Using the regulation of accuracy to study performance when the correct answer is not known

We examined memory performance in multiple‐choice questions when correct answers were not always present. How do participants answer when they are aware that the correct alternative may not be present? To answer this question we allowed participants to decide on the number of alternatives in their final answer (the plurality option), and whether they wanted to report or withhold their answer (report option). We also studied the memory benefits when both the plurality and the report options were available. In two experiments participants watched a crime and then answered questions with five alternatives. Half of the questions were presented with the correct alternative and half were not. Participants selected one alternative and rated confidence, then selected three alternatives and again rated confidence, and finally indicated whether they preferred the answer with one or with three alternatives (plurality option). Lastly, they decided whether to report or withhold the answer (report option). Results showed that participants’ confidence in their selections was higher, that they chose more single answers, and that they preferred to report more often when the correct alternative was presented. We also attempted to classify a posteriori questions as either presented with or without the correct alternative from participants’ selection. Classification was better than chance, and encouraging, but the forensic application of the classification technique is still limited since there was a large percentage of responses that were incorrectly classified. Our results also showed that the memory benefits of both plurality and report options overlap.     

Group identity as a source of threat and means of compensation: Establishing personal control through group identification and ideology

Compensatory control theory proposes that individuals can assuage threatened personal control by endorsing external systems or agents that provide a sense that the world is meaningfully ordered. Recent research drawing on this perspective finds that one means by which individuals can compensate for a loss of control is adherence to ideological beliefs about the social world. This prior work, however, has largely neglected the role of social groups in defining either the nature of control threat or the means by which individuals compensate for these threats. In four experiments (N = 466), we test the possibility that group‐based threats to personal control can be effectively managed by defensively identifying with the threatened group and its values. We provide evidence for the specificity of these effects by demonstrating that defensive identification and ideology endorsement are specific to the content of the group‐based threat.     

School-Aged Children’s Attachment Dismissal Prospectively Predicts Divergence of Their Behavioral and Self-Reported Anxiety

Recent studies on attachment in middle childhood suggest that dismissing children tend to underreport their psychological distress relative to physiological indices of distress. However, this has yet to be examined in the context of behavioral indicators of distress. In this longitudinal study, a community sample of children (N?=?34, M _age?=?9.59 years) completed the Child Attachment Interview at Time 1. Three years later, they returned and completed the Trier Social Stress Task for Children (TSST-C), providing ratings of their state anxiety before and after the stressor. Four raters coded children’s behavioral signs of anxiety (e.g., non-signaling gestures, eye movement, posture, facial expression) on a 7-point scale during the storytelling and arithmetic tasks in the TSST-C. Hierarchical linear regressions revealed that greater attachment dismissal was associated with greater behavioral anxiety in both the story and math tasks, but was not associated with greater increases in self-reported anxiety. Dismissal prospectively predicted increased divergence of behavioral and self-reported anxiety, such that higher dismissal was associated with higher divergence scores (i.e., underreporting of anxiety relative to behavioral indicators). We discuss these results in terms of their contribution to understanding attachment and emotion in an understudied developmental phase.     

Algebra and the adolescent brain

New fMRI evidence suggests that adolescents could be at an advantage for learning algebra compared with adults. Qin and colleagues present findings indicating that after several days of practice adolescents rely on prefrontal regions to support the retrieval of algebraic rules to solve equations, as do adults. Unlike adults, however, after practice adolescents decrease their reliance on parietal regions, which assist in the transformation of the equations, suggesting an enhanced ability for learning algebra. These findings are discussed with regard to adolescent brain maturation.     

