Transposed-letter effects in reading: evidence from eye movements and parafoveal preview

Three eye movement experiments were conducted to examine the role of letter identity and letter position during reading. Before fixating on a target word within each sentence, readers were provided with a parafoveal preview that differed in the amount of useful letter identity and letter position information it provided. In Experiments 1 and 2, previews fell into 1 of 5 conditions: (a) identical to the target word, (b) a transposition of 2 internal letters, (c) a substitution of 2 internal letters, (d) a transposition of the 2 final letters, or (e) a substitution of the 2 final letters. In Experiment 3, the authors used a further set of conditions to explore the importance of external letter positions. The findings extend previous work and demonstrate that transposed-letter effects exist in silent reading. These experiments also indicate that letter identity information can be extracted from the parafovea outside of absolute letter position from the first 5 letters of the word to the right of fixation. Finally, the results support the notion that exterior letters play important roles in visual word recognition.     

Assessment of risk for substance use disorder consequent to consumption of illegal drugs: psychometric validation of the neurobehavior disinhibition trait.

Previous research has shown that the trait neurobehavior disinhibition (ND), which consists of affect, behavior, and cognitive indicators of self-regulation, is a significant predictor of substance use disorder (SUD) between childhood and young adulthood. The authors evaluated the psychometric properties of the ND trait in 278 boys evaluated at ages 10-12 and 16 years. ND score significantly predicted SUD and outcomes that commonly manifest in tandem with SUD by age 19, such as violence, arrests, committing crime while intoxicated, and concussion injury. In addition to predictive validity, the ND trait was found to have good construct, discriminative, and concurrent validity, as well as good test-retest and internal reliability. The ND trait may be useful for detecting youths at high risk for developing SUD and related outcomes.     

Impulsivity, anger, and psychopathy: the moderating effect of ethnicity

The present research tested the four-factor Psychopathy Checklist: Screening Version (PCL:SV) latent variable model for structural invariance across ethnicity in a large sample of civil psychiatric patients. In addition, it also examined how Barratt (1994) impulsivity and Novaco (1994) anger latent variables were related to the psychopathy dimensions within and across ethnicity. The data were analyzed with Mplus (Muthen & Muthen, 2001), and results indicated that the four-factor model was invariant across Caucasian and African American males in terms of both item factor loadings and thresholds. However, differential relations between the external correlates and the psychopathy dimensions were found across groups, suggesting that the association between impulsivity and psychopathy may be moderated by ethnicity.     

Reconsolidation of episodic memories: a subtle reminder triggers integration of new information

Recent demonstrations of "reconsolidation" suggest that memories can be modified when they are reactivated. Reconsolidation has been observed in human procedural memory and in implicit memory in infants. This study asks whether episodic memory undergoes reconsolidation. College students learned a list of objects on Day 1. On Day 2, they received a reminder or not, and then learned a second list. Memory for List 1 was tested immediately on Day 2 (Experiment 2) or on Day 3 (Experiment 1). Although the reminder did not moderate the number of items recalled from List 1 on either day, subjects who received a reminder incorrectly intermixed items from the second list when recalling List 1 on Day 3. Experiment 2 showed that this effect does not occur immediately and thus is time-dependent. The reminder did not affect memory for List 2 on Day 3 (Experiment 3), demonstrating that modification occurred only for the original memory (List 1). The study demonstrates the crucial role of reminders for the modification of episodic memory, that reconsolidation of episodic memory is time-dependent, and, in contrast to previous reconsolidation findings, that reconsolidation is also a constructive process, one that supports the incorporation of new information in memory.     

The influence of catch trial frequency on simple reaction time

The major purpose of the present investigation was to examine the combined influence of variations in foreperiod length (1.0, 5.0 sec) and catch trial frequency (0.0, 0.1, 0.2) on simple reaction time (RT) magnitude when verbal mediation was permitted and when it was not. A significant foreperiod length, catch trial frequency, mediation type interaction was obtained supporting the notion that all three factors influence a common process (i.e. Sternberg 1969), here called ‘preparation’. More specifically, for the non-mediation group, foreperiod length and catch trial frequency had both additive (0.0 vs 0.1) and interactive (0.1 vs 0.2) effects on mean simple RT while only catch trial frequency significantly altered simple RT for the mediating group. In all instances, mean simple RT increased significantly when some catch trials were employed as opposed to when none were used, a finding which was interpreted as reflecting an induced preparation decrement upon the introduction of catch trials.     

Developing Standard Recommendations (Guidelines) for Genetic Counseling Practice: A Process of the National Society of Genetic Counselors

The National Society of Genetic Counselors (NSGC) supports the development of practice recommendations (guidelines) in the field of genetic counseling. This paper reviews the basic components of NSGC genetic counseling practice recommendations as well as the process for formal adoption of such documents, as approved by the Board of Directors of the NSGC.     

Path analytic examination of a cognitive model of PTSD

Ehlers and Clark (2000) developed a cognitive model of posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD) symptom maintenance which implicated the role of posttraumatic cognitions and aspects of the trauma memory in maintaining symptoms via an increased sense of current threat. The aim of the current study was to empirically test a variant of this model using path analysis. Participants in the current study were 514 undergraduates at a midwestern university who reported experiencing at least one traumatic event. Path analyses examined various models of the possible relationships between one’s posttraumatic cognitions and the centrality of the traumatic event to the sense of self (considered an aspect of memory integration) in predicting current level of PTSD symptoms. Results indicate that both event centrality and posttraumatic cognitions are unique and independent predictors of current symptom level. Overall, the results of this study support aspects of Ehlers and Clark’s cognitive model of PTSD; cognitive appraisals of the self and centrality of the event were highly related to levels of distress. However, the current study suggests that overly integrated trauma memories may lead to greater distress and not poorly integrated ones as suggested by Ehlers and Clark.     

Inhibitory control and empathy-related personality traits: sex-linked associations

We here report two studies exploring associations between inhibitory control (measured with the Sustained Attention to Response Task, SART) on the one hand, and self-reports of trait cooperativeness and empathy on the other. A coherent picture was obtained in women whose inhibitory control proficiency predicted higher scores on the Temperament and Character Inventory Cooperativeness and a higher Empathy Quotient. Individual differences in working memory did not predict self-reported empathy. In men, the association between SART performance and empathy was less clear: Good performance on the inhibitory task predicted lower scores on Cooperativeness and was unrelated to the Empathy Quotient. In both studies, women outperformed men on the SART. The results in women may reflect how individual differences in elemental neuro-cognitive operations such as inhibitory control influence more complex functions such as social cognition.