Concurrent and 2-Year Longitudinal Relations Between Executive Function and the Behavior of 1st and 2nd Grade Children

Concurrent and 2-year longitudinal relations were investigated between two indicators of children’s (n =60; mean age = years 11 months) executive function, inhibitory control and sequencing ability, and behavior problem symptomatology. Dependent measures were parent and teacher reported internalizing and externalizing behavior. Hierarchical multiple regression analyses demonstrated few significant concurrent associations between either inhibitory control or sequencing ability, and behavior problem symptoms. In contrast, baseline inhibitory control predicted decreased teacher reported externalizing, and parent reported externalizing and internalizing behavior problems over a 2-year period. Baseline sequencing ability also predicted decreased teacher reported externalizing and parent reported internalizing behavior over this same time period. Results suggest that some aspects of executive function in early elementary grade-school children may be more strongly associated with change in behavior over time than concurrent behavior. Implications of these findings for the prevention of behavior problems are discussed.     

Friendly drug-dealers and terrifying puppies: Affective primacy can attenuate the N400 effect in emotional discourse contexts

Words that are semantically congruous with their preceding discourse context are easier to process than words that are semantically incongruous with their context. This facilitation of semantic processing is reflected by an attenuation of the N400 event-related potential (ERP). We asked whether this was true of emotional words in emotional contexts where discourse congruity was conferred through emotional valence. ERPs were measured as 24 participants read two-sentence scenarios with critical words that varied by emotion (pleasant, unpleasant, or neutral) and congruity (congruous or incongruous). Semantic predictability, constraint, and plausibility were comparable across the neutral and emotional scenarios. As expected, the N400 was smaller to neutral words that were semantically congruous (vs. incongruous) with their neutral discourse context. No such N400 congruity effect was observed on emotional words following emotional discourse contexts. Rather, the amplitude of the N400 was small to all emotional words (pleasant and unpleasant), regardless of whether their emotional valence was congruous with the valence of their emotional discourse context. However, consistent with previous studies, the emotional words produced a larger late positivity than did the neutral words. These data suggest that comprehenders bypassed deep semantic processing of valence-incongruous emotional words within the N400 time window, moving rapidly on to evaluate the words’ motivational significance.     

Does category labeling lead to forgetting?

What effect does labeling an object as a member of a familiar category have on memory for that object? Recent studies suggest that recognition memory can be negatively impacted by categorizing objects during encoding. This paper examines the “representational shift hypothesis” which argues that categorizing an object impairs recognition memory by altering the trace of the encoded memory to be more similar to the category prototype. Previous evidence for this idea comes from experiments in which a basic-level category labeling task was compared to a non-category labeling incidental encoding task, usually a preference judgment (e.g., “Do you like this item?”). In two experiments, we examine alternative tasks that attempt to control for processing demands and the degree to which category information is explicitly recruited at the time of study. Contrary to the predictions of the representational shift hypothesis, we find no evidence that memory is selectively impaired by category labeling. Overall, the pattern of results across both studies appears consistent with well-established variables known to influence memory such as encoding specificity and distinctiveness effects.     

Keep or trade? Effects of pay-off range on decisions with the two-envelops problem

The “two-envelops” problem has stimulated much discussion on probabilistic reasoning, but relatively little experimentation. The problem specifies two identical envelopes, one of which contains twice as much money as the other. You are given one of the envelopes and the option of keeping it or trading for the other envelope. Variables of interest include the possible amounts of money involved, what is known about the process by which the amounts of money were assigned to the envelopes, and whether you are allowed to know how much money is in the envelope in hand before deciding whether to keep or trade. In an earlier study, Butler and Nickerson found that when participants were allowed to know how much was in the envelope in hand, they generally elected to trade if that amount was small relative to the range of possibilities and to keep otherwise. The present experiments showed that this propensity was independent of the amount of money in the envelopes. Participants made decisions with a strong bias for avoiding the risk of losing by trading, particularly when the amount in hand was known and large relative to the range of possible amounts, regardless of the absolute value of the gamble. The results illustrate the dependence of thinking on the context in which it occurs, and demonstrate a tendency to treat quantities that are large or small relative to a particular context in which they are encountered as though they were large or small in a more general sense.     

