Incremental validation of situational judgment tests.

Using 3 different samples, the authors assessed the incremental validity of situational judgment inventories (SJIs), relative to job knowledge, cognitive ability, job experience, and conscientiousness, in the prediction of job performance. The SJI was a valid predictor in all 3 samples and incrementally so in 2 samples. Relative to the other predictors, SJI's partial correlation with performance, controlling for the other 4 predictors, was superior in most comparisons. Subgroup differences on the SJI also appear to be less than those for cognitive ability and job knowledge, but greater than differences in conscientiousness. The SJI should prove to be a valuable additional measure in the prediction of job performance, but several additional areas of research are suggested.     

Input and output modality effects in immediate serial recall

In immediate recall tasks, visual recency is substantially enhanced when output interference is low (Cowan, Saults, Elliott, & Moreno, 2002; Craik, 1969) whereas auditory recency remains high even under conditions of high output interference. This auditory advantage has been interpreted in terms of auditory resistance to output interference (e.g., Neath & Surprenant, 2003). In this study the auditory-visual difference at low output interference re-emerged when ceiling effects were accounted for, but only with spoken output. With written responding the auditory advantage remained significantly larger with high than with low output interference. These new data suggest that both superior auditory encoding and modality-specific output interference contribute to the classic auditory-visual modality effect.     

Controlling lexical contributions to the reading of pseudohomophones

Reynolds and Besner (2005) presented a computational account of six effects that emerge when readers are asked to pronounce pseudohomophones (nonwords—e.g., brane—that sound like words when pronounced). In the dual route cascaded (DRC) model of reading, they varied a parameter controlling the rate of inhibition from letter units to the orthographic lexicon to mimic strategic control over the extent of specific lexical processing. In this article, we provide an account in which the effects are simulated by varying the DRC’s reading-aloud criterion—a parameter that sets the minimal level of phonemic activation required to pronounce a letter string. We show that varying this parameter provides another means of controlling lexical contributions to reading aloud.     

Desire for euthanasia or physician-assisted suicide in palliative cancer care.

OBJECTIVE: To investigate the attitudes of terminally ill individuals toward the legalization of euthanasia or physician-assisted suicide (PAS) and to identify those who would personally desire such a death. DESIGN: In the Canadian National Palliative Care Survey, semistructured interviews were administered to 379 patients who were receiving palliative care for cancer. Patients who expressed a desire for physician-hastened death were followed prospectively. MAIN OUTCOME MEASURES: Attitudes toward the legalization of euthanasia or PAS were determined, as was the personal interest in receiving a hastened death. Demographic and clinical characteristics were also recorded, including a 22-item structured interview of symptoms and concerns. RESULTS: There were 238 participants (62.8%) who believed that euthanasia and/or PAS should be legalized, and 151 (39.8%) who would consider making a future request for a physician-hastened death. However, only 22 (5.8%) reported that, if legally permissible, they would initiate such a request right away, in their current situations. This desire for hastened death was associated with lower religiosity (p=.010), reduced functional status (p=.024), a diagnosis of major depression (p<.001), and greater distress on 12 of 22 individual symptoms and concerns (p<.025). In follow-up interviews with 17 participants, 2 (11.8%) showed instability in their expressed desire. CONCLUSION: Among patients receiving palliative care for cancer, the desire to receive euthanasia or PAS is associated with religious beliefs; functional status; and physical, social, and psychological symptoms and concerns. Although this desire is sometimes transitory, once firmly established, it can be enduring.     

Potentiation by a novel flavour of conditioned place aversions based on both toxicosis and shock

Three experiments examined how a flavour modified the development of aversions to the place in which it was presented and paired with a reinforcer. Experiment 1 confirmed the cue-to-consequence effect: rats made sick after exposure to a flavour in a novel place (Skinner boxes) displayed stronger aversions than shocked animals when they were presented with the flavour in a second, familiar place; rats shocked after exposure to water acquired stronger place aversions than animals made sick. Experiment 2 confirmed the potentiation effect: rats made sick after exposure to the flavour developed stronger place aversions than those made sick after ingestion of water. This experiment also revealed that rats shocked after exposure to the flavour likewise acquired stronger place aversions than the animals shocked after ingestion of water. Experiment 3 replicated this flavour potentiation of place aversions based on shock. The results are not consistent with Garcia, Lasiter, Bermudez-Rottoni, & Deems' (1985) account of how a flavour interacts with an aversive reinforcer to modify what is learned about its associates in a compound.     

Visualizing Reproduction: a Cultural History of Early-Modern and Modern Medical Illustrations

Written as a response to a conference exhibition of medical illustrations of reproduction, this article considers the gains of an interdisciplinary study of medical illustration to both historians and medics. The article insists that we should not only be attuned to the cultural work that such representations perform but also that such illustrations are the product of material medical practices and the often humane impulses that drive them.