Decision-making models of remember-know judgments: comment on Rotello, Macmillan, and Reeder (2004)

The sum-difference theory of remembering and knowing (STREAK) provides a sophisticated account of many interactions in the remember-know (R-K) area (C. M. Rotello, N. A. Macmillan, & J. A. Reeder, 2004). It assumes 2 orthogonal strength dimensions and oblique criterion planes. Another dual-process model (J. T. Wixted & V. Stretch, 2004) with one decision axis has also been applied to R-K judgments with considerable success and provides new insights into the processes involved. An analysis of the 4 major R-K interactions can also be explained by a simpler one-dimensional signal detection theory (J. C. Dunn, 2004a). However these models do not make contact with standard work on recognition memory, so their scope is limited. To bridge this gap, a global-matching model (a theory of distributed associative memory [TODAM]) for R-K judgments is proposed. This model can produce good fits to the data, and there are established experimental manipulations with which to test it. It provides further support for the idea that R judgments are based on associative information, whereas K judgments are based on item information.     

Predictors of suicidal ideation among "at risk" cocaine-using African American women

The focus of this study was to identify factors that differentiate women drug abusers who had experienced suicidal ideation from those who did not. Face-to-face interviews were conducted with 221 cocaine-using women in Atlanta, GA, 88 (39.8%) of whom reported thinking about committing suicide at least once during the 90 days prior to interview and 133 (60.2%) of whom did not. Multivariate logistic regression was used to identify predictors of suicidal ideation, and post hoc goodness-of-fit tests were conducted to assess the robustness of final models derived. Model 1 excluded all psychosocial functioning measures and Model 2 included these items. Both models showed that suicidal ideation was more common among women who were unemployed, had been abused sexually, engaged in sexual relations to cope with stresses, or had less helpful relatives. In addition, Model 1 revealed a heightened risk for women experiencing financial problems and those who had a previous mental health diagnosis, whereas Model 2 showed an elevated risk among women who experienced anxiety and those who had lower levels of self-esteem. These findings suggest the need for prevention and intervention programs that target at-risk women, and for such programs to include an emphasis on suicidal ideation in addition to focusing on risk factors that are addressed more commonly.     

Intermanual interactions related to movement amplitudes and endpoint locations

In almost all studies of bimanual movements with same and different amplitudes, the difference between amplitudes has been confounded with a difference between endpoint locations. The present authors varied those parameters orthogonally. In addition, they presented target locations on the surface on which the movements were produced (direct cues) and on a monitor (indirect cues). Participants' (N = 12) reaction times were longer when both amplitudes and endpoint locations differed than when they were the same. Intermanual amplitude correlations were reduced whenever 1 of the movement parameters differed for the 2 hands; only when cues were presented on the monitor was the amplitude correlation further reduced when both movement parameters were different. The results indicate that structural constraints on bimanual movements take effect on both amplitudes and endpoint locations. The relative importance of those 2 parameters is largely independent of the type of cue.     

Storage and retrieval of serial‐order information

In this paper I will first review some seminal work by Conrad on the storage and retrieval of serial‐order information which is still very relevant today. Then I will discuss the TODAM (theory of distributed associative memory) approach to serial‐order effects. I will compare the three TODAM serial‐order models (the chaining model, the chunking model and the power‐set model; Murdock, 1995) but concentrate on the power set model. Its original problems can be solved, but a revised and augmented version has some new problems. This paper is more of a progress report than a finished product, so the reader should be prepared to follow the twists and turns of the argument.     

The future-orientation of memory: Planning as a key component mediating the high levels of recall found with survival processing

In a series of papers, Nairne and colleagues have demonstrated that tasks encouraging participants to judge words for relevance to survival led to better recall than did tasks lacking survival relevance. Klein, Robertson, and Delton (2010) presented data suggesting that the future-directed temporal orientation of the survival task (e.g., planning), rather than survival per se, accounts for the good recall found with the task. In the present studies we manipulated the amount of survival and planning processing encouraged by a set of encoding tasks. Participants performed tasks that encouraged processing stimuli for their relevance to (a) both survival and planning, (b) planning, but not survival, or (c) survival but not planning. We predicted, and found, that recall performance associated with tasks encouraging planning (i.e., survival with planning and planning without survival) should exceed tasks that encouraged survival but not planning (i.e., survival without planning). We draw several conclusions. First, planning is a necessary component of the superior recall found in the survival paradigm. Second, memory, from an evolutionary perspective, is inherently prospective—tailored by natural selection to support future decisions and judgements that cannot be known in advance with certainty.     

The Religious Schema Scale: Construction and Initial Validation of a Quantitative Measure for Religious Styles

This article presents the Religious Schema Scale (RSS). Its conceptual background is the model of religious styles. After a conceptual discussion of the relation between religious styles and religious schemata, the steps of scale construction are reported. Based on 822 responses from research participants in the United States and Germany to a preliminary 78-item version, we used construct-oriented iterative and factor-analytic procedures for reducing the RSS to a 15-item version that consists of three 5-item subscales with acceptable reliabilities. Confirmatory factor analysis indicates that the RSS has a robust 3-factor structure, which is cross-culturally valid in both the United States and Germany. We report correlations of the RSS with the Big Five, Psychological Well-Being, Religious Fundamentalism, and Right-Wing Authoritarianism. We also present predictive characteristics of the RSS in regard to Fowler's stages of faith. Finally, we report results on the incremental validity of the RSS.     

The Development of Children's Concepts of Hardness

This study was conducted for three purposes. First, we assessed the development of children's concepts of hardness as an intensive physical quantity. We hypothesized a U-shaped behavioral growth curve for children's judgments on tasks measuring intensive physical quantity, but the hypothesis was not confirmed. The justifications accompanying correct and incorrect judgments for hardness were similar to those where U-shaped behavioral growth was found for other intensive physical quantities (temperature and sweetness). The second purpose was to determine how children solve seriation and transitivity tasks where hardness was the content. More older than younger children solved these tasks, and the transitivity task was correctly solved after the seriation task was correctly solved. One pattern of solutions for transitivity and intensive physical quantity allowed for differentiation between younger and older children who solved the intensivity tasks correctly. The third purpose was to determine whether children think that objects' hardnesses are labile (i.e., hard objects can become soft and vice versa) by simply adding more of that substance. More younger than older children thought that this was true     

Book Reviews

Dan Olweus. Prediction of Aggression (On the Basis of a Projective Test). Stockholm: Scandinavian Test Corporation, 1969. Reviewed by A. I. Rabin

F. D. Naylor. Personality and Educational Achievement. New York: Wiley, 1972, 162 pages, $6.95. Reviewed by Frank H. Farley

Hendrik M. Ruitenbeek (Ed.) The Analytic Situation: How Patient and Therapist Communicate. Chicago: Aldine, 1973, 222 pages, $8.50. Reviewed by Emanuel Berman     

Managing deviance: Hustling,homophobia, and the bodybuilding subculture

The subculture of bodybuilding is the backdrop of an analysis of some contradictions inherent in American masculinity. One of the most unusual, but telling of these has to do with “hustling”: the widespread selling of sexual favors by bodybuilders to gay men. In this, one also finds the incongruent presence of homophobia. Hence, homosexual behavior is juxtaposed by anti‐homosexual behavior. This study shows that this irony is necessary if the hustler is to maintain his alleged heterosexual identity. Hypermasculinity and strategies of economic survival in the highly competitive southern California bodybuilding scene are also examined in relation to hustling and more generally to American masculinity. Contradictions in bodybuilding are shown to be more problematic than studies of other street hustlers and prison populations where homosexual behavior is juggled with heterosexual identity.