Conjunction benefits and costs reveal decision priming for first-order and second-order features

Across two experiments, decision priming was examined for conjunctions composed of first-order or first- and second-order stimulus features. Observers indicated the presence or absence of one or two features in a Gabor stimulus. When a pair of stimulus features differed in their speed of discrimination, responses indicating the presence of a conjunction were faster than those for the single feature for which discrimination was slowest (conjunction benefits). Also, responses indicating the absence of a conjunction were delayed if one of the features was present (conjunction costs). These results show that first- and second-order features can prime decisions about the presence of a conjunction and suggest that the two kinds of signals can be combined at a decision stage after the discrimination of stimulus properties has begun for each system.     

Racism,Antisemitism, and the Schism Between Blacks and Jews in the United States: A Pilot Intergroup Encounter Program

A schism now exists between Blacks and Jews in the United States, 2 groups that were strong allies during the civil rights movement. The authors describe the historical antecedents of and contributing factors to this schism and present information on and lessons learned from 2 Black‐Jewish dialogues that were conducted. Existe en la actualidad un cisma entre Negros y Judíos en los Estados Unidos, 2 grupos que fueron grandes aliados durante el movimiento de reivindicación de los derechos civiles. Los autores describen los antecedentes históricos y los factores que han contribuido a este cisma y presentan la información obtenida y las lecciones aprendidas a partir de 2 conversaciones llevadas a cabo entre individuos Negros y Judíos.     

Age differences in item manipulation span: the case of letter-number sequencing

The authors report 2 experiments in which they examined age differences in working memory tasks involving complex item manipulation (i.e., letter-number sequencing). In Experiment 1, age differences on tasks involving item manipulation were not greater than age differences on tasks requiring recall of items in the order in which they appeared, suggesting that older adults do not have difficulty with item manipulation per se. In Experiment 2, slower presentation rates increased age differences in item manipulation spans, although age differences at the fastest rate may be attributed to differences in strategy use. In both experiments, age differences were largest when participants were most likely to be remembering familiar sequences, suggesting that older adults may have difficulties dampening the representations of such sequences once they are activated.     

Why a superman cannot help a tsunami: activation of grammatical class influences resolution of young and older adults' tip-of-the-tongue states

Young (aged 18-23), young-old (aged 61-73), and old-old (aged 75-89) adults saw general knowledge questions whose answers were designated target words. Participants responded that they knew, did not know, or were having a tip-of-the-tongue (TOT) state for the answer. After TOT states, participants saw a 5-word list in which 1 was a "prime" containing the target's first syllable and that shared or differed in part of speech from the target. The question was then presented again, and target retrieval was attempted. Results revealed age differences in resolution of TOT states as a function of the prime's grammatical class. Following different part-of-speech primes, young and young-old adults showed increased resolution of TOT states relative to phonologically unrelated words, whereas old-old adults did not. In contrast, old-old adults demonstrated decreased resolution of TOT states following same part-of-speech primes, whereas young and young-old adults' TOT resolution was unaffected. These findings are consistent with interactive activation theories of speech production in which phonology can influence lexical selection and also suggest an increased susceptibility to phonological competitors in the later stages of the aging process.     

Transfer of metacognitive skills and hint seeking in monkeys

Metacognition is knowledge that can be expressed as confidence judgments about what one knows (monitoring) and by strategies for learning what one does not know (control). Although there is a substantial literature on cognitive processes in animals, little is known about their metacognitive abilities. Here we show that rhesus macaques, trained previously to make retrospective confidence judgments about their performance on perceptual tasks, transferred that ability immediately to a new perceptual task and to a working memory task. We also show that monkeys can learn to request "hints" when they are given problems that they would otherwise have to solve by trial and error. This study demonstrates, for the first time, that nonhuman primates share with humans the ability to monitor and transfer their metacognitive ability both within and between different cognitive tasks, and to seek new knowledge on a need-to-know basis.     

Motives for Fostering Children with Alcohol-Related Disabilities

A sample of 63 licensed foster parents was asked, “What motivates you to foster a child who has a fetal alcohol spectrum disorder?” The responses to this question were grouped together by licensed foster parents. The grouped data were subjected to multidimensional scaling and cluster analysis. Results indicated that foster parents were motivated to care for children with alcohol-related disabilities by witnessing positive changes in the children in their care, helping children focus on their strengths, using their own parenting experience, earning an income, assisting children who have disabilities, and helping children stay connected to their families and communities. Foster parents who foster children with alcohol-related disabilities foster for similar reasons to those who foster children with special needs in general. Differences between the literature on foster parent motives and study results were described. Foster parents who are caring for children with alcohol-related disabilities see their care as specialized, see their roles as long-term helpers facilitators to children, their birth families and home communities, and emphasize positive experiences of fostering.     

On the failure of distractor inhibition in the attentional blink

We investigated whether a failure of distractor inhibition contributes to the magnitude of theattentional blink (AB). Subjects viewed dual-targetrapid serial visual presentation (RSVP) streams, where the distractors that directly preceded and succeeded Target 2 (T2−1, T2+1) were either identical to each other or different. Previously, Dux, Coltheart, and Harris (2006) found enhanced target report in RSVP due to repetition of distractors around Target 1, which was interpreted as evidence of distractor inhibition. Here, distractor repetition again attenuated the AB, but only at lag 2, the Target 2 position where T2−1 would have undergone attentive processing. Our results demonstrate that the distractor repetition effect is dependent on attention, and that a failure to inhibit distractors contributes to the AB.     

Nonword repetition in specific language impairment: More than a phonological short-term memory deficit

The possible role of phonological short-term memory in the nonword repetition deficit of children with specific language impairment (SLI) was investigated in a study comparing serial recall and nonword repetition of sequences of auditorily presented CV syllables. The SLI group showed impairments in both serial recall and nonword repetition relative to typically developing children of the same age, however the SLI deficit in nonword repetition was greater and persisted even when differences on an independent measure of short-term memory were taken into account. These findings cannot be readily explained in terms of a sole deficit in short-term memory, and point instead to differences between the serial recall and nonword repetition paradigms as potential factors contributing to this disorder of learning.     

Interval recording for duration events: a re‐evaluation

In two experiments, events that were recorded using continuous duration recording (CDR) were rescored using 10‐s partial interval (PIR), 10‐s momentary time sampling (MTS) and 20‐s MTS. Results of Experiment 1 showed that data paths generated by each interval method produced conclusions about functional control that were similar to those based on CDR when using reversal designs; however, for multielement designs, 10‐s PIR was prone to showing differentiation between data paths that was not evident with CDR. Results of Experiment 2 showed that both 10‐s and 20‐s MTS yielded data paths on behavior–behavior relations (e.g., covarying responses) that were consistent with CDR whereas 10‐s PIR produced some behavior–behavior patterns that were not. In both experiments, 10‐s MTS generated data paths that were nearly identical to the respective CDR data paths. The implications of these findings for researchers and clinicians are briefly discussed. Copyright © 2007 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.