Dissociations between procedural and episodic memory: effects of time and aging

The issue of multiple memory systems is explored. Young and older adults (mean ages = 20 and 71, respectively) named pictures and were tested immediately, 1, 7, or 21 days later. Episodic memory (recognition) for pictures was significantly lower in older relative to young adults and declined systematically across all retention intervals in both age groups. In contrast, procedural memory (repetition priming in picture naming) revealed no reliable age differences. In both age groups, priming declined within the first 24 hr, but unlike recognition, there was no further decrement from 1 to 21 days. There were also within-subject dissociations: The magnitude of priming was equivalent for remembered and forgotten items, and the relation between recognition and priming across intervals was nonmonotic, revealing a reversed association. The findings were interpreted within a multiple-memory-systems framework.     

JUDGMENTAL VERSUS STATISTICAL PREDICTION:

Abstract— The relative predictive accuracy of humans and statistical models has long been the subject of controversy even though models have demonstrated superior performance in many studies. We propose that relative performance depends on the amount of contextual information available and whether it is distributed symmetrically to humans and models. Given their different strengths, human and statistical predictions can be profitably combined to improve prediction.     

Training Consultants: A Call to Action

The development of consultation skills lags far behind the development of counseling skills in most counselor education programs. Some of the reasons why consultation training is not emphasized are examined, and some remedies are suggested.     

Offering predictive testing for Huntington disease in a medical genetics clinic: Practical applications

Predictive testing for Huntington disease is presently offered in a select few medical genetics centers in the United States. This is in part due to the labor intensive counseling and psychological testing suggested by the research protocols. We discuss some specific suggestions for establishing programs for Huntington disease predictive testing within pre-existing medical genetics clinics to encourage more centers to offer presymptomatic testing. This will allow more at risk individuals the opportunity to consider predictive testing and cut down the expenses of traveling to the few predictive testing centers that currently exist. The counseling principals will remain similar to those discussed here, even following the identification of the Huntington disease mutation.     

Morale and Job Satisfaction Among Nurses: What Can Hospitals Do?

In an attempt to account for morale and job satisfaction among 314 nurses, this study investigated the influence of work-related and interpersonal variables. Morale on the unit was directly related to supervisor support, co-worker relationships, and work recognition. Personal morale was accounted for by recognition, physical environment, the job itself, and pay. Job satisfaction was predicted by personal morale, work commitment, job clarity, work pressure, and innovation. Suggestions for improving nurse morale and job satisfaction are made.     

Body image or body images?: Comparative, multidimensional assessment among college students

A major criticism of research on body image concerns the dubious assumptions of the unidimensionality of the construct and the equivalence of body-image measures. Our study of 125 male and female college students compared multiple measurement methods within each of two modalities of body image: (a) perceptual (body-size estimation) and (b) attitudinal (body-image affect and cognition). Clinically relevant indices of psychological adjustment and eating disturbance were included. Results clearly supported the distinction between attitudinal and perceptual modalities of body image and indicated more convergent and discriminant validity for the former than for the latter. Whereas one method of assessing size-estimation accuracy and most body-image attitudes produced relationships with maladjustment, only attitudinal body image and perceptual, self-ideal discrepancy measures were significantly linked to eating disturbance. Relationships were generally more consistent for women than for men. Implications are discussed in the context of extant and future research on body image with clinical and nonclinical populations.     

Grading the ‘cultural literacy’ project

The essay examines the argument advanced by E.D. Hirsch, Jr., for instituting ‘cultural literacy’ as a fundamental priority of schools. A number of confusions and equivocations in Hirsch's reasoning are identified, and the propensity of his project to indoctrinate is exposed. Among the features of Hirsch's argument shown to be troubling are his shifting construal of ‘language’, his inconsistency about the requirements of cultural literacy, and his uncritical relation to traditional images of the American past and present. The upshot is to raise the question why Hirsch's project has elicited wide support and praise.