Perception as interacting psychophysical functions. Could the configuring of features replace a specialised receptor?

This paper illustrates how perception is achieved through interactions among the psychophysical functions of judged features of an object. The theory is that the perceiver places processed features in a multidimensional space of discriminal processes. Each dimension is scaled in units of discrimination performance. The zero coordinate of each feature is its level in an internal standard (norm) established by previous experience of that category of object in context. Experiments are reported which show that one, two, or three concurrent single-featured objects matched the multiple features of another object in two ways. Either stimulation from the two objects had discrimination distances from norm that added, or the stimulation by one object was processed through a concept describing stimulation by the other object. It follows that, in this case, perception via a receptor for the multi-featured object can be replaced by a point of balance among receptors for each single feature. The object with its own receptor is the gustatory stimulant L-glutamic acid as its monosodium salt. The features that stimulate diverse gustatory receptors of their own are sodium chloride, citric acid, sucrose, and caffeine. A more complex approach to dimensional coding was developed earlier for photoreceptors in colour judgments. The present approach is modality independent, mathematically simple, and economical in experimental data.     

Reconstructing alcohol-induced memory blackouts

Many people who drink alcohol have experienced a blackout; whereby they are unable to recall events that occurred during a period of intoxication. Following these blackout episodes individuals may attempt to reconstruct what happened to them. Blackouts therefore afford an excellent opportunity to study the strategies people use to reconstruct forgotten experiences. We conducted a survey of university students to explore how people choose to reconstruct blackouts, and the likely accuracy of these reconstructions. Our findings add to the growing research literature on people's strategies for validating their past experiences, and highlight the important role of external sources in the reconstruction process. The data show that people's desire to "fill in the blanks" can lead them to rely on rather unreliable sources, and may also encourage them to adopt weaker source-monitoring criteria. Indeed, in at least some cases reconstructing blackouts appears to lead to the development of false beliefs or memories.     

A Multi‐Family Group Intervention for Adolescent Depression: The BEST MOOD Program

Depression is the most common mental disorder for young people, and it is associated with educational underachievement, self‐harm, and suicidality. Current psychological therapies for adolescent depression are usually focused only on individual‐level change and often neglect family or contextual influences. The efficacy of interventions may be enhanced with a broader therapeutic focus on family factors such as communication, conflict, support, and cohesion. This article describes a structured multi‐family group approach to the treatment of adolescent depression: Behaviour Exchange Systems Therapy for adolescent depression (BEST MOOD). BEST MOOD is a manualized intervention that is designed to address both individual and family factors in the treatment of adolescent depression. BEST MOOD adopts a family systems approach that also incorporates psychoeducation and elements of attachment theories. The program consists of eight multifamily group therapy sessions delivered over 2 hours per week, where parents attend the first four sessions and young people and siblings join from week 5. The program design is specifically aimed to engage youth who are initially resistant to treatment and to optimize youth and family mental health outcomes. This article presents an overview of the theoretical model, session content, and evaluations to date, and provides a case study to illustrate the approach.     

The effects of enactment and intention accessibility on prospective memory performance

The intention-superiority effect denotes faster response latencies to stimuli linked with a prospective memory task compared to stimuli linked with no prospective task or with a cancelled task. It is generally assumed that the increased accessibility of intention-related materials contributes to successful execution of prospective memory tasks at an appropriate opportunity. In two experiments we investigated the relationship between the intention-superiority effect and actual prospective memory performance under relatively realistic conditions. We also manipulated enactment versus observation encoding to further investigate the similarity in representations of enacted and to-be-enacted tasks. Additionally, Experiment 1 included a control condition to investigate the development of the intention-superiority effect over time. Participants were asked to perform prospective tasks at the end of the experiment to prepare the room for the next participant. They studied these preparatory tasks at the beginning of the experiment either by enacting them themselves or by observing the experimenter perform them. In Experiment 2, participants in a control condition did not intend to perform prospective tasks. We observed a smaller intention-superiority effect after enactment encoding than after observation encoding, but only if response latencies were assessed immediately before the prospective memory task. In addition, Experiment 2 suggested that the size of the intention-superiority effect is related to successful prospective memory performance, thus providing evidence for a functional relationship between accessibility and memory.     

Championing Diversity: The Influence of Personal and Organizational Antecedents

The purpose of this research was to examine antecedents of championing diversity (i.e., extra‐role behaviors aimed at ensuring the success of diversity initiatives). In Study 1 (N = 170 students), race and sex were marginally related to championing diversity, while extraversion, racial prejudice, and sexual prejudice held stronger associations with the behavior. In Study 2 (N = 299 employees), racial prejudice, sexual prejudice, and coworker support for diversity were all predictive of championing behavior. The findings suggest that both personal and social factors influence people's championing behaviors. Contributions, limitations, and future directions are advanced.     

Children's perceptions of intergroup and intragroup similarity and the role of social experience

Perceptions of intragroup and intergroup similarity were assessed in 1st grade (M = 6.78 years, SD = .42) and 4th grade (M = 9.79, SD = .51) boys and girls (N = 382) who attended either ethnically homogeneous or ethnically heterogeneous schools. Children's evaluations of same-race and cross-race friendships were also assessed. European-American children attending homogeneous and heterogeneous schools attributed greater homogeneity to the same-race Black dyads. European-American children attending homogeneous schools, furthermore, focused on skin color in their evaluations of similarity and friendship to a greater extent than did European-American and minority (i.e., African-American, Latin-American, Asian-American) children attending heterogeneous schools. Children attending heterogeneous schools were more positive about friendship in general than children attending homogeneous schools, suggesting that social experiences in school settings are an important context of children's intergroup contact experience. The findings indicate that children's intergroup contact influences their perceptions of similarity and reasoning about cross-race friendship.     

Dialectical Behavior Therapy: An Emotion-Focused Treatment for Borderline Personality Disorder

Dialectical Behavior Therapy (DBT) is a cognitive-behavioral treatment for borderline personality disorder (BPD) that is based on the theory that emotion dysregulation is the core feature of BPD. This article focuses on aspects of DBT theory and techniques that specifically address emotion. The dialectical and biosocial theories that underlie DBT are reviewed with an emphasis on how each relates to emotional experiencing in BPD. Selected treatment strategies that address emotion dysregulation and their hypothesized mechanisms of change are also described. Relevant research findings are incorporated throughout to provide an empirical foundation for the DBT theories and strategies that are discussed.     

A survey on adverse incidents in legal psychology studies: Reflections on ethics review

Ethics committees (ECs) regulate research activities to maintain research participants' autonomy and to protect them from harm and injury. No research to date attempted to establish how much risk is involved in social‐science research. Using a survey approach, we set out to estimate the risk of being involved in an incident for research participants in legal psychology and assessed researchers' views of ECs. Fifty‐nine of 188 respondents (31%) stated that they had experienced one or more incidents with a participant. The estimated risk of being involved in an incident was one to three per 10,000 participants, which according to biomedical standards defines a rare risk. Although some researchers were satisfied with their EC, the general tenor was one of discontent due to conservative decision‐making, lacking expertise, and overstepping demands. Whether ECs succeed in protecting participants from loss of autonomy, harm and injury are unknown but are open to empirical research.