Does legally mandated consent to psychotherapy ensure ethical appropriateness?: the Colorado experience

We analyzed a sample of 356 forms containing information that Colorado law legally requires both licensed and unlicensed therapists to disclose to clients. The majority of forms contained the legally mandated information; fewer forms contained ethically desirable information. The average readability grade level was 15.74, corresponding to upper-level college, and 63.9% of the forms reached the highest (most difficult) readability grade of 17+. Therapists are obeying the law, but do not appear to be taking advantage of the opportunity to provide their clients useful information in an accessible way.     

Vocational Rehabilitation of the Socially Disadvantaged: Demographic and Intellectual Correlates of Outcome

Data are reported relating various demographic and intelligence attributes of socially disadvantaged clients to successful or unsuccessful outcome of a comprehensive vocational assessment and guidance program. Mothers of illegitimate children tended to complete the assessment program but to remain unemployed. Age was positively related to success, whereas education was unrelated. Verbal and performance IQ were positively related to outcome for females. Successful Caucasian males were higher in verbal IQ than successful male Caucasians, but no difference was found for Negro males. Performance IQ was nonpredictive of outcome for both white and Negro males. Higher verbal than performance IQ was positively correlated with success for male Caucasians.     

The importance of visual angle in word recognition: A “shrinking screen” modification for visual displays

The visual angle subtended by alphabetic stimuli seems to be given little regard in a large proportion of reading research. Existing empirical evidence suggests that this disregard may be unwise. We describe a modification to video monitors and oscilloscopes that allows the screen size of stimuli to be varied and permits words to be displayed at appropriate visual angles with accuracy and comparative ease. Other advantages of these modifications are also discussed.     

Effects of Applicant's Adverse Medical History on College Students' Ratings of Job Applications1

The purpose of this experiment was to determine if the existence of high blood pressure or allergies would decrease the likelihood of a person obtaining a job. Forty-eight college students rated hypothetical job applicants with allergies, high blood pressure, or no adverse physical condition for either a high-stress manager trainee position or a low-stress bookkeeper position. For the manager trainee position, applicants with either high blood pressure or allergies were rated significantly lower than the applicants with no adverse physical condition. For the bookkeeper position there were no significant differences between the ratings of the individuals with the different physical conditions. These results suggest that any adverse physical condition may have a negative prototype associated with it; however, a job applicant's physical condition may have different consequences depending upon the type of job for which he/she is applying. The effect of the stress level of the different jobs on the ratings was discussed.     

Image rotation of misoriented letter strings: effects of orientation cuing and repetition

Three experiments were designed to investigate whether the characteristic function relating response time to stimulus orientation reflects the observer imagining the rotation of the stimulus to upright (the "image rotation" hypothesis) or rotation of an internal reference frame in response to the misoriented stimulus (the "frame rotation" hypothesis). Identification times in response to misoriented words were measured in Experiment 1, whereas in Experiments 2 and 3, lexical decision times in response to misoriented letter strings were measured. Trials occurred in blocks; words within a block were presented at the same orientation. It was argued that this mode of presentation would facilitate the use of a frame rotation strategy by allowing for a gradual readjustment of an internal reference frame. The characteristic "mental rotation" function was observed in all three experiments. However, the data indicated that observers continued to imagine the rotation of the word to upright in each trial; there was no evidence of readjustment of an internal reference frame. An additional finding of interest occurred in Experiment 1, in which observers identified the same set of misoriented words across two sessions. The identification times were faster, and the slope of the mental rotation function was lower, in the second session. These results are discussed as in relation to the image rotation hypothesis of mental rotation and to "instance-based skill acquisition" (Masson, 1986) in word recognition.     

The Cascade Neural Network Model and a Speed-Accuracy Trade-Off of Arm Movement

We propose a hybrid neural network model of aimed arm movements that consists of a feedforward controller and a postural controller. The cascade neural network of Kawato, Maeda, Uno, and Suzuki (1990) was employed as a computational implementation of the feedforward controller. This network computes feedforward motor commands based on a minimum torque-change criterion. If the weighting parameter of the smoothness criterion is fixed and the number of relaxation iterations is rather small, the cascade model cannot calculate the exact torque, and the hand does not reach the desired target by using the feedforward control alone. Thus, one observes an error between the final position and the desired target location. By using a fixed weighting parameter value and a limited iteration number to simulate target-directed arm movements, we found that the cascade model generated a planning time-accuracy trade-off, and a quasi-power-law type of speed-accuracy trade-off. The model provides a candidate neural mechanism to explain the stochastic variability of the time course of the feedforward motor command. Our approach also accounts for several invariant features of multijoint arm trajectories, such as roughly straight hand paths and bell-shaped speed profiles.     

Differences in Media Preference Mediate the Link Between Personality and Political Orientation

Research has consistently demonstrated that political liberalism is predicted by the personality trait Openness to Experience and conservatism by trait Conscientiousness. Less well studied, however, is how trait personality influences political orientation. The present study investigated whether differences in media preference might mediate the links between personality and political orientation. Participants completed measures of Big Five personality, media preferences, and political orientation. Results revealed that increased preferences for Dark/Alternative and Aesthetic/Musical media genres, as well as decreased preferences for Communal/Popular media genres, mediated the association between Openness to Experience and liberalism. In contrast, greater preferences for Communal/Popular and Thrilling/Action genres, as well as lower preferences for Dark/Alternative and Aesthetic/Musical genres mediated the link between Conscientiousness and conservatism.     

Central Fixations are Inadequately Controlled by Instructions Alone: Implications for Studying Cerebral Asymmetry

A fundamental concern when using visual presentations to study cerebral asymmetry is to ensure that stimuli are presented with the same degree of retinal eccentricity from a central fixation point in either visual field. However, a widely used procedure intended to control fixation location merely instructs participants to fixate appropriately without any other means of ensuring that central fixations actually occur. We assessed the validity of assuming that instructions alone ensure central fixation by using the traditional R VF advantage for words and either (a) only instructions to fixate centrally, or (b) an eye-tracking device that ensured central fixation on every trial. Experiments 1 and 2 found that when only instructions were given, the vast majority of fixations were not central, and more occurred to the right of centre than to the left. Moreover, the prevalence of non-central fixations was otherwise disguised by the finding that both fixation procedures produced similar R VF advantages in overt performance. The impact of typical non-central fixations on performance was revealed by systematically manipulating fixation location in Experiment 3, where deviations in fixation of only 0.25 from centre had a reliable impact on visual field effects. Implications of these findings for studies of cerebral asymmetry are discussed.