The “Testing” Effect and Restricted Retrieval Rehearsal

Four experiments examined two alternative views of retrieval events. The results of Experiment 1 were equivocal because of an apparent “ceiling effect.” The results of Experiments 2, 3, and 4, in which changes were made in basic procedures, seemed to indicate that the act of retrieval itself had an effect on the memorability of words.

     

Effects of training students to identify the semantic base of prose materials

Feedback and feedback plus points toward a course grade were applied to the attentional behaviors (defined as the ability to identify the semantic base of text passages) of 30 undergraduate students participating in a reading comprehension development program. Correct underlining was increased, extraneous underlining was decreased, and postreading comprehension test scores improved as a result of the procedures. Scores on a standardized test of reading comprehension also increased significantly.     

Patterns of self-disclosure in homosexual and heterosexual college students

Two hypotheses concerning self-disclosure were investigated and confirmed in the present study, comparing homosexual and heterosexual college students. The first hypothesis was that self-disclosure, as measured by the Jourard Self-Disclosure Questionnaire, would be positively correlated with psychological femininity. The second hypothesis was that homosexual males and heterosexual females would exhibit similar patterns of high disclosure and femininity. No significant differences were found in total disclosure between homosexuals and heterosexuals, although homosexuals disclosed less to father, and more to friends than to parents. The conclusion was that psychological femininity and masculinity are more important than biological sex in determining self-disclosure.     

Relationship of numbing to alexithymia, apathy, and depression

The present study assessed the relationship between numbing and three associated conditions of alexithymia, apathy, and depression, utilizing data collected on 353 Vietnam combat veterans diagnosed with Posttraumatic Stress Disorder from in- and out-patient settings and an outreach center at various Department of Veterans Affairs Medical centers. All subjects completed four self-report measures: the Glover Numbing Scale, the Beck Depression Inventory, the Apathy Evaluation Scale, and the Toronto Alexithymia Scale-20. The correlation matrix indicated that scores on the four measures were moderately to highly correlated. Principal components analysis with a varimax rotation indicated a five-factor solution that provided evidence for the factorial validity of each of the constructs assessed. Results of the factor analysis of items from the four measures were consistent with numbing being a separate and distinct construct from alexithymia, apathy, and depression. In general, results indicated that all constructs measured were separate and distinct from one another.     

The role of vision in the on-line correction of illusion effects on action.

In this study, participants reached out and picked up a bar placed on a background grating that induced an illusion in the perceived orientation of the bar. The illusion had a large effect on the orientation of the hand early in the reaches, but this effect decreased continuously as the hand approached the target. This pattern occurred whether or not participants were allowed vision of the hand and target while reaching. These results are consistent with a "planning/control" model of action, in which actions are planned using a context-dependent visual representation but monitored and corrected on-line using a context-independent visual representation. The hypothesized neural bases of these representations are discussed.     

Anxiety Symptomatology in Mexican-American Adolescents

Mexican-American adults and adolescents in general have been reported to have high levels of anxiety symptomatology. In our study of a tri-ethnic sample of 2528 junior and senior high school students, the Youth Self Report (YSR) version of the Child Behavior Checklist (CBCL) and a sociodemographic questionnaire was used to assess the anxiety symptoms of Hispanic youth. We compared the ratings on anxiety symptoms, using Achenbach's anxiety subscale on the YSR, between two populations. The anxiety levels of youth in coastal southeast Texas (Galveston County) were compared to the anxiety levels of youth in the lower Rio Grande Valley. We found that Mexican-Americans of the Lower Rio Grande Valley scored higher on anxiety symptoms than the tri-ethnic population of Galveston County. Other factors associated with higher anxiety scores for Mexican-American youths included being born outside the US, linguistic fluency, father absent from the home, mother's education, and household size. Multiple regression analyses showed that socio-economic status (SES), family composition, and linguistic fluency had a greater relative impact on anxiety symptomatology than all other factors, both for the total sample as well as for the Mexican-American sample. These results parallel previous findings, with Mexican-American adults, which suggest either higher risk for anxiety symptomatology or a culturally related bias in the reporting of such symptoms.     

What causes scale errors in children?

A recent article by DeLoache et al. has documented an intriguing phenomenon in the development of action planning in young children. When children act on toy replicas of larger objects they make scale errors that are consistent with the full-sized object. Although the actions selected are inappropriate, their execution accurately takes into account the true size of the target. This phenomenon permits tests of the predictions of the perception-action and planning-control models of vision for action.     

Visual illusions affect planning but not control

Much debate has arisen over how to account for the pattern of effects of visual illusions on action - that is, the findings that illusions affect actions in some circumstances but not others. I propose that this pattern can best be explained by postulating that visual illusions affect the planning of actions but do not affect the on-line control of actions. Strong evidence for this viewpoint comes from recent studies that show 'dynamic illusion effects': a large illusion effect early in a movement, but a decreasing effect as the hand approaches the target. These findings pose difficulties for other models of illusion effects on action.