Factual and Affective/Evaluative Recall of Pretrial Publicity: Their Relative Influence on Juror Reasoning and Verdict in a Simulated Fraud Trial1

This study investigated the relationship between recall of real‐life pretrial publicity (PTP) in a high‐profile fraud case and subsequent reasoning about the trial evidence and verdict decisions. Tracking the reasoning and verdict judgments of 50 mock jurors during a video simulation of the trial material, the effect of factual recall of PTP was compared with recall indicating an affective or evaluative response from the PTP. Affective/evaluative recall, but not factual recall, was significantly associated with anti‐defendant reasoning and confidence in guilt. This effect was partially mediated by reasoning developed during the course of evidence presentation. The potentially prejudicial effect of affective/evaluative recall of PTP is discussed in terms of it activating an explanatory structure that frames evidence interpretation.     

The Role of Virtual Experience in Consumer Learning

Through a series of studies designed to explore important aspects of virtual experience, a new type of product affordances—virtual affordances—is proposed and tested empirically. In addition, the existing geometric and material product taxonomy is extended to include mechanical products within the classification structure. Utilizing these new concepts, 3‐D product visualization is compared with traditional 2‐D product representations and television advertising. The results largely support the proposition that 3‐D product visualization is capable of influencing brand attitude and purchase intention for geometric and mechanical products within e‐commerce environments.     

It does take a village: nonfamilial environments and children's behavior

Abstract - Family characteristics influence children's behavioral development, but so do variations in schools, neighborhoods, and communities. We documented extrafamilial environmental effects by fitting maximum likelihood models to questionnaire data collected from double dyads consisting of twins and their classmate controls. The classmate controls in each double dyad were genetic strangers living in separate households, but they shared school, neighborhood, and community environments with their yoked twin pair and with one another. At ages 11 to 12, the control classmates showed significant similarities in religious practices and smoking and drinking patterns, demonstrating that environmental influences outside the family affect children's behavioral development. Familial self-selection of residential neighborhoods may have contributed to these results, but direct effects of variation across communities, neighborhoods, and schools cannot be dismissed, and such effects warrant further study.     

Driver performance, rewards and motivation: A simulator study

It has been suggested that effort invested in a task may be moderated by the perception of the nature of reward offered, e.g., whether social or financial in nature. If levels of payment for empirical work meaningfully influence the effort invested in tasks by participants, the implications may be serious and wide-ranging for the reliability and validity of published data. The study reported in this paper, examines this thesis in a driving context. Thirty-six participants were allocated to either a No payment, Low payment or Medium payment condition in a driving simulator. They undertook both easy and difficult driving scenarios in which performance was measured. Subjective workload and performance results indicated that task difficulty was successfully manipulated with the study. However, in contrast to the previous research in non-driving contexts, participants not receiving rewards were found to perform more poorly and experience increased time pressure.     

Language deficits, localization, and grammar: evidence for a distributive model of language breakdown in aphasic patients and neurologically intact individuals.

Selective deficits in aphasic patients' grammatical production and comprehension are often cited as evidence that syntactic processing is modular and localizable in discrete areas of the brain (e.g., Y. Grodzinsky, 2000). The authors review a large body of experimental evidence suggesting that morpho-syntactic deficits can be observed in a number of aphasic and neurologically intact populations. They present new data showing that receptive agrammatism is found not only over a range of aphasic groups, but is also observed in neurologically intact individuals processing under stressful conditions. The authors suggest that these data are most compatible with a domain-general account of language, one that emphasizes the interaction of linguistic distributions with the properties of an associative processor working under normal or suboptimal conditions.     

Evaluating the generalization of math fact fluency gains across paper and computer performance modalities

Computer-based interventions are being used more in the classroom. Student responses to these interventions often contribute to decisions making regarding important outcomes. It is important to understand the effect of these interventions within the context of the intervention as well as across related context. The current study examined the generalization of math fact fluency gains resulting from a computer-based intervention to paper-and-pencil performance. A total of 31 second grade students completed fluency drills on the computer or with paper and pencil. Pretest-posttest performance on both computer and paper and pencil for all students was evaluated using a doubly multivariate repeated measure ANOVA. Results indicated that gains achieved on the computer did not generalize to paper-and-pencil performance.     

Ethnic Match and Treatment Outcomes for Child and Adolescent Mental Health Center Clients

This study investigated the effects of client ethnicity and client‐counselor ethnic match on treatment outcomes (i.e., GAF‐difference [from the Global Assessment of Functioning Axis V rating of the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders, fourth edition, American Psychiatric Association, 1994] and client visitation) of 1,946 child and adolescent community mental health center clients. After controlling for 7 other variables, no differences were observed after adjustment among client ethnicities, age groups, or ethnic match on the GAF‐difference dependent measure. Ethnically matched African American child and adolescent clients had fewer mental health visits than did their nonmatched counterparts. Implications of these findings are discussed.     

Identification of tone duration, line length, and letter position: an experimental approach to timing and working memory deficits in schizophrenia

Patients with schizophrenia display numerous cognitive deficits, including problems in working memory, time estimation, and absolute identification of stimuli. Research in these fields has traditionally been conducted independently. We examined these cognitive processes using tasks that are structurally similar and that yield rich error data. Relative to healthy control participants (n = 20), patients with schizophrenia (n = 20) were impaired on a duration identification task and a probed-recall memory task but not on a line-length identification task. These findings do not support the notion of a global impairment in absolute identification in schizophrenia. However, the authors suggest that some aspect of temporal information processing is indeed disturbed in schizophrenia.     

A Multivariate Associative Finite Growth Mixture Modeling Approach Examining Adolescent Alcohol and Marijuana Use

Theoretical and empirical substance use development research suggests that adolescent populations are not homogenous and can often be separated into subpopulations characterized by qualitatively different patterns of substance use development. This paper demonstrates the application of a multivariate associative finite latent growth mixture modelling approach to examine heterogeneity in patterns of adolescent alcohol and marijuana use and the influence of age, gender, parent, and peer substance use. Substance use problem outcomes were also examined. Participants were male and female adolescents (N = 1,044) ranging in age from 11 to 17 years at the first assessment (Mean age = 14.47; SD = 1.95). Individuals were 45% female and 82% Caucasian. Using growth mixture methodology, a 7-class model captured distinct simultaneous alcohol and marijuana use patterns over a 3-year period. Findings highlight the importance of examining subgroups of adolescent substance use, rather than focusing only on single samples.     

Riddles in serial murder: A synthesis

This article blends the conclusions of four former law enforcement personnel who have investigated and apprehended serial killers, with pertinent principles derived primarily from the field of psychoanalysis. The four—John Douglas, Roy Hazelwood, Robert Keppel, and Robert Ressler—have written extensively about their investigations of serial killers. In their writings, they have answered many questions about the personality development of serial killers while leaving other questions only partially answered. This article expands the answers to three fundamental questions: What is the origin of the dynamics of serial killing? Why is the aggressive drive so singularly powerful and persistent in serial killers? Why is it that serial killers often reveal their identities to the police? In answering these three riddles, the contributions of four emotional pillars in the personality of killers are emphasized. The pillars include emotional hunger, anxiety and aggression, eroticism, and conscience structure. At times, these pillars merge and drive murderous behavior but the pillars lack the integration needed for healthy personality development. This synthesis offers a fuller understanding of the psychodynamics involved in serial killings.