Forgetting of trauma cues in adults reporting continuous or recovered memories of childhood sexual abuse

According to betrayal trauma theory, adult survivors of childhood sexual abuse (CSA) who were molested by their caretakers (e.g., a father) are especially likely to dissociate ("repress") their memories of abuse. Testing college students, some reporting CSA, DePrince and Freyd (2004) found that those scoring high on a dissociation questionnaire exhibited memory deficits for trauma words when they viewed these words under divided-attention conditions. Replicating DePrince and Freyd's procedure, we tested for memory deficits for trauma words relative to neutral words in adults reporting either continuous or recovered memories of CSA versus adults denying a history of CSA. A memory deficit for trauma words under divided attention was expected in the recovered-memory group. Results were inconsistent with this prediction, as all three groups exhibited better recall of trauma words than neutral words, irrespective of encoding conditions.     

Age and regulatory focus determine preferences for health-related role models

The authors hypothesized that the effectiveness of role models varies across the adult life span because of differences in health-related regulatory orientations. Because young adults have strong health-related promotion orientations, they should be motivated by positive models who illustrate the benefits of good health. Because older adults have more balanced health-related promotion and prevention orientations, they should be motivated not only by positive models but also by negative models who illustrate the costs of poor health. Results indicated that both young and older adults perceived positive models to be motivating, but older adults found negative models to be more motivating than did young adults. Age differences in responses to negative models were partially mediated by differences in health-related prevention orientation.     

Psychometric properties of the Folstein Mini-Mental State Examination

Criterion-referenced (Livingston) and norm-referenced (Gilmer-Feldt) techniques were used to measure the internal consistency reliability of Folstein's Mini-Mental State Examination (MMSE) on a large sample (N = 418) of elderly medical patients. Two administration and scoring variants of the MMSE Attention and Calculation section (Serial 7s only and WORLD only) were investigated. Livingston reliability coefficients (rs) were calculated for a wide range of cutoff scores. As necessary for the calculation of the Gilmer-Feldt r, a factor analysis showed that the MMSE measures three cognitive domains. Livingston's r for the most widely used MMSE cutoff score of 24 was .803 for Serial 7s and .795 for WORLD. The Gilmer-Feldt internal consistency reliability coefficient was .764 for Serial 7s and .747 for WORLD. Item analysis showed that nearly all of the MMSE items were good discriminators, but 12 were too easy. True score confidence intervals should be applied when interpreting MMSE test scores.     

More information from fewer questions: the factor structure and item properties of the original and brief fear of negative evaluation scale

Statistical methods designed for categorical data were used to perform confirmatory factor analyses and item response theory (IRT) analyses of the Fear of Negative Evaluation scale (FNE; D. Watson & R. Friend, 1969) and the Brief FNE (BFNE; M. R. Leary, 1983). Results suggested that a 2-factor model fit the data better for both the FNE and the BFNE, although the evidence was less strong for the FNE. The IRT analyses indicated that although both measures had items with good discrimination, the FNE items discriminated only at lower levels of the underlying construct, whereas the BFNE items discriminated across a wider range. Convergent validity analyses indicated that the straightforwardly-worded items on each scale had significantly stronger relationships with theoretically related measures than did the reverse-worded items. On the basis of all analyses, usage of the straightforwardly-worded BFNE factor is recommended for the assessment of fear of negative evaluation.     

Hemisphere-specific effects in word recognition do not require hemisphere-specific modes of access

Consistent with converging experimental evidence, we assume that foveal information is initially split across the two cerebral hemispheres. We have previously presented the SERIOL model of letter-position coding, which specifies how the resulting two halves of a letter string are integrated into an abstract representation of letter order. This representation is based on ordered pairs of two letters (bigrams); such a representation is created for input occurring at any location in the visual field. Various studies have shown hemisphere-specific effects in lexical access by using unilateral presentation of stimuli. While the hemisphere-independent means of lexical access in the SERIOL model (via bigrams) may seem inconsistent with these findings, we propose that such effects arise from the hemisphere-specific transformations necessary to create the bigram representation. We provide a theoretical account of the finding that high N (lexical neighborhood size) evokes facilitation in the RH, but not the LH (Lavidor & Ellis, 2002a, 2002b); an experiment discussed elsewhere (Whitney & Lavidor, 2003) has verified key predictions of this account. We also discuss the differing effects of word length across visual fields.     

Updating situation models

The authors examined how situation models are updated during text comprehension. If comprehenders keep track of the evolving situation, they should update their models such that the most current information, the here and now, is more available than outdated information. Contrary to this updating hypothesis, E. J. O'Brien, M. L. Rizzella, J. E. Albrecht, and J. G. Halleran (1998) obtained results suggesting that outdated or incorrect information may still influence the comprehension process. The authors of the current study demonstrate that the nature of E. J. O'Brien et al.'s materials were the likely cause of this pattern of results. Hence, the current authors constructed materials that circumvent identified confounds and in a reading-time experiment obtained evidence supporting the here-and-now hypothesis.     

Evidence for self-organized sentence processing: digging-in effects

Dynamical, self-organizing models of sentence processing predict "digging-in" effects: The more committed the parser becomes to a wrong syntactic choice, the harder it is to reanalyze. Experiment 1 replicates previous grammaticality judgment studies (F. Ferreira & J. M. Henderson, 1991b, 1993), revealing a deleterious effect of lengthening the ambiguous region of a garden-path sentence. The authors interpret this result as a digging-in effect. Experiment 2 finds a corresponding effect on reading times. Experiment 3 finds that making 2 wrong attachments is worse than making 1. Non-self-organizing models require multiple stipulations to predict both kinds of effects. The authors show that, under an appropriately formulated self-organizing account, both results stem from self-reinforcement of node and link activations, a feature that is needed independently. An implemented model is given.     

Transforming psychological practice and society. Policies that reflect the new paradigm

As people with disabilities challenge psychology to acknowledge the sociopolitical foundations of their marginalization, they urge psychologists to help improve disability policy within and beyond the borders of the discipline. Understanding disability through a social paradigm offers opportunities to reframe the way psychologists define problems related to disability, to develop more collaborative relationships between psychologists and people with disabilities, and to adopt new professional responsibilities with respect to the disability community. The authors address the impact of the social paradigm on policies within psychology that guide consulting, advocacy, and training. The impact of national policy decisions, such as those associated with reimbursement, on practice and training is also discussed. Highlighted throughout are points of controversy prompted by new disability frameworks that remain open to illumination from the field.     

Inferring the mental processes of other minds

In 4 experiments, the authors examined how several variables influence the quality and quantity of information that people use to make judgments about other people. The results showed that when possible, participants consistently responded appropriately to variables that influenced information that they used to make inferences about other minds. The results also suggested that under circumstances with no opportunity to contrast behavior in different situations, people might not be sensitive to the quality and quantity of information present. The authors interpreted results to mean that under most circumstances, people make inferences in a way that efficiently uses information about the causes of behavior.