What's "up" with God? Vertical space as a representation of the divine

"God" and "Devil" are abstract concepts often linked to vertical metaphors (e.g., "glory to God in the highest," "the Devil lives down in hell"). It is unknown, however, whether these metaphors simply aid communication or implicate a deeper mode of concept representation. In 6 experiments, the authors examined the extent to which the vertical dimension is used in noncommunication contexts involving God and the Devil. Experiment 1 established that people have implicit associations between God-Devil and up-down. Experiment 2 revealed that people encode God-related concepts faster if presented in a high (vs. low) vertical position. Experiment 3 found that people's memory for the vertical location of God- and Devil-like images showed a metaphor-consistent bias (up for God; down for Devil). Experiments 4, 5a, and 5b revealed that people rated strangers as more likely to believe in God when their images appeared in a high versus low vertical position, and this effect was independent of inferences related to power and likability. These robust results reveal that vertical perceptions are invoked when people access divinity-related cognitions.     

An empirical evaluation of a scale to measure occupational aspiration level

Data from 34,118 American high school students are used to evaluate the Occupational Aspiration Scale (OAS). The OAS is successively reevaluated for each of 16 subsamples (cells) generated by cross-classifying respondents by grade in school (9–12), sex, and socioeconomic status (SES). In each cell the OAS is found to be essentially unifactorial, and that factor is identified as level of occupational aspiration (LOA). The reliability of the OAS is slightly lower among females ($\text{r}$_kk = .681) than among males ($\text{r}$_kk = .756); it does not vary appreciably by grade or SES. The mean scores are lower for youth from low SES families than for those from high SES families, in accord with previous research. Mean OAS differences due to sex and grade are small. No important differences by age, sex, or SES are found in the standard deviations of the test scores. This and previously published data from small, local samples indicate that the reliability and validity of the OAS are sufficient for research on high school youth of both sexes and from both higher and lower SES levels.     

Computerized tomography and infusion test as a simultaneous study method in post-traumatic hydrocephalus

The cerebral compression of a patient with posttraumatic hydrocephalus was measured intraventricularly, and an intrathecas infusion test was made simultaneously with computed tomography. Substractive computed tomography pictures show that continuously increasing volume does not imply uniform enlargement of the ventricular system, the cornua of the lateral ventricles in particular exhibiting a frontal increase in size.     

Problems in the psychiatric treatment of foreign patients

The contribution deals with problems encountered during the psychiatric treatment of foreign patients, particularly with those from developing countries. It has been found that scope for socio- and psychotherapeutic treatment is very restricted and that the frequent necessity of returning these patients to their native countries leads to not unconsiderable conflicts. Questions of transcultural psychiatry are regaining importance in connection with increasing migration.     

Structural packaging in the input to language learning: Contributions of prosodic and morphological marking of phrases to the acquisition of language

The linguistic input to language learning is usually thought to consist of simple strings of words. We argue that input must also include information about how words group into syntactic phrases. Natural languages regularly incorporate correlated cues to phrase structure, such as prosody, function words, and concord morphology. The claim that such cues are necessary for successful acquisition of syntax was tested in a series of miniature language learning experiments with adult subjects. In each experiment, when input included some cue marking the phrase structure of sentences, subjects were entirely successful in learning syntax; in contrast, when input lacked such a cue (but was otherwise identical), subjects failed to learn significant portions of syntax. Cues to phrase structure appear to facilitate learning by indicating to the learner those domains within which distributional analyses may be most efficiently pursued, thereby reducing the amount and complexity of required input data. More complex target systems place greater premiums on efficient analysis; hence, such cues may be even more crucial for acquisition of natural language syntax. We suggest that the finding that phrase structure cues are a necessary aspect of language input reflects the limited capacities of human language learners; languages may incorporate structural cues in part to circumvent such limitations and ensure successful acquisition.     

Cognitive processing of tokens and their description in aphasia

In a dual-reaction time task aphasics (N = 21) and right-hemisphere (RH) controls (N = 24) had to decide whether a list of features given verbally or pictorially correctly described the picture of a token. Although the error rates were extremely low, aphasics made significantly more errors than RH controls. There were no significant differences between the groups in latencies when pictures of tokens were presented; the groups differed drastically, however, when confronted with lists of features. The findings are interpreted as indicating a general deficit in the short-term storage of highly specific information.     

Retrieval experience in prospective memory: strategic monitoring and spontaneous retrieval

According to the multi-process model of prospective memory (McDaniel & Einstein, 2000), performance in a prospective memory task may be due to spontaneous retrieval processes or due to strategic monitoring. Spontaneous retrieval is typically accompanied by a pop up experience and strategic monitoring by a search experience. In this study we report two experiments with young adults in which we systematically investigated whether retrieval experience differed across experimental conditions. In Experiment 1 some prospective memory targets were preceded by associated primes. We expected that presenting primes would enhance performance by an automatic activation of the intention and hence lead to an increase in pop up experiences. In Experiment 2 half of the participants received instructions containing information about the specific context in which the prospective memory task would occur, whereas the other half of the participants received no such information. We expected that specific context instructions would enhance performance by legitimate anticipation of the prospective memory task and hence would lead to an increase in search experiences. The results confirmed these expectations. They indicate that the assessment of retrieval experience can provide valuable insights into the processes underlying prospective memory performance. They also suggest that retrieval experience can vary systematically across experimental situations as predicted by the multi-process model.     

Extraversion, threat categorizations, and negative affect: a reaction time approach to avoidance motivation

The authors sought to measure a component of the avoidance self-regulation system, specifically one related to object appraisal functions. Participants performed a choice reaction time task (Studies 1 & 2) or a go/no go task (Study 3) in which they were asked to categorize words (e.g., knife) as threatening in nature. In a series of three studies involving 236 undergraduates, the authors found that introverts who were skilled at categorizing events as threatening (vs. introverts slow to do so) experienced more negative affect in their daily lives. Among extraverts, threat categorization performance did not predict negative affect. The authors suggest that implicit threat categorizations render individuals vulnerable to negative affect but that high levels of Extraversion are capable of inhibiting such affective consequences. The authors discuss implications of the findings for extant views of Extraversion, avoidance motivation, and self-regulation.