Offense Characteristics of Incompetent to Stand Trial Defendants Charged With Violent Offenses

The current study compared offender and offense characteristics of pretrial defendants found incompetent to stand trial (IST) against those described as general offenders by victims in the 2008 Bureau of Justice Statistics (BJS) survey and evaluated factors that differentiated IST defendants who allegedly used weapons from those who did not during the course of a violent offense. IST defendants were older and used “weapons” more frequently than those reported in the BJS survey; however, other characteristics, including use of firearms, did not differ. No demographic, clinical, or legal factors differentiated pretrial defendants who used weapons from those who did not. Overall, pretrial defendants were frequently diagnosed with a comorbid substance use disorder, and were homeless, unemployed, and had an extensive history of psychiatric hospitalizations and prior arrests at the time of their alleged offenses. Such results indicate that models for comprehensive discharge planning may have utility in addressing the unique needs of this subgroup of mentally disordered offenders. The findings also raise questions about the federal and state prohibition of gun rights to all IST defendants. Copyright © 2015 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Confinement has no effect on visual space perception: The results of the Mars-500 experiment

People confined to a closed space live in a visual environment that differs from a natural open-space environment in several respects. The view is restricted to no more than a few meters, and nearby objects cannot be perceived relative to the position of a horizon. Thus, one might expect to find changes in visual space perception as a consequence of the prolonged experience of confinement. The subjects in our experimental study were participants of the Mars-500 project and spent nearly a year and a half isolated from the outside world during a simulated mission to Mars. The participants were presented with a battery of computer-based psychophysical tests examining their performance on various 3-D perception tasks, and we monitored changes in their perceptual performance throughout their confinement. Contrary to our expectations, no serious effect of the confinement on the crewmembers’ 3-D perception was observed in any experiment. Several interpretations of these findings are discussed, including the possibilities that (1) the crewmembers’ 3-D perception really did not change significantly, (2) changes in 3-D perception were manifested in the precision rather than the accuracy of perceptual judgments, and/or (3) the experimental conditions and the group sample were problematic.     

Self‐Monitoring and the Metatraits

Prior attempts at locating self‐monitoring within general taxonomies of personality traits have largely proved unsuccessful. However, past research has typically neglected (a) the bidimensionality of the Self‐Monitoring Scale and (b) the hierarchical nature of personality. The objective of this study was to test hypotheses that the two self‐monitoring factors are located at the level of the metatraits. Using data from two large multi‐informant samples, one community (Sample 1: N = 552, M_age = 51.26, 61% female; N_Peers = 1,551, M_age = 48.61, 37% female) and one online (Sample 2: N = 3,726, M_age = 24.89, 59% female; N_Peers = 17,868, M_age = 26.23, 64% female), confirmatory factor analysis was used to test the hypotheses. Results confirmed hypotheses that acquisitive self‐monitoring would have a strong positive relation to metatrait Plasticity, whereas protective self‐monitoring would have a moderate negative relation to metatrait Stability. In both samples, constraining the correlation between acquisitive self‐monitoring and Plasticity to unity did not alter model fit indices, indicating that the two putatively distinct constructs are identical. Findings have wide‐ranging implications, including integration of the construct of self‐monitoring into the mainstream of personality research, as the latter moves toward the development of broad explanatory theories.     

Do Occupational Performance and Social Support Predict Health and Well-Being Among Mothers of Preterm Infants?

Journal of Child and Family Studies - Giving birth to a preterm infant has significant implications on the mother’s life. The purpose of this study was to compare occupational performance...     

How accounts shape lending decisions through fostering perceived trustworthiness

We examine the roles of social accounts in influencing lenders’ decisions about loaning money to borrowers. Using field data and a laboratory experiment, we show that lenders will lend money depending on the accounts borrowers tell. In Study 1, field data from a peer-to-peer lending website reveal that two-account combinations (explanation–acknowledgment and explanation–denial) increase the likelihood of favorable lending decisions. A laboratory study helps explain the important role of accounts by unpacking the process of perceived borrower trustworthiness in lending decisions. A final field study assessing the performance of loans 2 years after origination shows that accounts, despite having a positive effect on the loan decision process, negatively predict loan performance. Collectively, the three studies show that accounts facilitate economic exchanges between unacquainted transaction partners because of their role in increasing perceived trustworthiness, but that ironically, accounts can negatively relate to loan performance.     

Working memory in the oldest-old: evidence from output serial position curves

In the present study, we examined adult age differences in short-term and working memory performance in middle-aged (45–64 years), young–old (65–74 years), old–old (75–89 years), and oldest–old adults (90 years and over) in the Louisiana Healthy Aging Study. Previous research suggests that measures of working memory are more sensitive to age effects than are simple tests of short-term memory Bopp and Verhaeghen (Journal of Gerontology: Psychological Sciences 60:223–233, 2005), Myerson, Emery, White, and Hale, (Aging, Neuropsychology, and Cognition 10:20–27, 2003). To test this hypothesis, we examined output serial position curves of recall data from three span tasks: forward and backward digit span and size judgment span. Participants’ recall patterns in the size judgment span task revealed that the two oldest groups of adults showed the largest decreases in recall performance across output serial positions, but did not differ significantly from each other. Correlation analyses indicated the strongest negative correlation with age occurred with the size judgment span task. Implications of these findings for understanding strategic processing abilities in late life are discussed.     

Estimating linear effects in ANOVA designs: The easy way

Research in cognitive science has documented numerous phenomena that are approximated by linear relationships. In the domain of numerical cognition, the use of linear regression for estimating linear effects (e.g., distance and SNARC effects) became common following Fias, Brysbaert, Geypens, and d'Ydewalle's (1996) study on the SNARC effect. While their work has become the model for analyzing linear effects in the field, it requires statistical analysis of individual participants and does not provide measures of the proportions of variability accounted for (cf. Lorch & Myers, 1990). In the present methodological note, using both the distance and SNARC effects as examples, we demonstrate how linear effects can be estimated in a simple way within the framework of repeated measures analysis of variance. This method allows for estimating effect sizes in terms of both slope and proportions of variability accounted for. Finally, we show that our method can easily be extended to estimate linear interaction effects, not just linear effects calculated as main effects.