Distinct capacity limits for attention and working memory: Evidence from attentive tracking and visual working memory paradigms

A hallmark of both visual attention and working memory is their severe capacity limit: People can attentively track only about four objects in a multiple object tracking (MOT) task and can hold only up to four objects in visual working memory (VWM). It has been proposed that attention underlies the capacity limit of VWM. We tested this hypothesis by determining the effect of varying the load of a MOT task performed during the retention interval of a VWM task and comparing the resulting dual-task costs with those observed when a VWM task was performed concurrently with another VWM task or with a verbal working memory task. Instead of supporting the view that the capacity limit of VWM is solely attention based, the results indicate that VWM capacity is set by the interaction of visuospatial attentional, central amodal, and local task-specific sources of processing.     

Social anxiety disorder in veterans affairs primary care clinics

To examine the prevalence and correlates of social anxiety disorder (SAD) in veterans, 733 veterans from four VA primary care clinics were evaluated using self-report questionnaires, telephone interviews, and a 12-month retrospective review of primary care charts. We also tested the concordance between primary care providers’ detection of anxiety problems and diagnoses of SAD from psychiatric interviews. For the multi-site sample, 3.6% met criteria for SAD. A greater rate of SAD was found in veterans with than without post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) (22.0% vs. 1.1%), and primary care providers detected anxiety problems in only 58% of veterans with SAD. The elevated rate of comorbid psychiatric diagnoses and suicidal risk associated with SAD was not attributable to PTSD symptom severity. Moreover, even after controlling for the presence of major depressive disorder, SAD retained unique, adverse effects on PTSD diagnoses and severity, the presence of other psychiatric conditions, and suicidal risk. These results attest to strong relations between SAD and PTSD, the inadequate recognition of SAD in primary care settings, and the significant distress and impairment associated with SAD in veterans.     

Women coping with AIDS in Africa: contributions of a contextually grounded research methodology

The primary objective of this report is to describe a contextually grounded approach to the investigation of coping and psychological functioning in AIDS-sick mothers. Five AIDS-sick women on antiretroviral therapy who had at least one child under 6 years of age living in their households were interviewed. Among the issues that emerged was the complexity of the women's psychological functioning, the fact that they made strategic decisions about disclosure aimed at protecting important social support networks, and that their well-being was dynamically influenced by factors in the home and community. The study provides evidence for the value of a contextual approach when investigating the psychological functioning of HIV positive mothers living in poor high-HIV prevalence communities in developing countries.     

Agreeableness: Dimension of Personality or Social Desirability Artifact?

Agreeableness is linked to socially valued traits and prosocial motives, so self-reported Agreeableness may be distorted by self-favoring biases (SFB). A three-study multimethod research program explored links between the Big Five dimension of Agreeableness and SFB from three perspectives. First, we examined zero-order relations between Agreeableness and SFB measures (N = 316). Next, we used a round robin design (N = 351) and the Social Relations Model analyses (Kenny, 1994) to partition perceptions of Agreeableness into target and perceiver effects. These effects then were related to SFB concerns, and differential responsiveness to a manipulation of the social desirability of Agreeableness. Study 3 (N = 312) examined a manipulation of Agreeableness as a moderator of the relation between dispositional Agreeableness and interpersonal conflict tactics. Overall, results indicate that Agreeableness is not easily manipulated nor distorted by SFB. Results are discussed in terms of Agreeableness as a substantive system of motives.     

Effects of LMX and differential treatment on work unit commitment

The Leader-Member exchange (LMX) theory of leadership states that leaders do behave differently towards the various members in their work unit. Relatively little attention has been devoted to the question of whether members' perceptions of differential treatment on the part of the leader affects their commitment to the work unit. Perceptions of the amount of differential treatment within their work unit did not explain additional variance in members' work unit commitment after the effects of LMX quality were accounted for. There was, however, a significant interaction effect of LMX quality and differential treatment on work unit commitment. The perception of a large number of differential treatment incidents seems to act as a neutralizer with respect to the positive effects LMX quality may have.     

Priming in implicit memory tasks: prior study causes enhanced discriminability, not only bias

R. Ratcliff and G. McKoon (1995, 1996, 1997; R. Ratcliff, D. Allbritton, & G. McKoon, 1997) have argued that repetition priming effects are solely due to bias. They showed that prior study of the target resulted in a benefit in a later implicit memory task. However, prior study of a stimulus similar to the target resulted in a cost. The present study, using a 2-alternative forced-choice procedure, investigated the effect of prior study in an unbiased condition: Both alternatives were studied prior to their presentation in an implicit memory task. Contrary to a pure bias interpretation of priming, consistent evidence was obtained in 3 implicit memory tasks (word fragment completion, auditory word identification, and picture identification) that performance was better when both alternatives were studied than when neither alternative was studied. These results show that prior study results in enhanced discriminability, not only bias.     

Reasoning about a hidden object after a delay: evidence for robust representations in 5-month-old infants

The present research examined two alternative interpretations of violation-of-expectation findings that young infants can represent hidden objects. One interpretation is that, when watching an event in which an object becomes hidden behind another object, infants form a prediction about the event's outcome while both objects are still visible, and then check whether this prediction was accurate. The other interpretation is that infants' initial representations of hidden objects are weak and short-lived and as such sufficient for success in most violation-of-expectation tasks (as objects are typically hidden for only a few seconds at a time), but not more challenging tasks. Five-month-old infants succeeded in reasoning about the interaction of a visible and a hidden object even though (1) the two objects were never simultaneously visible, and (2) a 3- or 4-min delay preceded the test trials. These results provide evidence for robust representations of hidden objects in young infants.     

Can false memories be created through nonconscious processes?

Presentation times of study words presented in the Deese/Roediger and McDermott (DRM) paradigm varied from 20 to 2000 ms per word in an attempt to replicate the false memory effect following extremely short presentations reported by. Both in a within-subjects design (Experiment 1) and in a between-subjects design (Experiment 2) subjects showed memory for studied words as well as a false memory effect for related critical lures in the 2000-ms condition. However, in the conditions with shorter presentation times (20 ms in Experiment 1; 20 and 40 ms in Experiment 2) no memory for studied words, nor a false memory effect was found. We argue that there is at present no strong evidence supporting the claim for a nonconscious basis of the false memory effect.