Prior knowledge and subtyping effects in children's category learning

Two experiments examined how 5- and 10-year-old children revise their category representations when exposed to exemplars that are congruent or incongruent with existing knowledge. During training children were presented with exemplars containing features that were congruent or incongruent with children's social stereotypes together with a stereotype-neutral feature. In the knowledge-subtyping condition this neutral feature predicted the stereotype-congruence of the other features. In the knowledge-standard condition the neutral feature was uncorrelated with stereotype-congruence. At test children made judgements about feature co-occurrence within the learned category. In each experiment these judgements were influenced by both stereotypical beliefs and exemplar observation. Stereotypical beliefs, however, had a greater influence on co-occurrence judgements in the knowledge-subtyping than in the standard conditions. In Experiment 2 these effects were shown to generalize to judgements about features that were not presented during training. These results challenge current models of knowledge-based categorization by showing that exemplar structure determines whether novel exemplar features are incorporated into category representations.     

Continuing and changing group identities: the effects of merging on social identification and ingroup bias

A social identity approach to the investigation of group-based reactions to a merger is outlined, in which a merger is analyzed in terms of the continuation or change of the pre-merger group identity. In two experiments, the relationship between pre-merger identification, post-merger identification, and ingroup bias was investigated using a minimal group paradigm. Results from both studies showed that the perceived continuation of the pre-merger group identity in the post-merger group strengthened the positive relationship between pre-merger identification and identification with the superordinate post-merger group. Moreover, perceived continuation strengthened, rather than reduced, ingroup bias at the subordinate level of the merged groups. Some theoretical and practical implications are discussed.     

The discrimination of temporal fine structure in call-like harmonic sounds by birds

Thresholds for discriminating changes in the temporal fine structure of call-like, harmonic sounds were measured in zebra finches (Taeniopygia guttata) and budgerigars (Melopsittacus undulatus). Birds could detect changes in periods as short as 1.225 ms at near 100% accuracy even when spectral and envelope cues were identical, as in time-reversed stimuli. Humans performed poorly on such stimuli, paralleling results from previous studies. Bird thresholds were in the range of those reported in neurophysiological studies of the songbird high vocal center (HVC) to temporally modified conspecific songs. Taken together, these results show that birds can hear differences in temporal fine structure in their natural vocalizations that go beyond human capabilities, but whether these abilities have communicative relevance remains to be seen.     

The role of National Library of Medicine web sites in newborn screening education

Expanded newborn screening programs and subsequent detection of rare genetic disorders challenge parents and their medical providers to learn about the treatment and management of these disorders. Many people seek medical information on the Internet but may encounter requests for registration or fees, or find that resources are out of date, difficult to understand, or buried in advertisements. The U.S. National Library of Medicine (NLM), a component of the National Institutes of Health, provides web-based resources that address the challenges of newborn screening education. These resources include MedlinePlus, Genetics Home Reference, ClinicalTrials.gov, and PubMed. NLM websites are not commercial, do not require registration or fees, and provide varied levels of information for a continuum of audiences from low-literacy consumers to health professionals. Using phenylketonuria as an example, this study describes the information that parents and their medical providers can find through NLM resources. NLM has embraced the digital age and provides the public with reliable, accurate, and up-to-date educational materials.     

Paper-and-pencil or online? Evaluating mode effects on measures of emotional functioning and attachment

The viability of using the World Wide Web to collect data from three widely used instruments by clinicians and researchers was investigated. The instruments were the Inventory of Parental and Peer Attachment, the Negative Mood Regulation Scale, and the Trait Meta-Mood Scale. Data were collected from two comparable groups of college students, and differences in response patterns on paper-and-pencil and World Wide Web versions of the measures, at both the item level and scale score level, were documented. Although mode of administration effects were statistically significant, the magnitude of the effects was in general very small. The basic similarity of the properties of the measures using paper-and-pencil and online Internet modes of administration suggests the viability of the Internet for assessing these and other psychological phenomena.     

