Perceiving musical individuality: performer identification is dependent on performer expertise and expressiveness, but not on listener expertise

Can listeners distinguish unfamiliar performers playing the same piece on the same instrument? Professional performers recorded two expressive and two inexpressive interpretations of a short organ piece. Nonmusicians and musicians listened to these recordings and grouped together excerpts they thought had been played by the same performer. Both musicians and nonmusicians performed significantly above chance. Expressive interpretations were sorted more accurately than inexpressive ones, indicating that musical individuality is communicated more efficiently through expressive performances. Furthermore, individual performers' consistency and distinctiveness with respect to expressive patterns were shown to be excellent predictors of categorisation accuracy. Categorisation accuracy was superior for prize-winning performers compared to non-winners, suggesting a link between performer competence and the communication of musical individuality. Finally, results indicate that temporal information is sufficient to enable performer recognition, a finding that has broader implications for research on the detection of identity cues.     

Do people ruminate because they haven’t digested their goals? The relations of rumination and reflection to goal internalization and ambivalence

In three studies it was investigated whether rumination was related to less internalized self-regulation and goals and whether reflection was related to more internalized self-regulation and goals. In all studies students completed questionnaires measuring rumination, reflection, and internalization of self-regulation and goals. In Study 1, rumination was related to less internalized self-regulation, whereas reflection was related to more internalized self-regulation. In Study 2, rumination was related to less internalized self-regulation and goals as well as to more avoidance- and extrinsic content of goals. Reflection was related to more internalized self-regulation and goals as well as to less avoidance content of goals. In Study 3, goal-specific rumination was related to less internalized goals and goal-specific reflection was related to more internalized goals. Collectively, the studies suggest that internalization of self-regulation and goals is critical for distinguishing between unconstructive and constructive self-focused repetitive thoughts.     

Developing a measure of interpretation bias for depressed mood: An ambiguous scenarios test

The tendency to interpret ambiguous everyday situations in a relatively negative manner (negative interpretation bias) is central to cognitive models of depression. Limited tools are available to measure this bias, either experimentally or in the clinic. This study aimed to develop a pragmatic interpretation bias measure using an ambiguous scenarios test relevant to depressed mood (the AST-D).¹ In Study 1, after a pilot phase (N = 53), the AST-D was presented via a web-based survey (N = 208). Participants imagined and rated each AST-D ambiguous scenario. As predicted, higher dysphoric mood was associated with lower pleasantness ratings (more negative bias), independent of mental imagery measures. In Study 2, self-report ratings were compared with objective ratings of participants’ imagined outcomes of the ambiguous scenarios (N = 41). Data were collected in the experimental context of a functional Magnetic Resonance Imaging scanner. Consistent with subjective bias scores, independent judges rated more sentences as negatively valenced for the high versus low dysphoric group. Overall, results suggest the potential utility of the AST-D in assessing interpretation bias associated with depressed mood.     

Automatically activated racial attitudes as predictors of the success of interracial roommate relationships

Study 1 indicated that roommate relationships involving randomly paired interracial freshmen were characterized by less extensive joint activity and were more likely to dissolve than those involving randomly paired White freshmen. Study 2 explored whether the automatically activated racial attitudes of White freshmen who had been randomly assigned to share rooms with Black freshmen would predict the stability and duration of the roommate relationships. The racial attitudes of the White freshmen were measured unobtrusively via a priming procedure at the beginning of the fall semester. White students’ automatically activated racial attitudes, but not their motivation to control prejudiced reactions, predicted the longevity of the relationships. Theoretical and methodological implications are discussed.     

Integrating mind and body: Graduate psychology education in primary behavioral health care

Extensive research supports the biopsychosocial model, but the current health care system generally operates according to a model of mind-body dualism. Integrated primary behavioral health care offers an alternative to this dualism. This paper describes the University of Louisville Graduate Psychology Education (GPE) program, a pre-doctoral integrated primary behavioral health care training program. This program emphasizes four shared psychosocial determinants that have been associated with physical health status: Victimization and potentially traumatic stress exposure, emotional functioning, social relationship functioning, and illness representations. It does so within the broader context of providing care for individuals who are underserved and economically disadvantaged. The initial phase of the program is evaluated and implications for graduate psychology education and patient care are discussed.     

