bluuebunny/crossref_metadata_2025 huggingface dataset:
Broadening the Definition of Decision Making: The Role of Prechoice Screening of Options
Authors: Beach Lee Roy
Published: April 2006

Decision theory and research have focused almost exclusively on choice—the selection of the best option from a choice set containing two or more options. Largely overlooked is the question of how those particular options got there in the first place—why them and not others? This article describes a theory, called image theory, about how prechoice screening of options governs the contents of the set from which a choice is made and summarizes empirical tests of the theory. The research results suggest that screening plays a far more important role in decision making than is generally appreciated and that our view of decision making must be broadened accordingly.
Just What Are Sex and Gender, Anyway? A Call for a New Terminological Standard
Authors: Gentile Douglas A.
Published: April 2006

The terms sex and gender have come to be used as synonyms in the social sciences literature. However, nothing has been gained by the use of the term gender except confusion. This article identifies five meanings for which social scientists often use the terms sex or gender and proposes a distinct term for each of those five meanings. The terms proposed are (1) sex: to refer to the biological function; (2) biologically sex-linked: to refer to traits or conditions that are causally biologically related to being male or female; (3) gender-linked: to refer to traits or conditions that are causally linked with maleness or femaleness but are culturally based as opposed to biologically based; (4) sex- and gender-linked: to refer to traits or conditions that are causally related to both a biological component and a cultural component; and (5) sex-correlated: to refer to traits or conditions that are related to being male or female without asserting a causal relation to either biology or culture (because we do not wish to make such an assertion or cannot do so confidently). It is hoped that adopting a terminological standard will reduce the confusion resulting from nonspecific language use.
Comparative Cognition: Toward a General Understanding of Cognition in Behavior
Authors: Wasserman Edward A.
Published: April 2006

Human and nonhuman animals alike must adjust to complex and ever-changing circumstances if they are to survive and reproduce. Advanced neural mechanisms enable animals to remember the past, to act in the present, and to plan for the future. Exploring the species generality of cognitive processes in behavior is central to the field of comparative cognition. A comparative perspective may not only broaden but also deepen our understanding of cognition—both in human and in nonhuman animals.
Cue Competition Effects: Theoretical Implications for Adaptive Network Learning Models
Authors: Busemeyer Jerome R. , Jae Myung In , McDaniel Mark A.
Published: April 2006

A feature-free method for testing adaptive network learning models is presented. The test is based on a property called the mean matching law, a. property shared by many adaptive network models of learning. As an application of this method, we prove that cue competition effects obtained with statistically independent cues cannot be explained by many previous adaptive network learning models, including those based on the delta learning rule. These results point to the need to incorporate competitive learning properties into adaptive network learning models.
Event-Related Brain Potentials, Eye Movements, and Reading
Authors: Raney Gary E. , Rayner Keith
Published: April 2006

This article compares studies that use event-related brain potential (ERP) and eye movement data to examine changes in reading behavior when a text is read twice. Although the types of information provided by these methodologies are different, both indicate that rereading a text facilitates many aspects of processing. ERPs provide a method for measuring comprehension and memory processes separately, while eye movements provide a continuous record of performance and allow changes in reading behavior to be localized to specific words. The results from these studies are compatible. However, converging evidence is not always found when different paradigms are contrasted, and diverging results can provide important information. To facilitate comparison across experiments, we suggest using a common set of materials for both paradigms. We conclude that comparing the results of research based on more than one paradigm provides a more complete understanding of the processes involved in reading.
PET as Part of an Interdisciplinary Approach to Understanding Processes Involved in Reading
Authors: Fiez Julie A. , Petersen Steven E.
Published: April 2006

Positron emission tomography (PET) is a recently developed technology that can be used to create images of brain blood flow, which is related to brain activity. By acquiring images of brain blood flow during different task conditions, investigators can isolate activity changes related to specific types of information processing. Several examples demonstrate how regions involved in reading can be identified, and how the results are most interpretable when information from other disciplines is considered.
Equating Inverse Probabilities in Implicit Personality Judgments
Authors: Dawes Robyn M. , Mirels Herbert L. , Gold Eric , Donahue Eileen
Published: April 2006

Meehl and Rosen (1955) observed that their colleagues tended to equate the sensitivity of a sign (its probability given a diagnostic category) with its predictive accuracy (the probability of the diagnostic category given the sign). Such equating of inverse probabilities implies ignoring base rates. Later, many researchers demonstrated such neglect in a number of experimental contexts involving hypothetical judgments; others have found some use of base rates—but only when base rates were supplied by the experimenter, in which case even irrelevant base rates influenced judgment. The present study tested for equating conditional probabilities in a context similar to the contexts involved in the initial observations—that is, subjects strove for accuracy rather than attempted to make good judgments about hypothetical problems, and the base rates were generated by the subjects themselves. Neglect of base rates was revealed by within-individual comparisons showing subjects equated inverse probabilities without equating the corresponding unconditional ones.
Paternal Separation Anxiety: Relationships With Parenting Stress, Child-Rearing Attitudes, and Maternal Anxieties
Authors: Deater-Deckard Kirby , Scarr Sandra , McCartney Kathleen , Eisenberg Marlene
Published: April 2006

