Time-stamping computer events to report .1-msec accuracy of events in the Micro Experimental Laboratory

A critical problem in most real-time programming tasks is the verification that timing of the presented displays and recorded events occur at the expected times. It is often difficult for psychologists to verify critical timing because of the lack of costly specialized tools and technicians to measure events with millisecond accuracy. Algorithms utilized in a new Time Audit mechanism, added to the Micro Experimental Laboratory, are described. This new mechanism involves the recording and time stamping of all input and output events with 0.1-msec accuracy. This allows the experimenter to determine the initiation, duration, and termination of each event and also makes it possible to relate these events to the synchronization of the screen refresh cycle. A customized user interface provides a time log and event-tracing feature that enables nonprogrammers to determine the duration of command execution to the .1-msec level, allowing rapid, precise assessment of program execution. The resulting time log provides a detailed specification of the experimental events for debugging and a permanent record of the experimental procedure.     

Hemispheric differences in the interference among components of compound gratings

The relationship between local/global and high/low spatial-frequency processing in hemispheric asymmetries was explored. Subjects were required to judge the orientation of a high- or low-spatial-frequency component of a compound grating presented in the left visual field (LVF) or right visual field (RVF). In Experiment 1, attention was focused on one or the other component. A signal detection analysis indicated that sensitivity (d′) to the high-spatial-frequency target was reduced more by the presence of the low-spatial-frequency component when both were presented in the LVF rather than in the RVF. In Experiment 2, subjects determined whether a target orientation was present, independent of spatial frequency at only a single level (i.e., at the high- or low-spatial-frequency level), as opposed to both or neither level. An RVF/LH (left hemisphere) advantage was found when the decision was based on the orientation of the high-frequency component. The asymmetrical influence of visual field of presentation and spatial frequency upon sensitivity is discussed in terms of hemispheric differences in the magnitude of inhibition between spatial-frequency channels and in the role of transient channel activity to capture and direct higher order attentional processes.     

Fundamentalism, Gender and Family Therapy

Adherence to religiously and culturally defined communities is a complex affair, likely to be misconstrued by those perceiving such communities from the 'outside'. This is a major reason why multiculturalism has failed to deal with the threat posed by religious fundamentalism. In particular, dissenting voices within these communities are marginalized. Fundamentalism is understood here as a specific anti-modern movement, a response to the crisis of rationality that draws on the same emotional forces as do postmodernism and feminism but to different ends. It is characterized by acceptance of the existence of absolute authority, militancy and anti-humanism. It casts women as both 'ideal' (as mothers and bearers of the culture) and 'other' (as sexual subjects). It embodies a failure of the imaginative capacity to tolerate difference and otherness, linking it with other narcissistic responses to the tensions of modernity. Challenging fundamentalism, in therapy and in politics, requires a more subtle understanding of the dynamics of dissent within cultural and religious communities too conveniently characterized by outsiders as homogeneous.     

Positive Psychological States in the Daily Life of a Sample of Working Women

This study of a sample of working women investigated where positive experiences were derived from in everyday life, focusing on the domains of work and nonwork (leisure). It examined how aspects of the situation, in terms of principal environmental influences in work and leisure, and the person, in terms of locus of control, were associated with positive subjective states and psychological well-being. The study employed questionnaires and also the experience sampling method. The results showed that both work and leisure were important for positive psychological states and that internal locus of control was associated with greater enjoyment, interest, feelings of immediate control, intrinsic motivation, life satisfaction, and affective well-being and a number of principal environmental influences.     

“Are False Memories Permanent?”: An Investigation of the Long-Term Effects of Source Misattributions

With growing concerns over children's suggestibility and how it may impact their reliability as witnesses, there is increasing interest in determining the long-term effects of induced memories. The goal of the present research was to learn whether source misattributions found by Ceci, Huffman, Smith, and Loftus (1994) caused permanent memory alterations in the subjects tested. When 22 children from the original study were reinterviewed 2 years later, they recalled 77% of all true events. However, they only consented to 13% of all false events, compared to the 22% false consent rate (among the same subset of children) found by Ceci et al. (1994). Additionally, while children remained accurate in their recall of true events (they maintained assents 78% of the time), they “recanted” their earlier false consents 77% of the time, after the 2-year delay. Implications of these findings for child witnesses and the legal system are discussed.