Induction into the workplace: The impact of internships

Some form of work experience or internship ranks high on the list of criteria used by recruiters of college graduates for positions as management trainees. While internships are discussed positively by students, faculty, and recruiters, their evaluation has been faulted as being highly subjective and lacking in the use of controls and psychometric sophistication. This study used an Institutional Cycle design to investigate changes occurring after participation in internships with three cohorts of college age students. Changes were noted in both terminal and instrumental values and in work-specific needs. In the former, changes moved the profiles of the students closer to those of campus recruiters. In the latter, changes moved the students' needs in the direction of characteristics of the job, away from environmental characteristics.     

Cross-Cultural Counseling and Neurolinguistic Mirroring With Native American Adolescents

This study examined the effects of neurolinguistic mirroring versus nonmirroring of selected nonverbal behaviors on empathy, trustworthiness, and positive interaction in a cross-cultural setting among 60 Choctaw adolecents and Caucasian female counselors. Results indicated significant mirroring effects on the empathy scale of the Barrett-Lennard Relationship Inventory.     

A simple method using a single video camera to determine the three-dimensional position of a fish

In the present paper, we describe a method for recording the coordinates of a fish in an aquarium in a three-dimensional space, using a single video camera and a mirror. We use photogrammetic equations for this, considering the image obtained in the mirror as a virtual image obtained by a second camera. A transformation of the coordinate system is required to express the obtained coordinates in anx,y,z system defined by the edges of the aquarium. The accuracy of the proposed method was estimated, and errors in extreme conditions were found to be 0.8% to 1.2 %, compared with the dimensions of the aquarium used in the test.     

The philosophical works of wilfrid sellars

Expanded bibliography fromThe Metaphysics of Epistemology. Lectures by Wilfrid Sellars, edited by Pedro V. Amaral, Ridgeview Publ. Co., Atascadero, Calif. 1989, pp. 343–353, with addenda and corrigeda.     

Do incompatible alternatives in a testimony affect witness credibility?

The qualitative regulation of grain size allows witnesses to increase the accuracy of their reports by adding alternatives (e.g., “the robber concealed his face with a mask, with a stocking, or with a balaclava”). However, such answers may include incompatible alternatives which may make police officers and juries distrust witnesses. In four preregistered experiments, we tested the effect of information with incompatible alternatives on witness credibility. In Experiments 1a, 1b, and 1c, we presented two short testimonies, one with incompatible alternatives and another without and credibility was lower with incompatible alternatives. In Experiment 2, we told participants that witnesses could report several alternatives and the effect was reduced. We explain the effect of incompatible alternatives on credibility from participants' inferences that a witness producing an answer with incompatible alternatives is not confident in their memory and a failure to fully appreciate the advantages of adding alternatives.     

Understanding adolescent suicide: a psychosocial interpretation of developmental and contextual factors

Adolescent suicide remains an international tragedy, yet a common denominator continues to elude researchers. Some adolescents internalize rejection and respond with suicide; other troubled adolescents engage in homicide before ending their own lives. One factor underlying suicide concerns the failure to construct a healthy identity. Using Erikson's theories on identity development as a framework, this paper examines the motives for and contexts of suicide among preadolescents, adolescents, and young adults, identifies specific school-age populations that are vulnerable to suicide, and discusses implications.     

Task- and location-switching effects on visual attention

In two experiments, we examined the effects of task and location switching on the accuracy of reporting target characters in an attentional blink (AB) paradigm. Single-character streams were presented at a rate of 100 msec per character in Experiment 1, and successive pairs of characters on either side of fixation were presented in Experiment 2. On each trial, two targets appeared that were either white letters or black digits embedded in a stream of black letter distractors, and they were separated by between zero and five items in the stream (lags 1-6). Experiment 1 showed that report of the first target was least accurate if it immediately preceded the second target and if the two targets were either both letters or both digits (task repetition cost). Report of the second target was least accurate if one or two distractors intervened between the two targets (the U-shaped AB lag effect) and if one target was a letter and the other a digit (task switch cost). Experiment 2 added location uncertainty as a factor and showed similar effects as Experiment 1, with one exception. Lag 1 sparing (the preserved accuracy in reporting the second of two targets if the second immediately follows the first) was completely eliminated when the task required attention switching across locations. Two-way additive effects were found between task switching and location switching in the AB paradigm. These results suggests separate loci for their attentional effects. It is likely that the AB deficit is due mainly to central memory limitations, whereas location-switching costs occur at early visual levels. Task-switching costs occur at an intermediate visual level, since the present task switch involved encoding differences without changes in stimulus-response mapping rules (i.e., the task was character identification for both letters and digits).     

An associative framework for probability judgment: an application to biases

Three experiments show that understanding of biases in probability judgment can be improved by extending the application of the associative-learning framework. In Experiment 1, the authors used M. A. Gluck and G. H. Bower's (1988a) diagnostic-learning task to replicate apparent base-rate neglect and to induce the conjunction fallacy in a later judgment phase as a by-product of the conversion bias. In Experiment 2, the authors found stronger evidence of the conversion bias with the same learning task. In Experiment 3, the authors changed the diagnostic-learning task to induce some conjunction fallacies that were not based on the conversion bias. The authors show that the conjunction fallacies obtained in Experiment 3 can be explained by adding an averaging component to M. A. Gluck and G. H. Bower's model.     

Depression and cognitive impairment in disability-free early multiple sclerosis

Cognitive and emotional capabilities were evaluated in 73 female patients with stable relapsing-remitting definite, and/or laboratory-supported multiple sclerosis (MS) and were compared with 32 matched healthy controls. Patients were categorized according to their score in the expanded disability status scale (EDSS) to either no (EDSS 0, n = 33) or few clinical signs (EDSS 1-2, n = 40) of MS without physical disability. Patients with EDSS > 0 were characterized by significantly (p < 0.001) higher scores on "von Zerssen's" depression scale, compared to controls. Patients with higher EDSS scores (1-2) showed significantly decreased performance with respect to the total score of Kimura's Recurring-Figures-Test (p < 0.001), in addition. Regarding visuo-constructive functioning, patients with EDSS=0 performed to a significantly lower level (p < 0.001), compared to controls. These results indicate that depression may present as an early sign in MS followed by cognitive impairment, in particular visuo-spatial short-term memory, before physical disability appears. Neuropsychological tests as mentioned here could serve as early diagnostic tools to detect subtle disease progression and to initiate and monitor disease modifying therapies.