Psychometric evaluation of the depressive personality disorder inventory

The purpose of this study was to evaluate the psychometric properties of the Depressive Personality Disorder Inventory (DPDI; Huprich, Margrett, Barthelemy, & Fine, 1996). The DPDI was found to have strong internal consistency in both an undergraduate and a veteran, psychiatric outpatient population. The DPDI had significant, positive correlations with other measures of depressive personality, supporting its convergent validity. These relationships remained even after controlling for state-like depression, suggesting that the DPDI has incremental validity. The DPDI also significantly predicted scores on measures of interpersonal loss, even after controlling for state-like depression, suggesting that the DPDI has good construct validity. In support of discriminant validity, the DPDI was more correlated with another measure of depressive personality than it was with measures of other personality disorders. Finally, the DPDI had strong diagnostic efficiency statistics: (a) Sensitivity = .82, (b) Specificity = .80, (c) Positive Predictive Power = .75, (d) Negative Predictive Power = .86, and (e) Overall Diagnostic Power = .81. It appears that the DPDI has good psychometric properties.     

Cognitive neuroscience from a behavioral perspective: A critique of chasing ghosts with geiger counters

Cognitive neuroscience is a growing new discipline concerned with relating complex behavior to neuroanatomy. Relatively new advances in the imaging of brain function, such as positron emission tomography (PET), have generated hundreds of studies that have demonstrated a number of interesting but also potentially problematic brain-behavior relations. For example, cognitive neuroscientists largely favor interpretations of their data that rely on unobserved hypothetical mechanisms. Their reports often contain phraseology such as central executive, willed action, and mental imagery. As B. F. Skinner argued for decades, cognitive constructs of neurological data may yield nothing more than a conceptual nervous system.     

A critique of the correlated trait-correlated method and correlated uniqueness models for multitrait-multimethod data

The correlated trait-correlated method (CT-CM) and correlated uniqueness (CU) confirmatory factor analysis models for multitrait-multimethod data are critiqued. Although the CU model often returns convergent and admissible factor solutions when the CT-CM model does not, the CU model is shown to have theoretical and substantive shortcomings. On the basis of this critique, the authors recommend that the CT-CM model be regarded as the generally preferred model and that the CU model be invoked only when the CT-CM model fails.     

Emotion among women with psychopathy during picture perception

Emotional reactions in women with psychopathy were examined in a mixed-picture paradigm using psychophysiological measures. Startle probes were presented at 2.0 or 4.5 s following onset of a 6-s picture presentation. At 2.0 s, nonpsychopaths exhibited the typical pattern of eyeblink reflex magnitude: unpleasant > neutral > pleasant. Psychopaths with high general levels of anxiety also exhibited this pattern. Psychopaths with lower anxiety exhibited attenuated reflex magnitudes during unpleasant pictures. Similarly, when focusing on psychopathy components, only individuals expressing high antisocial behavior and high emotional detachment exhibited smaller reflex magnitudes during unpleasant pictures. At 4.5 s, all groups exhibited normal, potentiated reflex magnitudes during unpleasant pictures. Group differences were not observed for other measures.     

A Web of applicant attraction: person-organization fit in the context of Web-based recruitment

Applicant attraction was examined in the context of Web-based recruitment. A person-organization (P-O) fit framework was adopted to examine how the provision of feedback to individuals regarding their potential P-O fit with an organization related to attraction. Objective and subjective P-O fit, agreement with fit feedback, and self-esteem also were examined in relation to attraction. Results of an experiment that manipulated fit feedback level after a self-assessment provided by a fictitious company Web site found that both feedback level and objective P-O fit were positively related to attraction. These relationships were fully mediated by subjective P-O fit. In addition, attraction was related to the interaction of objective fit, feedback, and agreement and objective fit, feedback, and self-esteem. Implications and future Web-based recruitment research directions are discussed.     

Effects of perceived disability on persuasiveness of computer-synthesized speech

Are perceptions of computer-synthesized speech altered by the belief that the person using this technology is disabled? In a 2 x 2 factorial design, participants completed an attitude pretest and were randomly assigned to watch an actor deliver a persuasive appeal under 1 of the following 4 conditions: disabled or nondisabled using normal speech and disabled or nondisabled using computer-synthesized speech. Participants then completed a posttest survey and a series of questionnaires assessing perceptions of voice, speaker, and message. Natural speech was perceived more favorably and was more persuasive than computer-synthesized speech. When the speaker was perceived to be speech-disabled, however, this difference diminished. This finding suggests that negatively viewed assistive technologies will be perceived more favorably when used by people with disabilities.     

Delayed auditory feedback and rhythmic tapping: evidence for a critical interval shift

Delayed auditory feedback (DAF) impairs performance in speech, music, and tapping, with maximal impairment in speech occurring at a delay of about 200 msec. This critical interval has played a central role in many explanations of the DAF effect, including both closed-loop feedback explanations and alternative proposals. We investigated the nature of the critical interval in rhythmic tapping--in particular, whether the critical interval has a constant value or is dependent on performance rate. Three experiments in which a synchronization-continuation paradigm was used consistently showed that the critical interval shifted with different tapping rates, with maximal impairment occurring when the delay approximately equaled the tapping rate. We address the implications of these results for theories of DAF.     

Homophonic forms of regularly inflected verbs have their own orthographic representations: a developmental perspective on spelling errors

In previous research (Sandra, Frisson, & Daems, 1999) we demonstrated that experienced writers of Dutch (18-year-olds) make spelling errors on regularly inflected homophonic verb forms. Intrusion errors, i.e., spelling of the homophonic alternative, occurred more often when the low-frequency homophone had to be written. In the present article we report error data for three groups of less experienced spellers, who have not yet fully mastered the rules for verb suffix spelling: 12-year-olds, 13-year-olds, and 14-year-olds. Younger spellers obviously make many more errors than experienced ones. Whereas this is in part due to inadequate rule mastery/application, their error patterns are also clearly influenced by the frequency relationship between the homophonic forms, i.e., the same factor accounting for the errors of experienced spellers. The conclusion of our present and past research is that homophonic forms of regularly inflected verbs have their own orthographic representations in the mental lexicon and that these representations cause interference in writing (spelling errors), whereas they might cause facilitation in reading (a claim made by dual-route models of reading).     

The Zung Self-Rating Depression Scale: convergent validity and diagnostic discrimination

This study examined the concurrent validity of the Zung Self-Rating Depression Scale (SDS) in relation to the Depression (D) scale of the Minnesota Multiphasic Personality Inventory-2 (MMPI-2) and addressed a gap in the literature with respect to diagnostic discrimination. The participants were persons on probation or parole. Although women were more depressed than men on the SDS, gender did not interact with SDS as a predictor in a logistic regression analysis. The SDS was found to be the primary discriminating variable in distinguishing depressed from nondepressed participants. In addition, the SDS contributed significant incremental validity over the D scale and showed greater accuracy in identifying nondepressed individuals.