Threats to autonomy: motivational responses to risk information

Two studies considered the role of autonomy in people's motivational response to health‐risk information. In Study 1, ‘non‐smoker’ participants (N = 59) completed a measure of autonomy and read either health‐risk information about smoking or neutral information. Those who read the health‐risk information reported less autonomous motivation for not smoking than did those who read the neutral information. However, level of autonomy moderated this effect: lower autonomy participants reported less autonomous motivation after reading the health‐risk information than after reading the neutral information but there was no such effect for higher autonomy participants. Study 2 (N = 100) supported the results of Study 1 using a sample of smokers, with a significant interaction between autonomy and health‐risk condition predicting autonomous motivation. Higher autonomy participants reported greater autonomous motivation to quit smoking after reading health‐risk information than after reading neutral information. There was no effect of condition for lower autonomy participants. Autonomous and controlled motivation was also considered in relation to the antecedents of intention outlined in the TPB. The findings are discussed in relation to the differential motivational impact of risk information on people with higher or lower autonomy. Copyright © 2007 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

The origins of cognitive dissonance: evidence from children and monkeys

In a study exploring the origins of cognitive dissonance, preschoolers and capuchins were given a choice between two equally preferred alternatives (two different stickers and two differently colored M&M's, respectively). On the basis of previous research with adults, this choice was thought to cause dissonance because it conflicted with subjects' belief that the two options were equally valuable. We therefore expected subjects to change their attitude toward the unchosen alternative, deeming it less valuable. We then presented subjects with a choice between the unchosen option and an option that was originally as attractive as both options in the first choice. Both groups preferred the novel over the unchosen option in this experimental condition, but not in a control condition in which they did not take part in the first decision. These results provide the first evidence of decision rationalization in children and nonhuman primates. They suggest that the mechanisms underlying cognitive-dissonance reduction in human adults may have originated both developmentally and evolutionarily earlier than previously thought.     

Transferences Toward the Co-Therapist Couple: Triadic Relationships and Selfobject Needs

This paper examines transferences toward the male/female co-therapists within a developmental context, using concepts from self psychology, intersubjectivity, and infant research. In addition, it proposes that some individuals have selfobject needs specifically related to the parental unit, so triadic relationships can influence one's development. Clinical examples elucidate the repetitive and selfobject dimensions of the transferences within the intersubjective field formed by the triad of a patient and the male and female co-therapists.     

What Determines Visual Statistical Learning Performance? Insights From Information Theory

In order to extract the regularities underlying a continuous sensory input, the individual elements constituting the stream have to be encoded and their transitional probabilities (TPs) should be learned. This suggests that variance in statistical learning (SL) performance reflects efficiency in encoding representations as well as efficiency in detecting their statistical properties. These processes have been taken to be independent and temporally modular, where first, elements in the stream are encoded into internal representations, and then the co‐occurrences between them are computed and registered. Here, we entertain a novel hypothesis that one unifying construct—the rate of information in the sensory input—explains learning performance. This theoretical approach merges processes related to encoding of events and those related to learning their regularities into a single computational principle. We present data from two large‐scale experiments with over 800 participants tested in support for this hypothesis, showing that rate of information in a visual stream clearly predicts SL performance, and that similar rate of information values leads to similar SL performance. We discuss the implications for SL theory and its relation to regularity learning.     

A Comparison of Written,Vocal, and Video Feedback When Training Teachers

We compared the effectiveness of and preference for different feedback strategies when training six special education teachers during a 5-day summer training program. In Experiment 1, teachers received written or vocal feedback while learning to implement two different types of preference assessments. In Experiment 2, we compared either written or vocal feedback to vocal feedback combined with video replays of performance while training the teachers to implement two variations of discrete-trial training. The different forms of feedback were similarly effective for all of the participants. However, all of the teachers showed a preference for vocal feedback when they could choose which form of feedback they would receive from the experimenter. Results have important implications for the use of feedback when training teachers.     

