The revelation effect: when disguising test items induces recognition

Documented here is a bias whereby items are more likely to be judged as having been presented beforehand if they are disguised in some way and so have to be discovered or "revealed." The bias was found for test words that were unfolded letter by letter (Experiments 1 and 3), presented with their letters either transposed (Experiments 2 and 3), or individually rotated (Experiments 4 and 5), or rotated as a whole (Experiment 5), and for test numbers that were presented in the form of roman numerals (Experiment 6) or equations (Experiment 7). The bias occurred both for items that were presented beforehand and for those that were not. No bias was found when words were judged, not for prior occurrence, but for typicality as category instances (Experiment 8), lexicality (Experiment 9), frequency of general usage (Experiment 10), or number of times encountered during the preceding week (Experiment 11).     

Further evidence of the intricacy of memory span

Memory span was measured for lists of verbal items constructed such that the items in the first half of the list were of one category and those of the second half were of another. In Experiment 1, the lists consisted of digits and words (e.g., 2, 8, 7, horse, cow, sheep or horse, cow, sheep, 2, 8, 7); in Experiment 2, they consisted of words from the same semantic domain and words from different semantic domains; in Experiments 3 and 4, they consisted of words that rhymed and words that did not rhyme. A category-order effect occurred in each experiment: Span was larger when the digits, same-domain words, or rhyming words occurred in the first half of the list than when they occurred in the second half. These findings suggest that memory span is more complex than is generally assumed.     

Constructive and unconstructive repetitive thought

The author reviews research showing that repetitive thought (RT) can have constructive or unconstructive consequences. The main unconstructive consequences of RT are (a) depression, (b) anxiety, and (c) difficulties in physical health. The main constructive consequences of RT are (a) recovery from upsetting and traumatic events, (b) adaptive preparation and anticipatory planning, (c) recovery from depression, and (d) uptake of health-promoting behaviors. Several potential principles accounting for these distinct consequences of RT are identified within this review: (a) the valence of thought content, (b) the intrapersonal and situational context in which RT occurs, and (c) the level of construal (abstract vs. concrete processing) adopted during RT. Of the existing models of RT, it is proposed that an elaborated version of the control theory account provides the best theoretical framework to account for its distinct consequences.     

TouchStat v. 3.00: A new and improved Monte Carlo adjunct for the sequential touching task

The sequential-touching procedure is employed by researchers studying nonlinguistic categorization in toddlers. TouchStat 3.00 is introduced in this article as an adjunct to the sequential-touching procedure, allowing researchers to compare children's actual touching behavior to what might be expected by chance. Advantages over the Thomas and Dahlin (2000) framework include ease of use, and fewer assumptive limitations. Improvements over TouchStat 1.00 include calculation of chance probabilities for multiple "special cases" and for immediate intercategory alternations. A new feature for calculating mean run length is also included.     

A categorically postcategorical interpretation of the modality effect: a reply to Nilsson.

Watkins found the modality effect undiminished when four-syllable rather than one-syllable words were used, and concluded that the effect has a post-categorical origin. Nilsson replicated this result, and also found that with entirely unfamiliar words the effect was greater with one-syllable words than with four-syllable words. Nilsson considered his findings to be in support of a precategorical origin of the effect. This reply argues that, to the contrary, Nilsson's findings are not only consistent with a postcategorical interpretation, but also inconsistent with a precategorical interpretation.     

To Use or Not to Use: Male Partners' Perspectives on Decision Making About Prenatal Diagnosis

We conducted an exploratory, qualitative pilot study investigating the use of genetic counseling and prenatal genetic technologies between women and their male partners for two referral groups: pregnant women 35 years of age and over (AMA) at the time of delivery and pregnant women with an abnormal maternal serum triple screen (MSAFP3). The convenience sample consisted of 25 semistructured interviews and 50 observations of genetic counseling sessions. Male partners' styles of decision making and the way they viewed prenatal diagnosis decision making were examined. We defined three decision-making styles based on our interpretation of the data: (1) domain, (2) joint-delegated, and (3) saliency. The male partners also seemed to view prenatal diagnosis as either an information decision or an action decision and appeared to take a more active role in decision making when the decision was viewed as an action decision.