Employed mothers of young children worry about the effects of daily separation on their children Do fathers have similar anxieties? Because fathers are expected to leave the home and go to work, psychologists have not studied fathers' concerns about daily separation from their babies and preschool children In this study, we investigated fathers' and mothers' separation anxiety and the relationships between separation anxiety and family and child-care characteristics The sample included 589 married couples from a larger study of families and center-based child care Data were collected through in-home and center visits Fathers and mothers had similar levels of Separation Anxiety However, fathers reported slightly higher Concern for the Child, and mothers reported higher Employment Concerns Fathers' perceptions of their wives' anxieties were higher by half a standard deviation compared with mothers' reports Fathers' and mothers self-reported separation anxieties were modestly correlated Paternal separation anxiety was most strongly associated with fathers' perceptions of their wives' separation concerns, not with mothers' reported anxieties, which suggested ego defensiveness and projection
Transitive Inference in Rats: A Test of the Spatial Coding Hypothesis
Authors: Roberts William A. , Phelps Maria T.
Published: April 2006

Rats were trained to discriminate between boxes covered with distinctive odors There were six stimulus odors, labeled A through F, and the problems learned formed the five premises A+B-, B+C-, C+D-, D+E-, and E+F-Combining the premises, the relative values of the stimuli were A > B > C > D > E > F In two experiments, linear arrangement groups learned these premises with Boxes A through F placed in a linear spatial sequence Nonlinear groups had boxes either randomly changed from one position to another (Experiment I) or placed in a circular arrangement (Experiment 2) Tests of transitive inference between the B and D stimult were carried out in an environment different from that in which premise training took place Only the groups trained with a linear arrangement of boxes showed evidence of transitive inference These findings offer support for a spatial coding hypothesis of transitive inference in animals
Stroop-Like Effects for Monkeys and Humans: Processing Speed or Strength of Association?
Authors: Washburn David A
Published: April 2006

Stroop-like effects have been found using a variety of paradigms and subject groups In the present investigation, 6 rhesus monkeys (Macaca mulatta) and 28 humans exhibited Stroop-like interference and facilitation in a relative-numerousness task Monkeys, like humans, processed the meanings of the numerical symbols automatically—despite the fact that these meanings were irrelevant to task performance These data also afforded direct comparison of interpretations of the Stroop effect in terms of processing speed versus association strength These findings were consistent with parallel-processing models of Stroop-like interference proposed elsewhere, but not with processing-speed accounts posited frequently to explain the effect
Global Processing-Time Coefficients Characterize Individual and Group Differences in Cognitive Speed
Authors: Hale Sandra , Jansen Jennifer
Published: April 2006

Forty participants performed seven different information processing tasks (choice reaction time, letter classification, visual search, abstract matching, line-length discrimination, mental rotation, and mental paper-folding) Slow (top quartile) and fast (bottom quartile) processors were selected based on their mean z scores Response times (RTs) of the slow and fast groups in the 21 conditions of the seven tasks were linear functions of the mean RTs of the entire group (both r2s = 99) In addition, individuals' RTs were well described by linear functions (median r2 - 93) When tasks were ranked in order of complexity, the odd-even reliability of the ratio of an individual's RT to the average RT was 80, indicating that such ratios remain relatively stable across tasks Taken together, these findings indicate that the performance of an individual on diverse tasks can be predicted on the basis of a single processing-time coefficient Such coefficients may provide useful indices of the efficiency with which different individuals process information
Startle Reflex Modification: Effects of Attention Vary With Emotional Valence
Authors: Haerich Paul
Published: April 2006

This report examines the concurrent effects of manipulating attentional focus and emotional context on human blink reflex modulation Eyeblink reflexes were elicited by air puffs or noise bursts from two groups of subjects while the focus of attention was manipulated Emotional context was varied by changing the description of the air-puff stimulus between groups, all other protocol parameters were identical Blink amplitude varied directly with the allocation of attention resources across sensory modalities in the neutral affective context In the negative context, a general reflex facilitation was augmented when attention was focused on the aversive stimulus These results indicate that the emotional context can affect the expression of attentional mechanisms involved in modulation of the eyeblink reflex
Utilization of Metacognitive Judgments in the Allocation of Study During Multitrial Learning
Authors: Nelson Thomas O. , Dunlosky John , Graf Aurora , Narens Louis
Published: April 2006

