Presleep attributions about arousal during sleep: nocturnal panic

This study examined the role of presleep attributions about physiological events during sleep in nocturnal panic attacks. Patients who regularly experienced nocturnal panic were physiologically monitored as audio signals were presented during sleep. They were randomly assigned to 1 of 3 conditions: expected, in which signals of intense physiological changes were expected; unexpected, in which signals of intense physiological changes were not expected; or control, involving distinctly different signals unrelated to physiological responses. The unexpected condition led to substantially more self-reported distress and panic attacks. The experimental conditions did not elicit different autonomic reactions, but those who panicked showed stronger physiological responses than those who did not panic. The findings are consistent with a cognitive model of nocturnal panic attacks.     

Measuring functional outcomes after prematurity: developmental impact of very low birth weight and extremely low birth weight status on childhood disability

Our purpose was to describe functional outcomes in essential activities in preschool, school-age, and adolescent children who were born very (<32 weeks gestation) and extremely (<28 weeks gestation) prematurely. Very low birth weight (VLBW; 1000-1499 g), or extremely low birth weight (ELBW;<1000 g) populations are the focus of our analysis. We describe models of disablement and enablement for specifying the complexity of childhood outcomes using a framework of pathophysiology, impairment, functional limitation and functional strengths, disability in social roles and social participation, societal limitations and environmental facilitators. Representative early childhood, preschool, school-age, and adolescent studies were examined in terms of describing children's functional strengths and challenges after VLBW and ELBW survival. In early childhood, disability was assessed by diagnosing neurosensory impairments and delays on developmental testing. Instruments for measuring functional status in essential activities of self-care, mobility, communication and learning are described. Rates of neurosensory disability in the first three years among recent ELBW survivors ranged from 9-26% for cerebral palsy, 1-15% for blindness, 0-9% for deafness, and 6-42% for evolving cognitive disability (MDI <70). Rates of preschool functional limitation were 5-27% motor, 5-30% self-care, and 5-22% communicative. Rates of school-age functional educational disabilities exceeded 50%. Rates of adolescent activity limitation were 13-32% and vocational limitations were 27-71%. By examining the functional strengths and challenges of children with major neurodevelopmental impairments after very or extremely preterm birth, we can examine causal pathways that lessen the risk of severe functional disability. Among children with mild to moderate disability, we can enhance functional outcomes, optimize community participation, and provide quality family supports. In order to assess the changing outcomes of this vulnerable population of survivors, combinations of clinical and survey based methodologies are required.     

Task unrelated thought whilst encoding information

Task unrelated thought (TUT) refers to thought directed away from the current situation, for example a daydream. Three experiments were conducted on healthy participants, with two broad aims. First, to contrast distributed and encapsulated views of cognition by comparing the encoding of categorical and random lists of words (Experiments One and Two). Second, to examine the consequences of experiencing TUT during study on the subsequent retrieval of information (Experiments One, Two, and Three). Experiments One and Two demonstrated lower levels of TUT and higher levels of word-fragment completion whilst encoding categorical relative to random stimuli, supporting the role of a distributed resource in the maintenance of TUT. In addition the results of all three experiments suggested that experiencing TUT during study had a measurable effect on subsequent retrieval. TUT was associated with increased frequency of false alarms at retrieval (Experiment One). In the subsequent experiments TUT was associated with no advantage to retrieval based on recollection, by manipulating instructions at encoding (Experiment Two), and/or at retrieval (Experiment Three). The implications of the results of all three experiments are discussed in terms of recent accounts of memory retrieval and conscious awareness.     

TPL—KATS-card sort: A tool for assessing structural knowledge

The study of how individuals organize knowledge has been a popular endeavor for several decades. As a result, techniques have been developed to assess how individuals represent and organize knowledge internally. Although several conceptual knowledge elicitation methods have been developed and used to assess the organization of knowledge, their use is often labor intensive and time consuming. Presented here is a software tool that was developed to reduce the problems associated with manually administering the conceptual knowledge elicitation technique, or card sorting. The TPL—KATS-card sort software not only simplifies the administration of the task, but also adds features to the card-sorting task such as media insertion, time stamping, and instructorless administration. In the present article, an introduction to the card-sorting technique is provided, the new software tool is described, and the advantages of the software are detailed.     

