Biased interpretation in perfectionism and its modification

Perfectionism is a transdiagnostic construct associated with a range of diagnoses, including depression, eating disorders and obsessive compulsive disorder. Treatments that directly target perfectionist cognitions have been shown to successfully reduce associated pathologies. However, the way in which they do this is not clear. We set out to assess the role of one candidate mechanism of action, namely the cognitive process of interpretation of ambiguity. In one experiment we looked for associations between biased interpretation and perfectionism. In a second, we manipulated interpretations, thereby providing a strong test of their aetiological significance. Results from the first experiment confirmed the presence of biased interpretation in perfectionism and demonstrated that these are highly specific to perfection relevant information, rather than reflecting general negativity. The second experiment succeeded in manipulating these perfection relevant interpretations and demonstrated that one consequence of doing so is a change in perfectionist behaviour. Together, these data experimentally demonstrate that biased interpretation of perfection relevant ambiguity contributes to the maintenance of perfectionism, but that it is also possible to reverse this. Clinical implications include the identification of one likely mechanism of therapeutic change within existing treatments, as well as identification of an appropriate evidence-based focus for future treatment development. Targeting underlying functional mechanisms, such as biased interpretation, has the potential to offer transdiagnostic benefits.     

Learning language from the input: why innate constraints can't explain noun compounding

Do the production and interpretation of patterns of plural forms in noun-noun compounds reveal the workings of innate constraints that govern morphological processing? The results of previous studies on compounding have been taken to support a number of important theoretical claims: first, that there are fundamental differences in the way that children and adults learn and process regular and irregular plurals, second, that these differences reflect formal constraints that govern the way the way regular and irregular plurals are processed in language, and third, that these constraints are unlikely to be the product of learning. In a series of seven experiments, we critically assess the evidence that is cited in support of these arguments. The results of our experiments provide little support for the idea that substantively different factors govern the patterns of acquisition, production and interpretation patterns of regular and irregular plural forms in compounds. Once frequency differences between regular and irregular plurals are accounted for, we find no evidence of any qualitative difference in the patterns of interpretation and production of regular and irregular plural nouns in compounds, in either adults or children. Accordingly, we suggest that the pattern of acquisition of both regular and irregular plurals in compounds is consistent with a simple account, in which children learn the conventions that govern plural compounding using evidence that is readily available in the distribution patterns of adult speech.     

Learning to learn: From within-modality to cross-modality transfer during infancy

One critical aspect of learning is the ability to apply learned knowledge to new situations. This ability to transfer is often limited, and its development is not well understood. The current research investigated the development of transfer between 8 and 16 months of age. In Experiment 1, 8- and 16-month-olds (who were established to have a preference to the beginning of a visual sequence) were trained to attend to the end of a sequence. They were then tested on novel visual sequences. Results indicated transfer of learning, with both groups changing baseline preferences as a result of training. In Experiment 2, participants were trained to attend to the end of a visual sequence and were then tested on an auditory sequence. Unlike Experiment 1, only older participants exhibited transfer of learning by changing baseline preferences. These findings suggest that the generalization of learning becomes broader with development, with transfer across modalities developing later than transfer within a modality.     

The Color of Safety: Ingroup Associated Colors make Beer Safer

Individuals display high levels of trust and express feelings of safety when interacting with social ingroup members. Here, we investigated whether cues related to ingroup membership would change perceptions of the safety of alcohol. Participants were exposed to images of beer in either a standard can or a can featuring the colors of their university (i.e., ‘fan cans’). We hypothesized that exposure to fan cans would change perceptions of the risks of beer drinking. Results showed that participants exposed to fan cans rated beer consumption as less dangerous (Experiment 1), were more likely to automatically activate safety-related mental content after unconscious perception of beer cues (Experiment 2), and viewed their ingroup's party practices as less dangerous (Experiment 3). These results provide evidence that ingroup-associated colors can serve as a safety cue for alcohol, which may in theory perpetuate alcohol-related risk-taking, already a cause for concern on college and university campuses.     

Are intelligence and creativity really so different? : Fluid intelligence, executive processes, and strategy use in divergent thinking

Contemporary creativity research views intelligence and creativity as essentially unrelated abilities, and many studies have found only modest correlations between them. The present research, based on improved approaches to creativity assessment and latent variable modeling, proposes that fluid and executive cognition is in fact central to creative thought. In Study 1, the substantial effect of fluid intelligence (Gf) on creativity was mediated by executive switching, the number of times people switched idea categories during the divergent thinking tasks. In Study 2, half the sample was given an effective strategy for an unusual uses task. The strategy condition interacted with Gf: people high in Gf did better when given the strategy, consistent with their higher ability to maintain access to it and use it despite interference. Taken together, the findings suggest that divergent thinking is more convergent than modern creativity theories presume.     

