Determinants of spatial priming in environmental memory

Spatial priming in recognizing objects in experimentally learned environments has been proposed as strong evidence for spatial organization of environmental memory. However, in all studies showing recognition priming effects, encoding and rehearsal contiguity may have coincided with spatial proximity, and thus priming may have been due to temporal associations formed during rehearsal, not encoded spatial relations per se. We investigated this question in four experiments, using a trip trial learning method in which temporal contiguity and spatial relations were independent. In Experiment 1, no spatial priming in recognition was found, even though indirect evidence suggested that subjects had encoded spatial relations. In Experiment 2, the trip trial method was compared with the free study procedure commonly used in previous priming studies. Spatial priming occurred only for free study subjects, even though the two groups were equivalent on direct measures of encoding accuracy. In Experiment 3, spatial priming in recognition was obtained with a modification of the trip trial method in which temporal and spatial contiguity were deliberately confounded. In Experiment 4, the unmodified trip trial method produced spatial priming in a location-decision task. Taken together, our results suggest that environmental memory may be spatially organized, but retrieval of object identities does not necessarily activate encoded spatial relations.     

From adolescence to adulthood: age-related changes in beliefs about cigarette smoking in a midwestern community sample.

The current study used a cohort-sequential design to examine age-related changes in health-relevant beliefs from the middle school years through age 37 in a large, midwestern, community sample (N=8,556). Results suggest systematic age-related changes such that beliefs in the personalized risks of smoking declined in middle school and then increased, beliefs in generalized health risks increased beginning in the middle school years, and values placed on health as an outcome decreased in the high school years and then increased. These findings suggest that intervention programs must counter declining personalized risk perceptions among middle school students and declining values placed on health among high school age students.     

The Role of the Self in Responses to Health Communications: A Cultural Perspective

To the extent that cultures vary in how they shape individuals' self-construal, it is important to consider a cultural perspective to understand the role of the self in health persuasion. We review recent research that has adopted a cultural perspective on how to frame health communications to be congruent with important, culturally variant, aspects of the self. Matching features of a health message to approach vs. avoidance orientation and independent vs. interdependent self-construal can lead to greater message acceptance and health behavior change. Discussion centers on the theoretical and applied value of the self as an organizing framework for constructing persuasive health communications.     

Promoting self-directed hemodialysis: measurement and cognitive-behavioral intervention

Approximately 98% of hemodialysis patients who are treated in hemodialysis units currently use staff-directed treatment. This may well be the most expensive and most dependent mode of hemodialysis treatment. If an effective strategy were developed to enhance degree of self-directed care, millions of public health dollars might be saved while patients reap potentially substantial psychological benefits. The present research took two steps in the direction of promoting increased self-directed treatment of hemodialysis. First, a reliable and easily used behavioral observation system was developed to define and measure degree of self-directed treatment of hemodialysis. Second, a five-step cognitive-behavioral strategy to improve degree of self-directed treatment was developed and tested preliminarily. The strategy includes an initial rationale, decisional counseling, behavioral contracting, self-monitoring, and staff support/problem solving. Four nurses used this approach with 4 elderly patients (mean age = 70.5 years). A multiple-baseline-across-subjects design revealed substantial and relatively rapid improvements in degree of self-directedness associated with the intervention for the 3 patients who remained healthy throughout the study. The discussion focuses on the implications of the results for future research.     

Approach/avoidance motivation, message framing, and health behavior: understanding the congruency effect

Health messages framed to be congruent with individuals’ approach/avoidance motivations have been found to be more effective in promoting health behaviors than health messages incongruent with approach/avoidance motivations. This study examines the processes underlying this congruency effect. Participants (undergraduate students, N=67) completed a measure of approach/avoidance orientation (the BIS/BAS scales) and read either a gain- or loss-framed message promoting dental flossing. Results demonstrated a congruency effect: Participants who read a congruently framed message had greater flossing efficacy, intended to floss more, and used more dental flosses than did the participants who read an incongruent message. Moreover, intention to perform the behavior predicted the congruency effect and self-efficacy mediated participants’ intentions to perform the health behavior. Discussion centers on the role of personality factors and situational factors in models of behavior change.

Expletives and woman's place

This study empirically examined the relationship between the expletives, bitch and bastard, and sex-role stereotyping. The expletives were rated by 68 men and 68 women on 80 trait adjectives as to how typical or characteristic each trait was of the stereotypic bitch or bastard in our society. The sex-role implications of the 10 trait terms judged most characteristic of each expletive were then examined. For male subjects, the most distinguishing feature between the two expletives was the inclusion of the stereotypically masculine trait dominant, in their characterization of bitch. Female subjects, on the other hand, did not ascribe such opposite sex-role stereotype traits to bitch, but rather emphasized stereotypically masculine traits in their characterization of bastard. These results are discussed in terms of the regulatory and expressive nature of language, as well as the differential sanction value of the terms bitch and bastard for out-of-role behavior.     

The decrement in conditioned fear with increased trials of simultaneous conditioning is not specific to the simultaneous procedure

Three experiments using a conditioned punishment paradigm with rat subjects examined the possibility that the nonmonotonic acquisition function previously found to characterize simultaneous conditioning was due to the noninformative nature of the conditioned stimulus (CS). In Experiment 1 the suppressive effects of a CS previously presented with an unconditioned stimulus (US) in a simultaneous and forward (informative) manner were compared following 20 and an additional 60 conditioning trials. Excitatory conditioning similarly diminished with increased trials for both the simultaneous and forward procedures. Experiment 2 employed a between-groups design. Simultaneous, forward, and trace conditioning procedures were compared following 20 or 100 trials. Each of the three 100-trial groups showed less resistance to extinction than their 20-trial counterparts. Experiment 3 determined that the decrement in excitatory conditioning for the 100-trial groups was not due to the greater number of US presentations, per se, but rather to the number of CS-US pairings. The nonmonotonic acquisition function observed with all three conditioning procedures indicated that informational factors were not responsible for the decrement observed in simultaneous conditioning. The pattern of results suggested that subjects receiving extended conditioning trials were better able to discriminate between training and testing.     

Verifying environmental relationships

In two experiments, subjects first learned the locations of objects in a 21 x 21 ft room and then were timed as they verified, from memory, statements about the spatial relationships of the objects to certain features (e.g., the outside walls, the center of the room, subdividing partitions). The statements were of the form “X is (not) close to (far from) F” in Experiment 1 and “X is farther from (closer to) F than Y is” in Experiment 2, where X and Y are specific objects and F is a feature. While some of the latencies varied directly with the magnitudes of the distances between objects and features named in the sentences, there were several instances in which sentences associated with equivalent distances led to different latencies or sentences associated with different distances led to equivalent latencies. The possible cognitive operations underlying the latency pattern are discussed.