How activation, entanglement, and searching a semantic network contribute to event memory

Free-association norms indicate that words are organized into semantic/associative neighborhoods within a larger network of words and links that bind the net together. We present evidence indicating that memory for a recent word event can depend on implicitly and simultaneously activating related words in its neighborhood. Processing a word during encoding primes its network representation as a function of the density of the links in its neighborhood. Such priming increases recall and recognition and can have long-lasting effects when the word is processed in working memory. Evidence for this phenomenon is reviewed in extralist-cuing, primed free-association, intralist-cuing, and single-item recognition tasks. The findings also show that when a related word is presented in order to cue the recall of a studied word, the cue activates the target in an array of related words that distract and reduce the probability of the target’s selection. The activation of the semantic network produces priming benefits during encoding, and search costs during retrieval. In extralist cuing, recall is a negative function of cue-to-distractor strength, and a positive function of neighborhood density, cue-to-target strength, and target-to-cue strength. We show how these four measures derived from the network can be combined and used to predict memory performance. These measures play different roles in different tasks, indicating that the contribution of the semantic network varies with the context provided by the task. Finally, we evaluate spreading-activation and quantum-like entanglement explanations for the priming effects produced by neighborhood density.     

A Psychometric Evaluation of the Approach and Avoidance of Alcohol Questionnaire Among Alcohol-Dependent Patients Attending Residential Treatment

Despite research suggesting that alcohol-dependent individuals have both craving and avoidant tendencies for alcohol, few studies have measured self-report tendencies using the Approach and Avoidance of Alcohol Questionnaire (AAAQ). The goal of this study was to examine the psychometric properties of the AAAQ using a sample of adults receiving 12 step-based residential treatment for alcohol dependence. As part of a larger study, 100 adults receiving residential treatment completed the AAAQ and several other assessments shortly after treatment admission. Analyses of the AAAQ examined its factor structure, internal consistency, and convergent and predictive validity. A maximum likelihood estimation factor analysis using oblique rotation produced 3 factors accounting for 69 % of the variance. A confirmatory factor analysis suggested that the 3-factor model was a moderate fit for data from a second sample of patients. Internal consistency was fairly high and convergent validity was demonstrated by relationships with another scale of alcohol craving, time since last drink, and quantity and frequency of pre-treatment alcohol use. Regarding predictive validity, the level of approach tendencies on the AAAQ was significantly related to abstinence status during the first 6 months following treatment. Avoidance level was not related to abstinence. The results largely replicated past studies utilizing outpatient samples and suggest that the AAAQ shows promise as a psychometrically sound, internally reliable self-report craving measure for individuals with alcohol dependence.     

Termination of parental rights conflicts: Small-group therapy with adolescent boys

Abstract

In the 1990s Children's Village, a residential treatment center, has been able to return fewer boys to their families of origin and has sought court-supported terminations of parental rights (TPRs). A clinically sound approach was formulated to support the boys during and after the TPR process. Coleaders conducted group therapy with small numbers (2, 4, 5) of boys aged 10 to 14 years. The task was to help them relinquish the parent as a discharge resource. Impact of the groups varied with the boys' ages and the presence or absence of an identified peer leader. An identified date for ending resulted in vigorous therapeutic work in the final meetings.     

Bible Knowledge and Moral Judgment: Knowing Scripture and Using Ethical Reasoning

The relationship between moral judgment and religious knowledge was investigated, with an analysis of the impact of academic skill on both domains. Fifty-six Bible college seniors completed measures of moral judgment (Defining Issues Test), Bible knowledge (Standardized Bible Content Test), and academic skill (Academic Profile). Results indicate that the three measures were significantly correlated in a positive direction. Bible knowledge was positively related with the most sophisticated level of Kohlberg's moral reasoning and negatively correlated with preconventional morality. These relationships could not be simply explained by the level of cognitive ability. Discussion follows on the potential causal directions and implications for Bible knowledge and sophisticated moral judgments being related.     

The Relation of Parent and Child Gender to Parental Tolerance of Child Disruptive Behaviors

Parental tolerance has been defined as the degree to which a parent tends to be annoyed by his or her child’s disruptive behavior. The purpose of the current study is to examine the relation of both parent and child gender to parental tolerance of child disruptive behaviors. Participants were 150 parents with 3–6 year-old at-risk children (47.5 % girls) who sought help with parenting of their child’s oppositional defiant behaviors. Tolerance was measured by the difference between parent ratings of intensity on 36 disruptive behaviors and whether each behavior was identified as a problem (resulting in a score of either high, expected, or low tolerance). A 2 (child gender) by 2 (parent gender) analysis of variance was conducted on the tolerance score. A significant interaction between child and parent gender emerged: Mothers were equally tolerant of boys’ and girls’ oppositional defiant behavior but fathers were more tolerant of boys’ than girls’ oppositional behavior. Exploratory analyses suggested that this interaction may be qualified by clinical status of the child. Implications and future directions are discussed.     

Searching through the hierarchy: How level of target categorization affects visual search

Does the same basic-level advantage commonly observed in the categorization literature also hold for targets in a search task? We answered this question by first conducting a category verification task to define a set of categories showing a standard basic-level advantage, which we then used as stimuli in a search experiment. Participants were cued with a picture preview of the target or its category name at either superordinate, basic, or subordinate levels, then shown a target-present/absent search display. Although search guidance and target verification was best using pictorial cues, the effectiveness of the categorical cues depended on the hierarchical level. Search guidance was best for the specific subordinate-level cues, whereas target verification showed a standard basic-level advantage. These findings demonstrate different hierarchical advantages for guidance and verification in categorical search. We interpret these results as evidence for a common target representation underlying categorical search guidance and verification.     

Attention switching between global and local elements: Distractor category and the level repetition effect

When selecting information at global and local levels of hierarchical stimuli, there is a robust effect of level repetition in which performance is more efficient when a target is presented at the same level as the previous target. Moreover, the effect is symmetrical; it affects global and local processing equally. Evidence exists to suggest the effect may be automatic; however, we show here that the level repetition effect requires some amount of competition from the ignored level, and that the nature of the irrelevant information can determine whether the level-repetition effect is symmetrical (global and local responses are affected equally) or asymmetrical (global responses are more greatly affected than local responses). In Experiment 1, the level-repetition effect was eliminated when information at the distracting level was invariant across trials; effects of hemisphere bias and level repetition were observed only when suppression or filtering of distractor information was required. Experiment 2 demonstrated that simple featural variance is sufficient to produce the level repetition effect and that the symmetry of the level-repetition effect is sensitive to Garner-type interference that affects global processing to a greater extent than local processing. In Experiment 3, we showed that the absence of a level-repetition effect in the invariant distractor condition persists when the position of relevant stimuli is random within a block, a manipulation which should greatly reduce the contribution of controlled attention. We conclude that simple featural variance at the ignored level is critical to produce the advantage of level repetition, and that the size of the effect can be asymmetrical.