Network Analysis in Community Psychology: Looking Back,Looking Forward

Network analysis holds promise for community psychology given the field's aim to understand the interplay between individuals and their social contexts. Indeed, because network analysis focuses explicitly on patterns of relationships between actors, its theories and methods are inherently extra‐individual in nature and particularly well suited to characterizing social contexts. But, to what extent has community psychology taken advantage of this network analysis as a tool for capturing context? To answer these questions, this study provides a review of the use network analysis in articles published in American Journal of Community Psychology . Looking back, we describe and summarize the ways that network analysis has been employed in community psychology research to understand the range of ways community psychologists have found the technique helpful. Looking forward and paying particular attention to analytic issues identified in past applications, we provide some recommendations drawn from the network analysis literature to facilitate future applications of network analysis in community psychology.     

Comparing different kinds of words and word-word relations to test an habituation model of priming

Huber and O'Reilly (2003) proposed that neural habituation exists to solve a temporal parsing problem, minimizing blending between one word and the next when words are visually presented in rapid succession. They developed a neural dynamics habituation model, explaining the finding that short duration primes produce positive priming whereas long duration primes produce negative repetition priming. The model contains three layers of processing, including a visual input layer, an orthographic layer, and a lexical-semantic layer. The predicted effect of prime duration depends both on this assumed representational hierarchy and the assumption that synaptic depression underlies habituation. The current study tested these assumptions by comparing different kinds of words (e.g., words versus non-words) and different kinds of word-word relations (e.g., associative versus repetition). For each experiment, the predictions of the original model were compared to an alternative model with different representational assumptions. Experiment 1 confirmed the prediction that non-words and inverted words require longer prime durations to eliminate positive repetition priming (i.e., a slower transition from positive to negative priming). Experiment 2 confirmed the prediction that associative priming increases and then decreases with increasing prime duration, but remains positive even with long duration primes. Experiment 3 replicated the effects of repetition and associative priming using a within-subjects design and combined these effects by examining target words that were expected to repeat (e.g., viewing the target word ‘BACK' after the prime phrase ‘back to'). These results support the originally assumed representational hierarchy and more generally the role of habituation in temporal parsing and priming.     

Alertness in young healthy subjects: An fMRI study of brain region interactivity enhanced by a warning signal

An effective connectivity study was carried out on 16 young, healthy subjects performing an alertness task. The objective of this study was to develop and to evaluate a putative network model of alertness by adapting structural equation modeling to fMRI data. This study was designed to evaluate the directed interactivity of an attentional network during intrinsic and phasic alerting tasks. On the basis of theoretical hypotheses, clinical observations, behavioral data and neuroimaging studies, it was hypothesized that neural circuits in the right hemisphere including the dorsolateral prefrontal cortex (DLPFC), anterior cingulate cortex, inferior parietal cortex and the thalamus were involved. The results of this study support the existence of a common network of activated areas with significant path coefficient differences between intrinsic and phasic alertness. Functional interactivity was significantly reinforced during the phasic alertness task and appeared to preferentially involve activity in the DLPFC region, whereas the path coefficients of the model were well-balanced during intrinsic alertness. This study highlights the predominant role of the DLPFC region in maintenance of a state of alertness and in temporal preparation during an alertness task.     

Hemispheric asymmetries in auditory distraction

Serial-verbal short-term memory is impaired by irrelevant sound, particularly when the sound changes acoustically (the changing-state effect). In contrast, short-term recall of semantic information is impaired only by the semanticity of irrelevant speech, particularly when it is semantically related to the target memory items (the between-sequence semantic similarity effect). Previous research indicates that the changing-state effect is larger when the sound is presented to the left ear in comparison to the right ear, the left ear disadvantage. In this paper, we report a novel finding whereby the between-sequence semantic similarity effect is larger when the irrelevant speech is presented to the right ear in comparison to the left ear, but this right ear disadvantage is found only when meaning is the basis of recall (Experiments 1 and 3), not when order is the basis of recall (Experiment 2). Our results complement previous research on hemispheric asymmetry effects in cross-modal auditory distraction by demonstrating a role for the left hemisphere in semantic auditory distraction.     

Effect of Representational Distance Between Meanings on Recognition of Ambiguous Spoken Words

Previous research indicates that mental representations of word meanings are distributed along both semantic and syntactic dimensions such that nouns and verbs are relatively distinct from one another. Two experiments examined the effect of representational distance between meanings on recognition of ambiguous spoken words by comparing recognition of unambiguous words, noun–verb homonyms, and noun–noun homonyms. In Experiment 1, auditory lexical decision was fastest for unambiguous words, slower for noun–verb homonyms, and slowest for noun–noun homonyms. In Experiment 2, response times for matching spoken words to pictures followed the same pattern and eye fixation time courses revealed converging, gradual time course differences between conditions. These results indicate greater competition between meanings of ambiguous words when the meanings are from the same grammatical class (noun–noun homonyms) than when they are from different grammatical classes (noun–verb homonyms).     

