Does the use of mobile phones affect human short‐term memory or attention?

The effect of acute exposure to low‐level radio frequency electromagnetic fields (REF) generated by mobile phones on short‐term memory and attention was assessed in two experiments. Most of the tests manipulated task difficulty or what might be termed cognitive load. This manipulation is important since previous studies have argued that exposure to mobile phones might affect cognitive functions only under conditions which tax the cognitive system. All participants were exposed to REF (half were exposed to GSM—Global System for Mobile Communication—signals and the other half were exposed to unmodulated signals) in one testing session, while in a separate session participants were exposed to sham signals. To investigate potential lateralised effects, the mobile phone was positioned on the left side of the head for half of the participants and on the right side for the other half. No significant effect of exposure to REF was detected in any of the six tasks used in either the low or high cognitive load conditions. This study used much larger sample sizes than is typical for this type of research and REF exposure was administered under double‐blind conditions. Overall, the results indicate that acute exposure to REFs emitted by mobile phones do not have a strong impact on cognitive functions. Copyright © 2007 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Differences in visual orienting between persons with Down or fragile X syndrome

The voluntary and reflexive orienting abilities of persons with Down syndrome and fragile X syndrome, at average MA levels of approximately 4 and 7 years, were compared with an RT task. Reflexive orienting abilities appeared to develop in accordance with MA for the participants with Down syndrome but not for those with fragile X syndrome. However, both groups showed delayed voluntary orienting. The group differences in reflexive orienting at the low MA level reinforce the practice of separating etiologies and highlight the contribution of rudimentary attentional processes in the study of individuals with mental retardation.     

Overview: Sex Roles, Fertility and the Motherhood Mandate

Abstract: The centrality of motherhood to woman's identity is characterized as a mandate that is built into our social institutions as well as our psyches. This mandate is reflected in the assumptions of the models and methods of research in the psychology of women. An examination of the impact of the motherhood mandate is encouraged and complexities that must be reflected in research models and methods are underscored. These complexities include the need for (1) appreciation of the context of the phenomena studied; (2) interactionist approaches, including multivariate models and methods; and (3) a multidisciplinary perspective, including biological, psychological, social and structural levels of analysis. Two facets of the changing context having profound implications for the meaning of motherhood are reproductive freedom and voluntary childlessness.     

Missing the dog that failed to bark in the nighttime: on the overestimation of occurrences over non-occurrences in hypothesis testing

In three studies, we investigated whether and to what extent the evaluation of two mutually exclusive hypotheses is affected by a feature-positive effect, wherein present clues are weighted more than absent clues. Participants (N = 126) were presented with abstract problems concerning the most likely provenance of a card that was drawn from one of two decks. We factored the correct response (the hypothesis favored by the consideration of all clues) and the ratio of present-to-absent features in each set of observations. Furthermore, across the studies, we manipulated the presentation format of the features’ probabilities by providing the probability distributions of occurrences (Study 1), non-occurrences (Study 3) or both (Study 2). In all studies, both participant preference and accuracy were mostly determined by an over-reliance on present features. Moreover, across participants, both confidence in the responses and the informativeness of the present clues correlated positively with the number of responses given in line with an exclusive consideration of present features. These results were mostly independent of both the rarity of the absent clues and the presentation format. We concluded that the feature-positive effect influences hypothesis evaluation, and we discussed the implications for confirmation bias.     

Mitchell v. Helms: The Court Charts New Ground on State Aid to Religious Schools

Interpretation of the establishment clause by the Supreme Court has a long history. Since first addressing the merits of state aid to religiously affiliated schools, the Court has examined a wide array of programs involving state and federal aid in regular and special education. The recent Supreme Court decision in Mitchell v. Helms is the latest in this long line of cases considering the constitutionality of government assistance benefiting students in religious schools. In Helms, the Court decided the constitutionality of Chapter 2 of Title I of the Elementary and Secondary Education Act of 1965 that allows states to loan computers, library books, and other instructional materials to religious schools. The purpose of this article is to examine briefly the facts in the case and then discuss the cases's three separate opinions. The authors then consider the implications of Helms for the provision of government aid to students attending religiously affiliated schools.     

Commitment to a developing preference and predecisional distortion of information

People tend to distort their evaluation of decision-relevant information in favor of the currently preferred alternative. We test whether this predecisional distortion of information is amplified by increased commitment to that current preference. We manipulated commitment, without changing the preferred option’s content, by requiring participants to indicate their preference either by circling or by darkening a sizable box (cf. feature-positive effect). Experiment 1 revealed that the effort to darken substantially increased predecisional distortion. Experiment 2 ruled out elaboration as an explanation for the effect of darkening. Experiment 3 showed that, among participants who attributed the darkening effort to an external source, predecisional distortion decreased when the source was believed to summon effort. These findings suggest that the developing commitment to a tentatively preferred alternative is one driver of predecisional distortion.