We contrasted several ways that an individual's judgments of learning (JOLs) can be utilized when allocating additional study (“restudy”) during the learning of Swahili-English translation equivalents The findings demonstrate how metacognitive monitoring can be utilized to benefit multitrial learning Computer-controlled allocation of restudy based on people's JOLs was equivalent to most people's own allocation of restudy (indicating that the computer algorithm can provide a sufficient account of people's allocation of restudy) and was more effective than a computer-controlled allocation based on normative performance (indicating that people's metacognitive monitoring of idiosyncratic knowledge has functional utility in causal chains for learning)
Global Processing of Biological Motions
Authors: Bertenthal Bennett I , Pinto Jeannine
Published: April 2006

The structure of the human form is quickly and unequivocably recognized from 10 to 13 points of light moving as if attached to the major joints and head of a person walking Recent psychophysical and computational models of this process suggest that these displays are organized by low-level processing constraints that delimit the pair-wise connections of the point lights In the current research, these low-level constraints were rendered uninformative by a masking paradigm The results from four experiments converged to show that the perception of structure in a point-light walker display does not require the prior detection of individual features or local relations
Organization of Information and the Detection of Gender Discrimination
Authors: Rutte Christel G , Diekmann Kristina A , Polzer Jeffrey T , Crosby Faye J , Messick David M
Published: April 2006

This report examines several factors that influence the detection of gender discrimination in organizations We presented subjects with information about the qualifications and salaries of women and men in 10 departments of a hypothetical company The information was created so that one or the other gender was undercompensated relative to its qualifications Subjects rated the fairness of salaries and recalled the average qualifications of the women and men Ordinal inequity, which occurred when the gender with the better qualifications received a lower salary within a department, was easily detected Discrimination that did not violate ordinal equity within a department was more difficult to detect The results indicate that the way information is presented to subjects influences the processing of the information and the ease with which unfairness is perceived In addition, subjects judged the discrimination to be more unfair when women, rather than men, were disadvantaged
Who (or What) Can Do Psychotherapy: The Status and Challenge of Nonprofessional Therapies
Authors: Christensen Andrew , Jacobson Neil S.
Published: April 2006

Research suggests that paraprofessional therapists usually produce effects that are greater than effects for control conditions and comparable to those for professional therapist treatment Other nonprofessional psychological treatments, such as self-administered materials and self-help groups, have also demonstrated positive effects Because of the promise of these nonprofessional treatments, their potential for low-cost service delivery, and the important theoretical questions that studies comparing them can answer, psychotherapy outcome research should shift away from comparisons of different professional therapies and instead compare nonprofessional therapies with professional therapy
Construct Accessibility and the Misattribution of Arousal: Schachter and Singer Revisited
Authors: Sinclair Robert C. , Hoffman Curt , Mark Melvin M. , Martin Leonard L. , Pickering Tracie L.
Published: April 2006

Schachter and Singer (1962) showed that people search the immediate environment for emotionally relevant cues to label and interpret unexplained physiological arousal We investigated how unobtrusively activated cognitions and physiological arousal interact to produce emotional experience when the immediate environment is devoid of relevant cues Subjects were primed with positive, negative, or neutral concepts They then either exercised or sat still and, either immediately or after a delay, rated their emotional state Consistent with what Schachter and Singer found, subjects in the exercise, delayed-rating condition, who lacked an obvious explanation for their arousal, made the most extreme affective self-ratings, which were consistent with the valence of the primed concepts These subjects apparently interpreted their residual arousal in terms of the primed concepts Subjects in the exercise, immediate-rating condition, who had an explanation for their arousal (i e, the exercise), were not influenced by the primes Subjects in the no-exercise condition showed typical priming effects, with prime-consistent self-ratings that decayed over time Implications for emotion formation, misattribution of arousal, and cognition are discussed
Implicit Memory in Amnesic Patients: Evidence for Spared Auditory Priming
Authors: Schacter Daniel L. , Church Barbara , Treadwell Jonathan
Published: April 2006

Previous observations of spared priming in amnesic patients have been based almost entirely on data from visual implicit memory tests Our research examined perceptual priming in amnesic patients and control subjects on an auditory identification task in which previously spoken words and new words were presented in white noise We manipulated type of encoding task (semantic vs nonsemantic) and speaker's voice at study and test (same vs different) Priming was little affected by either manipulation, and amnesic patients exhibited normal priming in all experimental conditions On an explicit test of recognition memory, by contrast, amnesic patients exhibited severely impaired performance following the semantic study task, all subjects showed poor explicit memory following the nonsemantic study task Results are consistent with the idea that auditory priming depends largely on a presemantic auditory perceptual representation system
Semantic Blindness: Repeated Concepts are Difficult to Encode and Recall under Time Pressure
Authors: MacKay Donald G , Miller Michelle D
Published: April 2006

