Circumplex structure and personality disorder correlates of the Interpersonal Problems model (IIP-C): construct validity and clinical implications

This study assessed the construct validity of the circumplex model of the Inventory of Interpersonal Problems (IIP-C) in Norwegian clinical and nonclinical samples. Structure was examined by evaluating the fit of the circumplex model to data obtained by the IIP-C. Observer-rated personality disorder criteria (DSM-IV, Axis II) were used as external correlates. The reliability of the IIP-C scales was acceptable and in the same range as in the original version. A multisample analysis strategy did not support an invariant circumplex model across the 2 groups. However, the estimated structures reflected mostly the same circular pattern of a quasi-circumplex model in the 2 groups. Departures from the ideal model were of negligible practical significance. The validity results examining personality disorder correlates of the IIP-C generally conformed to predictions, providing direct evidence for agreement between self-report and expert judgments of interpersonal problems.     

Tracking the what and why of speakers’ choices: Prosodic boundaries and the length of constituents

The rational speaker hypothesis (Clifton, Carlson, & Frazier, 2002) claims that speakers are selfconsistent, employing intonation in a manner consistent with their intended message. Preceding a constituent by a prosodic boundary that is not required by the grammar often signals that this constituent is not part of the immediately preceding phrase. However, speakers tend to place prosodic boundaries before and after long constituents. The question is whether prosodic boundaries will have a larger influence on listeners’ choice of an analysis when they flank short constituents than when they flank long ones. The results of two listening experiments indicate that they do, suggesting that listeners attend not just to properties of the input signal, but also to the reasons why speakers produce those properties.     

Prosodic phrasing is central to language comprehension

Words, like musical notes, are grouped together into phrases by their rhythmic and durational properties as well as their tonal pitch. This 'prosodic phrasing' affects the understanding of sentences. Many processing studies of prosody have investigated sentences with a single, grammatically required prosodic boundary, which might be interpreted strictly locally, as a signal to end the current syntactic unit. Recent results suggest, however, that the global pattern of prosodic phrasing is what matters in sentence comprehension, not just the occurrence or size of a single local boundary. In this article we claim that the impact of prosodic boundaries depends on the other prosodic choices a speaker has made. We speculate that prosody serves to hold distinct linguistic representations together in memory.     

Some Suggestions for Mapping Organizational Members’ Sense of Fit

Despite its importance in the organizational behavior literature, person–organization (P–O) fit remains an elusive construct. One reason for this is the lack of research about organizational members own sense of their P–O fit. In this paper we discuss the criteria required of suitable research tools to explore this domain. Drawing on arguments from the cognition literature, we argue that storytelling and causal mapping techniques are suitable for exploring organizational members sense of fit. We conclude with a short example of the method in action and a discussion of some of the practical issues that researchers will face.     

Less is more: executive function and symbolic representation in preschool children

Executive function is recognized as a critical component of children's cognitive and social development. In two studies, a measure of executive function that had been used in research with chimpanzees was adapted for preschoolers. On this task, called Less Is More, children must point to a smaller reward (two candies) to receive a larger reward (five candies). In Study 1 (N= 101), performance was significantly related to age (3 vs. 4), verbal ability, and established measures of executive function. In Study 2 (N= 128), symbolic representations substituted for real candies in this task. Three-year-olds' performance improved significantly as a function of symbolic distancing. This research has implications for the role of symbol systems in the development of executive control over thought and action.     

Recognition memory for distractor faces depends on attentional load at exposure

Incidental recognition memory for faces previously exposed as task-irrelevant distractors was assessed as a function of the attentional load of an unrelated task performed on superimposed letter strings at exposure. In Experiment 1, subjects were told to ignore the faces and either to judge the color of the letters (low load) or to search for an angular target letter among other angular letters (high load). A surprise recognition memory test revealed that despite the irrelevance of all faces at exposure, those exposed under low-load conditions were later recognized, but those exposed under high-load conditions were not. Experiment 2 found a similar pattern when both the high- and low-load tasks required shape judgments for the letters but made differing attentional demands. Finally, Experiment 3 showed that high load in a nonface task can significantly reduce even immediate recognition of a fixated face from the preceding trial. These results demonstrate that load in a nonface domain (e.g., letter shape) can reduce face recognition, in accord with Lavie’s load theory. In addition to their theoretical impact, these results may have practical implications for eyewitness testimony.     

Temperament, relationships, and young children's receptive cooperation with their parents

The authors studied receptive cooperation--a willing, eager stance toward parents--in 15-month-old children (N = 101) in broadly ranging contexts. Children's anger proneness and parents' responsiveness (both observed at 7 months) and children's attachment security (assessed in Strange Situation at 15 months) were examined as predictors of children's receptive cooperation at 15 months. In mother-child dyads, secure attachment was strongly associated with children's higher receptive cooperation. Maternal responsiveness in infancy also promoted children's future receptive cooperation, but its impact was moderated by child anger: Responsiveness had a positive effect for children who as infants were highly anger prone. In father-child dyads, the negative effect of anger proneness on receptive cooperation with father was significantly amplified for insecure children. Mother's responsiveness and child's secure attachment to the mother promoted child receptive cooperation with the father, but there were no similar effects for fathers.     

Attitude importance and the accumulation of attitude-relevant knowledge in memory

People who attach personal importance to an attitude are especially knowledgeable about the attitude object. This article tests an explanation for this relation: that importance causes the accumulation of knowledge by inspiring selective exposure to and selective elaboration of relevant information. Nine studies showed that (a) after watching televised debates between presidential candidates, viewers were better able to remember the statements made on policy issues on which they had more personally important attitudes; (b) importance motivated selective exposure and selective elaboration: Greater personal importance was associated with better memory for relevant information encountered under controlled laboratory conditions, and manipulations eliminating opportunities for selective exposure and selective elaboration eliminated the importance-memory accuracy relation; and (c) people do not use perceptions of their knowledge volume to infer how important an attitude is to them, but importance does cause knowledge accumulation.     

Task-dependent modulation of target-flanker lateral interactions in vision

Visibility of a central target Gabor element often improves in the presence of collinear flankers. Such lateral interactions may reflect fundamental mechanisms underlying the perceptual integration of contours in early vision. We recently reported (Freeman, Sagi, & Driver, 2001) attentional modulation of these interactions. Here, we test whether this modulation is task dependent. Subjects had to detect a near-threshold central target while performing a secondary discrimination task on one pair of flankers that could appear with another distractor pair (one pair collinear with the target, the other orthogonal). Central target thresholds were lowered when collinear flankers were judged for the secondary task, but only when this task concerned the global spatial relationship between these flankers (discrimination of their Vernier offset or global orientation). Other secondary tasks involving discriminating the local orientations, contrasts, or colors of the relevant flanker pair produced no such attentional modulation. However, this task-dependent modulation was observed only when two flanker pairs were present, not for displays with only a single flanker pair. Top-down modulation of lateral interactions may function to select between overlapping potential contours whenever the global spatial properties of one are task relevant.     

Concentrating on beauty: sexual selection and sociospatial memory

In three experiments, location memory for faces was examined using a computer version of the matching game Concentration. Findings suggested that physical attractiveness led to more efficient matching for female faces but not for male faces. Study 3 revealed this interaction despite allowing participants to initially see, attend to, and match the attractive male faces in the first few turns. Analysis of matching errors suggested that, compared to other targets, attractive women were less confusable with one another. Results are discussed in terms of the different functions that attractiveness serves for men and women.