Speed of lexical and nonlexical processing in French: The case of the regularity effect

Words with irregular spelling-sound correspondences are read aloud more slowly than words with regular spelling-sound correspondences. This so-calledregularity effect is modulated by word frequency, with low-frequency words showing larger costs than do high-frequency words. Because French has more regular spelling-to-sound correspondences than English, we expected a different pattern in French than in English. This was indeed the case, since regularity effects were obtained for both high-and low-frequency words in French. We further showed that a French implementation of the dual-route cascaded model could not account for this pattern. In additional simulations, we investigated whether this failure was due to lexical processes being too fast (leaving little time for the nonlexical route to interfere) or nonlexical processes being too slow. The results showed that only speeding up the nonlexical route allowed the model to capture the data. This suggests that the delayed phonology assumption that characterizes nonlexical processing in the original model needs to be abandoned in a more regular orthography.     

Children with lesbian parents: a community study

Existing research on children with lesbian parents is limited by reliance on volunteer or convenience samples. The present study examined the quality of parent-child relationships and the socioemotional and gender development of a community sample of 7-year-old children with lesbian parents. Families were recruited through the Avon Longitudinal Study of Parents and Children, a geographic population study of 14,000 mothers and their children. Thirty-nine lesbian-mother families, 74 two-parent heterosexual families, and 60 families headed by single heterosexual mothers were compared on standardized interview and questionnaire measures administered to mothers, co-mothers/fathers, children, and teachers. Findings are in line with those of earlier investigations showing positive mother-child relationships and well-adjusted children.     

Positive Affect: A Neglected Group Treatment Outcome Measure in Assessing Efficacy of Psychosocial Group Interventions in Individuals with Heart Failure

Positive affect has been neglected in evaluation of group treatment efficacy. This pilot study for individuals with heart failure illustrates the contribution of positive affect to change processes. Assessment of positive affect pre- and post-group intervention can yield a better understanding of individuals' adjustment to heart failure, and provide additional information for selection of specific treatments for each individual. In an era characterized by standardized measures of outcome, inclusion of positive affect provides additional opportunity to document contributions in improving health related quality of life (psychosocial and physical functioning) of clients with heart failure.     

A position-sensitive Stroop effect: further evidence for a left-to-right component in print-to-speech conversion

In the classical Stroop effect, response times for naming the color in which a word is printed are affected by the presence of semantic, phonological, or orthographic relationships between the stimulus word and the response word. We show that color naming responses are faster when the printed word shares a phoneme with the color name to be produced than when it does not, in conditions where there is no semantic relationship between the printed word and the color name. This result is compatible with a variety of computational models of reading. However, we also found that these effects are much larger when it is the first phoneme that the stimulus and response share than when it is the last. Our data are incompatible with computational models of reading in which the computation of phonology from print is purely parallel. The dual route cascaded model computational model of reading, which has a lexical route that operates in parallel and a nonlexical route that operates serially letter by letter, successfully simulates this position-sensitive Stroop effect. The model also successfully simulates the “onset effect” in masked priming (Forster & Davis, 1991) and the interaction between the regularity effect and the position in a word of a grapheme-phoneme irregularity (Rastle & Coltheart, 1999b)-effects which, we argue, arise for the same reason as the position-sensitive Stroop effect we report.     

Individual Differences in the Effectiveness of Sexual Harassment Awareness Training1

Little research has investigated the effectiveness of sexual harassment awareness training videos on potential harassers' knowledge, behavior, or attitudes. A laboratory study was conducted that assessed the effects of a sexual harassment awareness training video on several training outcomes: sexual harassment knowledge, touching behavior, and attitudes associated with the likelihood of harassing others. Participants' propensity to harass was measured prior to their participation in the study. Results indicated that video-based training increased knowledge acquisition and reduced the inappropriate behavior of men who had a high propensity to harass. However, the training did not influence participants' long-term attitudes associated with the propensity to harass others. The research and practical implications of the study results are discussed.     