This study demonstrates a recently predicted cognitive phenomenon known as semantic blindness, an inhibitory effect attributable to concept repetition in the serial recall of rapidly presented sentences Proficient bilinguals read mixed, Spanish-English sentences, each including a target and a pretarget word Targets and pretargets were related in three ways They were identical (e g, like-like), semantically identical across languages (e g, gusta-like), and nonidentical within or across languages (e g, read-like) Equivalent repetition blindness was found for targets with identical and semantically identical pretargets, indicating that repetition deficits were occurring solely at the semantic level, rather than at orthographic or phonological levels
Must Figure-Ground Organization Precede Object Recognition? An Assumption in Peril
Authors: Peterson Mary A. , Gibson Bradley S.
Published: April 2006

The assumption that figure-ground segmentation must precede object or shape recognition has been central to theories of visual perception We showed that assumption to be incorrect in an experiment in which observers reported the first perceived figure-ground organization of briefly exposed stimuli depicting two regions sharing a figure-ground border We manipulated the symmetry of the two regions and their orientation-dependent denotivity (roughly, their meaningfulness), and measured how each of these variables influenced figure-ground reports when the stimuli were exposed for 14, 28, 57, 86, or 100 ms, and followed immediately by a mask Influences on figure-ground organization from both symmetry and orientation-dependent object recognition processes were found, both were observed first in the 28-ms condition Object recognition inputs did not dominate symmetry inputs We suggest that object recognition processes may operate simultaneously on both sides of edges detected before figure-ground relationships are determined
Learning and Intermodal Transfer of Information in Newborns
Authors: Kaye Kelley L. , Bower T G.R
Published: April 2006

Previous research has shown that infants as young as I month of age are capable of intermodal matching (Meltzoff & Borton, 1979) The results of the present studies show that newborns as young as 12 hr old have the same ability to match seen shape with orally presented shape The shapes used were unfamiliar The matching thus depended on learning, completed within seconds, and transfer across modality and dimensions It is proposed that such transfer may be based on an internal symbolic or languagelike system of representation
Facilitation of Saccades Toward a Covertly Attended Location in Early Infancy
Authors: Johnson Mark H , Posner Michael I , Rothbart Mary K
Published: April 2006

Covert shifts of visual attention may be demonstrated in both adult and infant subjects by facilitation of reaction times to make a saccade to a previously cued location However, this facilitation may be interpreted in terms of a direct effect on the eye movement system In the present experiment, we attempted to train 4-month-old infants to make a saccade in the location opposite from that in which a cue appeared Following such training, we examined the reaction time to occasional probe targets that appeared in the same location as the cue Infants were faster to respond to a target in this location than they were to respond to it either in the training (expected) location or in baseline trials We interpret the results as providing further evidence for covert shifts of attention in 4-month-old infants, and suggest that the effects of covert shifts of attention on the eye movement system are independent of those from sequence learning
High-Fidelity Perceptual Long-Term Memory
Authors: Magnussen Svem , Dyrnes Stem
Published: April 2006

Visual long-term memory for spatial information was assessed by measuring discrimination thresholds for the spatial frequency of sinusoidal gratings in a delayed discrimination task, with various time intervals separating test and reference stimuli The results demonstrate perfect preservation of information across 1-s to 50-hr retention intervals in the sense that the spatial frequency discrimination thresholds remained at the level defined by the spatial resolution of the sensory analysis This high-fidelity spatial long-term memory may represent an elementary memory mechanism for precategoncal storage of visual features
Reconfirmation of the Short-Term Storage Concept
Authors: Cowan Nelson , Wood Noelle L. , Borne Dawn N.
Published: April 2006

Recent research questions the existence of a short-term storage mechanism capable of holding limited information temporarily Specifically, serial-recall results with a through-list distractor (TLD) procedure, in which a distracting task is interposed between list items as well as between the list and recall period, generally resemble the results of immediate-recall procedures The present study, however, reconfirms the utility of short-term storage by demonstrating an important difference between immediate and TLD recall A word-length effect, or advantage for lists of shorter words (which minimize short-term forgetting during spoken recall), did not occur with a TLD procedure
Science and Ethics in Conducting, Analyzing, and Reporting Psychological Research
Authors: Rosenthal Robert
Published: April 2006

The relationship between scientific quality and ethical quality is considered for three aspects of the research process: conduct of the research, data analysis, and reporting of results. In the area of conducting research, issues discussed involve design, recruitment, causism, scientific quality, and costs and utilities. The discussion of data analysis considers data dropping, data exploitation, and meta-analysis. Issues regarding reporting of results include misrepresentation of findings, misrepresentation of credit, and failure to report results as a result of self-censoring or external censoring.
Who Is Happy?
Authors: Myers David G. , Diener Ed
Published: April 2006

