Ethics of field research: Do journals set the standard?

To determine whether ethical issues concerned with field research are addressed in the peer-review process, instructions to authors and reviewers of 141 (mainly natural science) journals were examined to ascertain how often ethical issues were mentioned. Only one-third (n=41) of responding journals addressed ethical issues in their instructions to authors or reviewers. When ethical issues were considered, most of the journals limited their concerns to ethical issues associated with animal and general human experimentation. No journal mentioned ethical practices in working with indigenous peoples or on traditional lands. Only two journals addressed the ethics of research in sensitive areas in their instructions to authors, only one in its instructions to reviewers. We suggest that peer-reviewed journals respond to an emerging issue in ecological research by formally incorporating research ethics into their instructions to authors and reviewers. Furthermore, these instructions should address the ethical issues associated with field research and in working with indigenous peoples and on traditional lands.     

The effect of irrelevant spatial correspondences on two-choice response-time.

Simon and his associates have demonstrated a general effect in two-choice reaction- time tasks involving laterally disposed responses, and a succession of stimuli presented unpredictably at either of two laterally disposed positions, the stimulus positions being irrelevant in deciding the response. Reaction times are found to be faster for trials in which the spatial loci of stimulus and response correspond than for trials in which they counter-correspond. The present experiment investigated the dependence of this effect upon spatial orientation and upon the logical character of the task. The effect was found not only for laterally disposed pairs of stimulus positions and responses but also for vertical dispositions. The effect was found to be critically dependent upon the logical character of the task, such that it could readily be produced in a reversed form. The results could be well described by considering the logical characters of the recodings of the relevant and irrelevant attributes of stimulus and response. The special status formerly attributed to the processing of spatial information is questioned.     

The role of small changes in the acoustic environment in modifying the startle reflex.

When either the intensity or frequency spectrum of an approximately 70-db. SPL narrow-band noise was abruptly changed by a small amount, the rat's response to a startle stimulus presented 64 msec later was inhibited. When similar small frequency changes preceded the startle stimulus by ony 5 msec, the latency of the startle response was reduced, but even relatively large changes in intensity of the antecedent stimulus had no effect on response latency. These findings provide added support for the generalization that the neural processes associated with startle are engaged by small changes in the auditory environment. They also point to a measure of separation between the processes responsible for inhibition and those responsible for latency shift.     

Masculinity,femininity, and androgyny: A methodological and theoretical critique

The three primary purposes of this investigation are: (1) to apply confirmatory factor analysis (CFA) to responses from three instruments [Bem Sex Role Inventory (BSRI), Comrey Personality Scale (CPS), and Australian Sex Role Scale (ASRS) developed by Antill and his colleagues] designed to measure masculinity (M) and femininity (F); (2) to determine the correlation between M and F on each instrument and to relate the results to the design of the instrument; and (3) to describe a new theoretical model that posits global M and global F to be multifaceted, higher order constructs. When CFA was used to define one M and one F factor from responses to each instrument, the disattenuated correlations between M and F were +0.58 (BSRI), ?.50 (ASRS), and ?1.0 (CPS). Thus, responses from two instruments supported the separation of M and F, but differed in the direction of the correlation for the two traits, while the third provided remarkably strong support for a bipolar MF continuum. Despite the apparent inconsistency, the observed correlations were explicable in terms of the design of each instrument. While the two-factor model provided a reasonable fit for the BSRI, more complicated models were better able to fit responses to the ASRS and CPS. Results from this investigation and other research were used to formulate a new theoretical model.     

Learning errors from fiction: Difficulties in reducing reliance on fictional stories

Readers rely on fiction as a source of information, even when fiction contradicts relatively well-known facts about the world (Marsh, Meade, and Roediger, 2003). Of interest was whether readers could monitor fiction for errors, in order to reduce suggestibility. In Experiment 1, warnings about errors in fiction did not reduce students' reliance on stories. In Experiment 2, all subjects were warned before reading stories written at 6th- or 12th-grade reading levels. Even though 6th-grade stories freed resources for monitoring, suggestibility was not reduced. In Experiment 3, suggestibility was reduced but not eliminated when subjects pressed a key each time they detected an error during story reading. Readers do not appear to spontaneously monitor fiction for its veracity, but can do so if reminded on a trial-by-trial basis.     

Task interference from prospective memories covaries with contextual associations of fulfilling them

One of the current issues in the field of prospective memory concerns whether having an intention produces a cost to other ongoing activities (called task interference). The evidence to date suggests that certain intentions held over the shorter term do interfere with other tasks. Because the cumulative effect of such costs would be prohibitively expensive in everyday life, the present study examined one means by which that interference may be reduced. Participants who formed a specific association to fulfilling an intention in a future context did not exhibit task interference over the intervening period until that context was encountered. This outcome was observed with both an event-based and a time-based prospective memory task. The results suggest that associating intention fulfillment with a specific context can eliminate task interference, and they emphasize the importance of studying intentions that are linked to future contexts versus those that are not.     

The effect of context variability on source memory

High-context-variability (HCV) items are experienced in many more preexperimental semantic contexts than are low-context-variability (LCV) items. LCV confers an advantage to recognition memory (Steyvers & Malmberg, 2003). In the present study, we tested whether or not that advantage could be causedby enhanced source memory. Both context variability and word frequency were manipulated, and both factors generally affected source monitoring. Accuracy was better for LCV items than for HCV items and better for low- than for high-word-frequency items. We also considered whether context variability exerts its influence at encoding or at retrieval. We concluded that better recognition memory for LCV items was due, in part, to better retrieval of contextual details that specify how an item was originally studied.     

Order effects in contingency learning: The role of task complexity

Dennis and Ahn (2001) found that during contingency learning, initial evidence influences causal judgments more than does later evidence (a primacy effect), whereas López, Shanks, Almaraz, and Fernández (1998) found the opposite (a recency effect). We propose that in contingency learning, people use initial evidence to develop an anchoring hypothesis that tends to be underadjusted by later evidence, resulting in a primacy effect. Thus, factors interfering with initial hypothesis development, such as simultaneously learning too many contingencies, as in López et al., would reduce the primacy effect. Experiment 1 showed a primacy effect with learning contingencies involving only one outcome but no primacy effect with two outcomes. Experiment 2 demonstrated that the magnitude of the primacy effect correlated with participants' verbal working memory capacity. It is concluded that a critical moderator for exhibition of the primacy effect is task complexity, presumably because it interferes with initial hypothesis development.     

Adolescents’ Perceptions of Masculine and Feminine Values in Sport and Physical Education: A Study of Gender Differences

In present study we investigated possible gender differences in how 357 secondary-school students valued the importance of masculine and feminine characteristics within sport and physical education and how their ratings of values were related to their participation in gendered sport. The results indicated that boys rated appearance strength, sports competence, endurance strength, and masculinity as significantly more important than did girls. Girls rated appearance good looking face, appearance slender, and femininity as significantly more important than did boys. Further, more boys participated in traditionally masculine sports, whereas girls to a greater extent participated in traditionally feminine sports. A discriminant function analysis separated the masculine sport group from the feminine sport group, which suggests that higher scores on the masculine function were indicative of lower value on appearance slender and flexibility, accompanied by higher value on appearance strength and masculinity. For the feminine sport group, this pattern was the opposite.