Duplex perception of cues for stop consonants: Evidence for a phonetic mode

When the (vocalic) formant transitions appropriate for the stops in a synthetic approximation to [spa] or [sta] are presented to one ear and the remainder of the acoustic pattern to the other, listeners report a duplex percept. One side of the duplexity is the same coherent syllable ([spa] or [sta]) that is perceived when the pattern is presented in its original, undivided form; the other is a nonspeech chirp that corresponds to what the transitions sound like in isolation. This phenomenon is here used to determine why, in the case of stops, silence is an important cue. The results show that the silence cue affects the formant transitions differently when, on the one side of the duplex percept, the transitions support the perception of stop consonants, and when, on the other, they are perceived as nonspeech chirps. This indicates that the effectiveness of the silence cue is owing to distinctively phonetic (as against generally auditory) processes.     

Memory Errors From A Change of Standard: A Lack of Awareness or of Understanding?

Memory errors occur when the context standard that is used when judging target behaviors is different from the category norm standard that is available later when the behaviors are recalled. Is insufficient awareness the reason for this change-of-standard effect? Two kinds of awareness were maximized in each of two studies: (a) awareness of the relation between the judgment and the context - telling subjects to be sure to use the non-target persons for comparison when judging the target person (salience); and (b) awareness at recall of the earlier judgmental context - asking subjects to recall the non-target persons before recalling the target person (reinstatement). Context reinstatement reduced memory errors. But when context reinstatement and salience were combined, the memory errors reappeared. In Study 2, an attempt at debiasing failed. The change-of-standard effect is explained in terms of a "natural" tendency to use the current categorical meaning of a judgment to reconstruct the referent of its past contextualized meaning.     

An Investigation of the Structural Validity of Loevinger's Model and Measure of Ego Development

This study demonstrates the use of structural equation modeling for investigating a hierarchical model of personality based on Loevinger's (1976) conceptualization. This model was constructed to have a multifactorial and hierarchical structure in which the ego development construct served as the source of covariation for specific personality constructs of impulse control, interpersonal style, conscious preoccupations, and cognitive style. This model and three other conceivable models were investigated to determine which structure best represented the relations among specific personality constructs and ego development. The specific personality constructs were identified by measures chosen from the available pool of measures that were compatible with Loevinger's conceptualization. The four conceivable models were fitted to sample data from 267 adult subjects using confirmatory factor analysis and were compared with indices of model fit and methods for comparison of nested models. Results suggested that the four specific personality constructs and ego development are part of the same process. Although a hierarchical structure appeared tenable for this process, the role of ego development perhaps is not as dominant as envisioned by Loevinger. These results must be considered tentative due to measurement limitations.     

Serial dependence promotes the stability of perceived emotional expression depending on face similarity

Individuals can quickly and effortlessly recognize facial expressions, which is critical for social perception and emotion regulation. This sensitivity to even slight facial changes could result in unstable percepts of an individual’s expression over time. The visual system must therefore balance accuracy with maintaining perceptual stability. However, previous research has focused on our sensitivity to changing expressions, and the mechanism behind expression stability remains an open question. Recent results demonstrate that perception of facial identity is systematically biased toward recently seen visual input. This positive perceptual pull, or serial dependence, may help stabilize perceived expression. To test this, observers judged random facial expression morphs ranging from happy to sad to angry. We found a pull in perceived expression toward previously seen expressions, but only when the 1-back and current face had similar identities. Our results are consistent with the existence of the continuity field for expression, a specialized mechanism that promotes the stability of emotion perception, which could help facilitate social interactions and emotion regulation.     