A flood of new studies explores people's subjective well-being (SWB) Frequent positive affect, infrequent negative affect, and a global sense of satisfaction with life define high SWB These studies reveal that happiness and life satisfaction are similarly available to the young and the old, women and men, blacks and whites, the rich and the working-class Better clues to well-being come from knowing about a person's traits, close relationships, work experiences, culture, and religiosity We present the elements of an appraisal-based theory of happiness that recognizes the importance of adaptation, cultural world-view, and personal goals
Preference Reversals Due to Myopic Discounting of Delayed Reward
Authors: Kirby Kris N. , Herrnstein R.J.
Published: April 2006

A basic stationarity axiom of economic theory assumes stable preference between two deferred goods separated by a fixed time To test this assumption, we offered subjects choices between delayed rewards, while manipulating the delays to those rewards Preferences typically reversed with changes in delay, as predicted by hyperbolic discounting models of impulsiveness Of 36 subjects, 34 reversed preference from a larger, later reward to a smaller, earlier reward as the delays to both rewards decreased We conclude that the stationarity axiom is not appropriate in models of human choice
Reflections on Affirmative Action Goals in Psychology Admissions
Authors: Amirkhan James , Betancourt Hector , Graham Sandra , López Steven Regeser , Weiner Bernard
Published: April 2006

Four goals of affirmative action in higher education are described as they relate to psychology admissions Broadly conceived, these goals are compensating for past injustice, correcting present inequity, promoting intellectual diversity, and enhancing the presence of role models It is argued that the four goals differ in their underlying assumptions about the purposes of affirmative action and that these differences can result in disparate admission decisions Data from three experiments on decision making in graduate psychology admissions are presented to illustrate the analysis In these studies, academic psychologists rated the admissibility of hypothetical graduate student applicants who varied on a number of characteristics (e g, ethnicity, social class, interest in minority research) pertinent to affirmative action A consistent pattern of ethnic group differences in admissibility ratings was documented, illustrating that compensation for past injustice can be interpreted as a salient affirmative action goal in graduate admissions decisions Implications of the analysis for clarifying admissions decisions guided by affirmative action goals are discussed
Cognitive Profiles of Reading-Disabled Children: Comparison of Language Skills in Phonology, Morphology, and Syntax
Authors: Shankweiler D. , Crain S. , Katz L. , Fowler A.E. , Liberman A.M. , Brady S.A. , Thornton R. , Lundquist E. , Dreyer L. , Fletcher J.M. , Stuebing K.K. , Shaywitz S.E. , Shaywitz B.A.
Published: April 2006

A comprehensive cognitive appraisal of elementary school children with learning disabilities showed that within the language sphere, deficits associated with reading disability are selective Phonological deficits consistently accompany reading problems whether they occur in relatively pure form or in the presence of coexisting attention deficit or arithmetic disability Although reading-disabled children were also deficient in production of morphologically related forms, this difficulty stemmed in large part from the same weakness in the phonological component that underlies reading disability In contrast, tests of syntactic knowledge did not distinguish reading-disabled children from those with other cognitive disabilities, nor from normal children after covarying for intelligence
Perceived Continuity of Occluded Visual Objects
Authors: Yantis Steven
Published: April 2006

The human visual system does not rigidly preserve the properties of the retinal image as neural signals are transmitted to higher areas of the brain Instead, it generates a representation that captures stable surface properties despite a retinal image that is often fragmented in space and time because of occlusion caused by object and observer motion The recovery of this coherent representation depends at least in part on input from an abstract representation of three-dimensional (3-D) surface layout In the two experiments reported, a stereoscopic apparent motion display was used to investigate the perceived continuity of a briefly interrupted visual object When a surface appeared in front of the object's location during the interruption, the object was more likely to be perceived as persisting through the interruption (behind an occluder) than when the surface appeared behind the object's location under otherwise identical stimulus conditions The results reveal the influence of 3-D surface-based representations even in very simple visual tasks
Telling Something we can't Know: Experimental Approaches to Verbs Exhibiting Implicit Causality
Authors: Greene Steven B. , McKoon Gail
Published: April 2006

