Sex differences in recall of real or nonsense words

Women perform better than men on tests of verbal memory, but the nature of this advantage has not been precisely established. To examine whether phonemic memory is a factor in the female advantage, we presented, along with other verbal memory tasks, one containing nonsense words. Overall, there was the expected female advantage. However, an examination of the individual tests showed female superiority in recall of the real words but not the nonsense words.     

An evaluation of the stimulus equivalence paradigm to teach single-subject design to distance education students via blackboard

The purpose of the current study was to examine the degree to which instruction based on stimulus equivalence procedures could be used to teach single-subject design methodology to graduate-level professionals through a Web-based course management system known as Blackboard (see http://www.blackboard.com). Specifically, we used the stimulus equivalence paradigm to teach relations among the names, definitions, graphical representations of the designs, and two practical scenarios of when it would be appropriate to implement each design. Most participants demonstrated the emergence of untaught relations, and some participants showed generalization to novel vignettes and graphs. Relations largely were not maintained at follow-up but were retaught.     

Preliminary Examination of a Cartoon-Based Hostile Attributional Bias Measure for Urban African American Boys

The current study illustrates how researchers developed and validated a cartoon-based adaptation of a written hostile attributional bias measure for a sample of urban, low-income, African American boys. A series of studies were conducted to develop cartoon illustrations to accompany a standard written hostile attributional bias vignette measure (Study 1), to determine initial psychometric properties (Study 2) and acceptability (Study 3), and to conduct a test–retest reliability trial of the adapted measure in a separate sample (Study 4). These studies utilize a participatory action research approach to measurement design and adaptation, and suggest that collaborations between researchers and key school stakeholders can lead to measures that are psychometrically strong, developmentally appropriate, and culturally sensitive. In addition, the cartoon-based hostile attributional bias measure appears to have promise as an assessment and/or outcome measure for aggression and bullying prevention programs conducted with urban African American boys.     

Peer Rejection and Friendships in Children with Attention-Deficit/Hyperactivity Disorder: Contributions to Long-Term Outcomes

Even after evidence-based treatment, Attention-Deficit/Hyperactivity Disorder (ADHD) is associated with poor long-term outcomes. These outcomes may be partly explained by difficulties in peer functioning, which are common among children with ADHD and which do not respond optimally to standard ADHD treatments. We examined whether peer rejection and lack of dyadic friendships experienced by children with ADHD after treatment contribute to long-term emotional and behavioral problems and global impairment, and whether having a reciprocal friend buffers the negative effects of peer rejection. Children with Combined type ADHD (N?=?300) enrolled in the Multimodal Treatment Study of Children with ADHD (MTA) were followed for 8 years. Peer rejection and dyadic friendships were measured with sociometric assessments after the active treatment period (14 or 24 months after baseline; M ages 9.7 and 10.5 years, respectively). Outcomes included delinquency, depression, anxiety, substance use, and general impairment at 6 and 8 years after baseline (Mean ages 14.9 and 16.8 years, respectively). With inclusion of key covariates, including demographics, symptoms of ADHD, ODD, and CD, and level of the outcome variable at 24 months, peer rejection predicted cigarette smoking, delinquency, anxiety, and global impairment at 6 years and global impairment at 8 years after baseline. Having a reciprocal friend was not, however, uniquely predictive of any outcomes and did not reduce the negative effects of peer rejection. Evaluating and addressing peer rejection in treatment planning may be necessary to improve long-term outcomes in children with ADHD.     

Is an optimistic memory less easily influenced by negative than by positive emotions?

This work examines whether a positive personality trait, such as optimism, can reduce bias in differential words recalled after inducing a certain emotion. After showing a list of words with various emotional valences to a group of 59 subjects, a specific emotional state was induced. Subsequently, the subjects were asked to recall the list of words. The results obtained indicated that less optimistic subjects had a tendency to recall and recognize a greater number of negative words when in a negative emotional condition. Statistical significance was reached in the female group's negative word recognition when experiencing negative emotion.     

