Age and Skill Differences in the Processing Demands of Visual Inspection

Two experiments investigated the effects of age and domain-specific experience on the speed and accuracy of visual inspection performance. In Experiment 1, young (M age = 26.5 years) and middle-aged (M age = 45.7 years) medical laboratory technologists (MTs) and matched novices were tested on a domain-specific version and on a domain-general version of a probe recognition task. Middle-aged subjects were slower than younger subjects on both versions, and MTs were more accurate but slower than controls on the domain-specific task. In Experiment 2, MTs and controls were tested on the same tasks under single-task and dual-task conditions. Middle-aged adults were slower and less accurate than young adults under dual-task conditions in the general version. For the domain-specific version, the response times and error data suggested that skilled performance is less demanding of age-limited general-purpose processing resources.     

Women's responses to stereotypical media portrayals: An fMRI study of sexualized and domestic images of women

Women tend to be portrayed in a sexualized or domestic manner in mainstream advertising; importantly this trend holds not only for ads targeting men but also for those targeting women themselves. Such a focus on sexualized portrayals in particular may not seem strategic given a wealth of evidence suggesting that women evaluate these portrayals quite negatively. Consumer attitudes toward domestic portrayals are more mixed but, unsurprisingly, vary according to how much a woman identifies as traditional. If female consumers do not evaluate these common portrayals positively, why might they persist? Past work suggests a disconnect between reported attitudes toward general visual sexual stimuli and physiological and neural responses; therefore, it is plausible that neural responses to stereotypical female portrayals in advertising may be at odds with reported attitudes and may have a bigger impact on consumer behavior. The current study exposed women to sexualized, domestic, and control images in a functional magnetic resonance imaging scanner as an initial test of this idea. We found that participants reported liking both domestic and control images more than sexualized images. In contrast, they showed more activity in regions associated with reward and arousal (ventral striatum and amygdala, respectively) while viewing sexualized images relative to both control and domestic images. Surprisingly, ventral striatum response to sexualized ads was stronger for women who endorsed traditional attitudes than those who reported less traditional attitudes. These results suggest that despite reporting negative attitudes toward sexualized portrayals, women may in fact have a favorable response to these images. Copyright © 2017 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

A method to establish stimulus control and compliance with instructions

We evaluated a unique procedure to establish compliance with instructions in four young children diagnosed with autism spectrum disorder (ASD) who had low levels of compliance. Our procedure included methods to establish a novel therapist as a source of positive reinforcement, reliably evoke orienting responses to the therapist, increase the number of exposures to instruction–compliance–reinforcer contingencies, and minimize the number of exposures to instruction–noncompliance–no reinforcer contingencies. We further alternated between instructions with a high probability of compliance (high‐p instructions) with instructions that had a prior low probability of compliance (low‐p instructions) as soon as low‐p instructions lost stimulus control. The intervention is discussed in relation to the conditions necessary for the development of stimulus control and as an example of a variation of translational research.     

Trunk Compensation During Bimanual Reaching at Different Heights by Healthy and Hemiparetic Adults

The authors explored how trunk compensation and hand symmetry in stroke survivors and healthy controls were affected by the distance and height of virtual targets during a bimanual reaching task. Participants were asked to reach to 4 different virtual targets set at: 90% of their arm length at shoulder, xiphoid process, and knee height, and 50% of their arm length at xiphoid process height. For the stroke group, for all targets, the hands’ movements were more asymmetrical than those of the healthy group, with more asymmetry observed in the direction of gravity, and trunk forward displacement values were larger and more variable. The knee targets had the largest trunk displacement values; index of curvature and trunk displacement were strongly correlated with participants’ impairment scores. A strong correlation was found between the hands’ asymmetry in the anterior or posterior direction for the shoulder targets, and the impairment scores. The results suggest that target height influences the degree of trunk compensation and hand symmetry during bimanual reaching by hemiparetic participants.     

