The effect of visual search efficiency on response preparation: neurophysiological evidence for discrete flow

Most models assume that response time (RT) comprises the time required for successive processing stages, but they disagree about whether information is transmitted continuously or discretely between stages. We tested these alternative hypotheses by measuring when movement-related activity began in the frontal eye field (FEF) of macaque monkeys performing visual search. Previous work showed that RT was longer when visual neurons in FEF took longer to select the target, a finding consistent with prolonged perceptual processing during less efficient search. We now report that the buildup of saccadic movement-related activity in FEF is delayed in inefficient visual search. Variability in the delay of movement-related activity accounted for the difference in RT between search conditions and for the variability of RT within conditions. These findings provide neurophysiological support for the hypothesis that information is transmitted discretely between perceptual and response stages of processing during visual search.     

The Benefits of Using Psychotherapy Skills Following Treatment for Depression: An Examination of “Afterwork” and a Test of the Skills Hypothesis in Older Adults

It has long been assumed that one of the reasons clients maintain improvement after psychotherapy is that they learn skills during the course of therapy and continue to apply them once therapy has ended. While research on homework completion and psychotherapy outcome provides support for this assumption, there has been no direct examination of “afterwork,” the use of skills learned in therapy after therapy has ended, or how those posttherapy skills differ across different theoretical approaches. The purpose of this study is to test a skills hypothesis of long-term psychotherapeutic benefit in a sample of 90 older adults who have completed psychotherapy for depression. Helpfulness of the techniques learned in therapy was negatively associated with depressive symptoms up to 2 years after treatment. The number of techniques used was positively correlated with depressive symptoms within 6 months of treatment once helpfulness was controlled, indicating that skills learned in therapy are used when symptoms return. There were also between-group differences in which skills were reported to be covered and used by patients after therapy ended. These findings support the expectation that the benefits of therapy are extended by continuing to use helpful skills learned in therapy.     

Treatment Engagement: Building Therapeutic Alliance in Home-Based Treatment with Adolescents and their Families

Client engagement is an essential yet challenging ingredient in effective therapy. Engaged clients are more likely to bond with therapists and counselors, endorse treatment goals, participate to a greater degree, remain in treatment longer, and report higher levels of satisfaction. This study explored the process of engaging high-risk youth and their parents in a unique home-based family therapy intervention. Qualitative interviews were conducted with 19 families who completed family therapy sessions that included a core component aimed at increasing treatment engagement. Parents’ and youths’ perceptions of engagement suggest the importance of developing therapeutic alliance with therapists, who facilitated building a shared alliance among family members. Implications for improving client engagement are discussed within the context of alliance building with the therapist and among family members.     

Perceived threat: exploring its association with worry and its hypothesized antecedents

Two studies with college student participants (n's=262, 239) examined the relation between perceptions of threat (i.e., perceptions of the probabilities and costs of future undesirable outcomes) and: (a) worry; and (b) hypothesized antecedents of perceived threat. In both studies, higher levels of worrying were associated with higher perceived probability and cost. In Study 2, the association between perceived threat and worrying remained even when taking into account maladaptive worry beliefs and the desire for predictability; in fact, the relation between worrying and worry beliefs and desire for predictability were moderated by perceptions of threat. Higher levels of perceived probability were associated with perceiving oneself and others less favorably, whereas higher levels of perceived cost were associated with higher standards.     

A Review of Loss,Trauma and Resilience: Therapeutic Work With Ambiguous Loss

Book reviewed in this article: Pauline Boss (2006). Loss, Trauma, and Resilience: Therapeutic Work With Ambiguous Loss.     

Adaptive memory: survival processing enhances retention

The authors investigated the idea that memory systems might have evolved to help us remember fitness-relevant information--specifically, information relevant to survival. In 4 incidental learning experiments, people were asked to rate common nouns for their survival relevance (e.g., in securing food, water, or protection from predators); in control conditions, the same words were rated for pleasantness, relevance to moving to a foreign land, or personal relevance. In surprise retention tests, participants consistently showed the best memory when words were rated for survival; the survival advantage held across recall, recognition, and for both within-subject and between-subjects designs. These findings suggest that memory systems are "tuned" to remember information that is processed for fitness, perhaps as a result of survival advantages accrued in the past.     

Absolute distance perception to locations off the ground plane

Using vision, humans can accurately judge distances to locations on the ground surface up to distances of at least 20 m. Most theories of depth perception assume that this ability is associated with the fact that we live in a terrestrial world in which locations of interest often appear on the ground and for which feedback about distance is often available from nonvisual sources such as walking. Much less is known about the ability of humans to judge absolute distances to locations other than on or supported by the ground plane beyond a few meters, at which point binocular stereo provides at best limited information about distance scaling. We show that one commonly used action measure for probing absolute distance perception exhibits accurate performance, even for targets located on the ceiling of a large room. We follow this with evidence that distance to ceiling locations is recovered with a mechanism that depends, at least in part, on the angle from the line of sight to the target location and a gravity-based frame of reference.     

Solo status and self-construal: being distinctive influences racial self-construal and performance apprehension in African American women

A preliminary study and main experiment tested the hypothesis that racial solo status (being the only member of one's race in a group) increases racial self-construal among African Americans. The preliminary study showed that African American men and women reported greater collectivist (i.e., group-based) over individualist self-construal under solo compared to nonsolo status, whereas Whites did not. The main experiment showed that the increased collectivism among African American solo women appears to be strongly reflected in racial identity becoming a salient aspect of self-construal. African American participants were also more likely than Whites to perceive that their anticipated performance would be generalized to their race, to feel like representatives of their race, and to show greater performance apprehension (indirectly evidenced by increased self-handicapping) when in racial solo status. The implications of solo status for African Americans in evaluative situations (such as academic testing sessions) are discussed.