Childhood Trauma, Adult Sexual Assault, and Adult Gender Expression among Lesbian and Bisexual Women

Several studies have demonstrated that lesbian and bisexual women are more likely than heterosexual women to report childhood abuse and adult sexual assault. It is unknown, however, which sexual minority women are most likely to experience such abuse. We recruited adult sexual minority women living in the US through electronic fliers sent to listservs and website groups inviting them to complete an online survey (N?=?1,243). We examined differences in both childhood abuse and adult sexual assault by women’s current gender identity (i.e., butch, femme, androgynous, or other) and a continuous measure of gender expression (from butch/masculine to femme/feminine), adjusting for sexual orientation identity, age, education, and income. Results indicated that a more butch/masculine current self-assessment of gender expression, but not gender identity, was associated with more overall reported childhood trauma. Although one aspect of gender expression, a more butch/masculine gender role, was associated with adult sexual assault, feminine appearance and a femme gender identity also significantly predicted adult sexual assault. These findings highlight the significance of gender identity and expression in identifying women at greater risk for various abuse experiences.     

APOLOGIZING WITHOUT REGRET

A common belief about the nature of agent regret is that regretting some event E is closely linked to being sorry for the occurrence of E. Or more specifically, that if one is sorry for E then she must regret E. I will call this ‘the sorry‐regret hypothesis’. My contention is that one may be sorry for some action but not regret it. I take the rejection of this ‘truism’ to be a positive development. I offer two lines of argument for rejecting the sorry‐regret hypothesis. One line of argument is based on counterexamples. The second attacks the validity of a reconstructed argument for the sorry‐regret hypothesis. It is desirable to reject the sorry‐regret hypothesis since there is a component of regret that many will not wish to be saddled with as a condition of apologizing. To regret an act, one must wish that she had not performed that act. Since a person is the person she is (speaking loosely) because of the actions she has performed, for many actions, if one regrets an action, then she wishes that she were a different person. This is a worrisome consequence.     

Matching- and nonmatching-to-sample concept learning in rats using olfactory stimuli

Previous research has shown that rats can learn matching-to-sample relations with olfactory stimuli; however, the specific characteristics of this relational control are unclear. In Experiment 1, 6 rats were trained to either match or nonmatch to sample in a modified operant chamber using common household spices as olfactory stimuli. After matching or nonmatching training with 10 exemplars, the contingencies were reversed with five new stimuli such that subjects trained on matching were shifted to nonmatching and vice versa. Following these reversed contingencies, the effects of the original training persisted for many trials with new exemplars. In Experiment 2, 9 rats were trained with matching procedures in an arena that provided for 18 different spatial locations for comparison stimuli. Five subjects were trained with differential reinforcement outcomes and 4 with only one type of reinforcer. Differential outcomes and multiple exemplars facilitated learning, and there was strong evidence for generalization to new stimuli for most rats that acquired several conditional discriminations. Performances with novel samples were generally above chance, but rarely reached the high levels obtained during baseline with well-trained stimulus relations. However, taken together, the data from the two experiments extend previous work, show that rats can learn both match and nonmatch relations with different experimental protocols, and demonstrate generalization to novel sample stimuli.     

Phonological similarity effects in simple and complex span tasks

Three experiments were conducted to examine the effect of phonological similarity in simple and complex memory span tasks. In Experiment 1, participants performed either a simple or a complex span task, and the memoranda within lists were either phonologically similar or distinct. Phonologically similar lists consisted of words that rhymed.The simple span task was word span. There were two complex span tasks; one was the original reading span task, and the other was a variant of reading span in which all the sentences within a list were contextually related. The classic phonological similarity decrement was observed in word span. In contrast, phonological similarity facilitation was observed in both versions of reading span. This facilitation effect was further investigated in Experiment 2 using two new versions of reading span. In Experiment 2, the sentences in reading span were either short or long, and the memoranda were presented separately from, and were unrelated to, the sentences. Again, words within phonologically similar lists rhymed, and again, facilitation was observed. In Experiment 3, phonological similarity was operationalized in terms of feature overlap, rather than rhyme. The classic phonological similarity decrement was still observed in word span, but facilitation was not observed in complex span. The results suggest that phonological similarity, when operationalized using words that rhyme, serves as a list retrieval cue and that complex span tasks are more dependent on cue-driven memory retrieval mechanisms than are simple span tasks.