Visual Elaboration Scale as a measure of imagery

We studied the correlation of one measure of imagery ability, the Visual Elaboration Scale, with two others, absorption of image and effort required to form a mental image. Significant correlations were obtained between the Visual Elaboration Scale and the other scales, with the exception of Absorption for women.     

A developmental-genetic analysis of aggressive behavior in mice (Mus musculus): III. Behavioral mediation by heightened reactivity or immobility?

This research was designed to investigate development and behavioral mediation in lines of ICR mice that have been selectively bred for aggressive behavior. General behavioral reactivity and behavioral immobility have been implicated as potential mediators by prior analyses of preattack interactions. To evaluate the separate roles of these dispositions, the emergence of attacks in genetically selected lines was tracked for 11 years by three levels of analysis: over successive generations, over development, and over dyadic interactions. Convergent outcomes were observed in all three levels with respect to two findings: (a) Robust line differences were obtained in attack behaviors, and (b) strong associations were found between line differences in attacks and line differences in behavioral immobility. Conversely, all three levels of analysis indicated a weak and inconsistent association between line differences in attacks and measures of social and nonsocial reactivity.     

Evaluation of a mutual help network for the elderly residents of planned housing

We set up a mutual help network among the elderly residents of a government-subsidized apartment building and evaluated its impact on their social ties, social support satisfaction, and depression. A quasi-experimental design was used, with the residents of a similar building located in the same neighborhood serving as the control group. A total of 230 individual services were exchanged, and 28 group activities were organized during the study period. There was almost no difference between experimental and control groups with respect to the change over the study period in the number of social ties with other residents of the building. Support satisfaction decreased in both groups, but the decrease was larger in the experimental group. The control group had a slight decrease in the frequency of their depressive symptoms, whereas the experimental group had a moderate increase. More research is needed on the ability of social support interventions to produce beneficial effects on mental health among individuals who are not experiencing a particular life stress.     

The association between teacher attitudes, behavioral intentions, and smoking and the prevalence of smoking among seventh-grade students.

Seventh-grade students and teachers from twenty-three middle and junior high schools were surveyed to determine the association between teacher attitudes, behavioral intentions, and smoking behavior and the prevalence of student smoking. Teacher attitudes toward smoking policies were found to be strongly related to the current smoking behavior of the teacher but not consistently related to student smoking. In addition, teacher likelihood of intervening showed a modest association with teacher smoking status, with current smokers generally indicating being the least likely to intervene for student possession or use of cigarettes. Teacher intentions to intervene were strongly associated with the prevalence of smoking among boys but not girls.     

Covariation detection in treated and untreated spider phobics.

Twenty treated and 18 untreated spider phobics were exposed to a series of 72 slides. Three different categories of slides were used: phobia-relevant slides (spiders), alternative fear-relevant slides (weapons), and neutral slides (flowers). Slides were randomly paired with either a shock, a tone, or nothing at all. Despite the absence of a systematic correlation between slides and outcomes, untreated phobics strongly overestimated the covariation between spider slides and shock. Treated phobics did not show a covariation bias, suggesting that such bias can be modulated by behavioral treatment. In addition, untreated subjects were more confident about their contingency estimates than were treated subjects. The present results fit with earlier studies.     

Integration of the big five and circumplex approaches to trait structure.

To integrate the 5-dimensional simple-structure and circumplex models of personality, the Abridged Big Five Dimensional Circumplex (AB5C) taxonomy of personality traits was developed, consisting of the 10 circumplexes that can be formed by pitting each of the Big Five factors against one another. The model maps facets of the Big Five dimensions as blends of 2 factors. An application to data consisting of 636 self-ratings and peer ratings on 540 personality trait adjectives yielded 34 well-defined facets out of a possible 45. The AB5C solution is compared with simple-structure and lower dimensional circumplex solutions, and its integrative and corrective potential are discussed, as well as its limitations.     

From Monroe to Moreau: an analysis of face naming errors.

Functional models of face recognition and speech production have developed separately. However, naming a familiar face is, of course, an act of speech production. In this paper we propose a revision of Bruce and Young's (1986) model of face processing, which incorporates two features of Levelt's (1989) model of speech production. In particular, the proposed model includes two stages of lexical access for names and monitoring of face naming based on a "perceptual loop". Two predictions were derived from the perceptual loop hypothesis of speech monitoring: (1) naming errors in which a (correct) rare surname is erroneously replaced by a common surname should occur more frequently than the reverse substitution (the error asymmetry effect); (2) naming errors in which a common surname is articulated are more likely to be repaired than errors which result in articulation of a rare surname (the error-repairing effect). Both predictions were supported by an analysis of face naming errors in a laboratory face naming task. In a further experiment we considered the possibility that the effects of surname frequency observed in face naming errors could be explained by the frequency sensitivity of lexical access in speech production. However, no effect of the frequency of the surname of the faces used in the previous experiment was found on face naming latencies. Therefore, it is concluded that the perceptual loop hypothesis provides the more parsimonious account of the entire pattern of the results.