Substance abuse in sixth grade: results of a prevention program on adolescents' self-reported drug-related attitudes and behavior

Effectiveness of the Preventive Dimensions Program, a K-12 Utah plan for safe and drug-free schools, was assessed among 150 sixth-grade students. Participants' knowledge about drug use increased, as did all children's intent to use marijuana.     

Defensive copers show a deficit in passive avoidance learning on Newman's go/no-go task: implications for self-deception and socialization

The present study investigated whether passive avoidance learning was retarded by defensive coping strategies designed to minimize exposure to negatively valenced stimuli. High-anxious individuals, low-anxious individuals, and defensive copers completed a computerized go/no-go task, in which they learned when to press or not to press a button, in response to contingent positive and negative feedback. The duration that feedback remained onscreen was self-regulated. Defensive copers showed preferential reflection away from negative feedback, committed more passive-avoidance errors, and were characterized by impaired learning, overall. Further, the ratio of reflection on negative feedback to reflection on positive feedback directly mediated both passive-avoidance errors and overall learning. Defensive coping strategies, therefore, appear to interfere with passive avoidance learning, thereby fostering perseverative, dysfunctional action patterns by reducing knowledge gained from previous mistakes. Implications for the learning of effective socialization strategies, and for psychopathy-which is commonly characterized by similar passive-avoidance deficits-are subsequently considered.     

Quantification of brain lesions using interactive automated software

We developed an interactive program, Analysis of Brain Lesions (ABLe) so that researchers studying the effects of brain lesions on cognition could have a user-friendly tool that could quantitatively characterize such lesions. The program was prepared in Tcl/Tk and will run on any UNIX or PC LINUX platform with the MEDx medical imaging software package. The ABLe is almost completely automated and determines the brain lesion size as well as which cytoarchitectonic brain regions (Brodmann areas) are contained within the boundaries of the lesion. Lesion data from multiple subjects can be grouped together and the degree of lesion overlap displayed. All images are analyzed and displayed within standard Talairach coordinate space, and the precision of the match between the ABLe Brodmann area graphics and the subject/patient brain is easily confirmed. The program is the first easy-to-use software that contains these specific features and is available for interested researchers with a background in lesion analysis.     

Action coordination in groups and individuals: learning anticipatory control

When individuals act alone, they can internally coordinate the actions at hand. Such coordination is not feasible when individuals act together in a group. The present research examines to what extent groups encounter specific challenges when acting jointly and whether these challenges impede extending planning into the future. Individuals and groups carried out a tracking task that required learning a new anticipatory control strategy. The results show that groups face additional demands that are harder to overcome when planning needs to be extended into the future. Information about others' actions is a necessary condition for groups to effectively learn to extend their plans. Possible mechanisms for exerting and learning anticipatory control are discussed.     

Assessing the importance of letter pairs in initial, exterior, and interior positions in reading

Exterior letter pairs (e.g., d--k in dark) play a major role in single-word recognition, but other research (D. Briihl & A. W. Inhoff, 1995) indicates no such role in reading text. This issue was examined by visually degrading letter pairs in three positions in words (initial, exterior, and interior) in text. Each degradation slowed reading rate compared with an undegraded control. However, whereas degrading initial and interior pairs slowed reading rate to a similar extent, degrading exterior pairs slowed reading rate most of all. Moreover, these effects were obtained when letter identities across pair positions varied naturally and when they were matched. The findings suggest that exterior letter pairs play a preferential role in reading, and candidates for this role are discussed.     

Arithmetic fact mastery in young children: a longitudinal investigation

Children with poor arithmetic fact mastery (n=45) at the end of third grade were compared to grade-level peers with good arithmetic fact mastery (n=60) in competencies related to reading and mathematics. Children were assessed longitudinally across second and third grades. When predictor variables such as IQ were held constant, the poor fact mastery and good fact mastery groups performed at about the same level and progressed at a comparable rate on math story problems and on broad reading achievement. The groups also progressed at a comparable rate on broad math achievement, although children with poor fact mastery performed at a significantly lower level. Children with poor fact mastery showed remarkably little growth on timed number facts during the study period, despite normal growth in other areas of mathematics. Deficits in fact mastery are highly persistent and appear to be independent of reading and language abilities.     

Regulatory focus theory: Disentangling goals and strategies

The purpose of this research was to develop and test the Regulatory Goals and Strategies Questionnaire (RGSQ) to promote conceptual and empirical clarity in the literature on regulatory focus theory (RFT). According to RFT, construing an end-state as a maximal goal (ideal, gain, and advancement) elicits the adoption of an eager promotion-focused strategy, whereas construing an end-state as a minimal goal (ought, non-loss, and security) elicits the adoption of a vigilant prevention-focused strategy. This means that promotion-focused eagerness and prevention-focused vigilance can be elicited by various goals and that eager and vigilant strategies are in fact separate from goals. However, extant measurement instruments have not treated them as such. The RGSQ was developed to distinguish various maximal and minimal goals and to separate these goals from promotion- and prevention-focused strategies of eagerness and vigilance. Across three studies that combine six samples (total N = 1848), we examined the factor structure and nomological network of the RGSQ (Study 1: four samples of students and adults) and its predictive validity in a task context (Study 2) and working sample (Study 3). Overall, we found support for the RGSQ's validity and demonstrated that the RGSQ operationalizes regulatory focus in accordance with the theory's core assumptions.     

Defensive pessimism and precautionary action during the COVID pandemic

The purpose of this research was to test, in the context of the COVID-19 pandemic, the hypothesis that individuals who use defensive pessimism as a strategy to manage anxiety are likely to act to prevent or mitigate negative outcomes. Across three crowd-sourced samples (Total N = 1416), defensive pessimism was correlated with self-reports of more precautionary behavior (Studies 1, 2, & 3) and fewer COVID-positive results (Study 3).     

A new approach to cerebral asymmetry: RT differences in simultaneous bimanual finger movement during verbal and nonverbal tasks

This study was aimed at testing a new approach for examination of functional laterality based on hemispheric specialization. The subjects had to perform verbal (words/nonwords) and nonverbal (similar/different patterns) discrimination. The separation of the two hemispheres during information processing was realized by requiring a simultaneous response of both index fingers. The obtained over-all reaction times (RT) were faster for verbal than for pattern tasks. Considering the RTs for solely the particular, faster response of one or the other index finger, the right index finger turned out to be faster on verbal tasks whereas the left one dominated on pattern tasks. According to the hypothesis that the faster hand indicates the more active (contralateral) hemisphere, it can be assumed that words are responded to more quickly when processed in the left hemisphere. On the other hand, patterns are responded to more quickly when the right hemisphere is active. These results suggest that each hemisphere may be capable of processing verbal and nonverbal material; the speed of information processing, however, is faster in the more adept one.