A Prototype Matching Approach to Understanding the Role of Applicant Gender and Age in the Evaluation of Job Applicants1

This research uses a prototype matching approach to understand how job applicant evaluations are made and the role that applicant gender and age play in these evaluations. It is hypothesized that raters represent information about jobs and jobholders in person-in-job prototypes. Raters evaluate applicants by matching information about applicants to the person-in-job prototype associated with the job for which the applicant is applying. Person-in-job prototypes are comprised of features that are more (i.e., central) or less (i.e., peripheral) strongly associated with the prototype. Three laboratory studies examined several hypotheses derived from a prototype matching approach. Results indicated that applicants who matched on more central features were evaluated more favorably than applicants who matched on fewer central features of person-in-job prototypes. In addition, applicants who matched on age were evaluated more favorably than applicants who did not match on age when age was a central but not a peripheral feature of a person-in-job prototype. However, applicants who matched on gender were not evaluated differently from applicants who did not match on gender when gender was a central or a peripheral feature of a person-in-job prototype. Finally, there was some evidence that raters used applicant gender in a complex manner when evaluating applicants. Implications for theory and research on bias in selection are discussed.     

Child abuse and neglect reporting laws: Understanding interests,understanding policy

This article focuses on the interests of the persons involved in the child abuse and neglect reporting process—(1) the child, the accused, and the family members of the child and of the accused; (2) physicians, psychologists, therapists, private agency and hospital social workers, educators, and other professionals; (3) law enforcement officers, state social service workers, lawyers, and judges; and (4) legislators. With this focus, the article illuminates the rationales and explicit and implicit policy choices reflected in the legislation's reporting requirements and processes. Such insight is necessary to a critical review of existing legislation and future improvements in the practical operation of reporting law legislation. This article demonstrates that the interaction of these interests is complex and often creates competing concerns and goals. This article concludes that efforts should be made to better harmonize these interests in future legislation.     

Models of family functioning and their contribution to patient outcomes in chronic pain

This paper analyzes the relationship between family functioning and chronic pain, and evaluates a model which integrates the role of family variables with the pain-coping process in patients with rheumatoid arthritis (RA) and fibromyalgia (FM). Family variables, assessed by subscales of the Family Environment Scale (FES), and different components of the pain-coping process varied significantly in their contribution to pain, psychological functioning, and disability in these two chronic pain disorders. High system maintenance control and low independence contributed significantly to pain in RA and FM, respectively, while low family cohesiveness contributed to psychological disturbances in FM subjects. Lack of promotion of activity and recreation in the family was associated with greater disability in both groups. In addition to family variables, helplessness proved to be a potent predictor of pain and psychological functioning in both groups, and disability in FM subjects. Pain-coping had its predominant influence on pain. As an exploratory test of the model, the data confirm the importance of examining this integrated framework in longitudinal, prospective studies, and its potential utility in clinical assessment and intervention.This research was supported by a Multipurpose Arthritis and Musculoskeletal Diseases Center grant AR40770 from the National Institute of Arthritis and Musculoskeletal Diseases at the University of California, San Diego. Portions of this paper were presented at the convention of the American Psychological Association, August 1992, in Washington, DC, and at the meeting of the Society of Behavioral Medicine, March 1993, in San Francisco.The authors gratefully acknowledge Teresa A. Krall, M.A., and Karen Schoenfeld-Smith, M.A. for their valuable assistance in statistical analysis for this article.     

Journal Reviews

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E rlenmeyer , A. (Berlin). 'Die Funktion des Religiösen und der Über–Ich–Begriff in C. G. Jungs Theoriebildung. Historische und klinische Aspekte (The function of religion and the concept of the super-ego in the formation of C. G. Jung's theories. Historical and clinical aspects)'. Analytische Psychologic
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S amuels , A. (London). 'On fathering daughters'. Observer
S amuels , A. (London). 'Dimensioni simboliche dell'eros nella relazione transferale–controtransferale: impieghi clinici della metafora alchemica di Jung' (Symbolic dimensions of Eros in transference and countertransference: some clinical uses of Jung's alchemical metaphor). Analysis
S pringer , A. (Berlin). 'The return of the repressed in the mask of the victim'. Journal of Psychohistory
S auer , G. (Berlin). 'Lehrer traumen von Schule und Schulern (Teachers' dreams about school and pupils)'. Beiträge, Pädagogischer Arbeit
U rban , E. (London). 'Childhood and the child within: views of an analytical psychologist'. Journal of the British Association of Psychotherapists
V an E enwyk , J. R. (Evanston) 'Switching tracks in psychotherapy: parallel paradigms in psychology and religion'. Journal of Contemporary Psychotherapy