Mental size scaling examined

Observers made same-different shape judgments of stimuli that were identical in shape and size different in shape but not in size, or differed in relative size along a number of steps for both same- and different- shaped forms. "Same" judgment RTs increased monotonically with increases in the magnitude of the relative size difference. In contrast, "different" judgment RTs were unaffected by changes in relative size. A second experiment in which stimulus presentation was successive rather than simultaneous yielded essentially the same results. Consideration was given to a dual- process model in which a time-consuming analog process normalizes stimuli that are size discrepant prior to a comparison stage that is operative for those structures responsible for "same" decisions but not for "different" judgments. Some evidence that seems inconsistent with a normalization process which operates prior to contact with memory was discussed, and an alternative explanation in which the early detection of a size difference causes changes in decision criteria was suggested.     

Phonological encoding in the lexical decision task

In lexical decision experiments, subjects have difficulty in responding NO to non-words which are pronounced exactly like English words (e.g. BRANE). This does not necessarily imply that access to a lexical entry ever occurs via a phonological recoding of a visually-presented word. The phonological recoding procedure might be so slow that when the letter string presented is a word, access to its lexical entry via a visual representation is always achieved before phonological recoding is completed. If prelexical phonological recodings are produced by using grapheme-phoneme correspondence rules, such recodings can only occur for words which conform to these rules (regular words), since applications of the rules to words which do not conform to the rules (exception words) produce incorrect phonological representations. In two experiments, it was found that time to achieve lexical access (as measured by YES latency in a lexical decision task) was equivalent for regular words and exception words. It was concluded that access to lexical entries in lexical decision experiments of this sort does not proceed by sometimes or always phonologically recoding visually-presented words.     

The group assessment of interpersonal traits (GAIT): Differentiation of measures and their relationship to behavioral response modes

GAIT performances of undergraduates were rated by peers and professsional clinical psychologists from video tape. Two additional measures; Potential for Clinical Effectiveness, and Insight into the Client's Problem, were included with GAIT measures of Openness, Empathy, Acceptance, and Outgoing and were also rated. GAIT ratings of Empathy, Acceptance, Potential for Clinical Effectiveness were not well differentiated. The behavioral response modes of each participant in the Understander's role were analyzed and correlated with GAIT measures, Potential and Insight. Empathy was correlated with reflecting feelings and advice-giving questions and negatively correlated with dysfunctional questions and silence. Acceptance was correlated with nonverbal attending behavior and negatively correlated with dysfunctional questions. Outgoing was positively correlated with information-gathering questions and total questions. Insight was correlated with reflecting feelings and negatively correlated with silence. An Understander who was rated high on Potential for Clinical Effectiveness was active, made statements about or asked questions pertaining to the Discloser's feelings, asked advice giving questions, tended to have infrequent silences during the interaction, and did not ask digressive or dysfunctional questions. Finally, the importance of Outgoing suggests the salience of an activity dimension in judged Clinical Potential.     

Book review

Reber, A. S. and Scarborough, D. L. Toward a Psychology of Reading. Hillsdale, N. J.: Lawrence Erlbaum Associates. 1977. Pp. xii + 337. £13.50. ISBN 0470 99010 4.

Medin, D. L., Roberts, W. A. and Davis, R. T. Process of Animal Memory. Hillsdale, New Jersey: Lawrence Erlbaum Associates. 1976. Pp. 267. £ 11.50. ISBN 0 470 15189 7.

Myers, R. D. (Ed.). Methods in Psychobiology, Vol. III. New york: Academic Press. 1977. Pp. 339. £14.20. ISBN 0 12 4610 03 X.

Estes, W. K. (Ed.). Handbook of Learning and Cognitive Processes, Volume 2. Conditioning and Behavior Theory. Hillsdale, New Jersey: Lawrence Erlbaum Associates. 1975. Pp. 373. ISBN 0 470 24586 7.     

Youth suicide risk factors and attitudes in New York and Vienna: a cross-cultural comparison

The prevalence of suicide risk factors and attitudes about suicide and help-seeking among New York and Viennese adolescents were compared in order to explore possible cross-cultural differences. Viennese adolescents exhibited higher rates of depressive symptomatology than their New York counterparts and had more first-hand experience with suicidal peers. More attribution of suicide to mental illness was reported in Vienna; yet Viennese youth were less likely than New York adolescents to recognize the seriousness of suicide threats. Help-seeking patterns of Viennese adolescents were influenced by their setting a high value on confidentiality. These cross-cultural differences may reflect the limited exposure of Austrian youth to school-based suicide prevention programs. The findings highlight the need of taking the sociocultural context into consideration in the planning of youth suicide prevention strategies.     

