Phonological activation of category coordinates during speech planning is observable in children but not in adults: evidence for cascaded processing

There is a long-standing debate in the area of speech production on the question of whether only words selected for articulation are phonologically activated (as maintained by serial-discrete models) or whether this is also true for their semantic competitors (as maintained by forward-cascading and interactive models). Past research has addressed this issue by testing whether retrieval of a target word (e.g., cat) affects--or is affected by--the processing of a word that is phonologically related to a semantic category coordinate of the target (e.g., doll, related to dog) and has consistently failed to obtain such mediated effects in adult speakers. The authors present a series of experiments demonstrating that mediated effects are present in children (around age 7) and diminish with increasing age. This observation provides further evidence for cascaded models of lexical retrieval.     

Suicidal and nonsuicidal adolescents: different factors contribute to self-esteem

Some risk and protective factors differ in their importance to suicidal and nonsuicidal people. In this research we explore the cross-sectional differences between risk factors among suicidal adolescents and nonsuicidal adolescents by focusing on self-esteem. Sixty-five suicidal and 390 nonsuicidal adolescents were compared on Harter's Self-Perceived Profile for Adolescents, self-concept stability, seeking support, loneliness, and depression. Self-concept stability, loneliness, and peer support correlated differently with self-esteem. In multivariate regression analyses, variance in self-esteem was explained by depression and loneliness, and among nonsuicidal adolescents also by self-concept stability, support, and competencies. Loneliness and self-concept stability related differently to self-esteem in suicidal and nonsuicidal adolescents. When the aim is to enhance self-esteem, this difference may delineate suicidal subgroups that need special interventions.     

Memory on the beach: an Australian memory (and hypnosis) laboratory

The memory (and hypnosis) lab at the University of New South Wales investigates a broad range of memory topics. We try to find innovative methods from cognitive and clinical psychology to address theoretical and empirical questions about memory. We aso use hypnosis as one major methodological tool in our investigations of memory (as well as other cognitive processes). In this paper, we review the projects currently underway in our memory (and hypnosis) lab.     

Community violence, family conflict, and preschoolers' socioemotional functioning

This study examined the relations among family conflict, community violence, and young children's socioemotional functioning and explored how children's social cognition and mothers' psychological functioning may mediate the outcomes associated with this exposure. Mothers of 431 Head Start preschoolers completed questionnaires about their family demography, exposure to community violence, family conflict, and children's distress symptoms. Children were administered a social cognition assessment, and teachers rated their behavior. Results showed that mothers' reports of children's co-witnessing of community violence were positively associated with police department crime rates, children's distress symptoms, and teachers' ratings of aggression. A path analysis revealed that children's social awareness and mothers' depressive symptoms partially mediated the effects of community violence and family conflict on outcomes for children.     

Attentional blink differences between adolescent dyslexic and normal readers

The goal of this study was to evaluate the possibility that dyslexic individuals require more working memory resources than normal readers to shift attention from stimulus to stimulus. To test this hypothesis, normal and dyslexic adolescents participated in a Rapid Serial Visual Presentation experiment (Raymond, Shapiro, & Arnell, 1992). Surprisingly, the result showed that the participants with dyslexia produced a shallower attentional blink than normal controls. This result may be interpreted as showing differences in the way the two groups encode information in episodic memory. They also fit in a cascade-effect perspective of developmental dyslexia.     

Literatur in Examensarbeiten

After the Second World War up to the 1980s Harald Schultz-Hencke’s so-called German neopsychoanalysis was an important theoretical reference for psychoanalysts in the German Psychoanalytical Society (DPG). Simultaneously, however, references were increasingly being made to quintessential psychoanalytical sources which of course had an impact on the psychoanalytical training. The references in final papers of a DPG psychoanalytical institute from 1971–2008 were compared to the references in clinical papers of the International Journal of Psychoanalysis. It can be shown that the influence of German neopsychoanalysis in the final theses of the psychoanalytical institute in question has diminished since the 1990s and has become irrelevant in the twenty-first century.     

Prototypes of Discrimination: How Status Asymmetry and Stereotype Asymmetry Affect Judgments of Racial Discrimination

This research investigated status asymmetry and stereotype asymmetry features of the racial discrimination prototype. Consistent with status asymmetry predictions, Black observers made greater attributions to discrimination when the victim was Black and the perpetrator was White than when the roles were reversed. In contrast, White observers made similar attributions to discrimination, regardless of status asymmetry. In partial support of the stereotype asymmetry hypothesis, Black and White observers made greater attributions to discrimination for Black victims in a domain where Blacks are negatively stereotyped than positively stereotyped. However, attributions to discrimination for White victims were unaffected by the domain.     

The influence of motivational and mood states on visual attention: A quantification of systematic differences and casual changes in subjects' focus of attention

A great number of studies have shown that different motivational and mood states can influence human attentional processes in a variety of ways. Yet, none of these studies have reliably quantified the exact changes of the attentional focus in order to be able to compare attentional performances based on different motivational and mood influences and, beyond that, to evaluate their effectivity. In two studies, we explored subjects' differences in the breadth and distribution of attention as a function of motivational and mood manipulations. In Study 1, motivational orientation was classified in terms of regulatory focus (promotion vs. prevention) and in Study 2, mood was classified in terms of valence (positive vs. negative). Study 1 found a 10% wider distribution of the visual attention in promotion-oriented subjects compared to prevention-oriented ones. The results in Study 2 reveal a widening of the subjects' visual attentional breadth when listening to happy music by 22% and a narrowing by 36% when listening to melancholic music. In total, the findings show that systematic differences and casual changes in the shape and scope of focused attention may be associated with different motivational and mood states.