Prediction accuracy of text recall: Ease, effort and familiarity

Prediction accuracy of text recall was studied in two experiments. Text characteristics (i.e., consistency and distinctiveness) were manipulated in Experiment 1, and familiarity with the reading-task in Experiment 2. The results were also analyzed and discussed in terms of easy processing (Experiment 1), and in terms of increased and more active processing (Experiment 2). Text characteristics did not affect prediction accuracy. However, being familiar with the reading-task led to good and long-lasting prediction accuracy. Thus, subjects reading a school-book text, instructed to learn the contents of it demonstrated reliable memory awareness, both for immediate recall and for delay of one week. It was also suggested that increased processing demands and active reading enhances prediction accuracy.     

Measuring How We Preach What We Practice: Psychoeducational Change in Depressed Inpatients

This study investigated the relationship between acquisition of psychoeducational principles and symptomatic improvement in depressed in-patients. One hundred and twenty-three inpatients hospitalized on a Cognitive Therapy Unit were administered the Test of Cognitive Behavioral Principles (TCBP) and the Beck Depression Inventory at admission and discharge. It was predicted that the TCBP scores would be higher at discharge than at pre-testing at admission. Further, it was hypothesized that the higher TCBP scores at post-test would be significantly correlated with lower Beck Depression Inventory scores at post-test. The results revealed that inpatients' TCBP scores improved over the course of treatment supporting the first hypothesis. However, the data did not support the second hypothesis as there was not a significant relationship between the TCBP scores and the BDI scores at discharge. The results are discussed in terms of clinical, theoretical, and methodological implications.     

Disputing clients' irrational beliefs

This paper describes and illustrates a conceptual framework developed to assist novice REBT therapists with enlarging their disputational repertoire. First, four disputational strategies are described and illustrated. Then four disputational styles of presenting the strategies to the client are also described and illustrated. Then the disputational strategies and the disputational styles are combined within a conceptual framework to assist the developing REBT therapist in generating a variety of disputes for a single IB. Finally, the conceptual framework is applied to the IB of the case of Karen from Dryden and Digiuseppe'sPrimer on Rational Emotive Therapy to yield thirty-two separate disputes (sixteen disputes for the premise of the IB, and sixteen disputes for the derivative) of the IB.     

On the bias of Huffcutt and Arthur's (1995) procedure for identifying outliers in the meta-analysis of correlations

This study documents how the use of A. I. Huffcutt & W. A. Arthur's (1995) sample adjusted meta-analytic deviancy (SAMD) statistic for identifying outliers in correlational meta-analyses results in inaccuracies in mean r. Monte Carlo simulations found that use of the SAMD resulted in the overidentification of small relative to large correlations as outliers. Furthermore, this tendency to overidentify small correlations was found to increase as the magnitude of the population correlation increased and resulted in mean rs that overestimated the population correlation. The implications for meta-analysts are discussed, and 2 possible solutions are offered.     

Adaptive user displays for intelligent tutoring software.

Intelligent tutoring software (ITS) holds great promise for K-12 instruction. Yet it is difficult to obtain rich information about users that can be used in realistic educational delivery settings--public school classrooms--in which eye tracking and other user sensing technologies are not suitable. We are pursuing three "cheap and cheerful" strategies to meet this challenge in the context of an ITS for high school math instruction. First, we use detailed representations of student cognitive skills, including tasks to assess individual users' proficiency with abstract reasoning, proficiency with simple math facts and computational skill, and spatial ability. Second, we are using data mining and machine learning algorithms to identify instructional sequences that have been effective with previous students, and to use these patterns to make decisions about current students. Third, we are integrating a simple focus-of-attention tracking system into the software, using inexpensive, web cameras. This coarse-grained information can be used to time the display of multimedia hints, explanations, and examples when the user is actually looking at the screen, and to diagnose causes of problem-solving errors. The ultimate goal is to create non-intrusive software that can adapt the display of instructional information in real time to the user's cognitive strengths, motivation, and attention.     