Reweighing the Ethical Tradeoffs in the Involuntary Hospitalization of Suicidal Patients

Suicide is the 10th leading cause of death in the United States and the second cause of death among those ages 15–24 years. The current standard of care for suicidality management often involves an involuntary hospitalization deemed necessary by the attending psychiatrist. The purpose of this article is to reexamine the ethical tradeoffs inherent in the current practice of involuntary psychiatric hospitalization for suicidal patients, calling attention to the often-neglected harms inherent in this practice and proposing a path for future research. With accumulating evidence of the harms inherent in civil commitment, we propose that the relative value of this intervention needs to be reevaluated and more efficacious alternatives researched. Three arguments are presented: (1) that inadequate attention has been given to the harms resulting from the use of coercion and the loss of autonomy, (2) that inadequate evidence exists that involuntary hospitalization is an effective method to reduce deaths by suicide, and (3) that some suicidal patients may benefit more from therapeutic interventions that maximize and support autonomy and personal responsibility. Considering this evidence, we argue for a policy that limits the coercive hospitalization of suicidal individuals to those who lack decision-making capacity.     

Relationships among Personal Life Stories,Vicarious Life Stories about Mothers and Fathers,and Well-being

We examined whether vicarious life stories about mothers and fathers differed in their relationships with personal life stories and well-being. Seventy-six emerging adults completed scales measuring well-being and described three chapters in their personal, mothers’, and fathers’ life stories. Chapters were self-rated and content coded for emotional tone and positive/negative person change. Characteristics of personal life stories were positively correlated with characteristics of vicarious life stories for mothers and fathers. Personal life stories were higher on positive person change than vicarious life stories about mothers and fathers. Higher well-being was related to rating all three life stories as more positive, but results for content coding were more mixed. The results indicate that vicarious life stories for mothers and fathers are related in similar ways to personal life stories and well-being.     

Effects of Victim,Defendant, and Juror Gender on Decisions in Child Sexual Assault Cases1

We examined the combined influence of juror, victim, and defendant gender on jurors’ decisions in child sexual abuse cases. Mock jurors read scenarios of an assault case involving a man or woman defendant accused of molesting a 15‐year‐old boy or girl. Jurors then rendered verdicts and rated the defendant's and victim's believability and responsibility for the abuse. Female jurors were generally more pro‐victim in case judgments than were male jurors. Additionally, a woman perpetrator was evaluated more leniently than was a man perpetrator, especially by male jurors when the victim was a boy. Case judgments were unrelated to jurors’ social conservatism, sexism, or attitudes toward homosexuality. Results have implications for understanding social perceptions of mixed‐ and same‐gender abuse involving adolescent victims, and juror decision making in man‐ and woman‐perpetrated child sexual assault cases.     

Gapping: Electrophysiological evidence for immediate processing of "missing" verbs in sentence comprehension

In the present study we use event related potentials (ERPs) to explore the time course of identification and resolution of verb gaps. ERPs were recorded while participants read sentences that contained a verb gap like Ron took/sanded the planks, and Bill ? the hammer... Plausibility of the critical words (hammer) that followed the verb gap was manipulated. Relative to the plausible control (preceded by took), ERPs to the critical word in the implausible condition (preceded by sanded) showed an N400, followed by a positivity (P600). ERPs to determiners following gapped verbs showed a negativity between 100 and 300 ms, and a positivity between 300 and 500 ms compared to determiners in non-gapping constructions. These results suggest that the sentence processor recognizes a verb gap and reconstructs the verb information at the earliest possible occasion, and that this reconstruction process is different from the reconstruction of antecedents in other filler-gap constructions (e.g., WH gaps).