Selection for encoding: No evidence of better endogenous orienting following forget than following remember instructions

In an item-method directed forgetting task, attentional resources are withdrawn from forget item processing (e.g., Taylor & Fawcett in Attention, Perception, & Psychophysics, 73, 1790–1814, 2011). Taylor and Hamm (Attention, Perception, & Psychophysics, 78, 168–186, 2016) demonstrated that there is no corresponding increase in the proclivity for exogenous attention to be captured following a forget instruction. This means either that the attentional resources withdrawn from the forget item are reallocated immediately (and therefore not especially vulnerable to capture) or that it is not exogenous attention that is withdrawn. Given that endogenous attention is distinct from exogenous attention, we therefore extended the Taylor and Hamm study by using endogenous orienting rather than exogenous orienting. Words appeared individually in a peripheral location (Exp. 1) or in a central location (Exp. 2), followed by an instruction to either remember or forget. After a short (50-ms) or long (250-ms) interstimulus interval (ISI), a central cue (80% accurate) directed participants to allocate their attention to the left or right. This was followed by a discrimination target that appeared at a 1,000-ms cue–target stimulus onset asynchrony. A subsequent yes–no recognition test assessed memory for all study items. In both experiments, we observed better recognition of remember words than forget words—a directed forgetting effect. We also found a cueing effect, revealed as faster reaction times to discriminate cued targets than to discriminate uncued targets. There was not, however, an effect of memory instruction (and/or instruction–cue ISI) on the magnitude of this cueing effect. Thus, neither exogenous attention nor endogenous attention remains in an unengaged state following an instruction to forget.     

Treating Childhood Shyness and Related Behavior: Empirically Evaluated Approaches to Promote Positive Social Interactions

Behavioral and cognitive–behavioral strategies, including exposure, social skills training, and peer-mediated approaches, used to treat childhood shyness and related impairments are described. In addition, relevant outcome studies published within the past 20 years are evaluated, and limitations regarding the generalization, maintenance, and social validity of the reported treatment gains are addressed. Although the interventions reviewed have demonstrated short-term merit in ameliorating social and emotional impairments, such as problematic peer relations and internalizing difficulties, there currently is a lack of evidence to support the social validity and long-term generalization and maintenance of such behavioral gains. Thus, recommendations for future research are made, including the need to (a) assess the social validity of treatment outcomes, (b) utilize important socialization agents (e.g., parents, teachers, peers), and (c) conduct prevention research and longitudinal outcome studies.     

Test of a potential link between analytic and nonanalytic category learning and automatic, effortful processing

The link between automatic and effortful processing and nonanalytic and analytic category learning was evaluated in a sample of 29 college undergraduates using declarative memory, semantic category search, and pseudoword categorization tasks. Automatic and effortful processing measures were hypothesized to be associated with nonanalytic and analytic categorization, respectively. Results suggested that contrary to prediction strong criterion-attribute (analytic) responding on the pseudoword categorization task was associated with strong automatic, implicit memory encoding of frequency-of-occurrence information. Data are discussed in terms of the possibility that criterion-attribute category knowledge, once established, may be expressed with few attentional resources. The data indicate that attention resource requirements, even for the same stimuli and task, vary depending on the category rule system utilized. Also, the automaticity emerging from familiarity with analytic category exemplars is very different from the automaticity arising from extensive practice on a semantic category search task. The data do not support any simple mapping of analytic and nonanalytic forms of category learning onto the automatic and effortful processing dichotomy and challenge simple models of brain asymmetries for such procedures.     

Sound attenuation and preferred music in the treatment of problem behavior maintained by escape from noise

We examined the extent to which different sounds functioned as motivating operations (MO) that evoked problem behavior during a functional analysis for two participants. Results suggested that escape from loud noises reinforced the problem behavior for one participant and escape from arguing reinforced problem behavior for the other participant. Noncontingent delivery of preferred music through sound‐attenuating headphones decreased problem behavior without the use of extinction for both participants. We discuss the results in terms of the abolishing effects of the intervention.     

Caregiver‐mediated joint attention intervention

Joint attention is a pivotal social communication skill often absent or impaired in young children with autism spectrum disorder. Joint attention is the shared and alternating attention of two individuals on an object or event, and has implications for later communication and social communication skills. This study used a concurrent multiple‐baseline design across 3 caregiver–child dyads to train caregivers to teach response to joint attention behaviors to their 3–6 years old children with moderate to severe autism spectrum disorder. Caregivers were trained on strategies including prompting, time delay, and elements of naturalistic teaching and implemented the intervention in brief 10‐min sessions 2–3 times per week. Results indicate parent mastery of intervention and substantial increase in child response to joint attention behaviors both prompted and independent. Implications for practice and areas for future research are discussed.     

A comparison of song-lyric and prose self-instruction procedures for increasing novel skills in children

We compared the effects of the effects of self-instructions in the form of prose or song lyrics in the acquisition of gross motor tasks in 4 third-grade children. We taught participants 4 pairs of gross motor tasks, with one task in each pair taught with prose self-instructions and the other taught with song lyric self-instructions. Both self-instruction procedures were effective for teaching tasks; however, acquisition was quicker with song lyric self-instruction for 4 task pairs, acquisition was quicker with prose self-instruction for 3 task pairs; and similar for 1 task pair. Participants were then able to select their preferred method of self-instruction for a novel, applied skill. Two participants selected song-lyric self-instructions and 2 participants selected prose self-instructions.     

The World at 7:00: Comparing the Experience of Situations Across 20 Countries

The purpose of this research is to quantitatively compare everyday situational experience around the world. Local collaborators recruited 5,447 members of college communities in 20 countries, who provided data via a Web site in 14 languages. Using the 89 items of the Riverside Situational Q‐sort (RSQ), participants described the situation they experienced the previous evening at 7:00 p.m. Correlations among the average situational profiles of each country ranged from r = .73 to r = .95; the typical situation was described as largely pleasant. Most similar were the United States/Canada; least similar were South Korea/Denmark. Japan had the most homogenous situational experience; South Korea, the least. The 15 RSQ items varying the most across countries described relatively negative aspects of situational experience; the 15 least varying items were more positive. Further analyses correlated RSQ items with national scores on six value dimensions, the Big Five traits, economic output, and population. Individualism, Neuroticism, Openness, and Gross Domestic Product yielded more significant correlations than expected by chance. Psychological research traditionally has paid more attention to the assessment of persons than of situations, a discrepancy that extends to cross‐cultural psychology. The present study demonstrates how cultures vary in situational experience in psychologically meaningful ways.