Covert orienting to the locations of targets and distractors: Effects on response channel activation in a flanker task

The role of covert orienting of attention in response channel activation was examined using the flanker interference and precueing paradigms. Four experiments assessed the influence of distractors on the discrimination of a target colour patch under cueing conditions (three with non-informative, exogenous cues and one with informative, endogenous cues) that modulated attention at the flanker or target locations. Across all of the experiments, the amount of interference generated by the distractors was not modulated by the facilitation and inhibition of return induced by spatial attention precues. These results are consistent with previous reports of patients with neglect, which demonstrated that flanker interference proceeds at unattended locations (Audet, Bub, & Lecours, 1991; Cohen, Ivry, Rafal, & Kohn, 1995), and they suggest that response channel activation can occur independently from spatial attention.     

GENDER AND THE RELATIONSHIP BETWEEN MARITAL-ROLE QUALITY AND PSYCHOLOGICAL DISTRESS

In this paper, we estimate the association between marital-role quality and psychological distress in a sample of 300 full-time employed women and men in dual-earner couples. We control for such individual-level variables as age, education, occupational prestige, and job-role quality, and for such couple-level variables as length of marriage, parental status, and household income. We then compare the magnitude of this effect for men and for women and for parents and nonparents. Results indicate that in dual-earner couples marital-role quality is signifycantly negatively associated with psychological distress for women as well as men and that the magnitude of the effect depends little, if at all, on gender or on parental status. These findings challenge the view that marital experiences more significantly influence women's mental health states than men's. The results are discussed in the context of identity theory.     

Always look on the bright side of students: does valence of teacher perceptions relate to students’ educational performance?

Social Psychology of Education - We studied the role of the valence of female teachers’ perceptions in predicting various student outcomes. Using a prospective design, at the beginning of...     

Older Women: Hope and Approaches to Life

This study investigated hope levels and approaches to life in women who were 70 years of age or older and living in nursing homes. The overall findings indicated that these women tended to approach life from a hopeful mindset, although a slightly different pattern emerged between more-hopeful women and less-hopeful women.