From marine ecology to crime analysis: Improving the detection of serial sexual offences using a taxonomic similarity measure

Jaccard has been the choice similarity metric in ecology and forensic psychology for comparison of sites or offences, by species or behaviour. This paper applies a more powerful hierarchical measure—taxonomic similarity (Δ_s), recently developed in marine ecology—to the task of behaviourally linking serial crime. Forensic case linkage attempts to identify behaviourally similar offences committed by the same unknown perpetrator (called linked offences). Δ_s considers progressively higher‐level taxa, such that two sites show some similarity even without shared species. We apply this index by analysing 55 specific offence behaviours classified hierarchically. The behaviours are taken from 16 sexual offences by seven juveniles where each offender committed two or more offences. We demonstrate that both Jaccard and Δ_s show linked offences to be significantly more similar than unlinked offences. With up to 20% of the specific behaviours removed in simulations, Δ_s is equally or more effective at distinguishing linked offences than where Jaccard uses a full data set. Moreover, Δ_s retains significant difference between linked and unlinked pairs, with up to 50% of the specific behaviours removed. As police decision‐making often depends upon incomplete data, Δ_s has clear advantages and its application may extend to other crime types. Copyright © 2007 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Implicit learning revealed by the method of opposition

Complex information, such as that required for motor skills, can be learned implicitly, without awareness. Much debate has centered on the appropriate methods for proving that implicit learning is not influenced by explicit awareness. A recent study by Destrebecqz and Cleeremans has provided compelling evidence for implicit sequence learning without awareness by using the ‘method of opposition’.     

A recurrent connectionist model of group biases

Major biases and stereotypes in group judgments are reviewed and modeled from a recurrent connectionist perspective. These biases are in the areas of group impression formation (illusory correlation), group differentiation (accentuation), stereotype change (dispersed vs. concentrated distribution of inconsistent information), and group homogeneity. All these phenomena are illustrated with well-known experiments, and simulated with an autoassociative network architecture with linear activation update and delta learning algorithm for adjusting the connection weights. All the biases were successfully reproduced in the simulations. The discussion centers on how the particular simulation specifications compare with other models of group biases and how they may be used to develop novel hypotheses for testing the connectionist modeling approach and, more generally, for improving theorizing in the field of social biases and stereotype change.     

Children Exposed to the Arrest of a Family Member: Associations with Mental Health

The arrest of a parent or other family member can be detrimental to children’s health. To study the impact of exposure to the arrest of a family member on children’s mental health and how said association may change across developmental periods, we examined baseline data for children (birth through 11 years) entering family-based systems of care (SOC). Children exposed to the arrest of a family member had experienced significantly more 5.38 (SD = 2.59) different types of potentially traumatic events (PTE) than children not exposed to arrest 2.84 (SD = 2.56). Multiple regression model results showed that arrest exposure was significantly associated with greater behavioral and emotional challenges after controlling for children’s age, gender, race/ethnicity, household income, caregiver’s education, parenting factors, and other PTE exposure. Further analyses revealed differences in internalizing and externalizing behaviors associated with arrest exposure across developmental levels. This study highlights some of the mental health challenges for children exposed to the arrest of a family member, while adding to our knowledge of how such an event affects children across different developmental periods. More trauma-informed, developmentally appropriate systems need to be in place at all levels to assist children and families experiencing arrest.     

Refractoriness and the healthy brain: A behavioural study on semantic access

While many behavioural studies on refractory phenomena in lexical/semantic access have focused on the mechanisms involved in the oral production of names, comprehension tasks have been almost exclusively used in neuropsychological studies on brain damaged patients. We report the results of two experiments on healthy participants conducted by means of speeded word to picture matching tasks. They assess the effects of the same variables examined in the study of refractory access dysphasic patients: semantic distance and word frequency (experiment 1) and presentation rate and serial position effects (experiment 2). Semantic access patients usually show little effect of word frequency but a large semantic distance effect. However, critical in characterising the syndrome as ‘refractory’, effects of presentation rate and serial position should also be present. The experiments involved the use of a deadline response procedure. The critical manipulation was the absence of a Response Stimulus Interval (RSI) in the fast presentation rate conditions; slower presentation rates involved 1 s RSI. With these manipulations the typical behavioural pattern of performance provided by semantic access dysphasic patients was reproduced. Semantic distance effects were more powerful than word frequency effects (experiment1). Presentation rate effects were found and, most important for a “refractory” account of the effects, a serial position effect was obtained (experiment 2). These results provide the first evidence of such a broad range of refractory effects at the same time in comprehension tasks in healthy subjects and support a purely semantic account for the locus of refractoriness. Moreover, error analysis showed a predominance of perseverative errors with subsequent representations of the same target, supporting a failure of cognitive control mechanisms as the cause of refractory behaviour. The findings are discussed in the light of current models of lexical and semantic processing.     

The valuing process: A study of favorite songs and the inner experience of persons diagnosed with schizophrenia

Since valuing is a process grounded in the organizational tendency of human behavior, the characteristics of a highly valued object should reflect the experience of the individual who selects it. This research compared the favorite songs of fourteen individuals diagnosed with schizophrenia to their inner experience as assessed in a standard interview. Many relationships were revealed between the two, often pertaining to important issues identified in theories of schizophrenia. Results may have therapeutic applications and shed light on processes through which psychological difficulties persist.     

As If Your Life Depended on It: Promoting Cognitive Development to Promote Wellness

In this article the authors discuss key elements of the cognitive-developmental perspective and the need to integrate it as an important component of the wellness model. Each speaks to the personal empowerment of every person to live a rewarding and responsible life. Each also emphasizes the ongoing promotion of growth rather than secondary prevention or remediation.     

The consequences of effortful emotion regulation when processing distressing material: A comparison of suppression and acceptance

The present study investigated the consequences of different forms of emotion regulation. Eighty nine healthy participants viewed a distressing video of the aftermath of road traffic accidents under either suppression (of both felt and expressed affect), acceptance, or no-regulation control instructions and the immediate and longer-term consequences on emotion, mood, and memory were examined. Suppression (relative to control) led to reduced subjective experience of fear when viewing the video, but did not alter electrodermal (EDA) or heart rate (HR) response. Subsequently, suppression led to a less marked subjective emotional reaction to positive but not negative emotional images, reduced free recall memory of the video, and a greater likelihood of experiencing zero intrusions of the video's content. Acceptance (relative to control) had no impact when viewing the video, was associated with a less marked increase in EDA activity in the 5 min period immediately after viewing the video, a more marked HR deceleration and EDA response to both positive and negative images, and elevated negative affect at one week follow-up. These findings suggest, contrary to the current clinical zeitgeist, that emotion suppression can successfully lead to an ongoing down-regulation of emotion and memory, whereas acceptance may elevate subsequent emotionality.