate parahippocampal place area. In contrast, activation in retrosplenial cortex was greatest for full scene views, and did not differ among close-up views, diagnostic objects, and faces. The results showed that parahippocampal place area responds in a graded fashion as images become more completely scene-like and include more explicit 3D structure, whereas retrosplenial cortex responds in a step-wise manner to the presence of a complete scene. These results suggest scene processing areas are particularly sensitive to the 3D geometric structure that distinguishes scenes from other types of complex and meaningful visual stimuli.     

Shared knowledge and subgroup influence during decision‐making discussions

It was predicted that preference factions within decision‐making groups would have greater influence to the extent that faction‐member preferences are based on a common pool of decision‐relevant information. Such factions are said to exhibit high informational commonality (IC). Four‐person groups decided how much money to invest in each of two pharmaceutical companies developing new cholesterol‐lowering drugs. Prior to discussion, information about these companies and drugs was distributed among members such that two would initially prefer investing in one company and two would initially prefer investing in the other company. Further, whereas half of the information held by members of one preference faction was held in common between them (high IC), almost none of the information held by those in the other faction was held in common between them (low IC). It was found that groups invested more money in a given company when that company was initially preferred by their high‐IC faction. Additionally, high‐IC factions exerted greater influence on members' private allocation preferences. These effects appear to have been due to the ability of members in the high‐IC factions to work together in a more coordinated manner to argue their position. Copyright © 2004 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

A Cognitive Prototype Model of Moral Judgment and Disagreement

Debates about moral judgments have raised questions about the roles of reasoning, culture, and conflict. In response, the cognitive prototype model explains that over time, through training, and as a result of cognitive development, people construct notions of blameworthy and praiseworthy behavior by abstracting out salient properties that lead to an ideal representation of each. These properties are the primary features of moral prototypes and include social context interpretation, intentionality, consent, and outcomes. According to this model, when the properties are uniform and coherent, they depict a promoral or immoral prototype, relative to the orientations of the properties. A promoral prototype is represented by an action that is supported by the culture, intentionally benevolent or other-regarding, consensual, and resulting in positive outcomes. An immoral prototype is an action that is condemned by the culture, intentionally malevolent or self-serving, lacking consent, and resulting in negative outcomes. It is hypothesized that moral prototypes will result in a high level of agreement and require effortless processing. Alternatively, when properties conflict or the situation deviates from the prototype, a nonprototype will result. It is hypothesized that nonprototypical situations will act as a source of moral disagreement and may require more effortful processing.