Low environmental calcium blocks long-term memory formation in a freshwater pulmonate snail

The freshwater snail Lymnaea stagnalis (L.) is considered a calciphile and exhibits reduced growth and survival in environments containing less than 20 mg/l environmental calcium. Although it has no apparent effect on survival at 20 mg/l, reducing environmental calcium increases metabolic demand, and as such we consider that this level of calcium acts as a stressor on the snail. We exposed snails to acute periods of low environmental calcium and tested their ability to form intermediate-term memory (ITM) and long-term memory (LTM) following one trial operant conditioning (1TT) to reduce aerial respiratory activity in hypoxic conditions. We also assessed whether there were changes in the electrophysiological properties of a single neuron, right pedal dorsal 1 (RPeD1), which has been demonstrated to be necessary for LTM formation. Following training in high (80 mg/l) environmental calcium, L. stagnalis formed ITM and LTM lasting 24 h and demonstrated a significant reduction in all activity measured from RPeD1; however when snails were exposed to low (20 mg/l) environmental calcium they were able to form ITM but not LTM. Although no behavioral LTM was formed, a partial reduction in RPeD1 activtiy measured 24 h after training was observed, indicating a residual effect of training. The strong effect that environmental calcium concentration had on physiology and behavior in response to training to reduce aerial respiration in L. stagnalis suggests that it is an element of gastropod husbandry that needs to be carefully considered when studying other traits. This study also indicates that L. stagnalis found naturally in low calcium environments may be less able to adapt to novel stressors than populations found in harder waters.     

Extension and critique: A response to Robert Young

In response to Robert Young's critical comments concerning Hermeneutics and Education I clarify two issues. First, I suggest that a more detailed account of interpretation and learning could be developed in a hermeneutically informed cognitive psychology. This would be an account that escapes the textual model of silent reading construed as private mental experience, and that acknowledges the social and communicative dimensions of understanding. Second, in contrast to Young's view, I contend that phronesis is not reducible to a set of inner thought processes and that it has a role to play even in a critical social theory of education.     

An examination of culture bias in the wonderlic personnel test

Internal evidence of cultural bias, in terms of various types of item analysis, was sought in the Wonderlic Personnel Test results in large, representative samples of Whites and Blacks totaling some 1,500 subjects. Essentially, the lack of any appreciable Race × Items interaction and the high interracial similarity in rank order of item difficulties lead to the conclusion that the Wonderlic shows very little evidence of cultural bias with respect to the present samples which, however, differ appreciably in mean scores. The items which account for the most variance within each racial group are, by and large, the same items that show the largest interracial discrimination.     

Proximal and Distal Defense: A New Perspective on Unconscious Motivation

Death-related thoughts produce different effects on thought and behavior when they are in current focal attention and when they are on the fringes of consciousness. When such thoughts are conscious, people attempt to either remove them from consciousness or push death into the distant future by distorting their beliefs to logically imply that they have many remaining years to live. When such thoughts are highly accessible but outside current focal attention, people increase efforts to view themselves as persons of value living in a meaningful universe. In this way, awareness of the inevitability of death produces diverse effects on human thought and behavior that bear little obvious resemblance to the problem of death.     

On knowing how well one is remembering: The persistence of strategy use during transfer

A potential cause for children's failure to transfer learning strategies was explored in the present study. A self-monitoring process was suggested to be essential for evaluating one's own level of performance and the effectiveness of various mnemonic strategies. Matched on free recall scores in this study's first sort-and-recall phase, first, third, and fifth graders (ages 7, 9, and 11 years, respectively) were assigned to one of three treatment groups or a control group. During Phase II, the treatment groups received instruction in sorting pictures according to semantic similarities in preparation for future recall. In addition, Groups 3 and 4 later received feedback indicating their Phase II improvement in performance. A cause-and-effect relationship between strategy use and enhanced recall was further suggested to Group 4. Among third graders, only those provided with feedback and strategy instruction continued to rely upon the input organization strategy when faced with transfer tasks in Phase III. Both enhanced recall and improved sorting styles were observed for these subjects in Phase III. Some first graders also showed improved sorting styles and improved recall following feedback, while fifth graders showed enhanced recall even without experimenter-provided feedback. Subject's responses to a metamemory interview provided additional support for the hypothesis that the self-monitoring of memory performance is more likely to be part of fifth graders' (than first graders') memory abilities.