Working memory load and distraction: dissociable effects of visual maintenance and cognitive control

We establish a new dissociation between the roles of working memory (WM) cognitive control and visual maintenance in selective attention as measured by the efficiency of distractor rejection. The extent to which focused selective attention can prevent distraction has been shown to critically depend on the level and type of load involved in the task. High perceptual load that consumes perceptual capacity leads to reduced distractor processing, whereas high WM load that reduces WM ability to exert priority-based executive cognitive control over the task results in increased distractor processing (e.g., Lavie, Trends in Cognitive Sciences, 9(2), 75–82, 2005). WM also serves to maintain task-relevant visual representations, and such visual maintenance is known to recruit the same sensory cortices as those involved in perception (e.g., Pasternak & Greenlee, Nature Reviews Neuroscience, 6(2), 97–107, 2005). These findings led us to hypothesize that loading WM with visual maintenance would reduce visual capacity involved in perception, thus resulting in reduced distractor processing—similar to perceptual load and opposite to WM cognitive control load. Distractor processing was assessed in a response competition task, presented during the memory interval (or during encoding; Experiment 1a) of a WM task. Loading visual maintenance or encoding by increased set size for a memory sample of shapes, colors, and locations led to reduced distractor response competition effects. In contrast, loading WM cognitive control with verbal rehearsal of a random letter set led to increased distractor effects. These findings confirm load theory predictions and provide a novel functional distinction between the roles of WM maintenance and cognitive control in selective attention.     

Episodic processes in emotional labor: perceptions of affective delivery and regulation strategies

This study examined emotional labor processes from a within-person, episodic framework. The authors hypothesized that the influence of negative emotions on affective delivery would be lessened by regulation strategies for supervisor perceptions but not self-perceptions. In addition, difficulty maintaining display rules was hypothesized to mediate the relation between negative emotions and self-perceptions of affective delivery. Finally, the influence of surface acting strategies on these processes as well as correlations with individual differences was investigated. Hypotheses were tested using ecological momentary assessment of a sample of cheerleading instructors. Results suggest that surface actors can regulate emotions effectively on an episode-to-episode basis but find the episode more difficult. In addition, surface actors exhibit more general tendencies to devalue themselves and experience fewer positive emotions.     

Sociolinguistic inference and intercultural coorientation.

We present a model that examines the effects of cultural differences on coorientation (the ability of communicators to accurately encode and interpret the referential and relational meanings of messages). Intercultural coorientation is made problematic by the absence of certain shared communication system knowledge, which in same‐culture interactions is used in the dynamic sociolinguistic negotiation of relational rights and obligations. We propose that the process of sociolinguistic negotiation of meanings relies fundamentally on probabilistic inference and have constructed a model based on Bayes' theorem. The model predicts the effects of the communication situation, communicator stereotypes and prejudice, and some other‐culture speaker errors on conclusions the receiver draws about the message. Using the model, we distinguish between the ethnocentric error of interpreting a communication in terms of one's own culture and the error of not seeing the communication as diagnostic. Among our predictions are: (a) the less diagnostic the communication, the more impact cultural stereotypes will have on attributions; (b) although evidence of sociolinguistic incompetence sometimes causes misunderstanding, it sometimes prevents misunderstanding; (c) multiple consistent features make intentions clearer than would a single cue, but multiple features violating co‐occurrence norms often lead to the attribution of incompetence.     

Cohesion and performance in groups: a meta-analytic clarification of construct relations

Previous meta-analytic examinations of group cohesion and performance have focused primarily on contextual factors. This study examined issues relevant to applied researchers by providing a more detailed analysis of the criterion domain. In addition, the authors reinvestigated the role of components of cohesion using more modern meta-analytic methods and in light of different types of performance criteria. The results of the authors' meta-analyses revealed stronger correlations between cohesion and performance when performance was defined as behavior (as opposed to outcome), when it was assessed with efficiency measures (as opposed to effectiveness measures), and as patterns of team workflow became more intensive. In addition, and in contrast to B. Mullen and C. Copper's (1994) meta-analysis, the 3 main components of cohesion were independently related to the various performance domains. Implications for organizations and future research on cohesion and performance are discussed.