An interpersonal verb such as annoy or admire can be categorized according to whether its grammatical subject or grammatical object initiates the interaction described by the verb Such a verb can also be categorized according to whether a derived adjective describes its grammatical subject (e g, annoying) or its grammatical object (e g, admirable) Although there has been much speculation (e g, Brown & Fish, 1983) that these and other characteristics of these verbs shed light on basic principles of human social interaction, we argue that research to date has failed to demonstrate directly any real-time consequences of these verbs during language comprehension We present evidence that the initiating-reacting distinction predicts on-line changes in the accessibility of these verbs' arguments, but that the existence of a derived adjective does not We conclude that tasks that question subjects explicitly about language may fail to reflect the ordinary processes of language comprehension
The Construction of Situation Models in Narrative Comprehension: An Event-Indexing Model
Authors: Zwaan Rolf A. , Langston Mark C. , Graesser Arthur C.
Published: April 2006

In this article, we propose and test a model of how readers construct representations of the situations described in simple narratives the event-indexing model According to the event-indexing model, events are the focal points of situations conveyed in narratives and are connected in memory along five dimensions time, space, protagonist, causality, and intentionality The results of a verb-clustering task provide strong support for the event-indexing model
Infants' Recognition of the Sound Patterns of Their Own Names
Authors: Mandel Denise R. , Jusczyk Peter W. , Pisoni David B.
Published: April 2006

Among the earliest and most frequent words that infants hear are their names Yet little is known about when infants begin to recognize their own names Using a modified version of the head-turn preference procedure, we tested whether 4 5-month-olds preferred to listen to their own names over foils that were either matched or mismatched for stress pattern Our findings provide the first evidence that even these young infants recognize the sound patterns of their own names Infants demonstrated significant preferences for their own names compared with foils that shared the same stress patterns, as well as foils with opposite patterns The results indicate when infants begin to recognize sound patterns of items frequently uttered in the infants' environments
Ethical Issues in Psychological Science: Risk, Consent, and Scientific Quality
Authors: Rosenthal Robert
Published: April 2006

The Commentaries by Colombo and Mordock are thoughtful and thought-provoking contributions to the literature of ethical issues in psychological science In this brief continuation of the discussion, I try to sharpen some of the issues to highlight some areas of agreement and of disagreement
Good and Bad Humors: Biochemical Bases of Personality and Its Disorders
Authors: Zuckerman Marvin
Published: April 2006

Personality and its disorders may be studied at many levels, from the broad trait to the basic genetic level This article addresses primarily two of these levels, the trait and the biochemical, and the relations between them, with some treatment of the genetic and neuropsychological levels Five current trait models are described Neurotransmitter systems in the brain and hormones have been shown to be important sources of individual differences in traits and behaviors in humans and other species, but simple one-to-one relationships between traits and biochemicals are rare, and interactions are likely at all levels
Reporting Recollective Experiences: Direct Access to Memory Systems?
Authors: Strack Fritz , Forster Jens
Published: April 2006

It has been suggested that the use of different memory systems can be identified by asking subjects whether they remember or know a recognized stimulus (e g, Gardiner & Java, 1990, Tulving, 1985) In this view, remember responses indicate the use of episodic memory, and know responses the use of implicit memory (e g, Gardiner & Java, in press) or semantic memory (Tulving, 1993) We criticize this position on both conceptual and empirical grounds We argue that the concept of knowing and the instructions of the studies confound declarative knowledge (knowledge by description) and familiarity-based knowledge (knowledge by acquaintance) The two types of knowledge, however, seem to be associated with different psychological processes To test this notion, we conducted two recognition experiments in which the response criteria were either explicitly or implicitly manipulated The results clearly suggest that know responses are more likely than remember responses to be influenced by judgmental strategies that do not require a memorial presentation of the known stimulus Self-reports appear to be useful indicators of underlying mechanisms only to the extent that it is sufficiently understood how such reports are generated
Splitting the Beam: Distribution of Attention Over Noncontiguous Regions of the Visual Field
Authors: Kramer Arthur F. , Hahn Sowon
Published: April 2006

In an effort to examine the flexibility with which attention can be allocated in visual space, we investigated whether subjects could selectively attend to multiple noncontiguous locations in the visual field We examined this issue by precuing two separate areas of the visual field and requiring subjects to decide whether the letters that appeared in these locations matched or mismatched while distractors that primed either the match or mismatch response were presented between the cued locations If the distractors had no effect on performance, it would provide evidence that subjects can divide attention over noncontiguous areas of space Subjects were able to ignore the distractors when the targets and distractors were presented as nononset stimuli (i e, when premasks were changed into the targets and distractors) In contrast, when the targets and distractors were presented as sudden-onset stimuli, subjects were unable to ignore the distractors These results begin to define the conditions under which attention can be flexibly deployed to multiple noncontiguous locations in the visual field
The Informational Basis of Motion Coherence
Authors: Gilden David , Hiris Eric , Blake Randolph
Published: April 2006