Accuracy of recall among “eyewitnesses” to a simulated robbery: Intrapersonal and stimulus determinants

This study is a laboratory analogue investigation of variables that impinge upon the recall of detail about a simulated act of armed robbery among “eyewitnesses.” Specifically, this study sought to determine (1) whether recall of detail by Ss who watch the videotape of a simulated “armed robbery” taken by surveillance camera in a “convenience” store varies according to (a) the dress and appearance of the presumed “robber,” (b) the gender of the victim of the “robbery,” and/or (c) the gender of the “eyewitness”; and (2) whether such recall varies according to S’s inventoried psychological “needs.” Ss viewed the videotape of the simulated robbery under one of four conditions representing variations in the dress and appearance (“status”) of the alleged offender and the gender of the alleged victim; completed the Personality Adjective Inventory; and responded to a questionnaire concerning details of the alleged offense. Results indicate that the single statistically significant source of variance in accuracy of recall of detail is the experimentally manipulated “status” of the perpetrator; gender of victim and of subject contribute significantly neither in isolation nor in interaction. Inventoried psychological needs for “autonomy” and “change” are significantly but negatively and weakly correlated with accuracy among women Ss, while “change” alone is so correlated among men Ss. Findings are interpreted in accordance with theory and research in experimental social psychology and psychological criminology bearing upon person perception and role expectancy in relation to behavioral stereotypes. This study was supported in part through the Henry Rutgers Scholars Program at Rutgers College of Rutgers-The State University of New Jersey. The authors express their gratitude to Charles Rouse, Steven Gaynor, April Hayes, Erica Gross, Shawn Kimble, Elizabeth Chen, and Stephanie Bonn; Officer Leroy Washington, Rutgers University Police; and most particularly to Dipak Munsaf, proprietor of Krauszer's Food Store in the sixth ward of the city of New Brunswick.     

Overcoming Interpersonal Offenses: Is Forgiveness the Only Way to Deal With Unforgiveness?

Almost everyone is unforgiving at times. Many people seek to deal with the revenge and avoidance of unforgiveness by forgiving. The authors explore potential predictors of unforgiveness and forgiveness for a specific offense in 91 undergraduates. Positive feelings of forgiveness were uniquely predicted by dispositional forgivingness and by the participants' deliberate attempt to forgive the offense. Different patterns of predictors suggest that unforgiveness and forgiveness are not necessarily reciprocally related. This implies that interventions might be developed to reduce unforgiveness without attempting to promote forgiveness. This may be crucial in situations where forgiveness is not desirable.     

Alexithymia,verbal intellectual deficit,and neurological dysfunction in relation to risk-taking behavior

This study explored relationships between alexithymia (measured through the Toronto Alexithymia Scale), probable neurological dysfunction (Stroop Color Word Test), and “Verbal” and “Abstraction” IQ scores (Hartford-Shipley Institute for Living Scale) in relation to risk-taking behavior. Subjects were “anti-social” risk-takers (criminal offenders undergoing court-related residential drug treatment), “adventurous” risktakers (college students who regularly engage in such sports as rock-climbing and spelunking), or “normals” (college students who were neither adventurous risk-takers nor criminal offenders). Principal findings reveal that clinically relevant alexithymia is observed among risk-takers of either anti-social or adventurous variety less frequently, but among “normals” more frequently, than chance would predict; that the “verbal deficit pattern” in intellectual functioning is observed more frequently among adventurous risk-takers, less frequently among “normals,” and no more frequently among anti-social risk-takers than chance would predict; and that probable neurological dysfunction is observed more frequently among anti-social risk-takers but less frequently among adventurous risk-takers or “normals” than chance would predict. Results support only in part the Pallone-Hennessy (1999) conceptual model of the genesis and correlates of risk-taking in respect of anti-social, but not in respect of adventurous risk-takers. This study was supported by grants from the Henry Rutgers Scholars Program, Rutgers College, and the Fund for Correctional Psychology, Center of Alcohol Studies. Deep gratitude is expressed to Eric Workowski, Charles Rouse, and Joni Lepore for their invaluable assistance.     

A test of sex differences in instrumental appetitive learning by rats

A total of 48 laboratory rats, half male and half female, were trained and extinguished on instrumental bar-pressing for either 16% or 64% sucrose incentives. No consistent sex differences were found in either acquisition or variability of bar-press responding, or in extinction. The only statistically reliable difference indicated that males were more variable in responding for the 16% sucrose incentive, as measured by the range of scores over each week. It is concluded that no real sex differences in learning proficiency obtain under the experimental conditions employed, and that therefore the practice of using mainly or exclusively female rats in our laboratory is methodologically sound.     

Peak shift as a function of multiple schedules of reinforcement

Pigeons were trained to respond to two stimuli on the wavelength continuum, 550 nm and 570 nm, each correlated with an independent schedule of reinforcement. The multiple schedule component in effect during 550 nm (S1) was always a variable-interval 1-min. During the 570-nm stimulus (S2) the second component of the schedule was either variable-interval 30-sec, 1-min, 2-min, 5-min, or extinction for different groups of birds. Generalization gradients were obtained after this training, with the following results: (1) response rate to S1 during training was related to the reinforcement frequency associated with S2; the distribution of responding during generalization testing was a function of the schedules of reinforcement used during training and the response rates they produced. Decreases in the relative frequency of reinforcement correlated with S2 resulted in increases in the distribution shift of responses away from S2 during generalization testing.