A case of hand waving: Action synchrony and person perception

While previous research has demonstrated that people’s movements can become coordinated during social interaction, little is known about the cognitive consequences of behavioral synchrony. Given intimate links between the systems that regulate perception and action, we hypothesized that the synchronization of movements during a dyadic interaction may prompt increased attention to be directed to an interaction partner, hence facilitate the information that participants glean during a social exchange. Our results supported this prediction. Incidental memories for core aspects of a brief interaction were facilitated following in-phase behavioral synchrony. Specifically, participants demonstrated enhanced memory for an interaction partner’s utterances and facial appearance. These findings underscore the importance of action perception to social cognition.     

Female sexual orientation and menstrual influences on person perception

Heterosexual women have previously been shown to display enhanced sensitivity to information that is both reproductively- and sexually-relevant (e.g., sexually mature male faces) during phases of high fertility. In the present study, homosexual women who maintained a regular menstrual cycle and did not use hormonal contraceptives completed a sex-categorization task at periods of high and low fertility within their menstrual cycle. For homosexual women there is a separation between reproductively-relevant (i.e., sexually mature males) and sexually-relevant (i.e., sexually mature females) targets. Our participants showed enhanced sensitivity to sexually-relevant information (i.e., female faces) at high fertility but showed no fluctuation in sensitivity to reproductively-relevant information (i.e., male faces) across testing sessions. These findings are considered in terms of adaptive person perception and the impact of sexual desire on mate preferences.     

Critical periods and catastrophic interference effects in the development of self-organizing feature maps

The use of self-organizing feature maps (SOFM) in models of cognitive development has frequently been associated with explanations of critical or sensitive periods. By contrast, error-driven connectionist models of development have been linked with catastrophic interference between new knowledge and old knowledge. We introduce a set of simulations that systematically evaluate the conditions under which SOFMs demonstrate critical/sensitive periods in development versus those under which they display interference effects. We explored the relative contribution of network parameters (for example, whether learning rate and neighbourhood reduce across training), the representational resources available to the network, and the similarity between old and new knowledge in determining the functional plasticity of the maps. The SOFMs that achieved the best discrimination and topographic organization also exhibited sensitive periods in development while showing lower plasticity and hence limited interference. However, fast developing, coarser SOFMs also produced topologically organized representations, while permanently retaining their plasticity. We argue that the impact of map organization on behaviour must be interpreted in terms of the cognitive processes that the map is driving.     

Avoidance of timeout from response-independent food: effects of delivery rate and quality

In three experiments, a rat's lever presses could postpone timeouts from food pellets delivered on response-independent schedules. In Experiment 1, the pellets were delivered at variable-time (VT) rates ranging from VT 0.5 to VT 8 min. Experiment 2 replicated the VT 1 min and VT 8 min conditions of Experiment 1 with new subjects. Finally, subjects in Experiment 3 could postpone timeouts from delivery of pellets that differed in quality rather than quantity (unsweetened versus sweetened pellets). In general, response rates and success in avoiding increased as a function of the rate and quality of the pellets. Also, performance efficiency increased as the experiments progressed, that is, the avoidance response occurred later and later in the response-timeout interval. The results support the conclusion that timeout from reinforcement has functional properties similar to those of more commonly studied aversive stimuli (e.g., shock).     

Adults who are more anxious and were anxiously attached as children report later first memories

Here, we examined retrospective reports of adults’ earliest autobiographical memory, the age of this report and whether the reported age was associated with exposure to early life adversity, current anxiety and childhood attachment. Across four studies, we found that reporting a later ‘earliest’ memory was associated with higher self-reported anxiety in both American (Studies 1, 2 and 4) and Australian (Study 3) samples. Furthermore, in Studies 2–4, we found that reporting a later earliest memory uniquely predicted anxiety when controlling for number of adverse childhood events (a risk factor for the development of anxiety). In Study 4, we established that this relation is partially mediated by childhood anxious attachment. Although we consistently demonstrated that later earliest memories were associated with current anxiety, we found little evidence for a relation between reported age at the time of earliest memory and childhood adversity. We also found no evidence of gender differences in the associations of interest. These results suggest that poorer memory of early childhood is associated with greater childhood anxious attachment and anxiety in adulthood. The implications of this work are discussed in terms of the adaptive nature of autobiographical memory and the development of a coherent life narrative.     

The Moral Injury Symptoms Scale–Military Version–Short Form: Further Scale Validation in a U.S. Veteran Sample

Journal of Religion and Health - This study assessed the Moral Injury Symptoms Scale – Military Version – Short Form’s (MISS-M-SF) factor structure and construct validity....     

Self-monitored motives for smoking among college students.

College student smokers (N = 50) were asked to carry electronic diaries for 14 days and record smoking events (n = 1,139). They indicated why they were smoking each cigarette on a checklist of potential motives. Results suggest that a desire to reduce craving (62.8% of occasions) and habit/automatic processes (42.8%) were the most frequent motives. More dependent and daily smokers were especially likely to endorse smoking to reduce craving and for habit/automatic reasons and were less likely to cite coping with negative emotion as a reason for smoking. Dependent and daily smokers were more likely to endorse at least 1 dependence-like motive and were less likely to exclusively attribute smoking to nondependence motives. Self-monitored motives appeared valid, according with conceptually related states, activities, and events in the diary records. Diary-recorded motives were compared with smokers' responses to a retrospective motives questionnaire administered at baseline. The 2 assessment modes produced discrepant estimates of the most influential motivational processes. Questionnaire responses incompletely forecast conceptually similar diary-reported motives. Dependence and daily smoking showed a different pattern of associations with diary-based versus retrospective motives measures.     

Exploring the trainees' view of a socio‐political approach within UK clinical psychology

This paper aims to provide preliminary insights into the relationship between clinical psychology and a socio‐political approach known as Critical Community Psychology (CCP). Methodologically, it uses statements about CCP as stimulus material, and utilizes both quantitative and qualitative exploratory techniques, to survey the opinions of 354 UK trainee clinical psychologists. Participants' ratings of the stimulus material and their qualitative comments reveal many positive endorsements of the socio‐political approach. However, themes from the qualitative data raise questions about how socio‐political ideas can be incorporated into clinical practice and highlight uncertainty over the relationship between clinical psychology and politics. Copyright © 2006 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.