Naturally occurring language as a source of evidence in suicide prevention

We discuss computational language analysis as it pertains to suicide prevention research, with an emphasis on providing non‐technologists with an understanding of key issues and, equally important, considering its relation to the broader enterprise of suicide prevention. Our emphasis here is on naturally occurring language in social media, motivated by its non‐intrusive ability to yield high‐value information that in the past has been largely unavailable to clinicians.     

Hope as a Predictor of Interpersonal Suicide Risk

The current study hypothesized that (1) hope would negatively predict burdensomeness, thwarted belongingness, and acquired capability to enact lethal injury; (2) hope would negatively predict suicidal ideation; and (3) the interpersonal suicide risk factors would predict suicidal ideation. Results indicated that hope negatively predicted burdensomeness and thwarted belongingness, but positively predicted acquired capability to enact suicide. Contrary to our second hypothesis, hope did not predict suicidal ideation, but interpersonal risk factors for suicide predicted suicidal ideation. Results are discussed in terms of implications for hope theory and Joiner's (2005) interpersonal risk factors for suicide, and for clinical practice.     

Inverting the modality effect in serial recall

Differences in recall ability between immediate serial recall of auditorily and visually presented verbal material have traditionally been considered restricted to the end of to-be-recalled lists, the recency section of the serial position curve (e.g., Crowder & Morton, 1969). Later studies showed that--under certain circumstances--differences in recall between the two modalities can be observed across the whole of the list (Frankish, 1985). However in all these studies the advantage observed is for recall of material presented in the auditorily modality. Six separate conditions across four experiments demonstrate that a visual advantage can be obtained with serial recall if participants are required to recall the list in two distinct sections using serial recall. Judged on a list-wide basis, the visual advantage is of equivalent size to the auditory advantage of the classical modality effect. The results demonstrate that differences in representation of auditory and visual verbal material in short-term memory persist beyond lexical and phonological categorization and are problematic for current theories of the modality effect.