Enhancement,extension, and reversal of the frequency selectivity effect

The influence of a frequency cue on judgments of whether or not a subsequent target incorporated a brief silent gap was examined. In Experiment 1, there was no predictive frequency relation and evidence of auditory inhibition of return was obtained with frequency repetitions, producing a facilitative effect at 175-msec stimulus onset asynchrony (SOA) and an inhibitory effect at 775-msec SOA. Relative to this baseline performance pattern, increasing the probability of a frequency match to .75 (Experiment 2) served to generate a beneficial effect of frequency repetitions at lengthy SOAs and to enlarge its magnitude at 175-msec SOA. In contrast, a reduction in the probability of a frequency match to .25 (Experiment 3) resulted in the elimination of any facilitative effect of repetition at 175-msec SOA and the development of an inhibitory effect at 475- and 1,075-msec SOA. These results establish that a frequency cue may engage both exogenous and endogenous attentional processes within 175 msec following its presentation.     

Perfectionism and ethnicity: implications for depressive symptoms and self-reported academic achievement

Ethnic differences in perfectionism were examined among Asian American, African American, and Caucasian American college students. Analyses revealed that Asian American students scored significantly higher than the other groups on 3 of 6 perfectionism subscales. Minority students reported significantly higher parental expectations than Caucasian students. Significant correlations emerged for all 3 groups between depressive symptoms and concerns about making mistakes, perceived criticism from parents, and self-doubt. In regression analyses, perfectionism explained significant variance in depressive symptoms for Asian Americans and Caucasians and explained significant variance in cumulative grade point average for Asian Americans and African Americans. Self-doubt emerged as a robust individual predictor in these analyses.     

Forbidden knowledge

This case is part of a series of case studies used as an exercise within a program on research ethics education. The case involves research on genetic birth defects in a culturally distinct, closed religious community in which elders speak for the community. The case raises ethical issues of informed consent in such a setting; of collaboration with the community; of conflicts between the researchers’ responsibilities to the community as a whole and to individual subjects; of the impact of the researcher’s findings on the practices and values of the community and issues regarding how the researchers share findings with subjects and how the findings are stored.     

Effects of alcohol on person perception: a social cognitive neuroscience approach

The acute effects of alcohol on cognitive processing of expectancy violations were investigated using event-related brain potentials and a cued recall task to index attentional and working memory processes associated with inconsistency resolution. As predicted, expectancy-violating behaviors elicited larger late positive potentials (LPP) and were recalled better than expectancy-consistent behaviors. These effects were moderated by alcohol and the valence of initial expectancies. For placebo group participants, positive targets performing negative behaviors elicited the largest LPP responses and were recalled best. For those in the alcohol groups, negative targets behaving positively elicited the largest LPP and recall responses. These findings suggest that alcohol does not globally impair working memory processes in person perception but instead changes the nature of valenced information processing. Findings are discussed in the context of alcohol's effects on working memory processes, reward sensitivity, and the prefrontal cortical structures thought to mediate them.     

Happiness and health: environmental and genetic contributions to the relationship between subjective well-being, perceived health, and somatic illness

The aim was to identify genetic and environmental influences on the covariances between subjective well-being (SWB), perceived health, and somatic illness. Analyses were based on 6576 Norwegian twins aged 18-31. Heritabilities ranged from .24 to.66. SWB correlated .50 with perceived health, -.25 with musculoskeletal pain, and -.07 with allergy. Common genetic factors accounted for 45%-60% of associations. SWB and perceived health was to a high extent influenced by the same genes (r(g)=.72 and.82 for males and females, respectively). For SWB and musculoskeletal pain, r-sub(g) =-.29 and -.42 for males and females, respectively. Effects were partly sex specific. Environmental factors shared by twins did not affect the covariances. Results support a differentiated view of SWB-health relations, and imply that both genes and environment play important roles in the associations between well-being and health.     

The development and psychometric evaluation of a new measure of dissociative activities

The psychometric properties of a new measure of dissociative behaviors, the Scale of Dissociative Activities (SODAS), were evaluated. Undergraduates (n = 533) completed the SODAS, 2 other established self-report measures of dissociative behaviors, and a measure of socially desirable responding. A randomly selected subset of participants (n = 100) also participated in an additional reliability and validity follow-up study. The SODAS was found to be internally consistent (a =.95) and temporally stable (r =.77) over an average 38-day interval. The validity of the SODAS was established by a moderately low negative correlation with social desirability, high correlations with other self-report measures of dissociation, and moderate to high correlations with samples of dissociative activities assessed in naturalistic environments with experience sampling methodology. Overall, the SODAS compared favorably to other existing self-report measures of dissociative behaviors. Directions for future research on the SODAS are discussed.     

Obstructive sleep apnea syndrome: autobiographical memory predicts the course of depressive affect after nCPAP therapy

Although nCPAP therapy has proven to be efficient at removing symptoms of obstructive sleep apnea syndrome (OSAS), recovery from depression frequently remains unsatisfactory. Other studies have shown that recall of autobiographical memories (AM) is a psychological vulnerability marker for depression, and also have shown its predictive power for the course of depression. It is therefore hypothesized that AM also predict the course of depressive affect in OSAS patients. Fifty-four consecutively admitted OSAS patients received standard nCPAP therapy. Specificity of AM assessed at the beginning of treatment was used as a predictor in a regression analysis, and the extent of recovery from depression over a follow-up period of between six to nine weeks served as the criterion variable. The results supported the hypothesis that patients who were able to recall more specific AM in response to positively valenced cue words showed a more substantial recovery from depression. This has important treatment implications.     

Examining the locus of age effects on complex span tasks

To investigate the locus of age effects on complex span tasks, the authors evaluated the contributions of working memory functions and processing speed. Age differences were found in measures of storage capacity, language processing speed, and lower level speed. Statistically controlling for each of these in hierarchical regressions substantially reduced, but did not eliminate, the complex span age effect. Accounting for lower level speed and storage, however, removed essentially the entire age effect, suggesting that both functions play important and independent roles. Additional evidence for the role of storage capacity was the absence of complex span age differences with span size calibrated to individual word span performance. Explanations for age differences based on inhibition and concurrent task performamce were not supported.     

Judgments of remembering: the revelation effect in children and adults

When items on a recognition test are presented as a series of increasingly complete fragments rather than being presented initially in their fully intact form, adults' judgments of recognition exhibit an increased tendency to judge items as "old," an illusion of recognition referred to as the revelation effect. The present study used pictorial stimuli to test for a revelation effect with 4-year-olds, 8-year-olds, and adults (N = 76). A reliable revelation effect was found at all ages tested, indicating that the complex fluency-of-processing discrepancy detection and attribution mechanisms thought to be responsible for the effect function similarly across an age range from 4-years-of-age through adulthood. It was also found that the recognition decisions of the 8-year-olds and the adults were affected by how quickly they were able to identify a picture during the revelation phase of the recognition test. This effect was not found with the 4-year-olds, suggesting an age difference in the awareness and strategic use of an implicit memory effect when making explicit judgments of recognition.     

Facing Up to Hopelessness: A Dialogal Phenomenological Study

Hopelessness is a fundamental human experience, and yet is often considered evidence either of sin or of illness. This dialogal phenomenological study, based on in-depth interviews, takes a fresh look at despair as experienced by people across a variety of ages and contexts, and at the consequences and outcomes of these feelings. At the heart of despair is a sense of isolation, impotence, and an immutable future, and yet it may give rise to new purpose or a new understanding and acceptance of life with its possibilities and limitations. The therapeutic implications of this understanding of despair are discussed with a focus on how presence can be healing.