Correction to: Towards a Better Understanding of Cognitive Deficits in Absence Epilepsy: a Systematic Review and Meta-Analysis

Neuropsychology Review - Due to an error during the editorial phase, a correction regarding Fig. 2 is added to the original article: “Towards a Better Understanding of Cognitive...     

Authority conflicts and personality disorders

We investigated personality disorders (PDs) of young men with chronic authority conflicts using the Millon Clinical Multiaxial Inventory-I (MCMI-I; Millon, 1983). PDs occurred considerably more often in the young men with chronic authority conflicts (62%) compared with a clinical control group of young men with acute authority conflicts (39%). The prevalence of PDs in a normal control group was considerably lower (11%). The passive-aggressive PD is over-represented among young men with chronic authority conflicts; there is hardly any antisocial PD. Millon's conceptualization of these disorders could have influenced these results. The high prevalence of passive-aggressive PDs complicates a good psychotherapeutic outcome in young men with chronic authority conflicts. Our results underscore the clinical utility of the controversial PAPD diagnosis.     

Reliability and validity of a twelve-minute walking test for coronary heart disease patients

This study examined the reliability and validity of a 12-min. walking test for coronary heart disease patients. CHD patients (28 men, 18 women) were recruited out of 86 CHD patients of the Martini Hospital Groningen, The Netherlands. 46 CHD patients (age M=66.0 yr., SD=6.8) participated in the reliability study and 24 (age M=62.0 yr., SD=9.2) in the validity study. A test-retest analysis showed a satisfactory Bland-Altman plot and an intraclass coefficient of .98. The Pearson correlation between the score on the test and the VO2 peak was .77. This test gives a reliable and valid assessment of cardiorespiratory fitness of CHD patients.     

Perceptual grouping in Gabor lattices: proximity and alignment

We propose the Gabor lattice as a new stimulus designed to deal with multiple organizations in perceptual grouping, allowing both comparison between psychophysical data and neural findings and a systematic investigation of grouping based on several low-level characteristics and their interactions. A Gabor lattice is a geometric lattice with Gabor patches, evoking a multistable global orientation percept. Visual grouping in Gabor lattices with elements aligned in a global orientation was compared with grouping of nonaligned Gabor patches and of Gaussian blobs. The effect sizes of proximity and alignment were estimated in logistic regression analyses. The results confirmed the importance of proximity and local element alignment as factors in dynamic grouping. We also found a small but consistent enhancement of grouping along the global vector orthogonal to the local patch orientations. In light of these results, we further motivate the relevance of these stimuli and the associated experimental paradigm.     

Differences between searching among objects and searching among holes

We report results from six experiments in which participants had to search for a "C" among "O" distractors. The search items were either holes or objects, defined by motion, contrast, or both. Our main findings were (1) it was easier to search among objects than to search among holes, and (2) the difference between search among objects and search among holes was primarily caused by grouping with the background. The data support the hypothesis that the shape of a hole is only available indirectly. We further note that, in our experiments, search performance for both holes and objects depended on the surface medium used to define the search items.     

Opposing effects of phonological similarity on item and order memory of words and nonwords in the serial recall task

This study shows that the classical phonological similarity effect (PSE) in immediate serial recall is critically affected by the lexicality of list items, the type of phonological similarity involved, and the scoring procedure. PSE was present in the serial recall score when phonologically distinct words were compared to words that share the middle vowel and end consonant (rhyming lists). PSE was absent in the serial recall score when phonologically distinct words were compared to words that share the initial and final consonants (consonant frame lists). There was a reversal of PSE in serial recall of nonwords when comparing distinct lists to both types of similar lists. Recall accuracy on the other hand was higher for distinct lists regardless of lexicality. Item errors dominated in relation to order errors in the case of nonwords, whereas order errors dominated in relation to item errors in the case of words. Furthermore, order errors were more common for phonologically similar lists, whereas item errors were more common for phonologically distinct lists. This may be the result of intra-list and inter-list interference, respectively. The dominance of the former error type may cause a classical PSE, whereas the dominance of the latter error type may cause a reversal of PSE. Finally, an item identification task yielded no evidence of an association between intra-list interference and discriminability of items in a list.     

Advantages and disadvantages of phonological similarity in serial recall and serial recognition of nonwords

The phonological similarity effect (PSE) was studied with lists of nonwords in one task of serial recall and one task of serial recognition. PSE was critically affected by the scoring procedure and the type of phonological similarity involved, and the effect diverged in several ways from the findings of previous studies on words. PSE was absent in serial recall, regardless of scoring procedure, when phonologically similar items that shared the midvowel were compared with phonologically distinct items. PSE was reversed when serial recall and item recall scores of rhyme items and consonant frame items were compared with distinct items, but it was present in the position accuracy score of rhyme lists. In serial recognition, PSE was absent when rhyme lists were compared with distinct lists. Recognition was better for consonant frame lists than for rhyme lists, and there was a marginally significant reversal of PSE when consonant frame lists were compared with distinct lists. In the view of Fallon, Groves, and Tehan's (1999) study and the present study, rhyming improves item recall and serial recall but diminishes position accuracy, regardless of lexicality. But consonant frame lists with differing midvowels have higher item recall, serial recall, and position accuracy scores than do rhyme lists.     

Contour-based object identification and segmentation: Stimuli,norms and data,and software tools

We summarize five studies of our large-scale research program, in which we examined aspects of contour-based object identification and segmentation, and we report on the stimuli we used, the norms and data we collected, and the software tools we developed. The stimuli were outlines derived from the standard set of line drawings of everyday objects by Snodgrass and Vanderwart (1980). We used contour curvature as a major variable in all the studies. The total number of 1,500 participants produced very solid, normative identification rates of silhouettes and contours, straight-line versions, and fragmented versions, and quite reliable benchmark data about saliency of points and object segmentation into parts. We also developed several software tools to generate stimuli and to analyze the data in nonstandard ways. Our stimuli, norms and data, and software tools have great potential for further exploration of factors influencing contour-based object identification, and are also useful for researchers in many different disciplines (including computer vision) on a wide variety of research topics (e.g., priming, agnosia, perceptual organization, and picture naming). The full set of norms, data, and stimuli may be downloaded fromwww.psychonomic.org/archive/.     

What is "marked" in visual marking? Evidence for effects of configuration in preview search

Visual search for a conjunction target is facilitated when distractor sets are segmented over time: the preview benefit Watson and Humphreys (1997) suggested that this benefit involved inhibition of old items (visual marking, VM). We investigated whether the preview benefit is sensitive to the configuration of the old distractors. Old distractors changed their location prior to the occurrence of the new items, while also either changing or maintaining their configuration. Configuration changes disrupted search. The results are consistent with object-based VM, which is sensitive to the configuration of old stimuli.