Retrieving information from a hierarchical plan

Plans give structure to behavior by specifying whether and when different tasks must be performed. However, the structure of behavior need not mirror the structure of the plan. To investigate this idea, the authors studied how plan information is retrieved in the context of a novel sequence-position cuing procedure, wherein subjects memorize two task sequences, then perform trials on which they are randomly cued to perform a task at one of the serial positions in a sequence. Several empirical effects were consistent with retrieval from a hierarchically structured representation (but not a non-hierarchical representation), including large sequence-repetition benefits, position-repetition benefits only for sequence repetitions, and a lack of robust task-repetition benefits. The data were successfully modeled by assuming that retrieval was time-consuming, susceptible to priming, cue-dependent, structurally constrained, and token-specific. In tandem, the empirical data and modeling work provide deeper insight into the representation of and access to information in memory that comprises a plan for guiding behavior.     

Exemplary Counseling Strategies for Developmental Transitions of Young Women With Attention Deficit/Hyperactivity Disorder

This article is intended to provide rehabilitation, career, and mental health counselors with an understanding of how attentional impairments are manifested in young women and how professional counselors may help them most effectively. Treatment guidelines and recommendations are presented for working with these young women through the developmental transition years of adolescence and young adulthood.     

What it costs to implement a plan: Plan-level and task-level contributions to switch costs

Four experiments were conducted to identify the costs of implementing a plan in the task span procedure, which requires subjects to retrieve the task to perform on the current target from a list of planned tasks in memory. Experiment 1 compared switch costs in the task span procedure with switch costs in the explicit task-cuing procedure, which presented cues indicating the task to perform on each target. Switch costs were greater in the task span procedure. Experiments 2-4 were designed to identify the sources of this difference. Experiment 2 showed that the requirement of establishing a correspondence between the list of task names and the list of targets contributed to switch costs. Experiment 3 showed that retaining lists of similar task names produced greater switch costs than did retaining lists of dissimilar task names. Experiment 4 showed that memory load had no effect on switch costs. The results are discussed in terms of the interaction between plan-level and task-level processing in the implementation of plans.     

Still clever after all these years: searching for the homunculus in explicitly cued task switching

Many researchers interpret switch costs in the explicit task-cuing procedure as reflecting endogenous task-set reconfiguration. G. D. Logan and C. Bundesen (2003) challenged this interpretation empirically and theoretically. They argued that many experiments confounded cue encoding benefits with switch costs and they showed that unconfounded switch costs could be vanishingly small. They proposed a theory in which subjects use a single task set in the explicit task-cuing procedure and switch costs reflect cue encoding benefits, not reconfiguration. S. Monsell and G. A. Mizon (2006) responded to these challenges, describing conditions under which substantial switch costs could be observed in the explicit task-cuing procedure and providing a theoretical account of performance in which reconfiguration occurred in G. D. Logan and C. Bundesen's experiments. This article is a response to S. Monsell and G. A. Mizon's challenge that highlights empirical problems with their evidence and reports an experiment that challenges critical assumptions of their theoretical account.     

Stopping eye and hand movements: are the processes independent?

To explore how eye and hand movements are controlled in a stop task, we introduced effector uncertainty by instructing subjects to initiate and occasionally inhibit eye, hand, or eye + hand movements in response to a color-coded foveal or tone-coded auditory stop signal. Regardless of stop signal modality, stop signal reaction time was shorter for eye movements than for hand movements, but notably did not vary with knowledge about which movement to cancel. Most errors on eye + hand stopping trials were combined eye + hand movements. The probability and latency of signal respond eye and hand movements corresponded to predictions of Logan and Cowan's (1984) race model applied to each effector independently.     

The psalms of lament and the transformation of sorrow

This article explores how the psalms of lament can be used as a resource for pastoral care, and how ultimately they point toward the transformation of sorrow. Relying on Walter Brueggemann's scheme of orientation--disorientation--new orientation as a way to recognize the depth of human experience, the article sees the laments as honest engagement and dialogue with God within a covenantal relationship where hurt and pain are acknowledged rather than denied and avoided. The implications of using the psalms of lament in pastoral care and in Clinical Pastoral Education are discussed.     

Out with the old? The role of selective attention in retaining targets in partial report

In the partial-report task, subjects are asked to report only a portion of the items presented. Selective attention chooses which objects to represent in short-term memory (STM) on the basis of their relevance. Because STM is limited in capacity, one must sometimes choose which objects are removed from memory in light of new relevant information. We tested the hypothesis that the choices among newly presented information and old information in STM involve the same process—that both are acts of selective attention. We tested this hypothesis using a two-display partial-report procedure. In this procedure, subjects had to select and retain relevant letters (targets) from two sequentially presented displays. If selection in perception and retention in STM are the same process, then irrelevant letters (distractors) in the second display, which demanded attention because of their similarity to the targets, should have decreased target report from the first display. This effect was not obtained in any of four experiments. Thus, choosing objects to keep in STM is not the same process as choosing new objects to bring into STM.     

What is Working,What is Not,and What We Need to Know: a Meta-Analytic Review of Business Ethics Instruction

Requirements for business ethics education and organizational ethics trainings mark an important step in encouraging ethical behavior among business students and professionals. However, the lack of specificity in these guidelines as to how, what, and where business ethics should be taught has led to stark differences in approaches and content. The present effort uses meta-analytic procedures to examine the effectiveness of current approaches across organizational ethics trainings and business school courses. to provide practical suggestions for business ethics interventions and research. Thus, the primary questions driving this research are as follows: (1) what course characteristics moderate the effectiveness of ethics instruction?, and (2) have ethics education and training efforts improved? Findings suggest that professional, focused, and workshop-based training programs are especially effective for improving business ethics. However, results also reveal considerable problems with many of the criteria used to evaluate the effectiveness of business ethics interventions. Practical suggestions for course design and evaluation in business ethics efforts are discussed along with future research needs.     

Convergent and discriminative validity of interview and questionnaire measures of personality disorder in mentally disordered offenders: a multitrait-multimethod analysis using confirmatory factor analysis

Measures of personality disorder from the International Personality Disorder Examination, Personality Diagnostic Questionnaire, and Millon Clinical Multiaxial Inventory (MCMI-II) were obtained from detained male mentally disordered offenders (N = 156), and convergent and discriminant validity were examined by confirmatory factor analysis of the multitrait-multimethod matrix. Hierarchical comparisons of models varying in their specification of trait and method variance established the appropriateness of a model supporting both convergence and discrimination across methods, but these were variable across constructs and measures. Convergence was good for avoidant, schizoid, and antisocial disorders, but poor for histrionic, narcissistic, and obsessive-compulsive disorders. Avoidant, schizoid, and schizotypal disorders were not clearly distinguishable from each other. Measurement error attributable to method variance was substantial for all instruments and for most disorders. The commonly alleged superiority of interview over questionnaire methods was not supported, and the MCMI-II demonstrated proportionately more "true" variance. However, assessment methods may be differentially sensitive to different kinds of personality disorder problems.