Childhood predictors of adolescent substance use in a longitudinal study of children with ADHD

Children diagnosed with attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder (ADHD; n = 142) were prospectively monitored into adolescence (13-18 years old) to evaluate their risk for elevated substance use relative to same-aged adolescents without ADHD (n = 100). Probands reported higher levels of alcohol, tobacco, and illicit drug use than did controls. Group differences were apparent for alcohol symptom scores but not for alcohol or marijuana disorder diagnoses. Within probands, severity of childhood inattention symptoms predicted multiple substance use outcomes: childhood oppositional defiant disorder/conduct disorder (ODD/CD) symptoms predicted illicit drug use and CD symptoms. Persistence of ADHD and adolescent CD were each associated with elevated substance use behaviors relative to controls. Further study of the mediating mechanisms that explain risk for early substance use and abuse in children with ADHD is warranted.     

Reexamining adaptation and the set point model of happiness: reactions to changes in marital status

According to adaptation theory, individuals react to events but quickly adapt back to baseline levels of subjective well-being. To test this idea, the authors used data from a 15-year longitudinal study of over 24.000 individuals to examine the effects of marital transitions on life satisfaction. On average, individuals reacted to events and then adapted back toward baseline levels. However, there were substantial individual differences in this tendency. Individuals who initially reacted strongly were still far from baseline years later, and many people exhibited trajectories that were in the opposite direction to that predicted by adaptation theory. Thus, marital transitions can be associated with long-lasting changes in satisfaction, but these changes can be overlooked when only average trends are examined.     

Alexithymia--state or trait?

Alexithymia refers to a specific disturbance in emotional processing that is manifested by difficulties in identifying and verbalizing feelings and a tendency to focus on and amplify the somatic sensations that accompany emotional arousal. Alexithymia is conceptualized both as an affect-deficit disorder and a continuous personality variable. The main purpose of the present study was to investigate the stability levels of alexithymia with regard to changes in emotional distress levels caused by university exams. We tested 20 university students at four different times, before and after the exams. Alexithymic features and self-reported emotional distress (trait anxiety and physical symptoms) were measured. Whereas emotional distress measures changed significantly during the diverse phases, the level of alexithymia remained unchanged. We therefore conclude that alexithymia represents a constant trait.     

An 8q21 deletion in a patient with comorbid psychosis and mental retardation

Systematic investigations indicate that some of the recognized psychiatric disorders can be identified among those with mental retardation due to chromosomal abnormalities. We report a psychotic patient with mild mental retardation (intelligence quotient: 68) and minor anomalies that had a chromosomal aberration not previously described in a psychotic patient. Our patient highlights the importance of the cytogenetic study in psychiatric patients with comorbid mental retardation or minor anomalies. In addition, her psychosis symptoms may be helpful to propose a new candidate gene for psychosis.     

Systems for the Production of Plagiarists? The Implications Arising from the Use of Plagiarism Detection Systems in UK Universities for Asian Learners

This paper argues that the inappropriate framing and implementation of plagiarism detection systems in UK universities can unwittingly construct international students as ‘plagiarists’. It argues that these systems are often implemented with inappropriate assumptions about plagiarism and the way in which new members of a community of practice develop the skills to become full members of that community. Drawing on the literature and some primary data it shows how expectations, norms and practices become translated and negotiated in such a way that legitimate attempts to conform with the expectations of the community of practice often become identified as plagiarism and illegitimate attempts at cheating often become obscured from view. It argues that this inappropriate framing and implementation of plagiarism detection systems may make academic integrity more illusive rather than less. It argues that in its current framing – as systems for ‘detection and discipline’ – plagiarism detection systems may become a new micro-politics of power with devastating consequences for those excluded.     

Using a combined blocking procedure to teach color discrimination to a child with autism

A combined blocking procedure was used to teach a child with autism to select two colors on request. First, two color cards were placed at fixed locations on a table and the experimenter repeatedly requested the child to touch one of the colors. After 10 consecutive correct selections, the child was asked to touch the other color. Blocks of trials with each color were systematically thinned until requests were presented randomly with few errors. Subsequently, the location of the selection cards was systematically alternated until the child was able to touch the correct card when both requests and card positions were presented in random fashion.