Applying Retrieval‐Induced Forgetting to Children's Testimony

When a crime has been committed, investigators must obtain as much and as accurate information as possible from witnesses. Initial incomplete interviews may pose a potential cost to unretrieved information. We explored retrieval‐induced forgetting (RIF) in children's autobiographical memory for related episodic events. Children experienced four related play sessions across 4 days, followed by word stem retrieval practice of half of the items, and a cued recall task that took place either 15 minutes or 2 hours later. Categorized details were experienced either within a single day or across multiple days. The emergence of RIF was dependent upon the length of delay between practice and test phases and the temporal distribution of the episodic events. Our observations demonstrate that RIF can be a subtle phenomenon whose occurrence depends upon whether the retrieval context supports an environment of retrieval interference. Copyright © 2012 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Assessment of executive functioning in childhood epilepsy: the Tower of London and BRIEF

Children and adolescents with epilepsy are known to demonstrate executive function dysfunction, including working memory deficits and planning deficits. Accordingly, assessing specific executive function skills is important when evaluating these individuals. The present investigation examined the utility of two measures of executive functions-the Tower of London and the Behavioral Rating Inventory of Executive Functioning (BRIEF)-in a pediatric epilepsy sample. Ninety clinically referred children and adolescents with seizures were included. Both the Tower of London and BRIEF identified executive dysfunction in these individuals, but only the Tower of London variables showed significant relations with epilepsy severity variables such as age of epilepsy onset, seizure frequency, number of antiepileptic medications, etc. Further, the Tower of London and BRIEF variables were uncorrelated. Results indicate that objective measures of executive function deficits are more closely related to epilepsy severity but may not predict observable deficits, as reported by parents. Comprehensive evaluation of such deficits, therefore, should include both objective measures as well as subjective ratings from caregivers.     

Factor structure of the primary scales of the Inventory of Personality Organization in a nonclinical sample using exploratory structural equation modeling

Using exploratory structural equation modeling and multiple regression, we examined the factor structure and criterion relations of the primary scales of the Inventory of Personality Organization (IPO; Kernberg & Clarkin, 1995) in a nonclinical sample. Participants (N = 1,260) completed the IPO and measures of self-concept clarity, defenses, affect and emotion regulation, and risky and self-injurious behavior. In contrast to that of Lenzenweger, Clarkin, Kernberg, and Foelsch (2001), a 4-factor measurement model was derived with factors representing instability of sense of self and other, instability of goals, instability of behaviors, and psychosis. The 1st of these factors related most strongly to external measures of self-concept clarity, defenses, and affect, whereas the 3rd factor related most strongly to measures of risky behavior and self-injury. These results suggest that the IPO's factor structure does not conform to the hypothesized 3-factor model, although it does capture important elements of Kernberg's (1996) theory of personality organization, especially the central construct of representations of self and others. The results point to several areas in which the IPO might be refined to provide a more comprehensive and theoretically appropriate measure of the borderline personality organization construct.     

Assessing psychological inflexibility: the psychometric properties of the Avoidance and Fusion Questionnaire for Youth in two adult samples

The current study examined whether the Avoidance and Fusion Questionnaire for Youth (AFQ-Y; L. A. Greco, W. Lambert, & R. A. Baer, 2008), a self-report measure of psychological inflexibility for children and adolescents, might be useful for measuring psychological inflexibility for adults. The psychometric properties of the AFQ-Y were examined using data from a college student sample (N = 387) and a clinical sample of patients with anxiety disorders (N = 115). The AFQ-Y, but not the Acceptance and Action Questionnaire-II (AAQ-II; F. W. Bond et al., in press), demonstrated a reading level at or below the recommended 5th or 6th grade reading level. The AFQ-Y also demonstrated adequate reliability (internal consistency), factorial validity, convergent and discriminant validity, and concurrent validity predicting psychological symptoms. Moreover, the AFQ-Y showed incremental validity over the AAQ-II in predicting several psychological symptom domains. Implications for the assessment of psychological inflexibility are discussed.     

Assessing Counseling Students' Attitudes Regarding Substance Abuse and Treatment

Undergraduate counselors‐in‐training completed the Substance Abuse Attitude Survey, which measures treatment intervention, treatment optimism, and nonstereotypical attitudes. Treatment optimism was positively correlated with nonstereotypical attitudes and treatment intervention. Results indicated that treatment intervention and nonstereotypical attitudes must be addressed in addiction counseling courses.     

