Idiomatic processing: Syntactic frozenness and subjective familiarity

Summary Four experiments are reported that investigated idiomatic processing. Two experiments collected subjects' ratings of frozenness, familiarity, and meaningfulness for a set of idioms. The ratings obtained were used to assess the contributions of these dimensions to performance in two experiments that utilized a phoneme-identification task. Ambiguous and unambiguous phoneme targets occurred as the initial sound in the final word in idiomatic and neutral carrier phrases. Subjects' phoneme identifications were biased in the labeling of ambiguous segments in that identification responses in the idiom context tended to form an idiomatic phrase, more so than those in the neutral carrier phrase. Additional correlational analyses suggested that an idiom's degree of influence on identification depended on the rated syntactic frozenness. For subjects who knew the idioms, familiarity did not account for the biasing effect of idiomatic contexts. The experiments are discussed in terms of theories of auditory word recognition and the representation of frozenness in the mental lexicon.This research was supported by NIDCD Grant R29 NS26 587 to the first author.     

New Mandates and Imperatives in the Revised ACA Code of Ethics

The first major revision of the ACA Code of Ethics in a decade occurred in late 2005, with the updated edition containing important new mandates and imperatives. This article provides interviews with members of the Ethics Revision Task Force that flesh out seminal changes in the revised ACA Code of Ethics in the areas of confidentiality, romantic and sexual interactions, dual relationships, end‐of‐life care for terminally ill clients, cultural sensitivity, diagnosis, interventions, practice termination, technology, and deceased clients.     

The Change in Middle School Students’ Achievement Goals in Mathematics Over Time

Through the use of longitudinal survey data the change of achievement goal orientations was tested in a sample of middle school students in mathematics as they moved from sixth to seventh grade. Achievement goals include task goals and performance goals, with the partitioning of performance goals into approach and avoidance components. Results indicate that all goal orientations were moderately stable over time. Task goals in sixth grade positively predicted academic efficacy in seventh grade. Performance-approach goals in sixth grade positively predicted performance-avoid goals in seventh grade. Multiple regression and multi-sample analyses revealed that the path from performance-approach goals to performance-avoid goals was significant only among students reporting high academic efficacy before the transition. The results suggest that individuals who feel efficacious in math while endorsing a performance-approach goal orientation may be particularly vulnerable to adopting maladaptive performance-avoid goals over time and with change in circumstances.     

Naltrexone's effects on reactivity to alcohol cues among alcoholic men

The mechanisms of naltrexone's effects on urges to drink during abstinence are unclear. Naltrexone may suppress either urges to drink specifically or appetitive responses in general. The effects of naltrexone on cue reactivity to alcoholic and sweet nonalcoholic beverages were investigated. Alcohol-dependent men (N = 53) in treatment received naltrexone (50 mg) or placebo. Four hours later, they received baseline assessment, exposure to fruit juice, and exposure to their usual alcoholic beverage in 3-min trials. Naltrexone reduced urge to drink and self-reported attention to the alcohol cues, not at the initial exposure but after repeated exposures to alcohol cues. Naltrexone reduced negative affect across baseline and alcohol trials. No effects of naltrexone on responses to the nonalcoholic appetitive beverage cues were found, suggesting that general appetite suppression does not mediate the effects of naltrexone on urges.     

Category learning with minimal prior knowledge

In 6 experiments, the authors examined the use of prior knowledge in category learning. Previous studies of the effects of knowledge on category learning have used categories in which knowledge was related to all of the category's features. However, people's knowledge of real-world categories often consists of many "rote" features that are not related to their prior knowledge. Five experiments found that even minimal prior knowledge (1 knowledge-relevant feature and 5 rote features per exemplar) can facilitate category learning. Posttests revealed that although the knowledge aided learning, subjects also acquired the rote features that were not related to knowledge, contradicting predictions of an attentional explanation of the knowledge effect. The results of Experiment 6 suggested that subjects attempt to link even rote features to their knowledge.