Love, Suspense, Sex, and Violence: Men’s and Women’s Film Predilections, Exposure to Sexually Violent Media, and their Relationship to Rape Myth Acceptance

This investigation addressed the relationship between men’s and women’s predilections for film with a love story, suspense, or sex and violence theme and how that predilection related to rape myth acceptance (RMA). Also examined was how men’s and women’s predilections, as they related to RMA, were moderated by exposure to different levels of sexually violent media based on a true story. Finally, the relationship between traditional attitudes and film predilection, as well as the relationship between film predilection and attitudes toward film editing, were investigated. Results indicate that men prefer film with sex and violence significantly more than women do, whereas women prefer love stories significantly more than men do. Those with sex and violence film predilections are more accepting of RMA than those with love story or suspense predilections. Women’s film predilections and their relationship to RMA attitudes are moderated to an extent by exposure to sexually violent media based on a true story, whereas men’s attitudes remain unaffected. Finally, those with sex and violence film predilections are less in favor of film editing than are those with suspense or love story predilections. Theoretical explanations for the findings are discussed and their implications.     

Waiting When Both Certainty and Magnitude Are Increasing: Certainty Overshadows Magnitude

In everyday decision making, people often face decisions with outcomes that differ on multiple dimensions. The trade‐off in preferences between magnitude, temporal proximity, and probability of an outcome is a fundamental concern in the decision‐making literature. Yet, their joint effects on behavior in an experience‐based decision‐making task are understudied. Two experiments examined the relative influences of the magnitude and probability of an outcome when both were increasing over a 10‐second delay. A first‐person shooter video game was adapted for this purpose. Experiment 1 showed that participants waited longer to ensure a higher probability of the outcome than to ensure a greater magnitude when experienced separately and together. Experiment 2 provided a precise method of comparing their relative control on waiting by having each increase at different rates. Both experiments revealed a stronger influence of increasing probability than increasing magnitude. The results were more consistent with hyperbolic discounting of probability than with cumulative prospect theory's decision weight function. Copyright © 2014 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Training parents to help their children read: A randomized control trial

Background . Low levels of literacy and high levels of behaviour problems in middle childhood often co‐occur. These persistent difficulties pose a risk to academic and social development, leading to social exclusion in adulthood. Although parent‐training programmes have been shown to be effective in enabling parents to support their children's development, very few parent interventions offer a combination of behavioural and literacy training. Aims . This paper (1) reports on a prevention programme which aimed to tackle behaviour and literacy problems in children at the beginning of school, and (2) presents the effects of the intervention on children's literacy. Sample . One hundred and four 5‐ and 6‐year‐old children selected from eight schools in an inner city disadvantaged community in London participated in the intervention. Methods . This is a randomized control trial with pre‐ and post‐measurements designed to evaluate the effectiveness of an intervention. The behavioural intervention consisted of the ‘Incredible Years’ group parenting programme combined with a new programme designed to train parents to support their children's reading at home. Results . Analyses demonstrated a significant effect of the intervention on children's word reading and writing skills, as well as parents' use of reading strategies with their children. Conclusion . A structured multicomponent preventive package delivered with attention to fidelity can enable parents to support their children's reading at home and increase their literacy skills. Together with the improvement in child behaviour, these changes could improve the life chances of children in disadvantaged communities.     

The role of treatment expectancy in youth receiving exposure-based CBT for obsessive compulsive disorder

The purpose of this investigation was to examine correlates of parent, child, and therapist treatment expectations and their role in the exposure-based treatment of childhood obsessive compulsive disorder (OCD). Treatment expectations were assessed among 49 youth with primary OCD, their parents, and therapists as part of the baseline evaluation and post-treatment clinical outcomes were determined by blind evaluators. Baseline depressive symptoms, child/parent-rated functional impairment, externalizing behavior problems, number of comorbid psychiatric disorders, and a lower perception of control were associated with lower pre-treatment expectations. Parent expectation was associated with parental OCD symptoms, child depressive symptoms and child-reported impairment. Therapist expectations inversely correlated with child depressive symptoms, externalizing problems, and child-rated impairment. Pre-treatment OCD severity and prior treatment history were not linked to expectancy. Finally, higher treatment expectations were linked to better treatment response, lower attrition, better homework compliance, and reduced impairment.     

Speechreading skill and visual movement sensitivity are related in deaf speechreaders

Individual speechreading abilities have been linked with a range of cognitive and language-processing factors. The role of specifically visual abilities in relation to the processing of visible speech is less studied. Here we report that the detection of coherent visible motion in random-dot kinematogram displays is related to speechreading skill in deaf, but not in hearing, speechreaders. A control task requiring the detection of visual form showed no such relationship. Additionally, people born deaf were better speechreaders than hearing people on a new test of silent speechreading.     

Using mixture models with known class membership to address incomplete covariance structures in multiple‐group growth models

Multi‐group latent growth modelling in the structural equation modelling framework has been widely utilized for examining differences in growth trajectories across multiple manifest groups. Despite its usefulness, the traditional maximum likelihood estimation for multi‐group latent growth modelling is not feasible when one of the groups has no response at any given data collection point, or when all participants within a group have the same response at one of the time points. In other words, multi‐group latent growth modelling requires a complete covariance structure for each observed group. The primary purpose of the present study is to show how to circumvent these data problems by developing a simple but creative approach using an existing estimation procedure for growth mixture modelling. A Monte Carlo simulation study was carried out to see whether the modified estimation approach provided tangible results and to see how these results were comparable to the standard multi‐group results. The proposed approach produced results that were valid and reliable under the mentioned problematic data conditions. We also present a real data example and demonstrate that the proposed estimation approach can be used for the chi‐square difference test to check various types of measurement invariance as conducted in a standard multi‐group analysis.     

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.     

Instructional cues modify performance on the Iowa Gambling Task

The current study investigated whether acute alcohol intoxication produces impaired decision-making on tasks assessing ventromedial prefrontal (VMF) cortex functioning and impulsive responding. Participants completed the Iowa Gambling Task (IGT), a decision-making test targeting the VMF, and the Newman Perseveration Task (NT), a measure of impulsivity. Personality measures of impulsivity were assessed using the Barratt Impulsiveness Scale (BIS). To encourage natural responding on both tasks, participants were falsely informed that the study was examining the effects of alcohol on memory; the impulsivity tasks were presented as 'distractor' tasks. Advantageous performance on the IGT was related to specific instructional cues as well as to knowledge about the experimental purpose. Performance of intoxicated and sober participants did not differ. A subsequent study in which the true purpose of the experiment was revealed confirmed that alcohol does not affect IGT performance. Most importantly, the instruction-sensitivity of the IGT emphasizes the importance of salient cues for decision-making.     

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.     

Refining the experimental analysis of academic skills deficits: Part I. An investigation of variables that affect generalized oral reading performance

Experimental analyses for improving reading fluency deficits have rarely targeted generalized increases in academic responding. As a consequence, the variables that may help students to generalize newly learned forms of academic responding like reading are not well understood. Furthermore, experimental analyses of reading fluency interventions have not systematically examined difficulty level as a variable that may affect instructional outcomes. The experiment reported in this paper expands (a) the measurement of the dependent variables to include generalized increases across tasks (reading passages) and (b) the combination of independent variables used to produce measurable generalized increases. The results demonstrate the importance of combining reward and instructional variables (including difficulty level) to produce generalized increases and how those variables can be meaningfully investigated prior to making treatment recommendations.