Stimules configuration in selective attention tasks

The possibility that perceptual configuration of stimulus elements impairs the ability to attend selectively to individual elements was tested with two-element stimuli, constructed by placing two curved lines in close proximity. Ss rapidly classified series of these stimuli which could differ on both elements or on only one with the second held constant. It was hypothesized that if the two elements formed a configuration, then Ss should have difficulty attending selectively to the element relevant for classification while filtering information from the other element. This result was obtained in one experiment with both stimulus elements oriented vertically, and it is concluded that these stimuli were perceived as unanalyzed, nominally related shapes. In another experiment, with one stimulus element oriented horizontally, selective attention to the relevant element was possible.     

What if prospective clients knew how managed care impacts psychologists' practice and ethics? An exploratory study

Modal responses to items from a recent survey of independent practitioners regarding the impact of managed care on their practices and ethics (Murphy, DeBernardo, & Shoemaker, 1998) were presented to participants as the responses of a hypothetical independent practitioner. Participants were asked to consider seeing this hypothetical practitioner both before and after being informed of the practitioner's responses to the managed care survey. Results indicate that when participants were informed of the practitioner's views toward managed care, their own attitudes toward therapy changed significantly. Specifically, compared to uninformed participants, informed participants were significantly more likely to believe that managed care would have a negative impact on treatment and significantly less likely to see an independent practitioner, use insurance benefits, expect to benefit from treatment, expect to form a strong working relationship, and trust that the practitioner would work in their best interest. Implications regarding ethics and informed consent are discussed.     

Increasingly informed consent: discussing distinct aspects of psychotherapy at different points in time

Psychologists are ethically obligated to obtain informed consent to psychotherapy "as early as is feasible" (American Psychological Association, 2002, p.1072). However, the range of topics to be addressed includes both information that may be immediately and uniformly applicable to most clients via policy or rule, as well as information that is not immediately presentable because it varies widely across clients or emerges over time. In this study, licensed psychologists were surveyed regarding the earliest feasible point at which they could provide information regarding specific aspects of psychotherapy. Results indicate that, although psychologists believe that they are capable of presenting some information, such as payment and confidentiality policies, at the outset, they believe that a discussion of more substantive issues, such as psychotherapy duration, goals, orientation, and activities, can take place only after some therapy has transpired. Implications are discussed regarding the process and event models of informed consent.     

How does clients' method of payment influence psychologists' diagnostic decisions?

To what extent does payment method (managed care vs. out of pocket) influence the likelihood that an independent practitioner will assign a Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders (American Psychiatric Association, 1994) diagnosis to a client? When a practitioner does diagnose, how does payment method influence the specific choice of a diagnostic category? Independent practitioners responded to a vignette describing a fictitious client with symptoms of depression or anxiety. In half of the vignettes, the fictitious client intended to pay via managed care; in the other half, the fictitious client intended to pay out of pocket. Payment method had a very significant impact on diagnosis such that relative to out-of-pocket clients, managed care clients were much more likely to receive diagnoses and more likely to receive adjustment disorder diagnoses in particular. We discuss implications involving informed consent and other ethical issues.     

Pattern goodness and speed of encoding

Two experiments attempted to resolve a conflict in the literature about whether good patterns are encoded faster than poor patterns in speeded classification tasks. The results showed clear effects of goodness on the memory component of such tasks, but no effect on speed of encoding. The conflicts appear to be due in part to varying encoding requirements of different tasks.     

Maternal intrusive support in the academic context: transactional socialization processes

Although transactional models of socialization have received support, there has been little investigation of the processes involved. The goal of this research was to move in this direction in the context of the socialization of achievement. Mothers and their elementary school children (N = 166) took part in an 18-month longitudinal study including a 2-week daily checklist. The results suggested that children's low achievement elicits intrusive support from mothers through 2 mechanisms. Mothers worried over their children's performance, and this was associated with heightened intrusive support. Children's low achievement manifested itself in uncertainty, which was linked to heightened intrusive support. The achievement of children whose mothers frequently used intrusive support improved over time but did not exceed that of children whose mothers infrequently used intrusive support. Day-to-day analyses suggested that although intrusive support promotes success, it also fosters failure for low-achieving children.     

Children Cover Your Eyes: Masculine Honor and the Role of Blind Patriotism in Teaching National Allegiance to Posterity

Identifying strongly with the nation could entail a willingness to criticize the country or a refusal to do so. The studies reported here examine the extent to which masculine honor inspires the latter and, in turn, motivates teaching allegiance to youth in a manner that could discourage national criticism. Whereas Study 1 provides an initial test of this idea by evaluating blind patriotism's ability to mediate the link between honor endorsement and general support for allegiance education (e.g., singing the National Anthem at school functions), Studies 2 and 3 do so more decisively by focusing on more severe outcomes such as punishing students who refuse to pledge loyalty to the United States. The predicted pattern of mediation occurred in every case, even when honor endorsers were experimentally induced to feel anger toward the country (Study 3). Explanations for this latter finding are discussed and include the role of identity fusion in honor endorsers’ commitment to the nation and the potential for real and enduring governmental threats to weaken or eliminate the pattern of mediation observed.     

Sad and happy emotion discrimination in music by children with cochlear implants

Children using cochlear implants (CIs) develop speech perception but have difficulty perceiving complex acoustic signals. Mode and tempo are the two components used to recognize emotion in music. Based on CI limitations, we hypothesized children using CIs would have impaired perception of mode cues relative to their normal hearing peers and would rely more heavily on tempo cues to distinguish happy from sad music. Study participants were children with 13 right CIs and 3 left CIs (M = 12.7, SD = 2.6 years) and 16 normal hearing peers. Participants judged 96 brief piano excerpts from the classical genre as happy or sad in a forced-choice task. Music was randomly presented with alterations of transposed mode, tempo, or both. When music was presented in original form, children using CIs discriminated between happy and sad music with accuracy well above chance levels (87.5%) but significantly below those with normal hearing (98%). The CI group primarily used tempo cues, whereas normal hearing children relied more on mode cues. Transposing both mode and tempo cues in the same musical excerpt obliterated cues to emotion for both groups. Children using CIs showed significantly slower response times across all conditions. Children using CIs use tempo cues to discriminate happy versus sad music reflecting a very different hearing strategy than their normal hearing peers. Slower reaction times by children using CIs indicate that they found the task more difficult and support the possibility that they require different strategies to process emotion in music than normal.