Asymmetric aging effects on semantic and phonological processes: naming in the picture-word interference task

In 2 experiments, participants named pictures while ignoring auditory word distractors. For pictures with homophone names (e.g., ball), distractors semantically related to the nondepicted meaning (e.g., prom) facilitated naming by top-down phonological connections for young but not for older adults. Slowing from unrelated distractors and facilitation from phonologically related distractors were age invariant except in distractors that were both semantically and phonologically related. Only distractors semantically related to the picture interfered more for older than younger adults. These results ar einconsistent with age-linked deficits in inhibition of irrelevant information from either internal or external sources. Rather, aging affects priming transmission in a connectionist network with asymmetric effects on semantic and phonological connections involved in comprehension and production, respectively.     

Adolescent outcomes of childhood conduct disorder among clinic-referred boys: predictors of improvement

Much remains to be learned about the adolescent outcomes of clinic-referred boys whose childhood conduct problems are serious enough to meet diagnostic criteria for conduct disorder (CD). Six structured diagnostic assessments were conducted over 7 years of 73 clinic-referred 7–12-year-old boys who met criteria for CD in Wave 1. There were substantial individual differences in the adolescent outcomes of CD, ranging from worsening to sustained recovery, with most boys showing persistent, but fluctuating levels of CD. Improvement in CD was not accounted for by treatment or incarceration, but more positive outcomes over Waves 2–7 were predicted prospectively with substantial accuracy, using a combination of baseline predictors: less initial severity of CD, fewer symptoms of attention-deficit hyperactivity disorder, higher child verbal intelligence, greater family socioeconomic advantage, and not having antisocial biological parents.     

Coherent perspective jitter induces visual illusions of self-motion

Palmisano et al (2000 Perception 29 57-67) found that adding coherent perspective jitter to constant-velocity radial flow improved visually induced illusions of self-motion (vection). This was a surprising finding, because unlike pure radial flow, this jittering radial flow should have generated sustained visual--vestibular conflicts--previously thought to always reduce/impair vection. We attempted to ascertain the essential stimulus features for this jitter advantage for vection by examining three novel types of jitter display. While adding incoherent jitter to radial flow was found to impair vection, adding coherent non-perspective jitter had little effect on this subjective experience (contrary to the notion that jitter improves vection by reducing adaptation to radial flow). Importantly, we found that coherent perspective jitter not only improves the vection induced by radial flow, but it also appears to induce modest vection by itself (demonstrating that vection can still occur when there is an extreme mismatch between actual and expected vestibular activity). These results suggest that the previously demonstrated advantage for coherent perspective jitter was due (in part at least) to jittering vection combining with forwards vection in depth to produce a more compelling overall vection experience.     

Accurate tests of statistical significance for r(WG) and average deviation interrater agreement indexes

The authors demonstrated that the most common statistical significance test used with r(WG)-type interrater agreement indexes in applied psychology, based on the chi-square distribution, is flawed and inaccurate. The chi-square test is shown to be extremely conservative even for modest, standard significance levels (e.g., .05). The authors present an alternative statistical significance test, based on Monte Carlo procedures, that produces the equivalent of an approximate randomization test for the null hypothesis that the actual distribution of responding is rectangular and demonstrate its superiority to the chi-square test. Finally, the authors provide tables of critical values and offer downloadable software to implement the approximate randomization test for r(WG)-type and for average deviation (AD)-type interrater agreement indexes. The implications of these results for studying a broad range of interrater agreement problems in applied psychology are discussed.     

Selection of Public Housing Tenants: On the Feasibility of Using an Objective Screening Procedure1

Problems facing public housing authorities can be addressed through two basic alternative perspectives. One assumes that difficulties result from the behavior of certain “problem” tenants and recommends careful screening of applicants. This perspective influenced a housing authority in a small city, which desired a means to select tenants who would be less likely to exhibit problems. Information in the records of the housing authority was analyzed to identify tenant characteristics predictive of problem tenancy. The findings indicated that these problems were not as widespread as believed by management and that tenant characteristics were not strongly predictive of problems. Application of this approach would probably not constitute a significant improvement over present practices and might allow unfair discrimination to occur unwittingly. Instead, the most feasible strategy to reduce the impact of problem tenancy, even within a single locale, seems to be to focus on management practices and to address the more fundamental causes of tenant difficulties.     

Sex differences in psychological burnout in teachers

Sex differences in levels of experienced psychological burnout, and in antecedents and consequences, were examined among teachers and department heads. Male teachers reported greater burnout and less job satisfaction than did female teachers. Although male department heads scored significantly higher on psychological burnout, there were no sex differences on measures of satisfaction and emotional well-being. The findings are explained in terms of sex differences in levels of social support.     

Negative emotional responses to motherhood-related support receipt during pregnancy predict postpartum depressive symptoms

Background and Objectives: Prenatal stress increases risk for postpartum depression. While social support availability may attenuate this risk, little research has examined support receipt during pregnancy, which has been linked to increased distress in other domains. This study assesses the implications of motherhood-related and motherhood-unrelated support receipt for daily distress during pregnancy and tests whether negative responsiveness to motherhood-related support predicts postpartum depression risk. Design and Method: Thirty-one pregnant women were recruited from the community for a 3-wave study (beginning at approximately 26 weeks gestation, 34 weeks gestation, and 4 weeks postpartum). Each wave included a survey of general characteristics (e.g. depressive symptoms) and a two-week diary period measuring mood, stress, and support. Results: A multilevel model analysis suggested that motherhood-related support predicted greater increases in daily distress than motherhood-unrelated support. Follow-up regression analysis showed that those who responded more negatively to motherhood-related support reported higher postpartum depressive symptoms. Conclusions: Although preliminary due to the sample size, the results suggest that how women interpret and respond to support may contribute to postpartum depression risk. Future research should focus on how mothers can more positively construe the support they receive in addition to how to increase the support available to them.     

Explaining the surprisingly weak relationship between organizational constraints and job performance

Organizational constraints are contextual factors that interfere with task performance. Study 1 was a meta-analysis of constraints-performance studies that found a smaller than expected relationship. Two additional studies were designed to understand why constraints fail to relate as expected to performance. Study 2 found support for the rater-bias hypothesis that raters take constraints into consideration when rating performance. Study 3 showed that constraints were both a challenge and a hindrance, and the two components tend to cancel one another. Two important conclusions that arise are that the constraints–performance relationship observed in field studies using raters is an underestimate of the true relationship, and constraints are not simply a hindrance, but can have a challenging effect that enhances motivation, as well.     

Evaluation of an Air Force Child Physical Abuse Prevention Project Using the Reliable Change Index

Three hundred and seventy-nine parents at 25 Air Force bases participated in a collaborative child physical abuse prevention project designed by the United States Air Force Family Advocacy Program and Father Flanagan's Boys' Home (Boys Town). These participants were active duty or civilian employee parents and their spouses who completed the Boys Town Common Sense Parenting ® program as part of a comprehensive prevention effort. We hypothesized that participants would report decreased child behavior problems, improved relationships with family members, and reduced risk for child physical abuse after attending parenting sessions. Results supported this hypothesis. The data were also analyzed to determine the frequencies of individual parents who made statistically reliable changes on the dependent measures using Jacobson's Reliable Change Index. Nineteen to 30% of the participants reported significant improvement in the areas assessed. Parents who improved in abuse risk were at a higher level of risk and were less satisfied with family relationships prior to their participation than those who did not change. Implications for prevention of child physical abuse and future directions for research are discussed.