Disgust sensitivity and contamination fears in spider and blood-injection-injury phobias

Disgust has been implicated in the onset and maintenance of blood-injection-injury (BII) and animal phobias. Research suggests that people with these phobias are characterized by an elevated sensitivity to disgust-evoking stimuli separate from their phobic concerns. The disgust response has been described as the rejection of potential contaminants. Disgust-motivated avoidance of phobic stimuli may therefore be related to fears of contamination or infection. The present study compared BII phobics, spider phobics and nonphobics on two measures of disgust sensitivity and two measures of contamination fears. Positive correlations were found between disgust sensitivity and contamination fear. Specific phobics scored higher than nonphobics on all scales and BII phobics scored higher than spider phobics on contamination fear measures. Furthermore, the contamination fear scales were correlated with the blood phobia measure, but not correlated with the spider phobia measure. The results suggest that while both phobias are characterized by elevated disgust sensitivity, contamination fear is more prominent in BII than spider phobia.     

Keeping connected: Family therapists' experiences of working online during the COVID-19 pandemic

For this qualitative study, eight family therapists were interviewed about their experiences of practising online during the pandemic. Findings are organised using a framework of problems, possibilities, resources and restraints (PPRR, Neden & Burnham, 2007). Despite variation in therapist confidence in online practice, all participants found new possibilities in this way of working, including connecting family members across distance, increased co-construction within therapeutic relationships and engaging clients who would not usually attend appointments. Therapeutic alliance was generally possible to establish online, though felt more challenging with whole families than individuals. Problems and restraints included therapist fatigue, risk and safety management, and attuning to nuanced expression of emotion. Implications for practice and future research are proposed. It is suggested that systemic practice has unique qualities to offer the field of online psychotherapy.     

Transparent emotions? A critical analysis of Moran's transparency claim

I critically analyze Richard Moran's account of knowing one's own emotions, which depends on the Transparency Claim (TC) for self-knowledge. Applied to knowing one's own beliefs, TC states that when one is asked “Do you believe P?”, one can answer by referencing reasons for believing P. TC works for belief because one is justified in believing that one believes P if one can give reasons for why P is true. Emotions, however, are also conceptually related to concerns; they involve a response to something one cares about. As a consequence, acquiring self-knowledge of one's emotions requires knowledge of other mental attitudes, which falls outside the scope of TC. Hence, TC cannot be applied to emotions.     

The stressors of being young and Black: Cardiovascular health and Black young adults

Objective: To examine the impact of stressors relevant to the lives of Black young adults including racial, financial, occupational, and general stress and psychological distress on cardiovascular disease (CVD) risk. Specifically, this study examined the relationship between multiple psychosocial stressors and two CVD risk indicators (i.e. obesity and blood pressure).

Design: This study used a quantitative design which included surveys, the collection of anthropometric and blood pressure (BP) measures. Participants were 124 Black college students aged 18 to 27 years old. Main Outcome Measures: Participants completed measures to assess psychological distress, general, occupational, financial and racial stress. Measures of body mass index (BMI), waist-to-hip ratio (WHR) and BP were collected to assess CVD risk.

Results: Findings indicated a significant effect of internalised racism on BMI and a significant effect of individual racial stress on diastolic BP. Also, depression was significantly associated with systolic BP. There were no significant results for WHR.

Conclusion: Findings suggested that the relationship among racial stress, psychological distress and CVD be further explored.     

The effects of thematic relations on picture naming abilities across the lifespan

A picture–word interference paradigm tracked patterns of activation during picture naming in 87 individuals (age range 17–80 years old). Distractor words were presented at stimulus onset asynchronies (SOAs) of ?200, ?100, and 0 ms bearing a has a-, location, or no relationship to the picture. Analyses of group naming reaction times revealed significant facilitation effects for both semantic relation types for all age groups. Analyses of temporal patterns of activation revealed significant effects primarily at SOAs of ?200 and ?100 ms. These findings provide evidence that both thematic relations are particularly salient in how semantic knowledge is organized, and that the patterns of effects from these semantic relations remain the same as one ages.