Does the presentation of multiple facial composites improve suspect identification?

Previous research that has evaluated the accuracy of facial composites has reported low identification rates. Two studies are reported here that consider whether showing more than one composite of the same suspect might improve the rate of identification. Sixteen participant‐witnesses saw one of two staged events, each involving a different unfamiliar target. Each participant‐witness worked with a police operator to construct a composite of the target they had seen. One, four or eight composites depicting the same target were then shown to individuals familiar with the target. Overall, the results showed that presenting more than one composite increased the rate of identification. In addition, the results of Study 2 suggest that if the police must select just one composite from a number produced by witnesses, then a promising method might be to choose the one which bears most similarity to the other composites in the set. Copyright © 2006 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Response inhibition and interference control: Effects of schizophrenia,genetic risk,and schizotypy

The ability to inhibit inappropriate responses and suppress irrelevant information is a core feature of executive control. In this study, we provide a detailed analysis of prepotent response inhibition and interference in patients with schizophrenia. To further test the role of genetic factors and subclinical schizophrenia‐like traits, we additionally studied clinically unaffected, first‐degree relatives of schizophrenia patients and assessed dimensions of schizotypy in both relatives and healthy controls. Inhibition and interference control were assessed using a battery comprising the antisaccade, Stroop, stop signal, go/no‐go, flanker, and Simon tasks. Schizophrenia patients differed from both relatives and controls in making more errors on the antisaccade task and having longer response times on the Stroop task, especially the incongruent condition. Patients also had general, that is, condition independent, increases in reaction times on the go/no‐go and flanker tasks and made more errors on the flanker and Simon tasks, suggesting general performance impairments independent of inhibitory demand. Relatives were characterized by hypometric antisaccade amplitude gain despite normal prosaccades, suggesting a selective deficit in non‐standard sensorimotor transformations. Schizotypy was correlated with inhibitory performance across a number of tasks in both relatives and controls. Generally, these effects were independent of verbal intelligence levels. Overall, the findings point to rather selective impairments of inhibitory control in the schizophrenia spectrum and confirm a previously observed deficit in antisaccade spatial accuracy as an endophenotype of schizophrenia.     

The role of perception, language, and preference in the developmental acquisition of basic color terms

When learning basic color vocabulary, young children show a selective delay in the acquisition of brown and gray relative to other basic color terms. In this study, we first establish the robustness of this finding and then investigate the extent to which perception, language, and color preference may influence color conceptualization. Experimental tasks were designed to measure different aspects of perceptual color processing (discrimination and saliency), color preference and objective counts of color term frequency in preschool-directed language (books and mothers' speech) were used to compare the acquisition of three groups of colors: primary colors, secondary colors (orange, pink, and purple) that appear at the same time as the primary colors, and secondary colors (brown and gray) that appear late. Although our results suggest that perception does not directly shape young children's color term acquisition, we found that children prefer brown and gray significantly less than basic colors and that these color terms appear significantly less often in child-directed speech, suggesting that color preference, linguistic input, and developing color cognition may be linked.     

Whistle rates of wild bottlenose dolphins (Tursiops truncatus): influences of group size and behavior

In large social groups acoustic communication signals are prone to signal masking by conspecific sounds. Bottlenose dolphins (Tursiops truncatus) use highly distinctive signature whistles that counter masking effects. However, they can be found in very large groups where masking by conspecific sounds may become unavoidable. In this study we used passive acoustic localization to investigate how whistle rates of wild bottlenose dolphins change in relation to group size and behavioral context. We found that individual whistle rates decreased when group sizes got larger. Dolphins displayed higher whistle rates in contexts when group members were more dispersed as in socializing and in nonpolarized movement than during coordinated surface travel. Using acoustic localization showed that many whistles were produced by groups nearby and not by our focal group. Thus, previous studies based on single hydrophone recordings may have been overestimating whistle rates. Our results show that although bottlenose dolphins whistle more in social situations they also decrease vocal output in large groups where the potential for signal masking by other dolphin whistles increases.     

Running with emotion: When affective content hampers working memory performance

This study tested the hypothesis that affective content may undermine rather than facilitate working memory (WM) performance. To this end, participants performed a running WM task with positive, negative and neutral words. In typical running memory tasks, participants are presented with lists of unpredictable length and are asked to recall the last three or four items. We found that accuracy with affective words decreased as lists lengthened, whereas list length did not influence recall of neutral words. We interpreted this pattern of results in terms of a limited resource model of WM in which valence represents additional information that needs to be manipulated, especially in the context of difficult trials.     

Why I did Not do What I Felt Like Doing When I Felt Hurt: An REBT-Based Investigation of Reasons Why Hurt-Based Action Tendencies are Not Acted On

In our previous study (Dryden and Hurton in J Ration Emot Cogn Behav Ther 29, 2013), we investigated the action tendencies that 100 people reported having, but did not act on in specific episodes where they felt hurt. In this study, we examine the reasons given by this same group of people for not so acting. Understanding the types of reasons why people do not act on their hurt-based action tendencies will first help REBT therapists to distinguish between constructive and unconstructive factors contained in these expressed reasons and thence to use this information to encourage their clients to act on their constructive tendencies and to discourage their clients from acting on their hurt feelings when it is unconstructive for them to do so.     

Effects of daily probing on acquisition of instructive feedback responses

This study evaluated the effects of daily probes of instructive feedback stimuli on students' acquisition of two types of instructive feedback responses. Four students, two with disabilities, participated and were taught four sets of behaviors, two sets received daily probes and two sets did not. A modification of the multiple probe design across behaviors was used. The findings indicate that students acquired their target behaviors rapidly and maintained correct responding during subsequent probe conditions. Students also acquired both types of instructive feedback and maintained it across subsequent probe conditions. The daily probes of the instructive feedback stimuli did not appear to enhance acquisition or maintenance of the instructive feedback responses, but students appeared to acquire the instructive feedback responses while learning their target behaviors. The implications of this study for understanding how students learn instructive feedback responses and for practice are discussed.     

Change in affective state assessed by impaired color-naming of threat-related words

This study investigated the effects of mood induction on Stroop color-naming times for threat-related words. The subjects’ task was to color-name sets of threat-related words and affectively neutral matched control words both before and after mood-induction. Subjects were shown a short film about the medical effects of nuclear war (negative affect manipulation), a humorous cartoon, or no film. A significant and highly reliable color-naming decrement of the threat-related words was observed only after the negative affect manipulation. This indicates that the attentional bias towards the processing of threat-related material observed in clinically anxious or high Trait-Anxious subjects can be induced in initially nonanxious subjects. An incidental recall task included in the procedure provided no evidence of mood state dependent recall.     

An Investigation of Counselor Interpretations in Client-Centered Therapy

Preliminary findings by the McGill Psychotherapy Process Research Team indicate that not only are interpretations used in client-centered therapy, but they are also efficient in producing in-session client change. Using the Hill Counsellor Verbal Response Category System—Revised (Friedlander, 1982) as a guide to locate interpretations, we investigated the qualitative differences between interpretations leading to different in-session client change events in six sessions conducted by Carl Rogers. The occurrence of in-session therapeutic phenomena were assessed using the Experiencing Scale (Klein, Mathieu, Gendlin, & Keisler, 1970) and the Category System of Good Moments (Mahrer & Nadler, 1986). Results indicate that significant in-session therapeutic phenomena are preceded by interpretations and that qualitative differences exist between interpretations that precede change events and those that do not. Implications for psychotherapy theory, research, and practice are discussed.