Illusion of control and behavioral control attempts in obsessive-compulsive disorder

The present research used the illusion-of-control paradigm to examine the relationships among obsessive-compulsive disorder (OCD) symptoms, behavioral control attempts, and illusory sense of control. Participants were presented with a preprogrammed sequence of aversive and neutral visual stimuli and were encouraged to attempt to control the sequence with keyboard presses. Participants rated their perceived level of control 3 times during the task. In addition, the authors used the repetitiveness of keyboard presses as a measure of rigid, compulsive-like behavior. In Study 1, this procedure was administered to a sample of 55 students who also completed measures of OCD and depression. In Study 2, the task was administered to 22 participants with OCD and 22 matched participants without OCD. In line with predictions, OCD symptoms were correlated with higher illusory sense of control and with more repetitive behavioral control attempts. The authors discuss the central role of control in OCD and specifically the relationships between need for control and compulsive rituals, which may be conceptualized as means for achieving an illusory sense of control over stressful life events.     

Caregiving styles and anxiety among couples: coping versus not coping with cardiac illness

Background and Objectives: partners’ caregiving efforts are not always beneficial to both recipient and provider. Bowlby’s conceptualization of caregiving style as a stable predisposition may clarify such caregiving effects. The relationship between caregiving style (compulsive and sensitive) and anxiety among couples coping with cardiac illness and a matching control group not coping with cardiac illness were assessed. We hypothesized that one’s compulsive caregiving would associate positively, and one’s sensitive caregiving would associate negatively, with one’s and one’s partner’s anxiety across contexts (cardiac and non-cardiac) and gender. Design: A comparative design of 131 couples with a diagnosis of husbands’ acute cardiac syndrome and 68 matched couples in the community was applied. Methods: The Adult Caregiving Questionnaire and the Brief Symptoms Inventory were administered. Results: Structural equation modeling revealed that one’s compulsive caregiving was positively associated with one’s anxiety, across most contexts. Multi-group analyses revealed that the associations between one’s compulsive caregiving and one’s partner’s anxiety levels differed depending on gender and context. Conclusions: The distress which emerges in an individual who takes on a caregiving role and in his/her partner seems to result not only from the demands of the concrete caregiving situation but also from one’s and one’s partner’s developmental history.     

Automatic processing of psychological distance: evidence from a Stroop task

A picture-word version of the Stroop task was used to test the automatic activation of psychological distance by words carrying various senses of psychological distance: temporal (tomorrow, in a year), social (friend, enemy), and hypotheticality (sure, maybe). The pictures implied depth, with the words appearing relatively close to or distant from the observer. The participants classified the spatial distance of words faster when the word's implicit psychological distance matched its spatial distance (e.g., a geographically close word was classified faster when it was "friend" than when it was "enemy"). The findings are consistent with the idea that psychological distance is accessed automatically, even when it is not directly related to people's current goals, and suggest that psychological distance is an important dimension of meaning, common to spatial distance, temporal distance, social distance, and hypotheticality.     

Peritraumatic fear, helplessness and horror and peritraumatic dissociation: do physical and cognitive symptoms of panic mediate the relationship between the two?

The goal of this study was to examine whether panic mediates the relationship between fear, helplessness, and horror (PTSD criterion A2) and dissociation at the time of trauma. The study sample included 709 police officers and 317 peer-nominated civilians who had been exposed to a variety of critical incidents. Participants filled out measures of critical incident exposure, PTSD criterion A2, panic, and dissociation. Results indicate that together, physical and cognitive symptoms of panic completely mediate the relationship between criterion A2 and dissociation in civilians, and partially mediate that relationship in police. These results provide support for the idea that panic mediates the relationship between fear, helplessness, and horror (criterion A2) and dissociation at the time of trauma. The results also raise the possibility, however, that the mediational role of panic may be further moderated by additional variables.     

The effect of level of construal on the temporal distance of activity enactment

A series of four studies demonstrates that, across different operationalizations of level of construal, different types of activities, and for both the self and another person as targets, construing activities in high-level terms fosters perception of the more distal future as appropriate for their enactment. Specifically, the studies show that thinking about superordinate “why” (rather than subordinate “how”) aspects of actions, about the implications of actions for one’s personality (rather than the objects that would be used in performing the action), and about abstract (rather than concrete) aspects of actions leads people to expect the actions to be performed in the more distant future. These results suggest that the association of level of construal and time perspective is bi-directional, in that time perspective affects level of construal and, in addition, level of construal affects time perspective.