Spatial cueing by social versus nonsocial directional signals

A cost-benefit analysis was used to investigate whether reflexive effects in a spatial cueing task are stronger when target location is cued by another person's gaze rather than arrows because the relative contribution of attentional shifts versus automatic priming is greater in the case of gaze cues. Across four experiments, nonpredictive arrows triggered rapid facilitatory, inhibition-less priming that peaked at 300-500ms SOA and then died away; across three experiments, nonpredictive gaze cues triggered facilitation-plus-costs at SOAs of 300-400ms or more, suggesting that gaze cues trigger stronger (and longer) attentional effects. At 200 ms SOA, gaze cues triggered facilitation-without-cost, consistent with the view that facilitatory effects accrue more rapidly due to earlier automatic priming, whereas costs are manifest slightly later, when attentional effects come online. There was some evidence that nonpredictive gaze cues trigger long-lasting congruency effects so long as observers maintain their preparedness to respond. Findings support the view that gaze is a unique symbolic directional cue.     

Reduced Repetition Blindness for One's Own Name

We report a series of studies demonstrating reduced repetition blindness (RB) for one's own name. Participants searched RSVP streams for their own name and another name, and reported how many times these names appeared in each stream. In half of the streams containing two names, the same name was repeated; in the other half, the two names were different. Half of the repetitions were the participant's own name, half were another name. The results showed large RB for the “other name” condition, and attenuated, but significant, RB for the “own name” condition. This reduction in RB for the participant's own name was found when participants searched for the target names among nouns, among other names, and when participants just detected the presence or absence of the second name. Reduced RB for one's own name helps to reduce previous uncertainty regarding the existence of lexical and conceptual RB for words.     

Children's narratives and well-being

Research with adults indicates that writing causal-explanatory and emotionally disclosing narratives of stressful experiences is related to psychological well-being. Limited research with children has shown mixed results, but developmental theory suggests that simple extrapolation from adult findings might be problematic. In this study, 9- to 13-year-old children engaged in three days of writing under emotional and non-emotional instructions, and completed measures of depression, anxiety, strengths and difficulties, and somatic symptoms both at baseline and 2 months following intervention. Narratives were coded using a developmentally appropriate, exhaustive coding system. Children in the emotional writing group wrote more about negative evaluations, problems, emotions, explanations and coping than children in the non-emotional writing group. However, those children who wrote more about negative evaluations, problems and explanations subsequently showed higher levels of anxiety, depression and difficulties. Due to limited narrative and emotional regulation skills, expressive writing may not benefit, and may even be detrimental for, some children.     

Family narrative interaction and children's sense of self

Family narratives about the shared past may be a particularly significant site for preadolescents' emerging sense of self both as an individual and as a member of a unified family. We examined the relations between family narrative interaction style when reminiscing and preadolescents' sense of self. Results indicated three narrative interaction styles that describe the extent to which families discuss or fail to discuss their past in integrated and validating ways. Specifically, conversations with a coordinated perspective incorporated information from all members and were related to higher self-esteem, especially in girls. Conversations with an individual perspective, in which family members took turns telling their thoughts and feelings about the event without integration among the perspectives, were associated with a more external locus of control, especially in boys. Conversations with an imposed perspective, in which one family member was in charge of the conversation or in which unpleasant exchanges between members occurred, were not associated with either self-esteem or locus of control. Implications of these narrative interaction styles for children's developing sense of self are discussed.     

Dissociated developmental trajectories for semantic and phonological false memories

False recognition following presentation of semantically related and phonologically related word lists was evaluated in 8-, 11-, and 13-year-olds. Children heard lists of words that were either semantic (e.g., bed, rest, wake ...) or phonological associates (e.g., pole, bowl, hole ...) of a critical unpresented word (e.g., sleep, roll), respectively. A semantic false memory was defined as false recognition of a semantically related but unpresented word. A phonological false memory was defined as false recognition of a phonologically related but unpresented word. False memories in the two tasks showed opposite developmental trends, increasing with age for semantic relatedness and decreasing with age for phonological relatedness.     

Heuristic and analytic processing: age trends and associations with cognitive ability and cognitive styles

Developmental and individual differences in the tendency to favor analytic responses over heuristic responses were examined in children of two different ages (10- and 11-year-olds versus 13-year-olds), and of widely varying cognitive ability. Three tasks were examined that all required analytic processing to override heuristic processing: inductive reasoning, deductive reasoning under conditions of belief bias, and probabilistic reasoning. Significant increases in analytic responding with development were observed on the first two tasks. Cognitive ability was associated with analytic responding on all three tasks. Cognitive style measures such as actively open-minded thinking and need for cognition explained variance in analytic responding on the tasks after variance shared with cognitive ability had been controlled. The implications for dual-process theories of cognition and cognitive development are discussed.     

Obsessive-compulsive disorder subtypes: an attempted replication and extension of a symptom-based taxonomy

A symptom-based subgroup taxonomy for obsessive-compulsive disorder (OCD) was evaluated and refined. The Yale-Brown Obsessive-Compulsive Scale symptom checklist was scored and cluster analysis was conducted with a sample of OCD patients (N = 114). Results were compared to Calamari et al.'s (Behaviour Research and Therapy 37 (1999) 113) five subgroup model. Rules for determining the number of subgroups supported a more complex model. In between sample comparisons, a stable contamination subgroup was found in both a five and seven subgroup taxonomy. Between sample stability was not as strong for Harming, Obsessionals, Symmetry, and Certainty subgroups. Hoarding, as a distinctive subgroup, was unstable in separate samples. When the Calamari et al. sample and the present sample were combined (N = 220), we found a reliable Hoarding subgroup. More interpretable and stable models emerged with the combined samples suggesting that large clinical samples are needed to identify OCD subgroups. Greater support was found for a seven subgroup taxonomy based subgroup interpretability and validation measure differences. The potential utility of symptom-based subgroup models of OCD and alternative approaches are discussed. Identification of reliable and valid OCD subtypes may advance theory and treatment.     

The contribution of autobiographical significance to semantic memory

We examined the importance of autobiographical significance (AS) in the representation and organization of semantic memory by examining which famous people are most likely to be associated with specific personal memories and whether or not this AS can be distinguished from other factors, such as familiarity. Norming studies with 45- to 55-year-old and 65- to 80-year-old participants suggested that AS is distinct from familiarity and that it interacts closely with emotional salience. Furthermore, in a set of experiments, we tested the hypothesis that AS is an important organizing principle in long-term episodic and semantic memory by contrasting performances on tests of recall, recognition, fame judgment, and speeded reading for famous names judged to be of either high or low personal relevance. Participants demonstrated a performance advantage (i.e., enhanced memory and faster responding) for autobiographically significant famous names, regardless of whether their own judgments or others' judgments were used to classify the names. The implications of these findings for models of semantic memory are discussed.     

Childhood depression: Peer reactions to depression and life stress

The present study investigated children's responses to a peer's childhood depression. Younger children in third and fourth grade and older children in fifth and sixth grade were exposed to one of four films. The four films portrayed a female peer who was either depressed or not depressed and who had experienced numerous recent life stresses or no recent life stress. Overall, children rated the depressed peers as less likable and attractive, as engaging in fewer positive current and future behaviors, and as needing therapy more than a nondepressed peer. There was a tendency to rate the depressed peer with high life stress more positively than the depressed peer with low life stress; this tendency decreased with age. Girls rated all of the peers and especially the stressed peers more positively than did the boys. The results are discussed in terms of the implications of children's social interaction for the initiation or maintenance of childhood depression.The authors would like to thank Kelly Merk and Susan Vanderheid for their assistance with this research.