Sex in the Media,Sex on the Mind: Linking Television Use,Sexual Permissiveness,and Sexual Concept Accessibility in Memory

The present study explores the interrelationships between emerging adults’ exposure to sexual depictions on mainstream television, their attitudes toward sexually permissive behaviors, and the salience (accessibility) of concepts related to sexual activity in their implicit memory. Findings indicate a small but significant relationship between increased exposure to sex on television and increased favoring of sexually permissive behaviors, when taking sexual concept accessibility into account. When taking television exposure into account, young adults who held stronger sexually permissive attitudes found it easier to access concepts of sexual activity in memory, suggesting these ideas were top-of-mind for these participants, compared to participants scoring lower on permissiveness. However, there was no direct connection between exposure to sex on television and accessibility of sexual activity in memory when accounting for permissive attitudes, suggesting that sexual permissiveness is at the center of any link between exposure and accessibility. Implications for examining sexual permissiveness as a lens for structuring sexual information in memory, as well as implications for designing sexual health messages are discussed in light of the findings.     

Unique needs: Salvation Army officers in retirement and end-of-life care

ABSTRACT

Retirement is a major life transition. On this point there is general agreement. But what about retirement for clergy and those who serve in the church? Perhaps a few see ministry as a job; then the change would be much like a worker ceasing paid employment. However, does being ordained, having a respected leadership role in the church, and serving God bring some unique dynamics to this transition? In this article we try to identify such factors using a large sample of Australian Salvation Army officers.     

The life tasks model: Enhancing psychological and spiritual growth in the aged

ABSTRACT

The life tasks model is an active, mutual, and potentially universal approach to the spiritual care of the aged. A life task is a responsibility, once undertaken, that lasts a lifetime. Three tasks are identified. Task 1 is the discovery of hidden learning. The process of discovery draws on implicit learning that comes into awareness. This leads to task 2, testing in which learning brought into awareness is tested by other life experiences. The final task is task 3, integration, in which a more aware and cohesive self is formed. Ideally, this leads to service or vocation. Progress on the life tasks is illustrated by responses in a qualitative study of older adults. Although this model can be applied to self-growth and ministry to all ages, it is well suited to the care of the aged.     

Spiritual well-being and spiritual practices in elderly depressed psychiatric inpatients

This study's aims were to describe the spirituality of depressed elderly psychiatric inpatients and to examine associations among spirituality, depression, and quality of life (QOL). Forty-five persons participated. Most reported frequent, stable spiritual practices and experiencing spiritual comfort and guidance. Some reported spiritual distress and changes in spirituality. During hospitalization, participants demonstrated increased spiritual well-being (SWB) and peacefulness, and reduced hopelessness, worthlessness, and guilt. Positive associations were found between SWB and QOL and negative associations between SWB and depression.     

Variations on the Hermann grid: an extinction illusion

When the white disks in a scintillating grid are reduced in size, and outlined in black, they tend to disappear. One sees only a few of them at a time, in clusters which move erratically on the page. Where they are not seen, the grey alleys seem to be continuous, generating grey crossings that are not actually present. Some black sparkling can be seen at those crossings where no disk is seen. The illusion also works in reverse contrast.     

Aging and the use of context in ambiguity resolution: complex changes from simple slowing

Older and younger adults' abilities to use context information rapidly during ambiguity resolution were investigated. In Experiments 1 and 2, younger and older adults heard ambiguous words (e.g., fires) in sentences where the preceding context supported either the less frequent or more frequent meaning of the word. Both age groups showed good context use in offline tasks, but only young adults demonstrated rapid use of context in cross-modal naming. A 3rd experiment demonstrated that younger and older adults had similar knowledge about the contexts used in Experiments 1 and 2. The experiment results were simulated in 2 computational models in which different patterns of context use were shown to emerge from varying a single speed parameter. These results suggest that age-related changes in processing efficiency can modulate context use during language comprehension.     

Tscope: A C library for programming cognitive experiments on the MS Windows platform

Tscope is a C/C11 programming library designed for programming experiments that run on Windows 2000/XP. It is intended for a public of experimental psychologists with moderate programming skills, who are accustomed to writing their own experimental programs for DOS but have not made the step to Windows-based programming yet. It provides molecular functions for graphics, sound, timing, randomization, and response registration. Together with ANSI-C standard library functions and the powerful C syntax, this set of functions gives the experimenter the opportunity to program virtually any experiment one can come up with. Tscope is completely based on free software, is distributed under the GNU General Public License, and is available at expsy.ugent.be/tscope. An integrated development environment for compiling and running Tscope programs is also freely available.     

Using overt rehearsals to explain word frequency effects in free recall

Three experiments examined the word frequency effect in free recall using the overt rehearsal methodology. Experiment 1 showed that lists of exclusively high-frequency (HF) words were better recalled, were rehearsed more, and were rehearsed to more recent serial positions than low-frequency (LF) words. A small HF advantage remained even when these 2 variables were equated. Experiment 2 showed that all these effects were much reduced with mixed lists containing both HF and LF words. Experiment 3 compared pure and mixed lists in a within-subject design and confirmed the findings of Experiments 1 and 2. It is argued that number of rehearsals, recency of rehearsals, and strength of interitem associations cause the word frequency effect in free recall.     

Psychometric analysis of the Revised Memory and Behavior Problems Checklist: factor structure of occurrence and reaction ratings

A modified version of the Revised Memory and Behavior Problems Checklist (RMBPC; L. Teri et al., 1992) was administered across 6 different sites to 1,229 family caregivers of community-dwelling adults with dementia. The total sample was divided randomly into 2 subsamples. Principal components analyses on occurrence responses and reaction ratings from the first subsample resulted in a 3-factor solution that closely resembled the originally proposed dimensions (memory-related problems, disruptive behaviors, and depression). Confirmatory factor analyses on data from the second subsample indicated adequate fit for the 3-factor model. Correlations with other caregiver and care-recipient measures supported the convergent and discriminant validity of the RMBPC measures. In addition, female caregivers and White caregivers reported more problems, on average, than male caregivers and African American caregivers, respectively.