The effect of repeated experience on children's suggestibility across two question types

There is a discrepancy in the literature regarding the effect of repeated experience on children's suggestibility. Some researchers have concluded that repeated experience increases children's suggestibility for variable details whereas others have reported no detrimental effect. This study demonstrated that the type of question used to test memory (cued‐recall versus yes/no questions) could account for the different reported conclusions. Children aged 5–6 years took part in an event either once or four times. Three or 21 days later, they were given a suggestive interview about the single/final occurrence of the event during which half of the event details were inaccurately described. When later asked yes/no questions, the children with repeated experience agreed with more of the suggestions than did those in the single‐experience condition, especially at the longer delay. In relation to cued‐recall questions, however, experience did not mediate the number of times that false suggestions from the biasing interview were reported. This latter finding was revealed irrespective of the retention interval. Copyright © 2002 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Mothers,Fathers, Gender Role,and Time Parents Spend with Their Children

To examine the relationships among the sex of the parent, gender role, and the time parents spend with their children, 272 parents completed the Bem Sex-Role Inventory, a questionnaire about the time spent with their children, and a demographics questionnaire. Analyses indicated that neither the sex of the parent nor gender role was predictive of the amount of time parents were spending in direct interaction with or being accessible to their children. The sex of the parent, qualified by earning status, was predictive of the level of responsibility parents had for child-related activities. Further, the sex of the parent, qualified by femininity, was predictive of parental satisfaction with level of child-related responsibilities. These results emphasize the importance of examining parental characteristics in relation to the time parents spend with their children and their levels of responsibility for child-related activities.     

The prevention of depressive symptoms in rural Australian women

Two interventions aimed at preventing depressive symptoms in women living in Western Australian rural communities were evaluated against a no‐intervention control condition. The standard intervention was based upon traditional cognitive‐behaviour treatments for depression; the experimental intervention was based upon prevention strategies derived from the learned helplessness model of depression (e.g. Peterson, Maier, & Seligman, 1993 ). Seventy‐six women were randomly assigned to either the standard or the experimental group, and a further 20 women formed a no‐intervention control group. The standard group showed a reduction in depressive symptoms at post‐test, but no effects at 6‐week or 6‐month follow‐ups. In contrast, a reduction in depressive symptoms did not appear for the experimental group until the 6‐week follow‐up at which time a less depressive attributional style was also evident; these effects were even more pronounced at the 6‐month follow‐up. The no‐intervention control group showed no changes across time. It is argued that these results support the applicability of prevention strategies based on the learned helplessness model to this population. Copyright © 2003 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Noise,Economy, and the Emergence of Information Structure in a Laboratory Language

The acceptability of sentences in natural language is constrained not only grammaticality, but also by the relationship between what is being conveyed and such factors as context and the beliefs of interlocutors. In many languages the critical element in a sentence (its focus) must be given grammatical prominence. There are different accounts of the nature of focus marking. Some researchers treat it as the grammatical realization of a potentially arbitrary feature of universal grammar and do not provide an explicit account of its origins; others have argued, however, that focus marking is a (grammaticalized) functional solution to the problem of efficiently transmitting information via a noisy channel. By adding redundancy to highlight critical elements in particular, focus protects key parts of the message from noise. If this information‐theoretic account is true, then we should expect focus‐like behavior to emerge even in non‐linguistic communication systems given sufficient noise and pressures for efficiency. We tested this in an experiment in which participants played a simple communication game in which they had to click cells on a grid to communicate one of two line figures drawn across the grid. We manipulated the noise, available time, and required effort, and measured patterns of redundancy. Because the lines in many cases overlapped, meaning that only some parts of each line could be used to distinguish it from the other, we were able to compare the extent to which effort was expended on adding redundancy to critical (non‐overlapping) and non‐critical (overlapping) parts of the message. The results supported the information‐theoretic account of focus and shed light on the emergence of information structure in language.     

Resignation or Courage: The Wisdom to See the Difference

A diagram may help clients whose dominant perceptual mode is visual. An example, based on the concepts of Adler, outlines the use of a chart in helping a client gain insight into different situations requiring resignation or action.     

Priming of face matching in amnesia.

Priming was studied in a task that required a speeded response to photographs of faces. On each trial, subjects viewed two faces and decided if the same person was shown twice or if two different people were shown. Both familiar and unfamiliar (i.e., well-known and unknown) faces were used, and some face pairs were repeated with a mean delay of about 10 min. Repetition was associated with faster reaction times in young subjects (Experiment 1) as well as in amnesic patients and age-matched control subjects (Experiment 2). The patients' reaction times were slower overall, although the magnitude of the priming effect did not differ from that in the control subjects. This preservation of a normal reaction-time facilitation in subjects with impaired recognition memory for faces occurred for both familiar and unfamiliar faces, suggesting that amnesia does not necessarily interfere with the acquisition of new information as indexed by this priming effect.