In the footsteps of biological motion and multisensory perception: judgments of audiovisual temporal relations are enhanced for upright walkers

Observers judged whether a periodically moving visual display (point-light walker) had the same temporal frequency as a series of auditory beeps that in some cases coincided with the apparent footsteps of the walker. Performance in this multisensory judgment was consistently better for upright point-light walkers than for inverted point-light walkers or scrambled control stimuli, even though the temporal information was the same in the three types of stimuli. The advantage with upright walkers disappeared when the visual "footsteps" were not phase-locked with the auditory events (and instead offset by 50% of the gait cycle). This finding indicates there was some specificity to the naturally experienced multisensory relation, and that temporal perception was not simply better for upright walkers per se. These experiments indicate that the gestalt of visual stimuli can substantially affect multisensory judgments, even in the context of a temporal task (for which audition is often considered dominant). This effect appears to be constrained by the ecological validity of the particular pairings.     

Coping with Crisis Across the Lifespan: The Role of a Telephone Hotline

We describe over 300,000 crisis calls made to a large national hotline over a 5-year period. Callers consisted of males and females between the ages of 10 and 89. Overall, a slight majority of callers were first time callers (52%) and most (73%) sought assistance with issues related to parenting, youth concerns, and mental health. Across the lifespan, issues dealing with loneliness increased with age whereas depression-related calls decreased. Additionally, females were more likely than their male counterparts to call the hotline by over a 2- to 1-margin. Findings lend preliminary support to the efficacy of crisis call centers to utilize a flexible, yet well-defined problem-solving approach to assist those of all ages calling with the wide range of problems.     

Evidence for a contact-based explanation of the own-age bias in face recognition

Previous research has shown that we recognize faces similar in age to ourselves better than older or younger faces (e.g., Wright & Stroud, 2002). This study investigated whether this own-age bias could be explained by the contact hypothesis used to account for the own-race bias (see Meissner & Brigham, 2001). If the own-age bias stems from increased exposure to people of our own age, it should be reduced or absent in those with higher exposure to other age groups. Participants were asked to remember facial photographs of 8- to 11- and 20- to 25-year-olds. Undergraduates were faster and more accurate at recognizing faces of their own age. However, trainee teachers showed no such own-age bias; they recognized the children’s faces more quickly than own-age faces and with comparable accuracy. These results support a contact-based explanation of the own-age bias.     

Morningness/eveningness, morning-to-afternoon cortisol ratio, and antisocial behavior problems during puberty

The relationship between morningness/eveningness (M/E) and morning-to-afternoon cortisol ratio, pubertal timing, and antisocial behavior was examined in 111 girls and boys ages 8 to 13 years. Cortisol levels showed a significant increase after awakening and declined thereafter (p<.05). Eveningness was related to a composite measure of antisocial behavior and rule-breaking and attention behavior problems and conduct disorder (CD) symptoms in boys and relational aggression in girls. In boys only, lower a.m. to p.m. cortisol ratio, indicating less circadian decrease in cortisol, was related to attention problems. Early pubertal timing was associated with boys' rule-breaking and attention behavior problems and CD symptoms and girls' relational aggression. The findings indicate that evening activity preference; extreme a.m. to p.m. cortisol ratios, in one case; and early pubertal timing were associated with antisocial behavior even in young adolescents, but the findings were stronger for boys than for girls.     

Examining posttraumatic growth among Japanese university students

To determine the underlying factor structure of the Japanese version of the Posttraumatic Growth Inventory (PTGI-J), a principal components analysis was performed on data from 312 Japanese undergraduate students who reported growth due to their most traumatic event within the last 5 years. Results showed the PTGI-J has high internal consistency and, of the original five factors reported by Tedeschi and Calhoun (1996), three were replicated: Relating to Others, New Possibilities, Personal Strength, and a fourth factor integrating Spiritual Change and Appreciation of Life emerged. There were neither gender differences nor relationships with time since trauma. PTGI-J scores were positively associated with posttraumatic symptoms and correlated with type of traumatic event experienced. These results and future directions are discussed from a cross-cultural viewpoint.     

When Do Comprehender Groups Differ? A Moment-by-Moment Analysis of Think-Aloud Protocols of Good and Poor Comprehenders

The purpose of this study was to examine moment-by-moment fluctuations in text comprehension processing and determine how and when poor and good comprehenders differ. To do so, we reanalyzed a dataset of think-aloud protocols from 138 intermediate elementary students. Both good and poor comprehenders used a variety of processing strategies when reading text; however, good comprehenders were more strategic in which processes they used than were poor comprehenders. Patterns of two types of poor comprehenders were also analyzed: paraphrasers and lateral connectors. The results indicate that these different reader types not only vary in aggregate but also moment-by-moment processing.