Unsupervised discovery of nonlinear structure using contrastive backpropagation

We describe a way of modeling high-dimensional data vectors by using an unsupervised, nonlinear, multilayer neural network in which the activity of each neuron-like unit makes an additive contribution to a global energy score that indicates how surprised the network is by the data vector. The connection weights that determine how the activity of each unit depends on the activities in earlier layers are learned by minimizing the energy assigned to data vectors that are actually observed and maximizing the energy assigned to "confabulations" that are generated by perturbing an observed data vector in a direction that decreases its energy under the current model.     

Externalizing and personalizing biases in persecutory delusions: the relationship with poor insight and theory-of-mind

The presence of externalizing bias (EB) for negative events together with personalizing bias (PB) (a bias to blame others rather than circumstances) may jointly constitute a vulnerability to develop persecutory delusions (PDs). Whereas EB purportedly serves to defend a vulnerable self-concept by avoiding negative self-attributions and might therefore exacerbate poor insight, PB may reflect cognitive deficits, including theory-of-mind impairment. We investigated these proposals in 34 schizophrenic patients with a history of PDs and 21 healthy controls. Patients with moderate- to severe-PDs and patients without a current PD showed excessive EB which was, surprisingly, absent in patients with mild persecutory delusions (mild-PDs). That EB might wax and wane with fluctuating delusional intensity was interpreted in accord with a new dynamic model of attribution self-representation cycles. As predicted, EB exacerbated poor insight. However, counter to predictions, theory-of-mind impairment did not increase PB, which was marked in all participants, whether clinical or non-clinical; instead, theory-of-mind impairment was also correlated with poor insight. Our findings indicate multiple pathways to poor insight, one of which is a theory-of-mind difficulty, impairing the capacity to simulate other perspectives for the purpose of critically evaluating one's own beliefs and circumstances.     

Self-fulfilling prophecy effects of mothers' beliefs on children's alcohol use: accumulation, dissipation, and stability over time

This research examined whether self-fulfilling prophecy effects accumulated, dissipated, or remained stable over time in terms of 2 complementary conceptual models. Analyses of longitudinal data from 2 samples of mother-child dyads (N(1) = 487; N(2) = 288) yielded 3 main findings. First, the degree to which mothers' inaccurate beliefs assessed at a single point in time predicted children's distal alcohol use did not differ from the degree to which they predicted children's proximal alcohol use, thereby supporting a pattern of stability for the samples on average. Second, mothers' inaccurate beliefs repeatedly assessed across time had additive self-fulfilling effects on their children's subsequent alcohol use assessed at a single later point in time. Third, these additive self-fulfilling effects served to exacerbate differences in the alcohol use of children who had been consistently exposed to unfavorable versus favorable beliefs year after year. The authors discuss these findings in terms of the link between self-fulfilling prophecies and social problems.     

When not teaming up puts parents at risk: Coparenting and parental burnout in dual-parent heterosexual families in Switzerland

Parental burnout refers to loss of energy and pleasure in the parental role. It is predictive of psychopathological outcomes in parents and dysfunctional parenting behaviors. Support of parental duties is central to alleviation of parental burden and prevention of burnout. Coparenting is the concept related to interparental mutual support in rearing a child. However, the links between coparenting and parental burnout have yet to be assessed. We thus aimed in this study to assess which dimensions of coparenting are linked with parental burnout. A total of 306 participants from the French-speaking part of Switzerland (120 fathers, 186 mothers) completed online questionnaires about parental burnout, their coparental relationship, and sociodemographic characteristics. We performed hierarchical regressions, entering sociodemographic characteristics in a first block and coparenting dimensions in a second block. Results showed that (i) a higher number of children and having younger children are linked to higher burnout; (ii) coparenting exposure to conflict is related to higher burnout, whereas endorsement of the partner's parenting is related to lower burnout; and (iii) no interaction effect occurs between sociodemographic characteristics and coparenting variables. Coparenting thus significantly contributes to the occurrence of burnout syndrome. Working on the coparental relationship preventively in parental educational programs or at a relational systemic level in therapy may help prevent burnout. Treating one parent only may not be sufficient to alleviate burnout, as negative coparenting could counter the effect of individual therapy.