Articulatory suppression and phonological codes in reading for meaning

The aim of this study was to investigate whether the phonological code that causes errors in printed sentence comprehension is affected by concurrent articulation. Forty adult subjects made speeded judgements of the acceptability of printed sentences. The critical sentences were foils that were (1) orthographi-cally unacceptable but phonologically acceptable (e.g. The palace had a thrown room), and (2) spelling controls that were orthographically and phonologically unacceptable (The palace had a thorns room). Half the subjects performed this task in silence (without concurrently articulating) and showed a marked phonological effect such that false alarms to phonologically acceptable foils were more frequent than false alarms to their spelling controls. The remaining subjects who performed this task with concurrent articulatory suppression showed an increase in false alarm rates, but no effect of phonology. In a control experiment using the same subjects, memory span for visually presented long and short words was measured under conditions of silence or concurrent articulation. The word length effect (Baddeley, Thomson, & Buchanan, 1975) disappeared under suppression, indicating that the suppression manipulation was highly effective. Thus the phonological codes that are used both in sentence comprehension and memory span are highly susceptible to articulatory suppression. We discuss possible relationships between phonological codes that mediate lexical access and those that support short-term verbal memory.     

Why Should We Lower Our Defenses About Defense Mechanisms?

Personality and social psychologists already use ideas that are closely related to defense mechanisms, but few of our paradigms include extensive theoretical or empirical treatment of such mechanisms. Yet defense mechanisms focus on negative affect and protection of the self, and many of the controversies, issues, and impasses contemporary researchers confront also concern negative affect and self-protection. This article discusses whether we might find systematic consideration of defense mechanisms and defensive processing to be broadly useful across several related areas of personality and social psychology in which the relationships between self and affect are implicated. Areas considered include positive illusions and adaptation, the interpretation of reports of negative affect, and related concepts from the coping, self-regulation, affect regulation, and goals literature. Thinking about defense mechanisms would seem to have both specific value for sharpening our understanding of different possible interpretations of our data, and broad heuristic value for thinking about personality integration and social behavior.     

Therapeutic Document in Group Counseling: An Active Change Agent

In this article, the authors provide a therapeutic document model using language as an active change agent. The practice of the therapeutic letter has demonstrated substantial power in narrative therapy to foster client change. No literature, however, has applied this construct in group counseling. Grounded in social constructionism, re-authoring therapy and the power of written language, this model transforms the usually time-consuming and frequently nontherapeutic client documentation into a functional intervention. As a competency-based intervention, this model provides counselors with principles and procedures to enhance clients' self-agency and expedite the change process in group counseling.     

The Relation of ERP Components to Complex Memory Processing

The relation between various ERP components generated during encoding of a word and its subsequent recall were investigated using a “rote” serial-order and an “elaborative” category memory task. Words (flashed separately) were time-locked to EEG recordings from 21 cortical sites. ERP components from the five subjects having the highest recall scores were compared to the five lowest scoring subjects. Results based on the P200 peak amplitude data as well as the N400 and late positive component peak amplitude and latency data suggest that anterior and posterior distributional differences are elicited during encoding of words for rote and elaborative memory tasks. Furthermore, strong individual differences in these patterns were found as a function of task. A tentative argument was made that the obtained anterior and posterior differences may index different word feature selection and encoding processes, which are differentially utilized by high and low recallers.     

The effects of stimulus movement and attention on peripheral stimulus localization by 8- to 26-week-old infants

This study examined the effect of stimulus movement on localization probability and latency during attention and inattention. Forty infants, 10 each at 8, 14, 20, and 26 weeks of age were presented with a central stimulus. Then, a peripheral stimulus was presented (static or dynamic checkerboard). Stimulus movement did not affect localization probability. Infants localized the dynamic peripheral stimulus more quickly than the static peripheral stimulus when there was no focal stimulus. Focal stimulus attention attenuated this difference in localization latency between static and dynamic stimuli. Signal detection analysis showed that sensitivity to the peripheral stimulus increased over this age range along with a decrease in the bias against responding. The effects of attention were on response bias rather than stimulus sensitivity. These results imply attention affected the localization response to the peripheral stimulus but did not affect the sensitivity of the sensory and perceptual pathways to peripheral stimuli.     

Ingestive responses of human newborns to salty, sour, and bitter stimuli.

Human newborns (1-4 days old) were offered two fluids differing in taste for 3 min each. The volumes ingested were measured. Infants offered water and bitter or sour solutions did not ingest them differentially, which corroborated earlier observations with weaker solutions. A sucrose solution was used to raise baseline ingestion above that of water. Infants offered the sucrose solution with and without urea, citric acid, or sodium chloride consumed less of it when citric acid was added. They were indiffferent to the addition of urea or sodium chloride. The failure to observe intakes lower than that of water suggests that newborns maximally inhibit their ingestion of water. The effects of sex, age, birth weight, and individual consistency on intake were assessed.     

Creative Cognition and Psychosis Vulnerability: What’s the Difference?

Evidence from experimental psychology provides unequivocal support for enhanced creativity among individuals who are prone to psychotic and mood disorders. At the same time, there is strong epidemiological evidence for greater incidence of creative achievement among those diagnosed with bipolar disorder (but not schizophrenia). This review examines the evidence for common factors predisposing an individual to creativity and psychosis, as well as factors that distinguish the capacity for creative achievement from the creative potential that may be inherent in psychosis vulnerability. Factors implicated as common to creative potential and psychosis vulnerability include enhanced divergent thinking, reduced latent inhibition and preattentive filtering mechanisms; on the other hand, greater cognitive flexibility, motivation, and openness to experience tend to be associated with creative achievement, but not psychosis. This evidence is considered with respect to the utility of tailored vocational interventions to effectively harness creative potential, which may be useful for young individuals in the early stages of illness or their unaffected family members.