Observers judged the motion coherence of randomdot cinematograms Theoretical models were developed for coherence matches between cinematograms constructed from different angle distributions Evidence is presented that coherence matches are made on the basis of the Shannon-Wiener information entropy We show how the formal structure of information theory may be used to predict perceived pattern goodness when the underlying distributions of pattern alternatives are implicit in the judgment task
The Anatomy of Impact: What Makes an Article Influential?
Authors: Sternberg Robert J. , Gordeeva Tamara
Published: April 2006

This study presents an analysis of psychologists' implicit theories of what makes an article influential in psychology The study opens with a review of some alternative approaches to assessing the influence of articles Next, the article discusses alternative conceptions of influence Then a study that assesses the factors underlying impact is described Six factors are identified Quality of Presentation, Theoretical Significance, Practical Significance, Substantive Interest, Methodological Interest, and Value for Future Research These findings are then discussed in terms of the theories presented earlier
Stroop Interference and Color-Word Similarity
Authors: Klopfer Dale S.
Published: April 2006

Stroop interference refers to the finding that it takes longer to name the color of an incongruent color word (e g, the word blue shown in green) than it does to name the color of a neutral stimulus (e g, a series of number signs shown in green) Incongruent color-word stimuli can differ in the similarity between the color in which the word is printed and the color denoted by the word (e g, the word blue shown in green vs yellow) This research shows that the amount of interference obtained is related to color-word similarity, suggesting that word-reading and color-naming processes interact at a conceptual level prior to response emission
Implicit Memory in the Tactile Modality: Evidence From Braille Stem Completion in the Blind
Authors: Hamann Stephan B.
Published: April 2006

Research on perceptual priming has previously focused exclusively on priming in the visual and auditory modalities The present study explored whether perceptual priming also extends to the tactile modality Tactile priming for Braille words was examined in a group of blind participants, using a Braille analogue of the stem-completion task The results for tactile priming paralleled previous stem-completion results in other modalities Manipulating the encoding task at study (semantic vs nonsemantic) dissociated implicit and explicit Braille stem-completion performance, and priming was unaffected by the number of study presentations (one vs three) Finally, Braille stem-completion priming was found in a cross-modal paradigm to have both a specifically tactile component and a cross-modal component These results demonstrate for the first time that verbal priming can occur in the tactile domain and that tactile priming has basic functional similarities with stem-completion priming in the visual and auditory domains
Repeated Exposure to Suggestion and the Creation of False Memories
Authors: Zaragoza Maria S. , Mitchell Karen J.
Published: April 2006

The purpose of the present study was to extend research on repetition and illusory truth to the domain of eyewitness suggestibility Specifically, we assessed whether repeated exposure to suggestion, relative to a single exposure, facilitates the creation of false memory for suggested events After viewing a video of a burglary, subjects were asked questions containing misleading suggestions, some of which were repeated Their memory for the source of the suggestions was tested The results show that following repeated (relative to a single) exposure to suggestion, subjects were more likely to (a) claim with high confidence that they remembered the suggested events from the video (Experiment 1) and (b) claim that they consciously recollected witnessing the suggested events (Experiment 2) The effects of repeated exposure were highly reliable and were observed over retention intervals as long as 1 week
In Sight, Out of Mind: When Object Representations Fail
Authors: Simons Daniel J.
Published: April 2006

Models of human visual memory often presuppose an extraordinary ability to recognize and identify objects, based on evidence for nearly flawless recognition of hundreds or even thousands of pictures after a single presentation (Nickerson, 1965, Shepard, 1967, Standing, Conezio, & Haber, 1970) and for storage of tens of thousands of object representations over the course of a lifetime (Biederman, 1987) However, recent evidence suggests that observers often fail to notice dramatic changes to scenes, especially changes occurring during eye movements (e g, Grimes, 1996) The experiments presented here show that immediate memory for object identity is surprisingly poor, especially when verbal labeling is prevented However, memory for the spatial configuration of objects remains excellent even with verbal interference suggesting a fundamental difference between representations of spatial configuration and object properties
Dissociation of Spatial and Temporal Coupling in the Bimanual Movements of Callosotomy Patients
Authors: Franz Elizabeth A. , Eliassen James C. , Ivry Richard B. , Gazzaniga Michael S.
Published: April 2006

The neural mechanisms of limb coordination were investigated by testing callosotomy patients and normal control subjects on bimanual movements Normal subjects produced deviations in the trajectories when spatial demands for the two hands were different, despite temporal synchrony in the onset of bimanual movements Callosotomy patients did not produce spatial deviations, although their hands moved with normal temporal synchrony Normal subjects but not callosotomy patients exhibited large increases in planning and execution time for movements with different spatial demands for the two hands relative to movements with identical spatial demands for the two hands This neural dissociation indicates that spatial interference in movements results from callosal connections, whereas temporal synchrony in movement onset does not rely on the corpus callosum
Electrocortical Differentiation of Evaluative and Nonevaluative Categorizations
Authors: Crites Stephen L. , Cacioppo John T.
Published: April 2006

