On the time course of negative priming: Another look

In two experiments, the pattern of persistence of negative priming effects across delay intervals of 500 and 2,500 msec was assessed using a within-subjects, random sequencing of delays. Neill and Valdes (1992; Neill, Valdes, Terry, & Gorfein, 1992) have argued that a within-subject experimental design is required for decay of negative priming to be seen, in contrast to results reported elsewhere (e.g., Tipper, Weaver, Cameron, Brehaut, & Bastedo, 1991) showing stable negative priming effects across delays. In neither experiment was substantial evidence of decay detected, raising questions for the notion that suppression necessarily declines across brief temporal intervals and for the assertion that episodic retrieval is the sole source of negative priming.     

Active and passive avoidance following the administration of systemic DSP4, xylamine, or p-chloroamphetamine

Groups of rats were administered either DSP4 (50 mg/kg, ip), xylamine (50 mg/kg, ip), or p-chloroamphetamine (2 X 10 mg/kg, ip), either 2 weeks or 1 week before the testing of two-way active avoidance. DSP4 and xylamine, the selective noradrenaline (NA) neurotoxins, caused a two-way avoidance impairment but p-chloroamphetamine, the selective 5-hydroxytryptamine (5-HT) neurotoxin, did not do so. Pretreatment with desipramine (20 mg/kg, ip) blocked the avoidance impairment caused by DSP4 and xylamine treatment. Neither DSP4 nor xylamine caused any alteration of passive avoidance retention. The biochemical analyses indicated severe NA, but not 5-HT, depletions in the DSP4 and xylamine conditions and drastic 5-HT, but not NA, depletions in the p-chloroamphetamine conditions. These results confirm and extend earlier findings concerning the role of NA in avoidance behavior.     

Children's responses to stories with male and female characters

The sex of the main character was varied in six children's stories which were then read by fourth, sixth and eighth graders. The children answered four questions about the stories. Both boys and girls responded more positively to the questions “Would you like to be (character's name?)” and “Would you like to do the things (character's name) did?” when the main character was a male. Boys preferred stories about males, and this preference increased with grade level. A preference for stories about females was marginally significant only for the older girls. Theoretical and practical implications are discussed.     

Saccade latency and warning signals: Effects of auditory and visual stimulus onset and offset

Previous studies have found that a nonspecific visual event occurring at the fovea 50–150 msec after the onset of a peripheral target delayed the initiation of the saccade to that target. The present studies replicated and extended this finding by studying the effects of both visual and auditory warning signals, by examining the effects of onset and offset warning on manual response latency, and by investigating the effects of presenting the warning events in the periphery of the visual field. The results indicated that the interfering effects occur with visual but not auditory stimuli, with saccades but not motor responses, and when the visual warning event occurs either foveally or in the subject’s periphery. Implications for the processes involved are discussed.     

Negative attitudes toward masturbation and pelvic vasocongestion: A thermographic analysis

The present study examined differences in pelvic vasocongestion as a function of negative attitudes toward masturbation. Pelvic vasocongestion was measured thermographically, which is a noninvasive means of detecting and photographing individual heat patterns to indicate physiological condition and functional changes within. The results indicated that women, with positive attitudes toward masturbation, who read an erotic story, experienced the greatest increase in pelvic vasocongestion. This and other findings were discussed in terms of masturbation acting to facilitate the patterning of sexual arousal and orgasmic functioning, especially in regard to creating the capacity for pelvic engorgement.     

Sexual preference,feminism, and women's perceptions of their parents

In an attempt to clarify the relation between parental variables, sexual preference, and sex-role attitudes, three groups of women were studied: lesbian feminists, heterosexual feminists, and heterosexual traditional women. The women were asked about their perceptions of their parents when they were in high school. The groups differed more from each other with respect to their perceptions of their fathers than their mothers. The perceived attitudes of the father were much more important in differentiating lesbian feminists from heterosexuals than in differentiating heterosexual feminists from heterosexual traditionals. Both the heterosexual groups (feminist and traditionals) reported having a more affectionate and involved father who also encouraged them more in the expression of anger than the lesbian feminists reported. The results suggest women's father relationships must not be obscured in research and support Johnson's hypothesis that the father relationship is more central than the mother relationship in sex typing and especially in the specifically sexual aspects of sex typing.     

The more,the better?: Number of decisions as a determinant of memorability

Three experiments tested alternative explanations to the Johnson-Laird, Gibbs, and deMowbray (1978) proposal that the number of decisions made about a word is a major determinant of its memorability. The alternatives considered were increased processing time, retrieval aids, and the number of positive decisions. In Experiment 1, subjects made a speeded classification about each word for a category defined by three properties. Though items with more target properties were processed longer and better remembered, within a property level processing time was not associated with better memory. In Experiment 2, subjects received three properties, but different groups responded “Yes” to words with all three properties, words with any of the three properties, or whether words had each of the properties. As predicted by the number-of-decisions hypothesis, but not by the other hypotheses, with an increasing number of target properties, recall generally increased in the ALL group, decreased in the ANY group, and remained constant in the EACH group. In Experiment 3, this recall pattern was replicated with a different set of two target properties. The number-of-decisions notion is contrasted to the elaboration principle, and a simple model is proposed. It is concluded that the number of decisions is a useful technique for investigating within-level encoding differences