Panic symptoms during trauma and acute stress disorder

This study investigated the role of panic symptoms that occur during trauma and subsequent acute stress disorder (ASD). Civilian trauma (N=51) survivors with either acute stress disorder (ASD), subclinical ASD, or no acute stress disorder (non-ASD) were administered the Acute Stress Disorder Scale, Impact of Event Scale, Beck Anxiety Inventory, Beck Depression Inventory, and the Anxiety Sensitivity Index (ASI). Participants also completed the Physical Reactions Scale to index panic symptoms that occurred during their trauma. Overall, 53% of participants reported panic attacks during their trauma. ASD and subclinical ASD participants reported more peritraumatic panic symptoms, and higher ASI scores, than non-ASD participants. These findings are consistent with the notion that peritraumatic panic may be related to subsequent posttraumatic stress, and suggest that modification of maladaptive beliefs about physical sensations should be addressed in posttraumatic therapy.     

Improving Attention in Old Age

The aim of this study was to examine whether a mindful intervention, based on noticing distinctions, could be used to improve the attention of older individuals. Participants were randomly assigned to one of four attention interventions. In the mindfulness groups, participants studying a set of pictures were told to notice either three or five distinctions. In the control groups, participants were either told to pay attention or were not given any directions related to attention before exposure to the set of pictures. The results indicated that those who viewed the stimuli in terms of distinctions were able to remember significantly more pictures than did those in the control groups. Distinction drawing also increased liking for the stimuli. The findings suggest that if older individuals want to increase attention and recall, rather than focus their attention, they may want to find ways to vary their attention.     

Development and Risk Behavior Among African American, Caucasian, and Mixed-race Adolescents Living in High Poverty Inner-city Neighborhoods

Youths growing up in low-income inner-city neighborhoods are at substantial risk for initiating substance use, violent behavior, and sexual intercourse at early ages; these risk behaviors continue at comparatively high rates through adolescence. Hopelessness has been implicated as a risk factor for these behaviors. In this paper, we consider how race influences this process. African Americans form a demographic minority within the United States, but they are often the majority within inner-city neighborhoods. For Caucasians, the opposite typically holds. Mixed-race populations form a minority within both contexts. Using longitudinal data, we examine the relationship between race and risk behaviors in several impoverished inner-city neighborhoods where African Americans form the distinct majority and Caucasians and people of mixed racial heritage form a small minority. We also consider how race moderates the relationship between hopelessness and risk behavior. Our findings show that compared to Caucasian or mixed-race adolescents, African American adolescents are less likely to engage in risk behaviors, and that hopelessness has a less important impact on their behaviors.     

Effects of pre‐trial publicity and jury deliberation on juror bias and source memory errors

We examined the effects of exposure to pre‐trial publicity (PTP) and jury deliberation on juror memory and decision making. Mock jurors either read news articles containing negative PTP or articles unrelated to the trial. They later viewed a videotaped murder trial, after which they either made collaborative group decisions about guilt or individual decisions. Finally, all participants independently attributed specific information as having been presented during the trial or in the news articles. Exposure to PTP significantly affected guilty verdicts, sentence length, perceptions of defendant credibility, and misattributions of PTP as having been presented as trial evidence. Jury deliberation had significant effects on jury verdicts, perceptions of defendant credibility, source memory for trial items, and confidence in source memory judgements, but did not affect sentences or critical source memory errors. Copyright © 2006 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Rumination and overgeneral autobiographical memory

Two studies investigated the effects of rumination on the retrieval of autobiographical memories in high-depressed and low-depressed individuals. Experiment 1 administered either a rumination or distraction task prior to a cued autobiographical memory task. High-depressed participants recalled more overgeneral memories following rumination relative to distraction, whereas experimental inductions did not influence low-depressed participants. Experiment 2 administered either a positive or negative rumination task prior to a cued autobiographical memory task. Negatively valenced rumination led high-depressed participants to recall more overgeneral memories than positively valenced rumination; this effect was not observed in low-depressed participants. These findings accord with the proposal that rumination is a mediating mechanism in the retrieval of overgeneral memories, and extends this proposal by indicating that negatively valenced ruminative content is particularly instrumental in inducing overgeneral retrieval.     

John I. Lacey (1915-2004)

John I. Lacey died on June 27, 2004. He was one of the pioneers in the integration of psychology and physiology. He worked to establish concepts that cut across disciplines -- eschewing specialization within a cross-disciplinary area. Although a guiding figure in the founding of the Society for Neuroscience, John remained very active in the American Psychological Association (APA) and the Society for Psychophysiological Research until his professional retirement. John's career was characterized by a focused search for specific mechanisms defining how psychological processes interact with physiological processes. John Lacey has left us a legacy of a scientific approach that focuses directly on the relation between psychological concepts and their realization in physiological function. His creativity and breadth of knowledge contributed mightily to the currently burgeoning fields of neuroscience and behavioral medicine. His approach reminds us to continue to include solid psychological science when venturing into these fields.     

How time flies: a study of novice skydivers

Although time distortion is commonly reported during a traumatic experience, there is little research addressing the phenomenon. This study investigated the role of affect in time perception in a very stressful experience by indexing novice tandem skydivers' (N=76) levels of fear and excitement before the skydive and soon after landing. Estimations of how long skydivers thought their experience lasted were obtained after landing. Whereas increased fear was associated with the perception of time passing slowly, increased excitement was associated with the perception of time passing quickly. These data support models of time perception based on avoidance and approach motivations influencing time distortion.     

Intensive quantities: Why they matter to developmental research

A distinction can be drawn between extensive and intensive quantities. Extensive quantities (e.g., volume, distance), which have been the focus of developmental research, depend upon additive combination. Intensive quantities (e.g., density, speed), which have been relatively neglected, derive from proportional relations between variables. Thus, while proportional relations can be expressed with extensive quantities, these relations are constitutive with intensive quantities. One consequence is that factors, which are theorized as marginal with extensive quantities, are conceptually central in intensive contexts, and may need to be recognized in developmental models. Two such factors, termed variable salience and relational focus, are examined here, via a study where 963 Scottish children aged 7–12 years were asked to solve 42 intensive quantity problems in comparison and missing value format. Reasoning improved with age, but at all ages it was strongly influenced by variable salience and relational focus. Moreover, the manner in which these two factors interacted with other factors differed from what might be expected from models of proportional reasoning with extensive quantities. Based upon these results, it is argued that the distinction between extensive and intensive quantities is theoretically significant, and intensive quantities need to be granted more attention in the future.