The practice research network: Research into practice,practice into research

The purpose of the broader project on which this report is based was to utilize a Practice Research Network, an alternative to traditional clinical studies to 1) identify demographically one practice group, namely professional counselors in the United States, 2) describe their practice patterns, and 3) identify their client population and the efficacy of their clinical work through client outcomes based on actual client reports. This article describes the development of one such nation‐wide Practice Research Network (PRN) and provides some preliminary findings for each phase of the project. Use of the PRN model can help overcome the traditional “research to practice” gap and provide research results into community practice thus integrating outcomes measures into the daily practice of mental health professionals. During the early phases of this project, a software program was developed upon which the participating practitioners could identify the data elements within the parameters of the focus on their agreed‐upon research interests, enter data following client visits over time, and by comparing their own composite profiles and effectiveness with those of other participating practitioners who had clients presenting with similar diagnoses, could alter their own service delivery patterns, therapeutic interventions, or approaches while working with the clients and thereby improve the efficacy of their service. By participating, the practitioners benefited by access to downloadable and printable reports on profiles of 1) their specific clients, 2) their service delivery patterns, and 3) the outcomes or efficacy by their clients’ direct feedback. They were also able to compare these results with the composite data from other practitioners.     

Remembering versus knowing during face recognition in unilateral temporal lobe epilepsy patients with or without hippocampal sclerosis

Recognition memory involves knowing an item was learned (familiarity) and remembering contextual details about the prior learning episode (recollection). We tested three competing hypotheses about the role of the hippocampus in recollection and familiarity. It mediates either recollection or familiarity, or serves both processes. We further tested whether the left temporal lobe mediates recollection and the right temporal lobe familiarity (modes of processing view), or whether the two temporal lobes mediate remembering material specifically (material specificity view). We investigated 24-h face recognition using the "remember-know" procedure. We studied 23 left and 24 right temporal lobe epilepsy (LTLE/RTLE) patients with and without hippocampal sclerosis (HS+/HS-) and 31 healthy participants. HS+ patients made fewer know responses than HS- patients or healthy participants. RTLE was related to fewer remember responses than LTLE. Our results suggest the hippocampus has a critical role in familiarity. Further, our findings support the material specificity hypothesis of laterality.     

The benefits of sensorimotor knowledge: body-object interaction facilitates semantic processing

This article examined the effects of body–object interaction (BOI) on semantic processing. BOI measures perceptions of the ease with which a human body can physically interact with a word's referent. In Experiment 1, BOI effects were examined in 2 semantic categorization tasks (SCT) in which participants decided if words are easily imageable. Responses were faster and more accurate for high BOI words (e.g., mask ) than for low BOI words (e.g., ship ). In Experiment 2, BOI effects were examined in a semantic lexical decision task (SLDT), which taps both semantic feedback and semantic processing. The BOI effect was larger in the SLDT than in the SCT, suggesting that BOI facilitates both semantic feedback and semantic processing. The findings are consistent with the embodied cognition perspective (e.g., Barsalou's, 1999 , Perceptual Symbols Theory), which proposes that sensorimotor interactions with the environment are incorporated in semantic knowledge.     

Paleo-Compatibilism and Buddhist Reductionism

Paleo-compatibilism is the view that the freedom required for moral responsibility is not incompatible with determinism about the factors relevant to moral assessment, since the claim that we are free and the claim that the psychophysical elements are causally determined are true in distinct and incommensurable ways. This is to be accounted for by appealing to the distinction between conventional truth and ultimate truth developed by Buddhist Reductionists. Paleo-compatibilists hold that the illusion of incompatibilism only arises when we illegitimately mix two distinct vocabularies, one concerned with persons, the other concerned with the parts to which persons are reducible. I explore the view, its roots in Buddhist Reductionism, and its prospects.

Hemispheric asymmetries in semantic processing: evidence from false memories for ambiguous words

We used fMRI to investigate competition during language production in two word production tasks: object naming and color naming of achromatic line drawings. Generally, fMRI activation was higher for color naming. The line drawings were followed by a word (the distractor word) that referred to either the object, a related object, or an unrelated object. The effect of the distractor word on the BOLD response was qualitatively different for the two tasks. The activation pattern suggests two different kinds of competition during lexical retrieval: (1) Task-relevant responses (e.g., red in color naming) compete with task-irrelevant responses (i.e., the object’s name). This competition effect was dominant in prefrontal cortex. (2) Multiple task-relevant responses (i.e., target word and distractor word) compete for selection. This competition effect was dominant in ventral temporal cortex. This study provides further evidence for the distinct roles of frontal and temporal cortex in language production, while highlighting the effects of competition, albeit from different sources, in both regions.