Self-reported parental abuse relates to autobiographical memory style in patients with eating disorders

Previous research has shown a relationship between levels of self-reported childhood abuse and overgeneral memory style. This relationship was further clarified in patients with an eating disorder (ED). Patients and healthy controls completed a task in which they had to generate specific autobiographical memories to emotional cue words. The results showed that first, the ED group, relative to the controls, produced more first memories that were "overgeneral" and fewer first memories that were specific. Second, in the ED group, the level of self-reported parental abuse was positively correlated with the tendency to produce overgeneral memories to negative cues. This effect remained significant even after levels of depressed mood were controlled for.     

Adult age differences in unconscious transference: Source confusion or identity blending?

Eyewitnesses are known often to falsely identify a familiar but innocent bystander when asked to pick out a perpetrator from a lineup. Such unconscious transference errors have been attributed to either identity confusions at encoding or source retrieval errors. Three experiments contrasted younger and older adults in their susceptibility to such misidentifications. Participants saw photographs of perpetrators, then a series of mug shots of innocent bystanders. A week later, they saw lineups containing bystanders (and others containing perpetrators in Experiment 3) and were asked whether any of the perpetrators were present. When younger faces were used as stimuli (Experiments 1 and 3), older adults showed higher rates of transference errors. When older faces were used as stimuli (Experiments 2 and 3), no such age effects in rates of unconscious transference were apparent. In addition, older adults in Experiment 3 showed an own-age bias effect for correct identification of targets. Unconscious transference errors were found to be due to both source retrieval errors and identity confusions, but age-related increases were found only in the latter.     

The effects of the presence of a face and direct eye gaze on voice identity learning

We rarely become familiar with the voice of another person in isolation but usually also have access to visual identity information, thus learning to recognize their voice and face in parallel. There are conflicting findings as to whether learning to recognize voices in audiovisual vs audio-only settings is advantageous or detrimental to learning. One prominent finding shows that the presence of a face overshadows the voice, hindering voice identity learning by capturing listeners' attention (Face Overshadowing Effect; FOE). In the current study, we tested the proposal that the effect of audiovisual training on voice identity learning is driven by attentional processes. Participants learned to recognize voices through either audio-only training (Audio-Only) or through three versions of audiovisual training, where a face was presented alongside the voices. During audiovisual training, the faces were either looking at the camera (Direct Gaze), were looking to the side (Averted Gaze) or had closed eyes (No Gaze). We found a graded effect of gaze on voice identity learning: Voice identity recognition was most accurate after audio-only training and least accurate after audiovisual training including direct gaze, constituting a FOE. While effect sizes were overall small, the magnitude of FOE was halved for the Averted and No Gaze conditions. With direct gaze being associated with increased attention capture compared to averted or no gaze, the current findings suggest that incidental attention capture at least partially underpins the FOE. We discuss these findings in light of visual dominance effects and the relative informativeness of faces vs voices for identity perception.     

Primacy and recency effects in task analyses: Preliminary results

Performance for three independent living tasks were examined via task analyses. Given the relatively small sample size (n = 56) of individuals with intellectual and developmental disabilities, we simulated 1000 replications based upon observed results using Monte Carlo techniques. The results of the current study suggest that: (1) adaptive behavior was more related to task performance than IQ; and (2) after statistically controlling for adaptive behavior, task performance was influenced by the first step. Task performance appear to be over-estimated with the inclusion of the first step.     

AIDS/HIV in the work of family therapy trainees

A group of family therapy trainees were asked about their experience at work and knowledge of AIDS/HIV. The majority had already encountered AIDS-related issues in the context of their work. On the whole, they were well informed about AIDS/HIV, although specific gaps in their knowledge were identified. It is recommended that provision be made for the training of family therapists in this area.     

Does Drawing Attention to the Referent Constrain the Way in Which Children Construct Verbal Messages?

Tasks which assess children's speaker skills in the referential communication paradigm frequently mark the target item in some way to indicate which picture should be described. It was hypothesized that this procedure would interfere with effective scanning of the visual array (comparison processing) assumed to be necessary for the production of accurate messages. It was also predicted that, when one item was highlighted, more redundant features would be included in messages. An experiment which compared a marked with an unmarked target condition across three age ranges (6, 8, 10 years) found that message accuracy was not affected by highlighting. But significantly more redundant features were reported in the marked condition, indicating that, where redundancy is the focus of interest, a highlighting procedure should be avoided. Two age effects were also found: Message accuracy improved with age, while redundancy reduced with age.     

Patterns of parent perception differentiating clinic from nonclinic children

The responses of 393 parents of clinic-referred and welladjusted children to the Children's Behavior Checklist were analyzed. Of 154 items, 66 proved to discriminate between clinic and nonclinic groups. Many of these items were reflective of the general dimensions of Competence and Impulsivity yielded by an overall factor analysis. More specific patterns of factors emerged for subgroups of parents. Interparent agreement in perception was found to be a complex function of a child's age, sex, and adjustment level. The implications of the results for clinical assessment of children and families and for studies of parentchild relations are discussed.     

The Good, the Bad, and the Ugly

The impact of the activation of positive and negative components of an ethnic stereotype on judgments of responsibility for both positive and negative stereotypic behaviors was considered. Overall, stereotype activation biased judgments in a stereotype-consistent manner, across both positive and negative scenarios. Generalization of these judgments to more global trait perceptions of the target was limited to the negative scenario. Results are discussed in terms of both the use of stereotypes as inferential shortcuts and in-group favoritism mechanisms.     

Raising standards of practice in school psychology through the use of field-based training

A model is presented for upgrading school psychology practice in an entire state by raising the level of entry for school psychology certification. A central feature of the plan is that it permits those who currently do not meet the revised standards to participate in a field-based program. This allows them to increase their knowledge and skills so that they may continue to hold positions, but at a higher level of competence. The development of the program, its implementation, and an evaluation of its efforts over a five-year period are presented.