‘Laboratory Talk’ in U.S. Sociology, 1890–1930: The Performance of Scientific Legitimacy

This paper examines one aspect of early twentieth century debates over the meaning of scientific methodology and epistemology within the social sciences: the tendency of sociologists to invoke “laboratory” as a multivalent concept and in reference to diverse institutions and sites of exploration. The aspiration to designate or create laboratories as spaces of sociological knowledge production was broadly unifying in early American sociology (1890–1930), even though there was no general agreement about what “laboratory” meant, nor any explicit acknowledgment of that lack of consensus. The persistence of laboratory talk in sociology over decades reflects the power of “laboratory” as a productively ambiguous, legitimizing ideal for sociologists aspiring to make their discipline rigorously scientific.     

The Relationship Between Sluggish Cognitive Tempo and Impairment in Children With and Without ADHD

This study examined impairment in multiple domains of functioning in children with and without ADHD who present with high or low levels of sluggish cognitive tempo (SCT) while taking into account the total symptom ratings of ADHD. Participants were 584 children in kindergarten through eighth grade (55.7 % male, 91.7 % Caucasian), drawn from five archival datasets. Two, 2 (SCT groups: high and low) x 3 (ADHD Status: ADHD-I, ADHD-C, and non-ADHD) MANCOVAs were conducted with the total ADHD symptom ratings and child age as covariates. One MANCOVA was conducted on scores on the teacher Impairment Rating Scale (IRS; Fabiano et al. Journal of Clinical Child and Adolescent Psychology 35:369–385, 2006) and the other on the 6 scores on the parent IRS. The results indicated that the presence of SCT symptoms was associated with greater functional impairment at home according to parent report while it was associated with less functional impairment at school according to teacher report. Thus, the relationship between SCT symptoms and impairment differs depending on the informant and the context in which impairment is evaluated.     

When does anxiety help or hinder cognitive test performance? The role of working memory capacity

Cognitive interference theories (e.g. attentional control theory, processing efficiency theory) suggest that high levels of trait anxiety predict adverse effects on the performance of cognitive tasks, particularly those that make high demands on cognitive resources. We tested an interaction hypothesis to determine whether a combination of high anxiety and low working memory capacity (WMC) would predict variance in demanding cognitive test scores. Ninety six adolescents (12‐ to 14‐years‐old) participated in the study, which measured self‐report levels of trait anxiety, working memory, and cognitive test performance. As hypothesized, we found that the anxiety‐WMC interaction explained a significant amount of variance in cognitive test performance (ΔR² .07, p < .01). Trait anxiety was unrelated to cognitive test performance for those adolescents with average WMC scores (β = .13, p > .10). In contrast, trait anxiety was negatively related to test performance in adolescents with low WMC (β = ?.35, p < .05) and positively related to test performance in those with high WMC (β = .49, p < .01). The results of this study suggest that WMC moderates the relationship between anxiety and cognitive test performance and may be a determinant factor in explaining some discrepancies found in the literature. Further research is needed to fully understand the mechanisms involved.     

Psychological and social characteristics of attenders for breast screening

Abstract

Demographic characteristics, health behaviour and knowledge of breast cancer were assessed in 183 women from a regional breast screening unit and compared with those of 182 women from a breast clinic and 41 control subjects. A questionnaire yielded information on (i) demographic characteristics and cancer-related behaviours including breast self-examination (BSE), use of screening and promptness of presentation of breast symptoms in the clinic group, (ii) the extent and effects of knowledge about breast cancer and (iii) the role of Health Belief Model dimensions. Results showed the screening unit attenders to be significantly older and to be significantly more likely to be from higher social classes. Differences between the groups in health beliefs and knowledge did not remain once the effects of age and social class were partialled out. While attitudes towards BSE and its practice related to health beliefs. only a minority of the women indicated that they practised BSE with any regularity. The results suggest that screening is failing to attract a truly representative sample of the community and raise the possibility that this failure is a consequence of sociological as much as psychological factors.     

Representational momentum and the flash‐lag effect

Representational momentum (RM) is a distortion where the final orientation of a moving object is misremembered as further along its trajectory. Experiments reported here examine RM when an additional object was flashed just as the moving object disappeared. When the task was to judge the flashed object, participants reported that the flash appeared to lag behind (flash‐lag effect; FLE). When the task was to judge the moving object, larger forward distortions for the moving object were found when the flash was present, despite previous evidence that the FLE depends on the moving object's continued presence. The results suggest that some part of the FLE depends upon what precedes the flash. In addition, equivalent RM was observed for implied and smoothly animated events, a possible limit to the velocity effect for RM was found, and larger positive distortions were found for downward rotations.     