Early Career Boot Camp: A Novel Mechanism for Enhancing Early Career Development for Psychologists in Academic Healthcare

The purpose of this article is to describe a pilot mentoring program for Early Career Psychologists (ECPs) working in Academic Health Centers (AHCs) and synthesize the lessons learned to contribute to future ECP and AHC career development training programs. The authors describe an early career development model, named the Early Career Boot Camp. This intensive experience was conducted as a workshop meant to build a supportive network and to provide mentorship and survival tools for working in AHCs. Four major components were addressed: professional effectiveness, clinical supervision, strategic career planning, and academic research. Nineteen attendees who were currently less than 5 years post completion of doctoral graduate programs in psychology participated in the program. The majority of boot camp components were rated as good to excellent, with no component receiving below average ratings. Of the components offered within the boot camp, mentoring and research activities were rated the strongest, followed by educational activities, challenges in AHCS, and promotion and tenure. The article describes the purpose, development, implementation, and assessment of the program in detail in an effort to provide an established outline for future organizations to utilize when mentoring ECPs.     

Voluntary and involuntary attention vary as a function of impulsivity

In the present study we examined, first, whether voluntary and involuntary attention manifest differently in people who differ in impulsivity (measured with the Barratt Impulsivity Scale). For Experiment 1, we used the spatial cueing task with informative and noninformative spatial cues to probe voluntary and involuntary attention, respectively. We found that participants with high impulsivity scores exhibited larger involuntary attention effects, whereas participants with low impulsivity scores exhibited larger voluntary attention effects. For Experiment 2, we used the correlated-flanker task to determine whether the differences between groups in Experiment 1 were due to high-impulsive participants being less sensitive to the display contingencies or to high-impulsive participants having a greater spread of spatial attention. Surprisingly, high-impulsive participants showed a greater sensitivity to contingencies in the environment (correlated-flanker effect). Our results illustrate one situation in which involuntary attention associated with high impulsivity can play a useful role.     

The Three Domains of Disgust Scale: factor structure, psychometric properties, and conceptual limitations

This investigation examined the measurement properties of the Three Domains of Disgust Scale (TDDS). Principal components analysis in Study 1 (n = 206) revealed three factors of Pathogen, Sexual, and Moral Disgust that demonstrated excellent reliability, including test-retest over 12 weeks. Confirmatory factor analyses in Study 2 (n = 406) supported the three factors. Supportive evidence for the validity of the Pathogen and Sexual Disgust subscales was found in Study 1 and Study 2 with strong associations with disgust/contamination and weak associations with negative affect. However, the validity of the Moral Disgust subscale was limited. Study 3 (n = 200) showed that the TDDS subscales differentially related to personality traits. Study 4 (n = 47) provided evidence for the validity of the TDDS subscales in relation to multiple indices of disgust/contamination aversion in a select sample. Study 5 (n = 70) further highlighted limitations of the Moral Disgust subscale given the lack of a theoretically consistent association with moral attitudes. Lastly, Study 6 (n = 178) showed that responses on the Moral Disgust scale were more intense when anger was the response option compared with when disgust was the response option. The implications of these findings for the assessment of disgust are discussed.     

An interpersonal analysis of pathological personality traits in DSM-5

The proposed changes to the personality disorder section of the Diagnostic and statistical manual of mental disorders (5th ed.) places an increased focus on interpersonal impairment as one of the defining features of personality psychopathology. In addition, a proposed trait model has been offered to provide a means of capturing phenotypic variation on the expression of personality disorder. In this study, the authors subject the proposed DSM-5 traits to interpersonal analysis using the inventory of interpersonal problems-circumplex scales via the structural summary method for circumplex data. DSM-5 traits were consistently associated with generalized interpersonal dysfunction suggesting that they are maladaptive in nature, the majority of traits demonstrated discriminant validity with prototypical and differentiated interpersonal problem profiles, and conformed well to a priori hypothesized associations. These results are discussed in the context of the DSM-5 proposal and contemporary interpersonal theory, with a particular focus on potential areas for expansion of the DSM-5 trait model.     

Hungry pigeons make suboptimal choices, less hungry pigeons do not

Hungry animals will often choose suboptimally by being attracted to reliable signals for food that occur infrequently (they gamble) over less reliable signals for food that occur more often. That is, pigeons prefer an option that 50?% of the time provides them with a reliable signal for the appearance of food but 50?% of the time provides them with a reliable signal for the absence of food (overall 50?% reinforcement) over an alternative that always provides them with a signal for the appearance of food 75?% of the time (overall 75?% reinforcement). The pigeons appear to choose impulsively for the possibility of obtaining the reliable signal for reinforcement. There is evidence that greater hunger is associated with greater impulsivity. We tested the hypothesis that if the pigeons were less hungry, they would be less impulsive and, thus, would choose more optimally (i.e., on the basis of the overall probability of reinforcement). We found that hungry pigeons choose the 50?% reinforcement alternative suboptimally but less hungry pigeons prefer the more optimal 75?% reinforcement. Paradoxically, pigeons that needed the food more received less of it. These findings have implications for how level of motivation may also affect human suboptimal choice (e.g., purchase of lottery tickets and playing slot machines).