German capitalization of nouns and the detection of letters in continuous text.

The missing-letter effect refers to the phenomenon that letters are more difficult to detect in common function words (such as the) than in content words. Assuming that the missing-letter effect is diagnostic of the extraction of text structure, we exploited a special feature of German--the convention to capitalize the initial letter of nouns. Given the great flexibility of word order in German, it was proposed that this convention might help readers specify the structure of the sentence. Therefore orthographic variations that violate the capitalization rules should disrupt structure extraction and should result in a reduced missing-letter effect. The results indicated that: 1) capitalization of function words eliminated the missing-letter effect, but not at the beginning of a sentence; 2) A missing-letter effect occurred when the capitalization of the first letter was correct, but was followed by typecase alternation, and also when the size of the initial letters was relatively large for function words, but relatively small for content words. The results were discussed with respect to the possible contributions of visual familiarity, structural role, and processing time to the missing-letter effect, taking into account that a capitalized initial letter conveys significant information about the word class for German readers. Thus, the present results indicate that readers take advantage not only of function words but of any other information (here the capitalization of nouns) that helps to extract the structure of a sentence.     

Reducing the Effects of Gender Stereotypes on Performance Evaluations

The purpose of this research was to extend previous work on gender bias in performance evaluation. Specifically, we examined whether a structured free recall intervention could decrease the influence of traditional gender-stereotypes on the performance evaluations of women. Two hundred and forty-seven college students provided performance ratings for vignettes that described the performance of male or female college professors. Results indicated that without the intervention, raters who have traditional stereotypes evaluated women less accurately and more negatively. Conversely, the structured free recall intervention successfully eliminated these effects. The usefulness of the structured free recall intervention as a tool for decreasing the influence of gender stereotypes on performance ratings is discussed.     

Becoming a teller of tales: associations between children's fictional narratives and parent-child reminiscence narratives

Previous research has revealed a connection between the contributions parents make while reminiscing and their children’s narratives for personally experienced events. The current research expands the literature by focusing on the connection between parental reminiscing and children’s production of fictional narratives. After 4- to 9-year-olds and their parents reminisced about past shared events, the children (with an experimenter) produced narratives based on wordless picture books. The results revealed that the overall quality of the fictional narratives was correlated with parents’ provision statements that emphasized orientation and evaluation in the reminiscence narrative. For younger children, correlations held for reminiscence narratives about recent events. For older children, correlations held for reminiscence narratives about events from the distant past. The results are consistent with the suggestion that children learn general storytelling skills from adult models.     

Inclusion-exclusion of positive and negative past selves: mood congruence as information

The current research challenges the widespread truism that recalling a positive self necessarily increases self-esteem, whereas recalling a negative self necessarily decreases self-esteem. Four experiments demonstrate that chronically happy people show a relative increase in self-esteem by recalling either a positive or a negative self. Chronically sad people, however, show a relative decrease in self-esteem by recalling either a positive or a negative self. These effects are due to divergent perceptions of mood congruence between the recalled self and the current self. Specifically, happy people perceive high mood congruence between a recalled positive self and the current self but low mood congruence between a recalled negative self and the current self. In contrast, sad people perceive high mood congruence between a recalled negative self and the current self but low mood congruence between a recalled positive self and the current self. Independent of chronic mood, mood congruence leads to perceptions of temporal recency, whereas mood incongruence leads to perceptions of temporal distance. In line with the inclusion-exclusion model of social judgment, perceived temporal recency elicits assimilation effects on self-esteem, whereas perceived temporal distance elicits contrast effects on self-esteem.     

Evidence for attenuated affective processing in obesity

Attenuated affective processing is hypothesized to play a role in the development and maintenance of obesity. Using an affective priming task measuring automatic affective processing of verbal stimuli, a group of 30 obese participants in a weight-loss program at the Psychosomatic University Clinic Bonn (M age = 48.3, SD = 10.7) was compared with a group of 25 participants of normal weight (M age = 43.6, SD = 12.5). A smaller affective priming effect was observed for participants with obesity, indicating less pronounced reactions to valenced adjectives. The generally reduced affective processing in obese participants was discussed as a possible factor in the etiology of obesity. Individuals who generally show less pronounced affective reactions to a given stimulus may also react with less negative affect when confronted with weight gain or less positive affect when weight is lost. Consequently, they could be expected to be less motivated to stop overeating or to engage in dieting and will have a higher risk of becoming or staying obese.     

The information content of panoramic images I: The rotational errors and the similarity of views in rectangular experimental arenas

Animals relocating a target corner in a rectangular space often make rotational errors searching not only at the target corner but also at the diagonally opposite corner. The authors tested whether view-based navigation can explain rotational errors by recording panoramic snapshots at regularly spaced locations in a rectangular box. The authors calculated the global image difference between the image at each location and the image recorded at a target location in 1 of the corners, thus creating a 2-dimensional map of image differences. The authors found the most pronounced minima of image differences at the target corner and the diagonally opposite corner--conditions favoring rotational errors. The authors confirmed these results in virtual reality simulations and showed that the relative salience of different visual cues determines whether image differences are dominated by geometry or by features. The geometry of space is thus implicitly contained in panoramic images and does not require explicit computation by a dedicated module. A testable prediction is that animals making rotational errors in rectangular spaces are guided by remembered views.     

A family history of psychopathology modifies the decrement in cognitive control among patients with HIV/AIDS

The present study was designed to evaluate the effect of HIV/AIDS on cognitive control and to determine if the effect is modified by familial risk for either alcohol or mood disorders. Sixty HIV-1 seropositive and 75 seronegative volunteers were assigned to four subgroups defined by the crossing of a diagnosis of alcohol dependence in the biological father with diagnoses of either major depressive disorder or bipolar disorder in the biological mother. Cognitive control was evaluated during a task in which subjects were asked, on occasion, to inhibit the impulse to respond in the same physical direction as the stimulus and instead respond in the opposite direction. Event related brain potentials and measures of task performance were recorded. The task evoked a negative shift in a late slow potential (SP) as well as an increment in reaction time when cognitive control was challenged. An important finding was an interaction between trial type, HIV/AIDS, and family history: HIV/AIDS and family history each attenuated the negative shift in the SP to such a degree that no further attenuation could be accomplished by the other. The effects of familial risk for alcohol versus mood disorders were equivalent. In conclusion, the absence of change in a late slow potential following a challenge to cognitive control may represent a marker of familial risk for both externalizing and internalizing disorders. The effects of familial risk on this slow potential are sufficiently robust as to attenuate the effects of HIV/AIDS on the probable generators of the response: the anterior cingulate and prefrontal cortex.     

Neue Medien für die gesundheitliche Versorgung

The rapid development of information and communication technologies and their broad availability open up new opportunities for psychosocial service provision. Information materials provided via the internet have the potential to improve users’ competences and thus influence their health care utilisation by allowing for more active participation. Furthermore, a great variety of e-health interventions have been developed to improve care. These interventions are not limited to specific areas of service provision but span the whole range from prevention to aftercare programs. It has been shown that such technology-enhanced interventions can help to bridge gaps in health care services in an effective way.     

Statt einer Übersichtsarbeit: Warum „Wir und Ihr“?

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