The evaluative categorizations that underlie affective and attitudinal judgments have often been equated with non-evaluative categorizations despite the central importance of evaluative processes for survival In the present experiment, a late positive potential (LPP) of the event-related brain potential elicited when participants evaluatively categorized food items as positive or nonpositive was compared with the LPP elicited when participants semantically (i e, nonevaluatively) categorized food items as vegetable or nonvegetable Results revealed that evaluative categorizations evoked an LPP that was relatively larger over the right than the left scalp regions compared with the LPP evoked by nonevaluative categorizations This finding provides evidence regarding the differences in neural and cognitive processes involved in evaluative and nonevaluative categorizations
Dissociation of Storage and Rehearsal in Verbal Working Memory: Evidence From Positron Emission Tomography
Authors: Awh Edward , Jonides John , Smith Edward E. , Schumacher Eric H. , Koeppe Robert A. , Katz Stewart
Published: April 2006

Current cognitive models of verbal working memory include two components a phonological store and a rehearsal mechanism that refreshes the contents of this store We present research using positron emission tomography (PET) to provide further evidence for this functional division In Experiment 1, subjects performed a variant of Sternberg's (1966) item recognition task Experiment 2 used a continuous memory task with control conditions designed to separate the brain regions underlying storage and rehearsal The results show that independent brain regions mediate storage and rehearsal In Experiment 3, a dual-task procedure supported the assumption that these memory tasks elicited a rehearsal strategy
The Susceptibility of Overt and Covert Integrity Tests to Coaching and Faking
Authors: Alliger George M. , Lilienfeld Scott O. , Mitchell Krystin E.
Published: April 2006

Although previous research has indicated that faking can affect integrity test scores, the effects of coaching on integrity test scores have never been examined We conducted a between-subjects experiment to assess the effects of coaching and faking instructions on an overt and a covert integrity test Coaching provided simple rules to follow when answering test items and instructions on how to avoid elevated validity scale scores There were five instruction conditions “just take,” “fake good,” “coach overt,” “coach covert,” and coach both All subjects completed both overt and covert tests and a measure of intelligence Results provided strong evidence for the coachability of the overt integrity test, over and above the much smaller elevation in the faking condition The covert test apparently could be neither coached nor faked successfully Scores on both integrity tests tended to be positively correlated with intelligence in the coaching and faking conditions We discuss the generalizability of these results to other samples and other integrity tests, and the relevance of the coachability of integrity tests to the ongoing debate concerning the prediction of counterproductive behavior
When the Antidote is the Poison: Ironic Mental Control Processes
Authors: Wegner Daniel M.
Published: April 2006

The theory of ironic processes of mental control holds that both the most and the least desired effects of attempts to control one's own mental states accrue from two processes an intentional operating process (a conscious, effortful search for mental contents that will produce a desired state of mind) and an ironic monitoring process (an unconscious, automatic search for mental contents that signal a failure to produce the desired state of mind) Although the monitoring process usually functions just to activate the operating process, during stress, distraction, time urgency, or other mental load, the monitor's effects on mind can supersede those of the operator, producing the very state of mind that is least desired An individual's attempts to gain mental control may thus precipitate the unwanted mental states they were intended to remedy
Interrupting Ironic Processes
Authors: Shoham Varda , Rohrbaugh Michael
Published: April 2006

Research on ironic mental control processes makes the underappreciated point that attempts to solve problems sometimes make them worse Social scientists now know much about what ironic processes look like less about why they occur and too little about how to change them. Features of the exacerbation process itself suggest parsimonious approaches to treatment based on interrupting the “solutions” that keep ironic mental processes going (eg compliance-based paradoxical intervention) Extending Wegner's explication of ironic intrapersonal (mental) processes we propose that ironic interpersonal (social) processes also maintain many human problems and may be more accessible to intervention Treatment development in this area will benefit from attending more to how problems persist than to how they originate, and from targeting ironic cycles that occur between people as well as within them
Potential Applications of Behavioral Decision Research to Treatments for Drug Abuse, Related Risky Behaviors, and Other Problems: A Comment on Fischhoff and Downs
Authors: Moras Karla
Published: April 2006

This commentary highlights potential applications of behavioral decision research to treatments for substance abuse and related risky behaviors Some research questions are suggested to help determine how risk information developed with behavioral decision methods could be used with maximal impact to treat and prevent substance use The relevance of behavioral decision research treatments for other problems such as anxiety is briefly discussed The important and direct applicability of behavioral decision methods to informed consent for research participants also is noted