Data selection and natural sampling: Probabilities do matter

Probabilistic accounts of Wason's selection task (Oaksford & Chater, 1994, 1996) are controversial, with some researchers failing to replicate the predicted effects of probability manipulations. This paper reports a single experiment in which participants sampled the data naturally-that is, sequentially. The proportions of possible data types (i.e., cards in the selection task) also reflected the probability manipulation. Other than this procedural difference, the materials were the same as those in Oberauer, Wilhelm, and Rosas-Diaz's (1999) Experiment 3, which failed to show probabilistic effects. Significant probabilistic effects were observed. Moreover, in a comparative model-fitting exercise, a revised version of the information gain model (Hattori, 1999, 2002; Oaksford & Chater, in press-b) was shown to provide better fits to these data than did competing explanations.     

Knowledge, expectations, and inductive reasoning within conceptual hierarchies

Previous research (e.g. Cognition 64 (1997) 73) suggests that the privileged level for inductive inference in a folk biological conceptual hierarchy does not correspond to the “basic” level (i.e. the level at which concepts are both informative and distinct). To further explore inductive inference within conceptual hierarchies, we examine relations between knowledge of concepts at different hierarchical levels, expectations about conceptual coherence, and inductive inference. In Experiments 1 and 2, 5- and 8-year-olds and adults listed features of living kind (Experiments 1 and 2) and artifact (Experiment 2) concepts at different hierarchical levels (e.g. plant, tree, oak, desert oak), and also rated the strength of generalizations to the same concepts. For living kinds, the level that showed a relative advantage on these two tasks differed; the greatest increase in features listed tended to occur at the life-form level (e.g. tree), whereas the greatest increase in inductive strength tended to occur at the folk-generic level (e.g. oak). Knowledge and induction also showed different developmental trajectories. For artifact concepts, the levels at which the greatest gains in knowledge and induction occurred were more varied, and corresponded more closely across tasks. In Experiment 3, adults reported beliefs about within-category similarity for concepts at different levels of animal, plant and artifact hierarchies, and rated inductive strength as before. For living kind concepts, expectations about category coherence predicted patterns of inductions; knowledge did not. For artifact concepts, both knowledge and expectations predicted patterns of induction. Results suggest that beliefs about conceptual coherence play an important role in guiding inductive inference, that this role may be largely independent of specific knowledge of concepts, and that such beliefs are especially important in reasoning about living kinds.     

Charting the language of leadership: a methodological investigation of President Bush and the crisis of 9/11

In many ways, leadership is a phenomenon that is ideally suited for new and inventive research methods. For researchers who seek to reliably study and systematically compare linguistically based elements of the leadership relationship, computerized content analysis has the potential to supplement, extend, and qualify existing leadership theory and practice. Through an examination of President Bush's rhetoric and the media coverage before and after the crisis of 9/11. the authors explore how elements of the President's speeches changed in response to the post-crisis environment. Using this example, the authors illustrate the process of computerized content analysis and many of its strengths and limitations, with the hope of facilitating future leadership research that uses this approach to explore important contextual and symbolic elements of the leadership relationship.     

Parents' personality and infants' temperament as contributors to their emerging relationship

The authors examined the contributions of infant's temperament and parent's personality to their relationship. In Study 1, 102 infants, mothers, and fathers were studied when infants were 7 months; in Study 2, 112 infants and mothers were followed from 9 to 45 months. Infants' temperament (joy, fear, anger, and attention) was observed in standard temperament paradigms. Parents' personality measures encompassed the Big Five traits and Empathy in Study 1 and Mistrust, Manipulativeness, Aggression, Dependency, Entitlement, and Workaholism in Study 2. Parent-child relationship (shared positive affect and parental responsiveness in Studies 1 and 2 and parental tracking of the infant in Study 1) was observed in naturalistic contexts. In Study 1, mothers' Neuroticism, Empathy, and Conscientiousness and fathers' Agreeableness, Openness, and Extraversion related to the relationship with the infants. All measures of infant temperament also related to the emerging relationship. In Study 2, maternal Mistrust, Manipulativeness, Dependency, and Workaholism predicted the relationship with the child.     

Priming guesses on a forced-recall test

The forced-recall paradigm requires participants to fill all spaces on the memory test even if they cannot remember all the list words. In the present study, the authors used that paradigm to examine the influence of implicit memory on guessing--when participants fill remaining spaces after they cannot remember list items. They measured explicit memory as the percentage of targets that participants designated as remembered from the list and implicit memory as the percentage of targets they wrote but did not designate as remembered (beyond chance level). The authors examined implicit memory on guessing with forced recall (Experiment 1), forced cued recall with younger and older adults (Experiment 2), and forced free and cued recall under a depth-of-processing manipulation (Experiment 3). They conclude that implicit memory influences guesses of targets in the forced-recall paradigm.