Behavioral and Nondirective Guided Self-Help for Parents of Children with Externalizing Behavior: Mediating Mechanisms in a Head-To-Head Comparison

Parent training (PT) delivered as a guided self-help intervention may be a cost- and time-effective intervention in the treatment of children with externalizing disorders. In face-to-face PT, parenting strategies have repeatedly been identified as mediating mechanisms for the decrease of children’s problem behavior. Few studies have examined possible mediating effects in guided self-help interventions for parents. The present study aimed to investigate possible mediating variables of a behaviorally oriented guided self-help program for parents of children with externalizing problems compared to a nondirective intervention in a clinical sample. A sample of 110 parents of children with externalizing disorders (80 % boys) were randomized to either a behaviorally oriented or a nondirective guided self-help program. Four putative mediating variables were examined simultaneously in a multiple mediation model using structural equation modelling. The outcomes were child symptoms of ADHD and ODD as well as child externalizing problems, assessed at posttreatment. Analyses showed a significant indirect effect for dysfunctional parental attributions in favor of the group receiving the behavioral program, and significant effects of the behavioral program on positive and negative parenting and parental self-efficacy, compared to the nondirective intervention. Our results indicate that a decrease of dysfunctional parental attributions leads to a decrease of child externalizing problems when parents take part in a behaviorally oriented guided self-help program. However, none of the putative mediating variables could explain the decrease in child externalizing behavior problems in the nondirective group. A change in dysfunctional parental attributions should be considered as a possible mediator in the context of PT.     

Rape Myth Acceptance in Sexually Assaulted Adolescents' School Contexts: Associations with Depressed Mood and Alcohol Use

High school students exposed to sexual assault (SA) are at risk for negative outcomes like depressed mood and high‐risk drinking. Although evidence suggests that both social contexts and internalized stigma can affect recovery from SA, no research to date has directly examined the presence of stigma in social contexts such as high schools as a correlate of adjustment after SA. In this study, the self‐reported rape myth acceptance (RMA) of 3080 students from 97 grade cohorts in 25 high schools was used to calculate grade‐mean and school‐mean RMA, which was entered into multilevel models predicting depressed mood and alcohol use among N = 263 SA survivors within those schools. Two forms of RMA were assessed (i.e., rape denial and traditional gender expectations). Results indicate that higher grade‐mean rape denial was associated with higher risk for depressed mood among high school boys and girls exposed to SA, and higher grade‐mean traditional gender expectations were associated with higher risk for alcohol use among girls exposed to SA. Survivors' own RMA and school‐level RMA were not significantly associated with their depressed mood or alcohol use. Although causality cannot be concluded, these findings suggest that interventions that reduce stigma in social contexts should be explored further as a strategy to improve well‐being among high‐school‐aged survivors of SA.     

A critical review of the cognitive and perceptual factors influencing attentional scaling and visual processing

Psychonomic Bulletin & Review - An important mechanism used to selectively process relevant information in the environment is spatial attention. One fundamental way in which spatial attention...     

The Cultural Adaptation of a Transition Program for Latino Families of Youth with Autism Spectrum Disorder

During the transition to adulthood, effective and culturally relevant supports are critical for families of youth with autism spectrum disorder (ASD). There is a dearth of documented program development and research on supports for Spanish-speaking Latino families during this life stage. The present work describes the cultural adaptation process of an evidence-based transition program for Latino families of youth with ASD. A model of the actions necessary to meaningfully conduct a cultural adaptation in this context is described. After implementing the culturally adapted program titled Juntos en la Transición with five Spanish-speaking families, parents reported high social validity of the program through surveys and interviews. The cultural adaptation process followed in this work is important for the further development of programs that address the transition needs of Latino youth with ASD and their families. Our impressions may also be useful to those who aim to develop culturally sensitive and ecologically valid multifamily group intervention programs for families from cultural and linguistic minority groups.     

A Metastudy of Journal of Employment Counseling: An Analysis of Publication Patterns From 2000 to 2019

Articles published in the Journal of Employment Counseling from 2000 to 2019 were analyzed for trends over time related to author characteristics (i.e., domicile, gender, work setting, and leading contributors and institutions) and article content (i.e., typology, topical issues, research methodology, characteristics of participants, research design, statistics used, report of effect size and sample reliability and validity).