Response to commentary on the multimodal treatment study of ADHD (MTA): mining the meaning of the MTA

In the December 2000 issue of the Journal of Abnormal Child Psychology, we published a set of papers presenting secondary analyses of the Multimodal Treatment Study of ADHD (MTA), and R. A. Barkley (2000) provided a commentary. A critique of the design of the study (MTA Cooperative Group, 1999) was presented based on a theoretical perspective of a behavioral inhibition deficit that has been hypothesized as the core deficit of ADHD (R. A. Barkley, 1997). The commentary questioned the design and analysis of the MTA in terms of (1) the empirical criteria for selection of components of behavioral (Beh) intervention, (2) the effectiveness of the Beh intervention, (3) the methods for analyses at the group and individual level, (4) implications of the MTA findings for clinical practice, (5) the role of genetics in response to treatment, and (6) the lack of a nontreatment control group. In this response, we relate the content of the papers to the commentary, (1) by reviewing the selection criteria for the Beh treatment, as outlined by K. C. Wells, W. E. Pelham, et al. (2000), (2) by addressing the myth that the MTA Beh treatment was ineffective (Pelham, 1999), (3) by describing the use of analyses at the level of the individual participant, as presented by J. S. March et al. (2000) and W. E. Pelham et al. (2000) as well as elsewhere by J. M. Swanson et al. (2001) and C. K. Conners et al. (2001), (4) by relating some of the suggestions from the secondary analyses about clinically relevant factors such as comorbidity (as presented by J. S. March et al., 2000) and family and parental characteristics (as presented by B. Hoza et al., 2000, S. P. Hinshaw et al., 2000, and K. C. Wells, J. N. Epstein, et al., 2000), (5) by discussing the statistical concept of heritability and the lack of a significant difference in the presence of ADHD symptoms in parents of the MTA families compared to parents in the classmate-control families (as presented by J. N. Epstein, et al., 2000), and (6) by acknowledging that an ethically necessary weakness of the MTA design is that it did not include a no-treatment control group. We discuss the use of secondary analyses to suggest how, when, and for what subgroups effectiveness of the Beh treatment may have been manifested. Finally, we invite others to use the large and rich data set that will soon be available in the public domain, to perform secondary analyses to mine the meaning of the MTA and to evaluate theories of ADHD and response to treatments.     

A Longitudinal Study of Interparental Conflict, Emotional and Behavioral Reactivity, and Preschoolers' Adjustment Problems among Low-Income Families

Researchers have begun to develop models that explain the processes by which interparental conflict impacts children's adjustment. The present study tested a model based on emotional security theory. The longitudinal relations among interparental conflict, boys' reactions to conflict, and internalizing and externalizing problems were examined in a sample of 129 mother–son dyads from low-income, 2-parent families from the time sons were age 2 to 5. Results indicated that children exposed to interparental conflict were more likely to have concurrent and later behavior problems and that patterns of interparental conflict across time made unique contributions in predicting later problems. Children's emotional reactivity in response to conflict had no direct relation to interparental conflict and only modest relations to behavior problems. However, interparental conflict and reactivity factors interacted to predict behavior problems at ages 3 1/2 and 5. Thus, some support was demonstrated for emotional reactivity as a moderator in the development of young children's behavior problems.     

Word-to-word variation in ERP component latencies: spoken words

Data were collected shedding light on the brain electrical activity underlying word recognition. Subjects listened to a list of 48 spoken words in six random orders under two instructional sets: first to "think about the meanings of the words," and second, to learn the list. The scalp EEG associated with hearing and identifying the words was recorded at F3, F4, Cz, P3, P4, Pz, and Oz. Standard within-subjects time-locked averaging across words showed a late negative-positive complex with N2-P3 topography, the negative component peaking around 480 msec, the positive component peaking around 830 msec. Averaging within words across subjects uncovered considerable latency variability in both components. Within-word N2 and P3 component latencies covaried with word durations and with the "recognition points" predicted for the words by the "cohort theory" of word recognition. N2 latencies corresponded closely to the "N400" effect elicited with semantically incongruous sentence-final spoken words. Implications for ERP investigations of language processing are discussed.     

Low-cost equipment for schedule generation: II. Time-dependent schedules

Complementary metal oxide semiconductor (CMOS) logic provides an efficient and convenient technology for the generation of schedules of reinforcement. A single circuit provides a module capable of use as either a fixed-interval timer or one generating a differential reinforcement of low-rate schedule. A second circuit provides for a programmable variable-interval generator with 16 independent intervals. Both modules are fully compatible with previously described circuits for ratio schedules.