Prevalence and correlates of ICD-11 adjustment disorder: Findings from the Zurich Adjustment Disorder Study

Background/Objective: The 11th revision of the International Classification of Diseases (ICD-11) will provide a new definition of adjustment disorder (AjD). The aim of the present study is to report on prevalence and correlates of ICD-11 AjD in a high-risk sample. Method: Three hundred thirty persons who had lost their job involuntarily were sampled by local job centres. The Munich Composite International Diagnostic Interview was administered with a new AjD module. Associations between AjD and correlates were investigated with logistic regression analyses. Results: 27.3% of the participants reported the AjD core symptom pattern. 13.8% men and 17.2% women met diagnostic guidelines of ICD-11 AjD. Prevalence increased with age and exposure to multiple stressors. The AjD core symptom pattern was associated with various sociodemographic correlates (e. g., lower financial household budget), whereas the full ICD-11 diagnosis including the exclusion algorithm was not. Regarding work-related factors, AjD occurred with a lower probability if the last job position had higher responsibilities and more general confidence for the future. Conclusions: ICD-11 AjD has a high prevalence among persons who lost their jobs involuntarily. Healthcare professionals should be aware of this problem. Research to investigate the ICD-11 AjD concept in the general populations and other subpopulations is needed.     

Caudate nucleus-dependent response strategies in a virtual navigation task are associated with lower basal cortisol and impaired episodic memory

The present research examined the relationship between endogenous glucocorticoids, navigational strategies in a virtual navigation task, and performance on standard neuropsychological assessments of memory. Healthy young adult participants (N = 66, mean age: 21.7) were tested on the 4 on 8 virtual maze (4/8 VM) and standard neuropsychological tests such as the Rey-Osterrieth Complex Figure (RO) and the Rey Auditory Verbal Learning Task (RAVLT), which measure episodic memory. The 4/8 VM differentiates between navigational strategies, where participants either use a hippocampal-dependent spatial strategy by building relationships between landmarks, or a caudate nucleus-dependent stimulus–response strategy by automatizing a pattern of open and closed arms to learn the location of objects within the maze. Degree of stress was assessed by administering the Perceived Stress Scale (PSS) questionnaire. Cortisol samples were taken on two consecutive days upon waking, 30 min after waking, at 11 am, 4 pm, and 9 pm. There was a significant difference in basal levels of cortisol between spatial and response learners. Interestingly, response learners had significantly lower cortisol levels throughout the day. The two groups did not differ in terms of perceived stress as measured with the PSS questionnaire. Moreover, there was no significant correlation between PSS scores and salivary cortisol levels, indicating that the higher cortisol levels in the spatial group were not associated with greater perceived stress. In addition, participants who spontaneously used a spatial strategy performed significantly better on the RAVLT and RO. These data indicate that the cortisol levels in the spatial group may be optimal in terms of episodic memory performance whereas the cortisol levels in the response group may be associated with poorer memory. These results are suggestive of an inverted U-shaped curve describing the effects of basal levels of circulating cortisol on memory in young adults.     

On the role of bias in dissociated phonological priming effects: A reply to Goldinger (1999)

Phonological priming studies have revealed two dissociated effects: low-similarity facilitation and highsimilarity interference (Hamburger & Slowiaczek, 1996; Slowiaczek & Hamburger, 1992). Because these two effects are influenced by different variables, they most likely reflect different processes that occur during auditory word recognition. Goldinger (1999) suggests that one bias is responsible for all phonological priming effects. In this reply, we argue against such a position. Although low similarity facilitation is likely the product of this bias, the data on phonological priming indicate that the dissociated highsimilarity interference cannot be produced by the same mechanism. Instead, the data indicate that high-similarity interference may reflect lexical processes.     

Stress and context in auditory word recognition

Recent work in psycholinguistics has revealed that the role of lexical stress in auditory word recognition may be a complex one involving other potential sources of information. In the present investigation, the nature of lexical stress effects on auditory word recognition in context is examined. The ability of subjects to identify words based on the prosodic pattern of the word is examined for the words in isolation and in a sentence context. The results revealed a small influence of stress on the identification of the stimulus waveforms relative to a large effect of context. The data indicate that lexical stress is used in the identification of the words; however, its role is minor compared to the importance of contextual information.This article is based on sections of a doctoral dissertation presented to Indiana University, Bloomington, Indiana. This research was supported in part by NIH research grant NS-12179-08 to Indiana University and a Graduate Student Grant-in-Aid of Research from Indiana University.