Efficient visual search by category: specifying the features that mark the difference between artifacts and animals in preattentive vision.

In this report, we explored the features that support visual search for broadly inclusive natural categories. We used a paradigm in which subjects searched for a randomly selected target from one category (e.g., one of 32 line drawings of artifacts or animals in displays ranging from three to nine items) among a mixed set of distractors from the other. We found that search was surprisingly fast. Target-present slopes for animal targets among artifacts ranged from 10.8 to 16.0 msec/item, and slopes for artifact targets ranged from 5.5 to 6.2 msec/item. Experiments 2-5 tested factors that affect both the speed of the search and the search asymmetry favoring detection of artifacts among animals. They converge on the conclusion that target-distractor differences in global contour shape (e.g., rectilinearity/curvilinearity) and visual typicality of parts and form facilitate search by category. We argue that existing theories are helpful in understanding these findings but that they need to be supplemented to account for the specific features that specify categories and to account for subjects' ability to quickly locate targets representing heterogeneous and formally complex categories.     

Efficient visual search by category: Specifying the features that mark the difference between artifacts and animals in preattentive vision

In this report, we explored the features that support visual search for broadly inclusive natural categories. We used a paradigm in which subjects searched for a randomly selected target from one category (e.g., one of 32 line drawings of artifacts or animals in displays ranging from three to nine items) among a mixed set of distractors from the other. We found that search was surprisingly fast. Target-present slopes for animal targets among artifacts ranged from 10.8 to 16.0 msec/item, and slopes for artifact targets ranged from 5.5 to 6.2 msec/item. Experiments 2–5 tested factors that affect both the speed of the search and the search asymmetry favoring detection of artifacts among animals. They converge on the conclusion that target-distractor differences in global contour shape (e.g., rectilinearity/curvilinearity) and visual typicality of parts and form facilitate search by category. We argue that existing theories are helpful in understanding these findings but that they need to be supplemented to account for the specific features that specify categories and to account for subjects’ ability to quickly locate targets representing heterogeneous and formally complex categories.     

Sharing Attention to Toys: Adolescent Mother–Toddler versus Adult Mother–Toddler Dyads

This study examined whether there were differences in the joint attention behaviours of adolescent mothers and toddlers and adult mothers and toddlers. The timing of mothers' attention-directing behaviours (i.e. maintaining, introducing and redirecting) as well as the specific behaviours (i.e. showing, offering and demon-strating toy) they used to direct their toddlers' attention to toys were observed. The observers also coded the specific joint attention behaviours that the toddlers used. The findings showed that the adolescent mothers redirected their toddlers' attention away from a toy they were interested in to a different toy more often and used fewer introducing behaviours than the adult mothers. Toddler age was also inversely related to mothers' redirecting behaviour. The results also indicated that the adolescent mothers demonstrated toys and interfered with their toddlers' ongoing play behaviour more frequently than the adult mothers. Toddler age was also inversely related to the frequency with which both groups of mothers demonstrated toys and positively related to the frequency with which mothers showed toys. The toddlers born to the adolescent mothers showed fewer social initiations and a higher frequency of non-verbal responses than the toddlers born to the adult mothers. Toddler age was negatively related to the frequency of non-verbal responses.     

Development of a Measure of Attachment to God for Muslims

Attachment to God has received theoretical and theological warrant for its applicability to Christian and Muslim populations. However, existing measures of attachment to God have been developed within Christian contexts and do not necessarily constitute the best instruments for measuring attachment to God amongst Muslims. This paper addresses the lack of a religiously sensitive measure of attachment to God amongst Muslims by describing the development of the Muslim Spiritual Attachment Scale (M-SAS), the psychometric properties of the M-SAS, and its use in an Australian study of psychological health amongst Muslims. Implications for understanding Muslim attachment styles, and for future research into attachment to God amongst Christian and Muslim populations using culturally sensitive measures are discussed.     

情绪社会分享动机与社会适应

为了探究情绪社会分享动机与社会适应的关系,研究招募了305名大学生被试,要求被试回忆近期发生并分享了的积极和消极情绪事件,并报告与他人分享情绪的基本形态、分享动机,以及多项社会适应指标。研究检验了情绪社会分享动机问卷(SSMS)中文版的信效度,发现新版SSMS存在7个因子,即认知清晰、宣泄、影响他人、获得关注、共情、寻求支持、告知他人。7个动机因子中,认知情绪、宣泄、寻求支持和告知他人与社会适应指标有较强相关。积极情绪事件分享在影响他人、获取关注和告知他人等方面动机较强; 负情绪事件分享动机在认知清晰和引发共情方面较强。而且,女性的宣泄动机较强,男性在获取关注上较强。负情绪事件分享时,女性有较强的引发共情动机。     

A multiple species approach to sequential learning: Are you a man or a mouse?

We have developed a method for studying list learning in animals and humans, and we use variants of the task to examine list learning in rats, mice, and humans. This method holds several advantages over other methods. It has been found to be easily learned without lengthy pretraining. The data gathered with this procedure provide a measure of correct response rates, of incorrect responses and the locations of these responses, and of response latency on a trial-by-trialbasis. We have examined mouse, rat, and human list acquisition of patterns ranging from 12 to 48 items in length. This procedure has also been used to examine many aspects of list learning, such as the effects of the placement of phrasing cues that are either consistent or inconsistent with the structure of the list in rats and mice, the effects of phrasing cues of differing modalities in mice, the sensitivity of subjects to violations of list structure in rats, subjects’ abilities to “chunk” from nonadjacent serial positions in structured lists in rats, and subjects’ sensitivity to serial patterns with multiple levels of hierarchical organization. The procedure has also been used to examine the effects of drugs on sequential learning.     

Disclosure of Trauma and Psychosomatic Health: An Interview With James W. Pennebaker

This interview with James W. Pennebaker explores the often serendipitous career development of his interest in the relationship between the disclosure or inhibition of traumatic experience and psychosomatic illness. His current research has moved beyond psychosomatic illness to address other aspects of physical and mental health. The importance of Pennebaker's research is reflected in the many books and articles he has written, the continuing grants he has procured, and the awards he has won. His research findings yield several important implications for the counseling process and for counseling professionals themselves.